PORTUGAL: Multinationals Pack Up in Search of New Subsidies

Several transnational corporations that opened plants in Portugal with European Union (EU) subsidies have recently closed up shop to move to countries offering more advantageous conditions, triggering a heated debate on the use of the bloc's development funds.

/ARTS WEEKLY/GERMANY: New Focus on Asian Films

Asian-made movies may not have been among the major winners at the 2003 Berlin Film Festival, but they certainly had a strong impact on audiences during the ten-day film jamboree in the German capital.

/ARTS WEEKLY/BRITAIN: A Great Passage to India

E.M. Forster's landmark novel 'A Passage to India' is considered to be one of the 20th century's greatest books. Started in 1913 but not completed until after World War I in 1924, the novel is an assured dissection of the dying days of the British Raj.

ENVIRONMENT: Saving Climate is Saving Money

Forget conscience and concern. The biggest companies are told in a new report they will save money if they take account of climate change.

/ARTS WEEKLY/BRITAIN: This Play’s Not the Thing

As with so much you wait for, the waiting was more interesting than the happening. Salman Rushdie's 'Midnight's Children', winner of the Booker of Bookers, was no more the novel, and never quite a play in its adaptation for stage in London.

POLITICS-SERBIA: Tell Me My Country’s Name These Days

Yugoslavia went into history without tears last week, but a lot of people do not know what to do with a country called Serbia and Montenegro.

RELIGION-FRANCE: Move to Block Arab Money for Muslims

The French government is considering an end to a century-old separation of state and religion in order to reduce the Arab hold over its Muslims.

POLITICS-RUSSIA: A World Leader in Suicides

Russia is emerging as something of a world leader in suicides. At 39 suicides per 100,000 population per year, it is leaving the U.S. at 11 per 100,000 far behind.

RELIGION-SERBIA: Nationalism Gathers Around Church

The Serbian Orthodox Church finds itself at the heart of a new nationalism.

RIGHTS-SLOVAKIA: Warning Over Forced Sterilisation

The European Parliament has asked the Slovak government to investigate a report that many Roma women have been sterilised without their knowledge.

POLITICS-YUGOSLAVIA: The Country Is No More

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ceased to exist at 19.05 GMT Tuesday.

DEVELOPMENT-EUROPE: Biggest Aid Packet at Risk

The world's biggest source of development assistance could be at risk from a new European convention being given final touches.

/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-MIDEAST: Finding Humour amid The Sadness

As the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians continues to spiral towards disaster few would - or could - find humour in this daily cycle of violence.

RIGHTS-COTE D’IVOIRE: Getting That "Ivoirite" Out

In what is emerging as a historical revolution, rebel forces seem to be winning a battle to get the idea of the "Ivoirite" out of Cote d'Ivoire.

RIGHTS-RUSSIA: Govt Struggles to Contain Racial Violence

For Nigerian national Okaro Davidson Chibo, 35, a seemingly harmless ride in Moscow metro ended up quite ugly. On Jan 19, he was beaten up and seriously injured by four young Muscovites.

EUROPE: Five Nations Begin Sea Patrols to Stem Immigration

Five European nations initiated sea patrols with armed vessels in the Mediterranean Tuesday to keep undocumented immigrants from entering the European Union (EU), amidst criticism from activists who protest that the operation is a violation of human rights.

ENVIRONMENT-YUGOSLAVIA: Water That is not for Drinking

More than 100,000 people from the central Serbian town of Kraljevo are depending on drinking water supplied by trucks or buy bottled water. The reason: the level of carbolic acid (phenol) in the town's waterworks has risen to 60 times higher than normal.

/ARTS WEEKLY/THEATRE: Wilson’s King Hedley II

August Wilson is America's most commercially successful playwright. He is also African-American and it is his cultural, rather than national, heritage that informs his work.

EUROPEAN UNION: Ministers Want More Time for Inspectors in Iraq

The foreign ministers of the 15 European Union (EU) member nations urged the international community Monday to extend the mandate of the United Nations weapons inspectors verifying Iraq's progress in living up to its disarmament obligations.

RIGHTS-FRANCE: Justice Probes Two Deaths, Govt Rejects Refugees

Ricardo Barrientos, a 52-year-old Argentinean, did not want to fly back home from Paris to Buenos Aires. But he did û in a coffin.

ENVIRONMENT-SPAIN: Another Oil Disaster at Sea

An oil tanker sank Tuesday in the Mediterranean Sea just off the southern coast of Spain, reviving already energetic demands for stricter regulation of fuel transport and, say activists, serving as an example of the grave danger that single-hulled ships pose for the marine environment.