/ARTS WEEKLY/VIETNAM: Ancient Temple Towers Bring the Past Back

Sculptor Thanh Van Suong is poring over old documents and listening to legends in an effort to recreate sacred statues, working to bring the past back to life in Vietnam.

/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/THEATRE-KENYA: Striving to Improve Quality

Frustrated by his inability to find a ''good quality, original Kenyan script'' to stage, theatre director Gichora Mwangi set off for the Robert Redford's Sundance Village in Utah, the United States, last year.

/ARTS WEEKLY/VENEZUELA: Ciudad Bolivar Aspires to Heritage of Humanity

Ciudad Bolívar, formerly known as Angostura and temporary capital of Venezuela as of 1817, will be proposed as a cultural heritage of humanity site under the auspices of the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation).

/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-BRAZIL: God Stars in Satire of a Country’s Ills

God is Brazilian. He laughingly laments the mistakes made by the humans he created, he hates performing miracles because it requires "too much effort", and he is looking for a saint to stand in for him while he takes a vacation.

/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.

/ARTS WEEKLY/MUSIC: North America, Europe Lead Bob Marley Bash

Music festivals in North America and Europe dominate celebrations to mark reggae pioneer Bob Marley's 58th birthday this month, including a landmark session at one of the United States' most vaunted institutions.

/ARTS WEEKLY/LITERATURE-MEXICO: New Refuge for Persecuted Writers

Mexico will open its second refuge for foreign writers and artists in the city of Puebla, near the capital, continuing the country's tradition of providing safe haven for the persecuted.

/ARTS WEEKLY: Making African Movie Painstaking Task for Western Filmmakers

Making an authentic-looking African movie is a painstaking task for Western filmmakers. Too often, they bow to pressure from cautious financiers and insurance companies and choose a safe location like South Africa, even though the film is set thousands of kilometres away on the other side of the continent.

/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.

/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.

/ARTS WEEKLY/INDIA: Kolkata ‘Orphaned’ By Archaeological Finds

India's bustling eastern metropolis, which in 1990 celebrated the 300th year of its 'founding' by British colonialists with much fanfare, is looking for a new birthday.

/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-CHILE: The Eternal Temptation of Christ

"The Last Temptation of Christ", the film by Martin Scorsese that is part of film libraries around the world, is only now making its debut in Chile, after a long legal battle against censorship that went as far as the Inter-American Court on Human Rights.

/ARTS WEEKLY/CULTURE-KENYA: Fireside Tales

It is a scene that has become all too familiar in Kenya in recent months. The dancing crowd sing ''Without Moi, everything is possible'', holding high yellow posters of their new president, Mwai Kibaki.

/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-BRAZIL: ‘City of God’ Shows Sins of the Slums

It was a case that the white people in the seaside city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, could not crack. Who were the children holding up banks, pointing guns, selling dope and facing death with a cold, hard stare?

/ARTS WEEKLY/MUSIC-CENTRAL AMERICA: ‘Papaya’ Women to Lift their Voices

The Papaya Orchestra, the first and only regional jazz and folk group, is rehearsing for its next album, which will highlight women vocalists from each of the seven Central American countries.

/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.

/ARTS WEEKLY/BOOKS-KENYA: Joining a Budding Cultural Renaissance

Young writers look set to become the latest artists to join Kenya's budding cultural renaissance with the launch of 'Kwa ni?', a new magazine masterminded by the 2002 Caine Prize for African Writing winner, Binyavanga Wainaina.

/ARTS WEEKLY/ASIA: MTV Awards Confirm Region’s Place in Music Map

Dozens of international music stars made the trip to Singapore for last week's MTV Asia Awards, a clear sign that amid declining sales and piracy problems, the music industry cannot afford to ignore Asia and its potentially huge market.

/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-BRAZIL: Between Piaget and Pinochet in Documentary Boom

A football coach fired for taking off his clothes on the field, a young, unabashed prostitute and an elderly woman who decides against suicide are some of the real-life characters in "Edificio Master" (The Master Building), a documentary that marks the height of a boom in this film genre.

/ARTS WEEKLY/MUSIC-JAMAICA: Reggae Pioneers Fight ‘Oldies’ Label

For most of the 1960s, Toots and The Maytals were one of the hottest acts on Jamaica's growing music scene, churning out a succession of hit songs that are regarded among reggae's best.