/ARTS WEEKLY/CHILE: ‘Social Circus’ Goes to School

El Circo del Mundo-Chile, part of the international social circus movement, had six minutes of TV fame this week as it was seen by millions of people in many countries during its guest performance at the International Song Festival in Viña del Mar, on the Chilean coast.

/ARTS WEEKLY/CULTURE: Modern Caribbean Pirates Treasure Music

For the first time in nearly two decades, calypso singer David Rudder did not release an album for this year's Carnival celebrations here.

/ARTS WEEKLY/BOOKS-ARGENTINA: Rubbish to Read

Nothing is as it should be at a small publishing house that has been hailed as one of Argentina's great cultural successes. Today, the offices smell of garlic and onion, there is no money to print books and the editor himself is the one cutting the book covers, made with cardboard scavenged from the garbage.

/ARTS WEEKLY/CHINA: Valentine’s Yes, but not ‘Vagina Monologues’

Once puritanically critical of all occasions that paraded love, communist China has embraced the celebrations of Valentine's Day - ''the imported Western festival'' - as a succession of consumer opportunities coated in romance.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ VENEZUELA: A Tour Down Entertainment’s Memory Lane

Images, sounds and settings at La Montaña revive memories - at least for the older crowds - of Venezuelan films, TV programmes, radio shows and even the circus, from several decades ago.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ARTS-ETHIOPIA: Singer Raman Blends the Influences of Many Continents

To someone unaccustomed to the sounds of Ethiopia, the country's music - with its high-pitched vocals - might sound strange.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ FILM-ARGENTINA: The Crisis According to Solanas

"Others make the decisions, we watch the children die," a paediatrician, with an air of resignation, tells the camera, summarising the theme of the new film by Fernando Solanas, "Memoria del saqueo" (A Social Genocide), which made its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival this week.

/ARTS WEEKLY/MEDIA: Homeless People Take to Airwaves Overnight

''I'm here to make it known that all people, especially street people and the homeless, have a right to the mass media, and do have a right to say whatever (is necessary) to get themselves into better conditions.''

/ARTS WEEKLY/CULTURE: Website Helps World Find World Music

Even when Sevara Nazarkhan toured with rock legend Peter Gabriel it was difficult for people who liked her music to find a place to buy it.

/ARTS WEEKLY/INDIA: Court Marks 125th Year, Still No Toilets

When India's western port city of Mumbai celebrated the 125th anniversary of its colonial high court building in January, thousands of litigants and witnesses that daily throng its cavernous corridors had a simple prayer to their Honourable Justices - provide toilets on the premises.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ LITERATURE-CUBA: Poet’s Sullied Reputation Recast

Nineteenth-century poet, essayist and playwright Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda is cited as one of the founders of modern feminism in Cuban texts on art and literature. But her literary reputation is only now gaining lustre.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ CULTURE-LAOS: A Venezuelan Watches Over the Temple

The campaign to preserve Luang Prabang from the onslaught of tourism can count on the enthusiastic efforts of Venezuelan architect Felipe Delmont. The number of visitors to this northern Laotian city has grown rapidly since UNESCO declared it a Heritage of Humanity site in 1995.

/ARTS WEEKLY/CULTURE: Calypso Raises Racial Hackles in Trinidad and Tobago

It is the talk of the town. From political and business leaders to the man on the street, Winston Rawlins' latest tune once again raises questions of race, morality and the line between good and bad entertainment.

/ARTS WEEKLY/INDIA: Spirit of the Raj Lives on in Himalayan Village

The spirit of the English 'sahibs' and their equally snobbish 'memsahibs', as European women were called in colonial times, still haunts the Raj's once charming summer capital Simla, over half a century after the British left India.

/ARTS WEEKLY/BOOKS: Indigenous Innovations Buttress Today’s ‘Knowledge Society’

In Ron Wakegijig's "office" is a cupboard whose many shelves are lined with rows of stacked, stout coffee cans, each containing a quantity of a healing plant.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ BOOKS-MEXICO: Library Rides the Rails

An anthology of nine authors is being made available this month to passengers on the Mexican capital's train lines, the first phase of a library programme that has the double purpose of fomenting the reading habit and curbing crime.

/ARTS WEEKLY/CULTURE-SINGAPORE: City State Covets Elusive Cultural Trophy

Nearly four years after the government set out to establish Singapore as a global arts centre, this prosperous island state of more than four million people is struggling to attain exalted cultural status.

/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM: Corporations Need Treatment, Documentary Argues

Corporations are not only the most powerful institutions in the world, they are also psychopathic, a new Canadian documentary on globalisation elegantly argues.

/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-BRAZIL: Golden Year for South America’s ‘Bollywood’

Brazilian film enjoyed a honeymoon with audiences this year, consolidating its position as a sort of South American movie capital, with the Globo network as the centre of production for box office hits.

/ARTS WEEKLY/VIETNAM: Revival of Ancient Music Too Successful

Efforts to revive the 'nha nhac', court music that harks back to the country's ancient past, have been successful - perhaps too successful.

/ARTS WEEKLY/MUSIC-JAMAICA: Rappers’ Scrap Gives Reggae Another Black Eye

Another violent incident at one of Jamaica's best known annual dancehall shows has again shone a spotlight on what many critics consider a musical style that celebrates violence.