In seven months on loan from the British Museum to the National Museum of Iran [the Cyrus Cylinder] has been seen by more than a million Iranians. MacGregor believes that the cylinder -- and objects like it -- can do what politicians often fail to do and bring antagonistic countries closer together.

GW’s Museum Studies Program, part of the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, announced plans to launch the Iraqi Museum Residency Program to provide museum professionals from Iraq unique learning opportunities and behind-the-scenes access to some of America’s top museums.

In spring 2011 three major German museum bodies – the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen Munich – will join forces with the National Museum of China to present an exhibition on the art of the Enlightenment, to be held in Beijing.

The British Museum will help set up the UAE's national museum through the loan of art and assistance with exhibits on falcons and the oil and pearl industries.The Zayed National Museum will receive advice on the training of its Emirati staff and the establishment of its programming from the world famous UK institution.

The first museum dedicated to the Muslim victims of the Khmer Rouge regime is scheduled to open in a Cambodian mosque next year. The museum in the Mabarak Mosque will introduce visitors to the stories of Muslim survivors of the Khmer Rouge, as well as to the language and culture of Cambodian Muslims, known as the Chams.

“Abu Dhabi Art is part of a greater vision to build transnational cultural institutions to ensure that the Arab world is not isolated,” said Rita Aoun Abdo, director of the cultural department of Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development and Investment Co., or T.D.I.C., which co-organized the fair and is the agency behind the development of Saadiyat Island.

The discovery of fragments of ancient cuneiform tablets – hidden in a British Museum storeroom since 1881 – has sparked a diplomatic row between the UK and Iran. In dispute is a proposed loan of the Cyrus cylinder, one of the most important objects in the museum's collection, and regarded by some historians as the world's first human rights charter.