Art and movie

HAVANA, Mar 19 (IPS) - Cuban hip hop music is past its peak, and is struggling to survive in a context where it lacks performance venues, receives only weak institutional support, and has to compete with more commercial music styles alien to the critical discourse that the movement has promoted since its origins.

SANTIAGO, Mar 14 (IPS) - Fears of censorship were triggered by a decision by Chile's public television station to postpone the broadcast of a documentary on the 1879-1883 war between Chile, Peru and Bolivia in response to a request by Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley, who had been contacted by the Peruvian government.

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 13 (IPS) - Armed with a computer and their passion for literature, a group of blind people in Argentina have created the first digital library for Spanish-speaking people who are visually impaired. It already has some 20,000 volumes and over 3,000 subscribers in 40 countries.

A CITY photographer who famously set fire to ?20,000 pounds worth of pictures over a dispute with the city council is about to unveil a new exhibition.

A MASS volunteering event will take place in the Capital next Thursday for staff at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop.

FORMER Bishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway, chairman of the Scottish Arts Council, will join crime writer Christopher Brookmyre for the city's two-week Festival of Scottish Writing in May, organised by the city council's libraries service.

WILL the arts become a battleground during this May's election? What would Scottish cultural policy look like if the SNP could indeed forge a governing coalition?

WE desperately need a new generation of councillors who are able to give a lead

THE award-winning Scottish artist Derrick Guild, whose hyper-realistic but quirky paintings sell for five-figure sums from his New York gallery, is heading for the Ascension Islands with ?3,000 worth of paint and canvases.

A BABY girl cost the National Galleries of Scotland ?350,000 yesterday, as the NGS made a major investment in the work of sculptor Ron Mueck.