Iran held a one-day seminar on the impact of the Persian language on the regional languages of the Balkans at the International University of Novi Pazar in Serbia last week. Several Iranian and Serbian scholars and officials attended the seminar which was held by Iran’s cultural attaché’s office in Belgrade.

A Chinese government official has praised the culture of Saudi Arabia and said more needs to be done to strengthen ties between the two countries... The visit comes on the sidelines of the Chinese Culture Week that kicked off Saturday in Riyadh, to mark the 20th anniversary of diplomatic ties between China and Saudi Arabia.

The northern West Bank village of Masaha received a special book donation to its library from the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem on Tuesday. The donation included 40 books from Scholastic Books' My Arabic Library, in addition to a selection of 100 books produced by the United States Government's Regional Book Office in Cairo and Amman.

Indian novelists have joined the canon of modern literature, earning critical acclaim and topping bestseller lists in New York and London. Writers like Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth are known for colorful epics that weave Indian history and culture into personal dramas. Each book is a labor of love, a door-stopping tome.

For the younger, more urbanized generation in Africa, film may be the dominant artistic medium, but for the continent's older generations, music remains central to identity.

A handful of Palestinian women have taken up race car driving in the West Bank, and although there's been resistance, these women are too good to shut out.

An array of eight famous Japanese animated films will be screened at the National Cinema Centre on January 12-16. The event is being jointly held by the Japanese Culture Department, the Japanese Cultural Exchange Centre in Viet Nam, the Cinematographic Department and the National Cinema Centre.

President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) pledge to publish a cross-strait Chinese dictionary will be implemented in several phases, with the first stage, which is comprised of 5,000 characters and 30,000 phrases, to be made available online by the end of next year, former premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said yesterday