"A comprehensive investment plan for all Fayoum Governorate's natural and heritage sites is urgently needed," Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif said Tuesday.

"A plan is needed to utilize Fayoum's ecological sites and push forward its development process," Nazif told a ministerial meeting.

Nazif also stated that Wadi'Hetan (Jaws Valley) should be considered as a natural reserve; it is the first Egyptian natural heritage site to be registered on the UNESCO list.

"We should, make use of this international site to encourage ecological tourism whose importance is increasing everyday," added Nazif.

PM calls for protecting Fayoum ecological sites, State Information Service, Egypt, August 17, 2005.

Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif will consider next Sunday the latest developments in Cairo antiquities renovation project implemented by the Ministry of Culture.

Nazif is expected to meet with ministers concerned and Cairo Governor.

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni said about 80 percent of the Islamic antiquities in Cairo were renovated in a way that the sites of these antiquities require a new development plan.

In a related development, the Minister will open today six Islamic antiquities sites after renovation including Beit Al-Qadi Gate and Najmuldin Ayoub Dome.

Nazif considers Cairo antiquities renovation, State Information Service, Egypt, August 18, 2005.

Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni said his ministry will organise a world celebration late in December to mark the opening of the two facilities at a new large museum.

When completed the museum, established on a surface of 117 feddans on Alexandria desert road, would hopefully be the largest museum in the world.

The Minister said after a meeting of the higher committee that supervises the project, under Zahi Hawass, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, that the two facilities are restoration centre and a power generating station that serve the project.

He said a large area of the project has been afforested.   The project's cost is estimated at LE 550 million.

Two sites at major Egyptian museum to be opened late December, State Information Service, Egypt, August 18, 2005.

Watch where you step if you're visiting the Dayton Art Institute in the next few days. The place looks like a construction site.

Galleries are filled with huge wooden boxes, gantry cranes, chain pulleys, wood scraps, chunks of drywall, half-constructed exhibit cases, tools, plastic paint buckets and pieces of packing foam.   Electrical cords snake through hallways.

A forklift holds centre stage in the middle of one gallery, moving — very, very slowly — amongst 3,500-year-old pieces of Egyptian stone and statuary.

The gold, jewels, coffins and stonework that make up the DAI's biggest exhibition, Quest for Immortality: Treasures from Ancient Egypt, have arrived and are coming out of their crates.   And even though the staff has just 10 days to get everything finished, this is anything but a rush job...

DAI's largest exhibit about to be unveiled, Dayton Daily News, Ohio, USA, August 18, 2005.

cf. Quest for Immortality: Treasures from Ancient Egypt.

... After feeling exalted of what our ancient ancestors accomplished, the reality of the blatant denial of Afrikan people smacks you right square in the face on seeing this figure of a white Tutankhamun.   It is the last thing one sees when leaving the exhibition.   We have Dr. Zahi Hawass to thank for this, the head of antiquities in Kemet (Egypt), who categorically states that the ancient Kamites (Egyptians) were not Black...

Assessing the King Tut Exhibition: Another Name For Traveling Cultural Genocide, Kwaku Person-Lynn, Ph.D., EUR Web, August 03, 2005.

Travelers and art enthusiasts are invited to join the Huntsville Museum of Art for an ArtSafari to Fort Lauderdale to see Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of Pharaohs at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, the Vizcaya Hose and Gardens, the Deering Estate, Fairchild Botanical Garden, and the Flagler Museum.   The trip is planned for January 16-20, 2006.

The highlight of the trip will take place on Wednesday, January 18, with a visit to the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art to see Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs (www.moafl.org)...

HMA ArtSafari to King Tut Exhibition in Florida, WAAY-31, Alabama, USA, August 12, 2005.