A mural created by Egyptian artist Ghada Wali was removed from a Cairo metro station on Thursday after a Russian artist complained that she had copied his work.
Metro authorities announced the decision after Georgy Kurasov made the plagiarism charge in a Facebook post on Saturday and asked for an official response.
The mural, which adorned the walls of the Koleyet El Banat station on the Cairo metro’s third line, was designed by Wali and her company, Wali's Studio.
A video posted by RATP Dev, a French company that operates the Cairo metro, showed workmen ripping the mural off the walls of the station on Thursday morning.
On Tuesday, Egypt's National Authority for Tunnels and RATP Dev issued a joint statement in which they apologised to Kurasov and promised to remove the mural.
They said Wali's Studio had been commissioned to provide original artworks for several stations on the line.
“We would like to offer our apologies to the Russian artist Georgy Kurasov and to anyone who was offended by this. We take intellectual property rights very seriously,” the joint statement said.
It said neither company knew anything about the plagiarism and that they had stopped dealing with Wali's Studio in March after it failed to meet deadlines.
Neither Wali nor her studio have commented publicly on Kurasov's accusation. The National's calls to the studio went unanswered.
Egyptian social media channels have been flooded with criticism of Wali in the past week.
“Ghada Wali, you don't need to respond to the Russian artist's accusations, because a blind man can see that your work is plagiarised,” wrote actor Abbas Aboelhassan on Twitter.
Wali made headlines when she pitched a new design strategy for the country’s tourism promotion campaign to President Abdel Fattah El Sisi at the 2017 edition of the World Youth Forum. She worked briefly on the team that created a new modern-looking logo for Luxor before quitting.
Many on social media noted that the women in her mural, in a similar pose and dress to the subjects in Kurasov's painting, were depicted more modestly by covering up more of the figures.
The tunnels authority and RATP Dev said they would take legal action against Wali's Studio for plagiarism and check that other works it produced for the metro line were not plagiarised.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
In numbers
- Number of children under five will fall from 681 million in 2017 to 401m in 2100
- Over-80s will rise from 141m in 2017 to 866m in 2100
- Nigeria will become the world’s second most populous country with 791m by 2100, behind India
- China will fall dramatically from a peak of 2.4 billion in 2024 to 732 million by 2100
- an average of 2.1 children per woman is required to sustain population growth
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FINAL RECKONING
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg
Rating: 4/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup - Sept 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
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F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
Black Panther
Dir: Ryan Coogler
Starring: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o
Five stars
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Closing the loophole on sugary drinks
As The National reported last year, non-fizzy sugared drinks were not covered when the original tax was introduced in 2017. Sports drinks sold in supermarkets were found to contain, on average, 20 grams of sugar per 500ml bottle.
The non-fizzy drink AriZona Iced Tea contains 65 grams of sugar – about 16 teaspoons – per 680ml can. The average can costs about Dh6, which would rise to Dh9.
Drinks such as Starbucks Bottled Mocha Frappuccino contain 31g of sugar in 270ml, while Nescafe Mocha in a can contains 15.6g of sugar in a 240ml can.
Flavoured water, long-life fruit juice concentrates, pre-packaged sweetened coffee drinks fall under the ‘sweetened drink’ category
Not taxed:
Freshly squeezed fruit juices, ground coffee beans, tea leaves and pre-prepared flavoured milkshakes do not come under the ‘sweetened drink’ band.
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
RESULT
Norway 1 Spain 1
Norway: King (90 4')
Spain: Niguez (47')
