/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/MUSIC-JAMAICA: Reggae Struggling For a Niche on American Airwaves

With mainstream radio in the United States showing an indifference to traditional reggae, the music, and some of its most vibrant performers are once again looking to the American college circuit to get their message across in that country.

/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/CULTURE-JAMAICA: Reggae Sunsplash Strikes its Final Chord

It started out as a festival that marked reggae's coming of age, but Reggae Sunsplash never lived up to the potential it promised in its early years.

/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/ MUSIC-COSTA RICA: Calypso Tradition Attracts a New Following

Calypso, a rhythm originating in the Caribbean Basin during the era of African slavery, had been limited in Costa Rica to the coastal Limon province until a musician recently brought it to the capital's recording studios.

/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/MUSIC-USA: Ricky Martin’s Latin Fever

Latin music has become so popular in the United States that it can literally stop traffic in the heart of New York City.

/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/CULTURE-MALAYSIA: Tribal Traditions Remain Alive

It boasts of having the world's tallest building and harbours ambitions of becoming the communications hub of South-east Asia. But Malaysia has another side in which steel and glass structures are alien, and traditions that have been handed down from generation to generation remain alive.

/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/ENTERTAINMENT-JAMIACA: A Tale of Fallen Performers

Violence, long associated with the Jamaican entertainment scene, has resurfaced and claimed the lives of three music business personalities since the start of 1999.

/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/CULTURE-PANAMA: Learning About the “Lord of the Land”

After 496 years, King Quibian - one of the first indigenous leaders of the Americas to confront the Spanish conquistadors - has been rescued from oblivion by a Panamanian author.

/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/CINEMA: Horrors of War Chronicled at Human Rights Film Fest

A long, deep silence marked each screening of the first movie shown at the 10th Human Rights Watch (HRW) film festival- which concluded a two-week run Thursday (Jun 24) - as the audience watched "Spotlight on a Massacre."

/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/BOOKS-AFRICA: Parents Urged To Read To Children From Early Age

African writers blame a lack of passion for reading among Africa's youth on the failure of parents to expose their children to the written word from an early age.

/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/FILMS: Bangla-language Cinema Bonds Bangladesh, India

For the Bangla-language film industry, it is as if the border between India and Bangladesh does not exist.

/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/FILM-HUNGARY: Ambitious Dreams, Limited Means

Tired of being ignored, Hungary's young filmmakers decided to shout. This was the explicit aim proclaimed at the forum 'Mouthing Off Till the Film Cries' held in Budapest earlier this month.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT – MUSIC-JAMAICA: Dancehall’s Hottest Toaster Makes Inroads into the U.S. Market

Reeling off hit songs like cars from an assembly line, it seems appropriate that the new album from deejay Beenie Man is entitled "The Doctor as he appears to have the prescription for success.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT – CULTURE-KOREAS: Culinary Ties Bridge Political Chill

The South Korean capital is already dotted with American food outlets like McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken, but when yet another restaurant chain opened here recently, hordes of eager customers came despite the ongoing recession.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT – THEATRE: The Glory of Art

Three Frenchmen squabbling over an abstract painting? When it opened in 1996, Art had all the crowd-pulling potential of a seminar on office management.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT – BOOKS: The Ancestral Home

Memory, that most fragile and elastic of the mind's capacities, can be likened to an old house, the rooms of which, opening one upon the other, can be selectively entered or sealed off.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT – CULTURE-BRAZIL: Ballet Brings Children Out of Favelas

Ballet, once regarded as a symbol of "cultural apartheid" in Brazil, today has become a weapon against inequality by opening up new horizons for impoverished youth.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT – BOOKS-CANADA: Grim Realism of Indigenous Life

Leading Canadian playwright, Tomson Highway has produced an exuberant autobiographical novel, "Kiss of the Fur Queen", which fully captures the grim realities of aboriginal life earlier this century.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT – CINEMA: Indigenous Movies at Ecuadoran Festival

Indigenous filmgoers have been enjoying a sneak preview of the 3rd Film and Video Festival of the First Nations of Abya Yala which began in Lima this week.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT – DRAMA-SIERRA LEONE: A Popular TV Show Eases The Pains Of War

A popular weekend television show, which has taken Sierra Leone by storm, is helping viewers to ease the pains of war.

CULTURE: Integrating Theatre in the Mercosur Region

The general integration process among the nations of Common Market of the South (Mercosur) moved a step forward last week with the first Mercosur Theatre Exposition.

/ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT/ MUSIC-JAMAICA: It is Starting All Over For Third World

With influences ranging from Santana to the classics, few bands in popular music can match Third World in terms of eclecticism. But even the most creative of bands are sometimes forced to start over.