CULTURE-MEXICO: “New Seven Wonders” Win Falls Flat

The Mexican government spent time and money in 2007 to get the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza declared one of the "new seven wonders of the world" in a contest organised by a Swiss-Canadian businessman. But winning has failed to deliver the desired results.

TRADE-MAURITIUS: Paradise Island, Pirates’ Den

Pirated goods - from music and vehicle parts to clothes, perfumes and software - are sold at ridiculously low prices on the streets or in local shops. This is big business in the paradise-like island state of Mauritius.

PARAGUAY: University Opens Doors to Native Students

Video camera in hand, Isidro Romero is getting ready for another day of classes in the Paraguayan capital. He is studying Communications as part of a programme aimed at breaking down the barriers that have blocked access to university level studies by the country’s small indigenous minority.

CHILE: Festival to Showcase Films on Native Peoples

Thanks to the growing number of films by and about indigenous peoples, over 90 movies, mainly from Latin America, will be screened and voted on by spectators at the First Chilean Indigenous Peoples' Film Festival in the Pacific port city of Valparaíso.

JAMAICA: For an Abortion Law That Reaches the Poor

When a Jamaican women’s group Sistren realised the voices of poor women were missing in a national debate on abortion rights, they boldly staged a play before parliamentarians reviewing a draft law that seeks to clarify when abortion can be deemed legal.

ARGENTINA: Drumming Up Black Awareness

Argentina’s small black community, ignored by historical constructions that have traditionally focused on the influence of European immigration, is now fighting for recognition of its contribution to culture in the Argentine capital.

Q&A: Notes From Iran’s Underground Music Scene

As Iran’s conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fights for his political future against two reformist challengers in the June elections, Arash Sobhani, a lead figure in the country’s underground music scene, says it’s a very tough time to be an artist in Iran.

FILM-RWANDA: Genocidaires Face Off With Their Victims

In 1994, hundreds of thousands of Tutsi were slaughtered by their Hutu neighbours, friends, and family members across Rwanda. Nine years later the killers came home from prison to live side by side again with their victims.

RIGHTS: Historic Court Under the Spotlight in New Film

The International Criminal Court has struggled since its inception to realise its core mandate to prosecute the world’s worst human rights offenders, putting on trial propagators of genocide, war crimes and the inductors of child soldiers into civil conflict.

BOOKS: Canada’s Agent Orange Victims Still Seeking Justice

Bruce Brown died of cancer at age 18. Some of Marilyn Kissinger’s other friends lived into their early and late twenties, dying in the late 1960s. Most had died by the late 1980s.

RIGHTS-CHILE: Ex-Soldier Arrested for Victor Jara Murder

A judge in Chile has charged a former soldier in the 1973 murder of internationally renowned Chilean folk singer Víctor Jara. Up to now, the only person prosecuted in the case was the commanding officer at the temporary prison camp where the songwriter was killed shortly after the Sept. 11, 1973 coup led by General Augusto Pinochet.

CHILE: Study Shows How Leading Paper Colluded with Dictatorship

The coverage of human rights violations cases by the powerful conservative Chilean newspaper El Mercurio during the country’s 17-year dictatorship was the focus of a meticulous study by five young reporters.

ARGENTINA: Blogs – a Shortcut to Fame?

While many are still warning that the Internet will do away with reading, unknown writers in Argentina who have joined the global trend of blogging are winning prizes around the world and watching their online writings turn into books, plays and television screenplays.

LITERATURE: Mario Benedetti, the Most Beloved of Uruguayan Writers

The literary oeuvre of Uruguayan author Mario Benedetti, who died Sunday night, is enormous and diverse, comprising dozens of books of poetry, songs, novels, short stories, chronicles, essays, plays and humour. As he himself used to joke: "The only thing I never wrote is an opera."

POLITICS-US: Bigger, Badder Jihad Plot in 'Obsession' Rebooted

A new documentary from a shadowy non-profit, the Clarion Fund, has ties to groups widely accused of Islamophobia.

MIGRATION: Human Beings Can’t Be ‘Illegal’, Book Argues

Julio Guerrero came from Mexico to the U.S. state of North Carolina on a legal, H2-A temporary visa to work on a tobacco farm in 2002. After only a few weeks on the job, his fingers began to hurt and before long his fingernails had fallen off.

ARTS-CUBA: Aura of Deja Vu at the Biennial

Too bold for some tastes and too dissident for others, some of the Cuban exhibits at the recent Havana Arts Biennial brought to mind the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the visual arts were in the vanguard of national culture.

MAY DAY-ARGENTINA: ‘My Mom Is a Taxi Driver’

A new collection of children’s books in Argentina shows women in jobs and professions that are traditionally held by men, challenging sexist preconceptions.

US-ISRAEL: Film Examines Paranoia Over Anti-Semitism

"I have never experienced anti-Semitism myself, but it’s a phrase that always seems to be in the air," begins Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir’s lively new documentary "Defamation". "Three words seem to appear over and over again: Holocaust, Nazi, anti-Semitism."

Q&A: A Death Row Story of Resilience, Faith, Hope

Puerto Rican Juan Melendez spent more than 17 years on death row in a Florida prison for a 1983 murder to which another man had repeatedly confessed - evidence prosecutors withheld. He was only released in 2002. Now a documentary by Luis Rosario Albert tells Melendez's story, the multifaceted circumstances that surrounded it and the human rights struggle in Puerto Rico that followed.

CHINA: Macau Gaming Boom at a Cost

Beijing’s decade-old flirt with lucrative gambling in the booming casino town of Macau has gone decidedly sour.