São Paulo – Yesterday (3rd), the Bahraini minister of Culture, Mai Bint Mohammed Al Khalifa, was named chairperson of the World Heritage Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco). The Arab country is going to host the committee’s next meeting, due June 19th to 29th, 2011. The information was supplied by the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, which organized Unesco’s last meeting, held up until yesterday in the national capital Brasília.
The last chairperson of the committee was the Brazilian minister of Culture, Juca Ferreira. Last week, during the meetings in the federal capital, 21 sites joined the list of World Heritage Sites, including the São Francisco square, in São Cristovão, in the state of Sergipe. The municipality is registered as a historic site by the Institute for National Artistic and Historical Heritage (Iphan) and is Brazil’s fourth oldest.
This was the second time that the Brazilian capital received the World Heritage Committee. The first one was in 1988, one year after Brasília was added to the World Heritage List. The last session was attended by representatives of over 100 countries.
Profile
According to the Bahraini Ministry of Culture, Mai Al Khalifa was the founder of the Ebrahim Bin Mohammed Al Khalifa Research and Culture Centre, established in 2002. The minister has published several books on the history of Bahrain. She received several awards, including the “Distinguished Arab Woman” administrative leadership award, granted by the Center of Woman Studies, based in Paris and Dubai. Mai is among the 50 most influential Arab women, according to the United States’ Forbes magazine.
Bahrain is an archipelago of low-lying islands located in the Gulf, and known as the “Pearl of the Gulf.” The country is home to the ancient archaeological site of Dilmun, which was a religious center for the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
