The Embassy of France in Riyadh has announced that the Louvre Museum in Paris will hold an exhibition at Saudi Arabia’s national museum in January, 2006. The exhibition, of Islamic artifacts, will be organized in cooperation with the Supreme Commission for Tourism (SCT), the Department of Antiquities and Museums, and the National Museum, located at the King Abdulaziz Historical Center. The Louvre collection was recently funded by a gift of U.S. $20 million from Chairman of the Kingdom Holding Company Prince Waleed bin Talal.

Meanwhile, cooperation agreements in the field of education between Saudi Arabia and France include an arrangement for fifty young Saudis to study medicine at French universities in a seven-year graduate program funded by the Ministry of Higher Education, with a postgraduate program planned. Also, a Saudi-French archaeological team has for the past three years been working at the Nabatean site at Madain Saleh to the northwest of Madinah, in cooperation with the Department of Antiquities and Museums.

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