ARTS-IRAQ: Ghosts From the Land of Milk and Honey

Somewhere in Baghdad, a family sits down to dinner. Heaped plates of food line the long table. A man sits at the head, fork in hand. Beside him, a youngish woman with immaculately shaped eyebrows turns to speak with a young girl. Forks and spoons face upwards on still empty flowered plates.

FILM-US: Latino Festival Celebrates Its Quinceañera

Smack on the U.S.-Mexico border, the city of San Diego is also in the centre of one of the hottest debates in U.S. culture - immigration and the "browning" of California. According to the most recent census, Latinos, people who list their origins as being from Latin America or Mexico, now make up 35.9 percent of the population.

CULTURE-US: In Hot New Comics, Capes Are Out, Koran Is In

Some visitors who arrived recently at a New York airport caused quite a stir - and no wonder. They were using their superpowers to stop two planes from colliding.

THEATRE-US: Something Wicked This Way Comes

It's not surprising that ethics - or more precisely, a lack thereof - has taken centre stage during this New York theatre season. Playwrights have trained their sights on the morally challenged West, hoping perhaps to get theatregoers to muse on the connections between public and private evil.

CUBA: Transvestites and Crossdressers Key Workers Against AIDS

Activism against AIDS is uniting a group of transvestites and crossdressers in western Cuba in a project that is going beyond peer education and making inroads into the world of culture.

ARGENTINA: TV Serial Raises Awareness on Trafficking in Women

The soap opera has proved itself an effective medium for portraying social problems in Latin America, and now a popular one in Argentina is addressing an issue on which the news broadcasts have remained silent: the disappearance of women for commercial sexual exploitation.

LATIN AMERICA: Blogging the Bicentennial

Three women and four men from Mexico, between the ages of 22 and 25, have begun a journey through seven Latin American countries to document the commemorations in 2009 and 2010 of the bicentennial of independence of the region’s countries from Spain, in videos, still photography and text.

THEATRE-US: Play Dissects Politics of Fighting Repression

Jiri Dienstbier had been a reform Communist and radio journalist and commentator during the 1968 "Prague Spring". He'd lost his job when he spoke out on the air against the Soviet military intervention. After he helped found the Czech human rights group, Charter 77, he spent three years in prison and then had to work as a boiler technician in the subway.

RIGHTS-ITALY: Film Brings the Facts Home

Italy must accept its involvement in at least two proven cases of prisoner renditions, Amnesty International has demanded. The demand follows admission by the British government that a U.S. base on British soil - the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean - had twice been used by the United States as a refuelling stop for the secret transfer of two terrorism suspects in 2002.

LEBANON: Children Look At The Brighter Picture

On the outskirts of Beirut, narrow alleyways cut through the Chatila Palestinian refugee camp. A maze of electricity cables connect one concrete block and another. Sewage pours continuously through a small grey construction, filling the street with nauseating stench.

CULTURE-US: &#39Black Art&#39 Draws New Collectors, Better Prices

Landscapes are the images that come to mind in the work of artist Richard Mayhew. The New York-born expressionist credits that to his part African American, part Native American roots.

ARTS: Developing Countries Cinema Gets a Bear Hug

In a tradition of keeping the Golden Bear best film award away from films in line for the Oscars, it was Brazilian director Jose Padilha's political thriller 'Elite Squad' (Tropa Squad) that triumphed in Berlin this year, pushing aside fierce competition from Paul Thomas Anderson's eight Oscar-nominated movie 'There Will Be Blood'.

ARTS: The Young Take the Spotlight

With a fascinating range of films, and an abundance of glitz and glamour, the 58th International Berlin Movie jamboree has excited audiences this year, even if the main competition films have largely been overshadowed by the work of younger, experimental film-makers in the festival's numerous other sections.

MEXICO: Annual Sex Expo Bigger than Ever

For an entrance fee of 17 dollars, visitors to this year’s sex expo in the Mexican capital will be offered a range of products and entertainment options, including a zoo in which barely-clothed men and women pose as animals.

ASTRONOMY-COLOMBIA: Dazzled by Stars, Dreams and Doubts

Esteban Felipe is six years old and wants to be a policeman when he grows up. Or better still, an astronomer, he says as he plays with a plastic rocket that he decorated with coloured paper at one of the children’s workshops at the 11th Festival of self-taught astronomers.

CUBA: Cultural Policy Debate Keeps Growing

More than a year after the outbreak of the so-called "e-mail war", the debate on cultural policy has not died down in Cuba. And although the issue is not addressed in the national media, the discussion continues, and is spreading to embrace other aspects of life in this socialist island nation.

ARTS: Child Soldiers In Focus

The bruising treatment of youngsters in many parts of the world, and the use of child soldiers in war-torn parts of Africa has emerged as a recurring theme at the 10-day Berlin International Film Festival, which ends here Sunday.

ARTS: Scorsese Sets Film Festival Rolling

The 58th International Berlin Film Festival was given a rousing start when Martin Scorsese's vibrant Rolling Stones documentary 'Shine a Light' was chosen to kick off the ten-day movie extravaganza Thursday evening.

THEATRE-BRAZIL: Bringing Dreams to Life in the Favela

In La Rocinha, the largest favela in Rio de Janeiro, Romeo and Juliet’s love story is impossible because they live on hills controlled by rival gangs of drug traffickers.

MEDIA-ARGENTINA: Transvestites Find a Voice

With the support of one of Argentina’s leading public universities, a group of transvestites have launched a magazine aimed at reaffirming their identity and giving them a voice, as they tend to be ignored or given stereotypical coverage by the mainstream press.

Q&A: ‘It Would Take Several Lifetimes to Save Havana’

Eusebio Leal has been involved in the restoration of the historic centre of the Cuban capital since 1967, when he began renovating the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales, now the City Museum. And while Old Havana is still his priority, he is concerned about the rest of the city, too.