Full Coverage: Culture

26.04.2005 RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 26 (IPS) - The Brazilian minister of culture, renowned singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil, has a new passion: the creative industries, which he believes can play a key role in boosting the economies of developing countries.

26.04.2005 WASHINGTON, D.C., Apr 26 (OneWorld) - A leading human rights group has condemned the first reported execution of an Afghan woman for alleged adultery since the ouster of the extremist Taliban regime.

25.04.2005 « En tant que chrétien, j’accepte et respecte la décision des cardinaux. Mais il me sera difficile d’apprécier le nouveau pape, étant donné ses positions sur l’Eglise et le monde », déclare le Brésilien Leonardo Boff, l’un des principaux idéologues de la théologie de la libération, dans la Folha de São Paulo. Selon cet ancien franciscain qui a abandonné le sacerdoce en 1992, « le nouveau pape ne va pas se contenter de perpétuer l’esprit du pontificat de Jean-Paul II, mais il va aussi, et surtout, radicaliser la doctrine morale de l’Eglise catholique », rapporte le quotidien brésilien.

20.04.2005 The Anaconda Award grand prize went to Victor Churay, a young Bora Indian from northern Peru, for his documentary The Search for Blue. ChurayÂ’s story tells how he used the secrets of the jungle taught to him by his father to inspire his art, which expresses the myths, stories, dreams and aspirations of his community.

15.04.2005 Grammy-nominated Congolese singer and womenÂ’s advocate Zap Mama will compliment screenings of the documentary "Love, Labor, Loss" at select venues in the U.S. in April. The film, about poor African women who are debilitated because of childbirth, is being shown around the United States to build momentum for Fistula Awareness Day on MotherÂ’s Day, May 8.

13.04.2005 Scottish novelist Alexander McCall Smith is donating the royalties from his latest novel, The Girl Who Married a Lion,--a set of folk tales gathered mainly from the Ndebele people of Zimbabwe--to people living with AIDS in one of Zimbabwe's poorest regions. The book is expected to raise more than $193,000.

08.04.2005 Grand Academy will be organized in Skopje, to mark April 8, the International Day of the Roma. In addition to the planned speeches by representatives of the Government and NGO sector, the EU representatives and the Roma political parties, Rajko Gjuric, the President of the Roma PEN Centre will speak on the subject of “Roma and History of New Trends of the European Roma”.

06.04.2005 MTV Italy's ‘No Excuse 2015’ Campaign calls upon Italian youth to urge their government to keep its promises on the Millennium Development Goals.

05.04.2005 A drive for conversions, not development, is stirring violent animosity in India as a new breed of missionaries devote themselves to expanding the church's reach in the poverty-stricken interiors of India.

05.04.2005 A program in Senegal, which has led 1,527 villages to stop circumcising girls, is becoming a regional model.