/ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT/ MUSIC: Aterciopelados – Rockin’ to a Latin Beat

For two years running, they have been nominated for a "Grammy", the coveted award of the U.S. music industry, for their interpretations of Latin rock and roll. And they have achieved a wide fan base among teenagers while keeping their own identity, a difficult task in this time of globalisation.

/ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT/CULTURE: European History ‘Unwanted’ In African Schools

Africa's education system, inherited from the colonial era, has virtually remained the same since Sebalo Sibanda wrote his history examination 13 years ago.

/ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT/ART: Paintings Recall Congo’s Troubled History

Some art exhibitions unfold like a book, with chapters, sections and the story of a hero. So it is with "A Congo Chronicle: Patrice Lumumba in Urban Art" - on display at New York's Museum of African Art.

/ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT/CULTURE-SINGAPORE: Wanted, A Dose of Spontaneity

A few years back, government officials here decided that Singaporeans lacked manners and were becoming rude to one another -- and promptly launched a courtesy campaign.

/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/MUSIC-JAMAICA: The Man Who Slowed Down Reggae and Started Rebel Rock

A frail figure with a strange instrument, Augustus Pablo never attained the rebel status of reggae's fiery protest kings such as Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. As a visionary, though, he had few rivals.

/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/BOOKS-LATAM: Reflections on the Lives of 17 Famous Women

The experiences of 17 notable women in Latin America that run the gamut of human emotions - anguish, passion, love, devotion and death - are captured in "Goddesses and Witches" (Diosas y Brujas), a new book by Uruguayan journalist, Monica Bottero.

BOOKS: A Forgotten War, an Endless Exile

Hundreds of fresh army recruits and rebels dead in battle and scores of civilians killed or maimed by bomb blasts are the horrifying stories that put Sri Lanka on front pages of western newspapers in the '80's and 90's.

/ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT/CULTURE-MEDIA: Countering Youth Violence

The hand-wringing in the United States over youth violence and gun control has reached new heights with two shootings at high schools, exactly one month apart.

/ARTS-ENTERTAINMENT/CULTURE-CHINA: Faith and kung fu are a good mix for Shaolin monks

They gained worldwide popularity in the 1980s, when a Hong Kong movie based on one of their main preoccupations became a blockbuster hit.

/ARTS-ENTERTAINMENT/BOOKS-JAMAICA: A Rasta’s Pilgrimage Gives New Life to Ethiopian Cities

For the past 25 years, Ethiopia's war- ravaged, famine-stricken predicament has relegated the East African nation to one of the world's most desperate countries. A new book depicting more serene images seeks to change all that.

/ARTS-ENTERTAINMENT/ MUSIC-JAMAICA: ‘Last Days’ Positions Singer For Solo Career

For 30 of his 51 years, Bernard Collins says he has earned little from the music business, even though he is the co-author of one of reggae music's most enduring songs.

/ARTS-ENTERTAINMENT/ ART-ENVIRONMENT: Buy a Painting, Save a Rhino

At Christie's London, the world's leading auction house, it was an event with a difference. Celebrities, conservationists and collectors emerged in large numbers to witness the first ever 'Art for survival wildlife auction' staged by the David Shepherd Conservation Foundation last week.

/ARTS-ENTERTAINMENT/ CINEMA-ETHIOPIA: Distance Running is All About Endurance

Nearly 20 years ago, when Haile Gebrselassie was seven-years-old, he listened to a broadcast on a transister radio in his family's hut in Ethiopia that was to change his life.

/ARTS-ENTERTAINMENT/ ARTS-COLOMBIA: Chronicling a Culture of Violence

The murder and mayhem that has marked everyday life in Colombia for five decades is reflected in the nation's art world - with the "culture of violence" depicted in paintings, literature and in the theatre.

/ARTS-ENTERTAINMENT/ CINEMA: Movies Depict Freedom Struggle of Portuguese Colonies

The struggle for independence by Portugal's colonial territories in Africa, and subsequent post- colonial conflicts, was brought home to moviegoers this month at the 5th African Film Festival in New York.

/ARTS-ENTERTAINMENT/ LITERATURE-BRAZIL: Hopes for More Readers

In a nation where each citizen reads an average of about two books a year, the sale of 1.2 million books at the Biennial Book Fair has sparked publishers' hopes of a somewhat brighter future for book-reading in Brazil.

/ARTS-ENTERTAINMENT/ MUSIC-US: Celebrating The Duke’s Centennial

Edward Kennedy Ellington, the elegant jazz composer and pianist known as 'the Duke', produced so much of the best US music of the twentieth century that it is fitting that the century's end includes a commemoration of his work.

/ARTS-ENTERTAINMENT/MUSIC-JAMAICA: Reggae Getting Bigger in Europe

Reggae music has always had a loyal fan base in Europe, but if Guillaume Bougard has his way, the music will expand on the cult following it has on that continent.

/ARTS-ENTERTAINMENT/PANAMA: Mobile Theatre a Singular Experience

The Mobile Theatre of the State Institute of Culture (Inac), battling a shortage of funds and bureaucracy, has been bringing culture to the towns and cities of the Panamanian interior for nearly 18 years.

/ARTS-ENTERTAINMENT/BOOKS-REVIEW: What it means to be Wealthy – and Black – in U.S.

The black upper class in the United States is not as well known as the poor, African American underclass.

/ARTS-ENTERTAINMENT/MUSIC-US: Celebrating The Duke’s Centennial

Edward Kennedy Ellington, the elegant jazz composer and pianist known as 'the Duke', produced so much of the best US music of the twentieth century that it is fitting that the century's end includes a commemoration of his work.