Culture
Latest stories
Study Warns Rural Wealth Gap near 'Danger' Level in China

China's rural inequality is nearing "danger" levels as hundreds of millions of people shun farming for better paid city work, causing a widening wealth gap, a report said.

The state-linked Centre for Chinese Rural Studies said inequality within rural areas was growing given the difference in incomes between those who farmed and those who flocked to cities as migrant workers.

W140 Full Story
Hemingway Cafe in Madrid Wins Reprieve

Madrid's iconic Cafe Gijon, whose past clients include Ernest Hemingway and Salvador Dali, has won a last-minute reprieve from near certain closure.

The cafe had warned it would have to draw the curtain on its 120-year history after Madrid's cash-strapped City Hall granted the license to its lucrative terrace to a higher bidder in July.

W140 Full Story
Malaysian Family of 700 Gather for Eid Reunion

Nearly 700 descendants of the founder of a village in northern Malaysia gathered in what is believed to be the largest family reunion for the Muslim Eid al-Fitr celebration in the country.

Family head Syeikh Alauddin Syeikh Abu Bakar told Agence France Presse Tuesday the gathering brought together about 683 people from 100 families descended from Kampung Paya Pahlawan's (Warrior's Swamp Village) founder Tok Nai Din.

W140 Full Story
Down's Syndrome Christian Pakistani Girl Accused of Blasphemy

A Christian girl with Down's Syndrome has been arrested on blasphemy charges in Pakistan, accused of burning pages inscribed with verses from the Koran, police and activists said on Sunday.

Police arrested Rimsha, who is recognized by a single name, on Thursday after she was reported holding in public burnt pages which had Islamic text and Koranic verses on them, a police official told Agence France Presse.

W140 Full Story
Far-Right Group Shows Prophet Mohammed Cartoon at Berlin Mosque

A far-right group displayed a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed outside a Berlin mosque Saturday amid a heavy police presence, while far-leftists and anti-Nazis staged a counter-demonstration.

The protest by some 50 militants of the Pro Deutschland group aimed at Islamist extremists went ahead after a court allowed them to brandish copies of cartoons whose original appearance in Denmark sparked violent reactions across the globe.

W140 Full Story
Sarajevo's Ramadan Gunner Keeps Tradition Alive

In Bosnia, one of a handful of European countries with a Muslim majority population, Smail "Smajo" Krivic keeps a once-banned tradition alive during the holy month of Ramadan.

"He's here!" children cry, crowding around the 59-year-old as he arrives in Sarajevo's old town where he is the official Ramadan gunner who fires a cannon to signal the end of the daily dawn-to-dusk fast.

W140 Full Story
Saudi Shiites Mark Iran-Inspired Jerusalem Day

Small groups of demonstrators from Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority marked an Iranian-inspired annual protest against Israel in the oil-rich east of the Sunni-dominated kingdom on Friday, witnesses said.

Chanting slogans against the Jewish state and its U.S. ally, some of the demonstrators carried pictures of Iran's revolutionary leader, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who launched the annual Quds (Jerusalem) Day commemorations around the Shiite world and beyond, the witnesses said.

W140 Full Story
Tunisian Alarm at Salafist Assault On 'Un-Islamic' Culture

Tunisia's resurgent Salafists have succeeded in disrupting a string of cultural events deemed un-Islamic, with artists and opposition media increasingly blaming the Islamist-led government for failing to rein them in.

The hardline Islamists on Wednesday prevented an Iranian group from performing at a Sufi music festival in Kairouan, south of Tunis, saying their Shiite chanting amounted to an attack on sacred Muslim values.

W140 Full Story
Seven Charged in Malaysia Toddler's 'Exorcism' Death

A Malaysian court on Friday charged seven family members, including the parents, over the death of a three-year-old girl who suffocated in a suspected exorcism ritual, media reports said.

Chua Seng Ban and his three-month-pregnant wife Lim She Lee, both aged 35, pleaded not guilty to charges of causing the death of Chua Wan Zuen, aged two years and nine months, at their home in the northern town of Bukit Mertajam.

W140 Full Story
New York Graffiti Haven Braces for Gentrification

Graffiti artists are used to escaping cops, jumping from roofs, and dodging trains, but New York painters who turned an abandoned factory into a street art legend now face their real nemesis: gentrification.

5Pointz in the borough of Queens is one of the city's most arresting sights -- a huge building plastered in brilliantly colored, skillfully executed graffiti works that have won international acclaim.

W140 Full Story