Museums across China unveil new exhibitions to mark International Museum Day

Museums across China have unveiled new exhibitions to mark International Museum Day on Sunday, offering visitors diverse cultural treasures and experiences.

Beijing inaugurated its first Museum Festival, which kicked off on May 18 and will run through October 8. Nearly 300 museums in the Chinese capital will present over 200 exhibitions and more than 1,000 events.

The Festival is expected to attract flocks of visitors during peak travel times, including the summer and National Day holidays.

One of the highlights is an exhibition held at the Grand Canal Museum in Tongzhou, Beijing's sub-center in its northwestern part of the Green Heart area.

Named "This is the Shang," it features 338 artifacts of the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC) selected from 28 cultural institutions across the country, including 54 national first-class and key artifacts.

The Hebei Museum, partnering with the Shaanxi History Museum, launched an exhibition on Saturday displaying the treasures of the Tang Dynasty (618-907). It features 220 sets of Tang Dynasty artifacts unearthed in Shaanxi and Hebei provinces, spotlighting the era's various aspects of life, from daily routines to cultural entertainment.

One of the attractions is a gold bowl adorned with mandarin ducks and lotus petals, a prized possession of the Shaanxi History Museum excavated from the Hejia Village site.

"From its material and craftsmanship to its decorative patterns, it represents the highest level of gold and silverware production in the Tang Dynasty," said Zhai Xiaolan, an associate research librarian at the Shaanxi History Museum.

In northeast China's Liaoning Province, the provincial museum started to exhibit 260 sets of artifacts related to Dunhuang on Sunday, 90 percent of which debuted to the public for the first time.

"Liaoning is one of the repositories of cultural relics from the Dunhuang Library Cave. The Dunhuang manuscripts collected by the Liaoning Provincial Museum date from the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-589) to the Five Dynasties (907-960). It includes important rare and unique copies, holding significant value for historical and literary research," said Guo Dan, a research librarian.

The exhibition will run for three months, and the Liaoning Provincial Museum will extend its opening hours to 8:00 p.m.

Museums across China unveil new exhibitions to mark International Museum Day

Museums across China unveil new exhibitions to mark International Museum Day

Iraq's oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz dropped sharply to 10 million barrels in April due to the regional war from the previous monthly level of around 93 million barrels, newly-inaugurated Oil Minister Basim Mohammed Khudhair said Saturday.

According to a statement by the oil ministry, Khudhair said during a ceremony marking his assumption of office that the government's strategy focuses on collaborating with foreign firms to enhance domestic production capacity, train technical and engineering personnel, and build the best infrastructure for the oil sector.

He said efforts will be made to develop the oil industry to achieve sustainable development and support the country's economy, especially since the oil sector is the backbone of the federal budget.

In addition, Iraq will increase flows through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline to Türkiye, said Khudhair.

Iraq plans to talk with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to boost the country's production and export capacity, hoping its production capacity will reach 5 million barrels per day, said the minister.

Iraq's economy relies heavily on crude oil exports, which account for about 90 percent of the country's revenues.

Khudhair's remarks came two days after the parliament approved him as part of new Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi's cabinet.

Iraq's oil exports via Hormuz Strait plummet to 10 mln barrels in April amid war: minister