The Nile river has been used as motif, a metaphor or both in popular culture, most prolifically in music in the United States for more than 125 years. The most notable uses of the Nile arose during the jazz period, which peaked in the second half of the 20th century and continues to this day.

Using as its base either calico or other stiff cotton cloth, the kummah is a link to the region's past as well as a personal statement for the present.

Reaching out to new generations and global audiences, musicians in India's northwest state of Rajasthan draw on centuries of traditions that, to an untrained ear, may sound like Indian classical music. But what sets them apart are the regional stories they tell and the tone and power of the singers.

For more than 4,000 years. people have adopted, adapted and adjusted the lute, resulting in its countless variations. Along the way. some innovations have proved both consequential and simple.

With more than 150 published works, Eland Publishing reflects a worldly eclecticism, from reprints and re-releases of biographies to letters and even comic novels. The London based publishing house has for 40 years brought new life to travel writing.

This photo series began unexpectedly when I found that photographing people behind windows and maintaining a distance made me, and the people I photographed, feel more comfortable. I purposefully frame myself in the reflection of the window to see into the space I’m photographing. I feel every window tells a different story.

I took this photo during a rainy day in November 2018 from the window of my family home in Fayoum, Egypt, located about 100 kilometers southwest of the capital. It hardly rains but a few times in the year in most parts of Egypt, and when it does, it is always something special, bringing Joy and happiness particularly for the local children.

Photography “speaks directly to your emotions,” says Joumana El Zein Khoury, executive director of World Press Photo, which holds the world’s leading contest for news and documentary photography. Since she joined in 2021, she has organized six new global partnerships to “be our guides” and diversify the images and themes that earn annual awards for top visual storytelling. And she isn’t a photographer.

In 1884, a 23-year-old painter named Étienne Dinet took a break from Paris to travel to Algeria, where he became a prominent Orientalist artist—a European depicting scenes of cultures not his own. In the 1990s, art collector Shafik Gabr noticed that Dinet stood out among a number of Orientalists whom Gabr says approached their work as an “art of face-to-face engagement between East and West.” Gabr credits Dinet and other “respectful observers” with the inspiration to inaugurate East-West: The Art of Dialogue, an annual intercultural encounter program for emerging leaders.