/ARTS WEEKLY/MUSEUMS-CUBA: Lezama Lima’s Home Reopens to Public

The modest house in the Cuban capital where José Lezama Lima wrote "Paradiso," one of the most outstanding Latin American novels of the 20th century, reopened its doors after a lengthy restoration effort banished the effects of time and mildew.

/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-PHILIPPINES: Still as ‘Imeldific’ as Ever

"Now when you go to New York, you see little posters (outside shoe stores saying) 'There's a little Imelda in all of us,' the Philippines' former first lady, Imelda Marcos, says in a documentary about her that is showing here. "Isn't that wonderful?''

/ARTS WEEKLY/ CULTURE-MEXICO: Police Eye on ‘Tolerant’ Cervantes Festival

Mexico's federal police put an end to the party - sex, alcohol, some drugs and plenty of rock and roll - that has accompanied the International Cervantes Festival held annually in the central city of Guanajuato since 1972.

/ARTS WEEKLY/VIETNAM: Closet Gays Slowly Coming Out

Previously, alternative lifestyles were not widely discussed in Vietnam and topics such as homosexuality were considered taboo in communist-ruled Vietnam.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ FILM-BRAZIL: Cazuza’s Music Doesn’t Stop

More than a million Brazilians flocked to the cinemas over the past month and have been moved by the film ''Cazuza, o tempo nao pára'' (Cazuza: Time Doesn't Stop), reviving the late poetic rock-and-roll rebel of the 1980s, with his excesses of sex and drugs, and his intense but undefined nostalgia.

/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-U.S.: ‘Docs’ Become Surprise Election Year Weapons

Millions of Americans are seeing something at movie theatres they have never witnessed in an election year.

/ARTS WEEKLY/NEPAL: Pop Bands Put New Touch to Old Music, Sing to Peace

The ramshackle watchman's quarter outside the two-storied house here is where the six members of the Nepathya, Nepal's popular musical band, gather every afternoon.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ TV-CHILE: The Triumph of the Bandits

The television programme ''Los Pincheira'', inspired on a legendary band of cattle rustlers, is the undisputed victor in Chile of the ''war of the TV series'' for the first half of this year.

/ARTS WEEKLY/CUBA: A Refuge for World Dance

Much of the history of dance from around the world is found in a little palace of sorts in the Cuban capital. The Museum of Dance holds items ranging from a thread of the shawl that led to dancer Isadora Duncan's death, to documents and photographs, to dance costumes from the most remote regions of the planet.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ BRAZIL: Age Hasn’t Slowed the Multi-Talented Chico Buarque

Composer, novelist, playwright, singer- songwriter and amateur footballer at 60, Francisco Buarque de Hollanda, or simply ''Chico'', is the image of ''national unanimity'' for the Brazilian people.

CULTURE-ARGENTINA: Spanish, the Divided Language

Academics, writers, artists and social organisations in Argentina defend linguistic diversity and accuse the Royal Spanish Academy of trying to ''appropriate'' the Spanish language.

/ARTS WEEKLY/MUSIC: Japan, Jamaica Grow Closer with One Love

Reggae music boomed from the stage, but the energetic singer was a slim Japanese youth. The aroma of Jamaican jerk chicken filled the air, but the cook was a robust, shaven-headed Tokyoite.

/ARTS WEEKLY/MUSIC-CHILE: The Inti Illimani ‘Trademark’ War

Inti Illimani, the name of a folk music group that has made history in Chile and around the world as proponents of Latin America's ''New Song'' movement, is today the focus of a heated dispute between its founding members.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ FILM-BRAZIL: Motorcycle Ride with Che

''Forget about me when I turn 18 because I'm going to do the same as Che,'' a 12-year-old boy in Brazil tells his mother after seeing ''The Motorcycle Diaries'', a film about the revolutionary leader Ernesto Guevara as a twenty-something - which has won applause from audiences in movie houses across the country.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ TELEVISION-MEXICO: Big Brother Lawmaker

The Mexican version of the TV reality show "Big Brother" has boosted its viewing audience with the controversial participation of a Green Ecologist Party (PVE) legislative deputy, who has found in the programme an excellent venue to disseminate his ideas.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ FILM-CHILE: Shakespeare Beaten by Football Gangs

In the umpteenth adaptation of a William Shakespeare classic, first-time director Sebastian Araya has set the story of Romeo and Juliet in Chile and the world of 'barras bravas', the often violent groups of fans of professional football. The critics see it as a Chilean film industry tragedy.

/ARTS WEEKLY/JAPAN: Mystery Novel Gives Women a New Voice

The stunning success in Japan, and recently in the United States, of a mystery writer's novel, about a husband-killer and psychopath gangsters, has injected new life into the conservative Japanese publishing world that previously only carried works depicting women as loyal housewives devoted to their husbands.

/ARTS WEEKLY/INDONESIA: Music, Humour Give Acehnese a Voice

In a medium-sized amphitheatre, around 200 students in faded blue jeans and T-shirts listened to speeches, applauded a traditional Acehnese dance performance and laughed at a story teller who engaged the audience with jokes.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ VENEZUELA: Voice is Thread Uniting Women Writers

The texts of 66 Venezuelan women writers, of poetry, narrative, plays, essay and reportage, have been united in an anthology, "El hilo de la voz" (The Thread of the Voice), which could become the main reference point for women's literature in this country.

/ARTS WEEKLY/SOUTH-EAST ASIA: Globalisation Provokes New Visual Vocabulary

While globalisation keeps transforming the cities of South-east Asia, its influence on the region's cultural landscape has led to an array of styles that convey how artists from Bangkok to Bandung are grappling with their evolving times.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ THEATRE-LATIN AMERICA: Cuba Hosts Tradition and Modernity

"Theatre May", convened by the governmental Casa de las Am?ricas cultural centre, has reaffirmed Cuba as an atypical forum, with the tradition and modernity of the Latin American stage, drawing a dozen theatre troupes from across the region.