Tunis — As part of its observance of "Kairouan as 2009 capital of Islamic culture, the Tunis organized on Friday, at the Rakada Faculty of Arts in Kairouan, a conference titled "the scientific influence of Kairouan and its contribution to Mediterranean civilization".

The conference discussed the role of scientists of Kairouan in the dissemination of knowledge, from 8th to 12th century, both in the Maghreb and the Mashreq, and their rich contribution to the corpus of knowledge in the West, thanks to the multiple translations of their works into Latin and into the other languages used at that time.

As part of the celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 under the theme: "Galaxies", Tunis planetarium will organize a new round of astronomical observation on Saturday, November 14.

The event will include in its first part, "the universe of galaxies" and the second part will be devoted to telescopes observations.