NEWSWORTHY
Japan to recommend southwestern islands in Kagoshima and Okinawa for UNESCO listing again
The Cabinet on Tuesday approved a decision to again recommend a chain of southwestern islands as a candidate for UNESCO's 2020 World Heritage list, after withdrawing the initial bid on the U.N. body's advice to conduct a further review. The recommendation will be done ...
Japanese winner of L'Oreal-UNESCO award for female scientists looks to reshape materials research
From a young age, Dr. Yukiko Ogawa knew she wanted to become a scientist. Growing up in Komaki, Aichi Prefecture, she would spend hours after school creating objects in her bedroom. It was this curiosity and early ingenuity when it came to designing novel ...
Get Up, Stand Up! UNESCO declares reggae a global cultural treasure
UNESCO has declared reggae, the Jamaican music that spread across the world with its calls for social justice, peace and love, to be a global treasure that must be safe-guarded. Born in the poor neighborhoods of Kingston in the 1960s, reggae reflected hard times and ...
A set of Japanese folk rituals, in which people dress up as gods and visit homes, was approved Thursday for addition to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list, a committee of the U.N. body said. The rituals featuring Raiho-shin — meaning a visiting deity — stem ...
North and South Korea join hands to win UNESCO status for wrestling
North and South Korea marked a new step in their reconciliation efforts Monday as UNESCO accepted a joint bid for Korean wrestling to be recognized as one of the world's most treasured cultural practices. The two Koreas had originally filed separate applications for their traditional ...
North and South Korea have long grappled over their joint symbols at the United Nations culture organization UNESCO, but they could share the honors this week when twin applications for traditional Korean wrestling come up for consideration. The two Koreas are still technically at war ...
Jamaica is bidding to have reggae music admitted to a list of global cultural treasures worthy of protection, the U.N.'s cultural agency UNESCO announced on Tuesday. Paris-based UNESCO keeps a list of so-called intangible heritage found around the globe, which groups together traditional cultural practices ...
Japan again pushes for World Heritage listing for southwestern islands
The island chain boasts extensive subtropical forests that are home to rare species such as the Amami rabbit and the Iriomote cat.
Spain busts ring that trafficked in disabled Romanians to beg on streets as mimes
Spanish police said Sunday they had smashed a trafficking ring that brought Romanians, many of them with disabilities, to Spain where they were forced to beg in the streets dressed as mimes and human statues. Officers arrested three suspected members of the gang, including its ...
Brazil's National Museum said Wednesday that centuries-old Torah scrolls, considered to be some of Judaism's oldest documents, had been moved before a massive fire ravaged the place and gutted much of the largest collections of national history artifacts in Latin America. Questions about the fate ...
Famed 'Death Railway' stirs Thai debate on UNESCO World Heritage application
As Thailand pushes for a notorious railway built by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II to become a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site, local residents are debating whether its widely known nickname, the "Death Railway," should be used in the campaign. The debate ...
Refocus on persecution angle helped Japan set stage for latest UNESCO site
The dozen sites related to Japan's persecution of "Hidden Christians" have been awarded World Heritage status largely due to the fact that they show how the believers protected their faith at all costs, experts say. UNESCO's World Heritage Committee recognized that the "Hidden Christian Sites ...
