This unique event brings together people from around the world to celebrate their cultural background in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, Germany. Traditional clothes from around the globe, exotic foods and music from different communities combine to make for a great party atmosphere.

Left: Thai performers participate in the annual Carnival of Cultures parade through the district of Kreuzberg on May 11, 2008 in Berlin, Germany.

Lo-Fi Culture Scene have been around for a little while now, and they're just about the release their new single 'Abstract' through KIDS. We catch up with Jocob (vocals) to see how everything's going...

How long has Lo-Fi Culture Scene been going for?
Together we've been playing for around 3 years, not always as a band but just playing songs - but we've been writing our own songs for maybe just over a year, probably a year and a half.

What bands influence you?
We're each influenced by different bits and pieces - but I say we all agree on Coldplay, Radiohead, Franz Ferdinand, and Bombay Bicycle Club - but I know that the others love Interpol and Editors, and i really like Foals, Grammatics & Cajun Dance Party - but it changes - our manager just got us to go out and buy a load of albums, I think my favourite of them is Broken Social Scene, they're wicked.

You’re signed to KIDS, but presumably you’ve been offered other deals, so why did you choose KIDS over any others?
Well, we chose KIDS because they have a similar way of thinking to us, and also because they are really nice guys, and great guys as we know they've worked with The Wombats & The Whip amongst others... - we'd been offered a few major deals, which were tempting, but we wanted to keep at least the first single really close to our fan base, and we really want to time everything well, and we want to keep the ball moving but we've got GCSE's coming up, and yeah everything just seemed to connect if we went with kids, so we did...

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Salmon don't hit the headlines as often out here on the West Coast as they did in the 1980s and '90s, when they were being overfished.

They ought to again, though, given what's now happening out in the Pacific Ocean and this region's rivers.

Chances are you probably haven't heard about it yet, but we're in another salmon crisis, one that's devastating the coast from California all the way up to Vancouver and beyond.
The fish simply aren't swimming back in the hoped-for numbers and the shortages are historic.

For the first time in 150 years, California and Oregon shut down the $300-million chinook salmon fishery. Washington state has all but followed suit. U.S. fishermen are now seeking disaster relief.

Off our own shores, things aren't much better. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has told 94 native bands that they will have to ration their catch of Fraser River sockeye this year, another first.

The commercial sockeye fishery won't likely happen this year on the Fraser, either.

Watching all of this with much trepidation is Alex Rose, a local writer who once worked in DFO as a communications strategist. He's just finished writing Who Killed the Grand Banks? (his answer is greedy East Coast fishermen, DFO mismanagement, botched science and the industrialized fishing fleet).

After two years of researching, talking to the world's fisheries experts, he believes the Pacific salmon fishery may very well go the way of the Grand Banks cod.

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Paul Erhahon was killed in east London after being set upon by youths armed with knives, baseball bats and a samurai sword.

What does the 14-year-old's death tell us about Britain's urban youth culture?

During the trial of Paul Erhahon's killers it became clear the attack on him was partly linked to something as seemingly trivial as postcodes - in this case E11 and E15.

The Old Bailey jury heard a rivalry existed in estates close to Leytonstone town centre.

There was never any suggestion Paul was part of a gang himself and he appeared to be an innocent victim of the feud.

Jurors heard Paul was talking to his friend in the foyer of a block of flats when he was summoned by a member of the gang - which quickly led to the mass assault involving teenagers armed with an array of weapons.

Paul and his friend were unarmed and stood no chance.

The violent flurry left Paul lifeless while his friend, who survived, was left "for dead".

Paul's mother fled the courtroom in tears as the jury heard her son was beaten as he lay on the ground.

At the Old Bailey, prosecutor Jonathan Turner QC said the teenager's death resulted from a "senseless acts of gratuitous violence".

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The average age of first-time mothers in the United States has been rising steadily over the past four decades up from 21.4 in 1970 to a little over 25 in 2005, the National Center for Health Statistics reports.

That was the age at which Emily Scruby met her future husband, Michael Boggs, during a Katrina relief effort in Pearlington, Miss. They'd been living together for seven months when she found out she was pregnant.

"We tried to use condoms and be responsible," she says. Laughing, she adds, "But I have a baby."

Their daughter, Ayda, is now about a year old. The family lives near Charlottesville, Va. More women like Scruby Boggs say they are putting off childbearing to attend college and launch careers. But some experts see a tension between that societal trend and reproductive realities. Biologically speaking, the longer women wait to get pregnant, the more difficult it is to conceive.

Fertility seems to peak at about age 22, says Marcel Cedars, director of reproductive endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco. After that, it gradually declines, and past the age of 35, pregnancy is much harder to achieve.

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The six-day Cholistan Festival kicked off at Alhamra, The Mall, on Tuesday. The festival showcases the lifestyle and culture of the people of Cholistan.

The festival includes cultural dances, dramas, Cholistani food, shoes, pottery, jewellery, and clothes.

Dance troupes whirled like dervishes and moved back and forth to drumbeats. Wind instruments, which make up a major part of Cholistan’s heritage, were also being played.

The night’s favourite dish was sojanjana, made up of minced meat and vegetables. Onion chapati, lassi, saag and traditional drinks were also presented for sale.

Embroidery on display

Flassi: It is made of camel hair and cotton yarn. It is used as wall hangings, decoration piece and carpets.

Gindi or Rilli: It is made of small pieces of colourful cloth and needlework. It can be used as wall hangings, bed covers, carpets and blankets.

Changaries: These are made of palm leaves in several colours with beautiful patterns and geometric designs. These are used for keeping chapattis and also as wall decoration.

Khalti: It is like a purse embroidered on top with multi-coloured threads.

Alhamra Executive Director Asghar Hussain Gillani said, “Cholistan is a very deprived area. We should organise such events to promote Cholistani culture.”

The word Cholistan is derived from cholna, which means moving. The Cholistanis lead a semi-nomadic life, moving from one place to another in search of water and fodder for their animals.

A member of the L'Acadco dancers interprets the music at the opening ceremony of the global reggae conference at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, earlier this year. In July, the 2008 Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference, championed by the international Association for Cultural Studies, will be held at the UWI. - Nathaniel Stewart/Freelance Photographer

More than 650 international participants from 68 countries will converge on the grounds of the University of the West Indies in July to participate in the first cultural and academic conference of its kind in the Caribbean. The 2008 Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference championed by the international Association for Cultural Studies (ACS) will touch down in Kingston from July 3-7.

This biennial conference has been traversing the globe ever since its first staging in Tampere, Finland, in 2000. The United Kingdom, the United States and Turkey have played hosts to previous conferences. This is the first time in the Caribbean.

"Being a site of conquest, dislocation, crossings, enslavement, rebellion, memory, survival, and immense creativity and heritage, we thought it would be a very relevant site for the seventh biennial staging of the conference," said local organising committee chairperson Professor Barry Chevannes.

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To many people in Kano state and neighbouring Northern communities, Gidan Dan Hausa is only a symbol of colonial administration; it was there that the first education secretary of the Kano province lived, and it was there that the second western school was established after the Nagarta Schools established in Sokoto in 1905.

Before the coming of colonialists, Gidan Dan Hausa was a zoological garden, the first of its kind in the history of Hausa civilisation. It was set up by Sarkin (Emir of) Kano Abdullahi Maje Karofi in 1855, and was to later become the residence of Sarkin ban Kano, district head of Nassarawa.

This exotic traditional architectural design was to draw to itself so much attention due to its fabulous and aesthetic beauty, and its closeness to the emir's resting palace in Nassarawa further added to its significance to the royalty of the traditional institution.

When colonialists came with new policies of administration for the emirate, the house became vacant, and for years it stood unoccupied until the deployment of the chief education officer of the Kano province, Mr Hanns Vischer (known as Dan Hausa), who was attracted by the unique beauty of the building and demanded that he be allowed to use it as his residence.

It was Resident Kargil that first introduced the posting of district heads outside the city with the creation of new districts in the emirate. This led to many of Kano's district heads leaving the city to resides in the newly created districts, they are to serve as colonial heads in those areas under the new indirect rule.

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The village is gearing up for its sixth annual Cultural Diversity Day from 1 to 7 p.m. Saturday, May 10 at Veterans Park, corner of Royal Palm Beach Bouelvard and Sparrow Drive.

"It's to promote awareness of our diverse cultures through our community...to share, learn and enjoy our diverse cultures and heritages," said Elet Cyris, cultural director for the Caribbean American for Community Involvement in Florida. "Each ethnic group has a lot to offer each other. This will make people more comfortable with different cultures."

At the event there will be variety of cultures to experience, from Japanese, Portuguese, Chilean to African. Some of the entertainment includes Do Wop singers, movement art dance, a Kenyan band and Japanese music.

Cyris said she expects more than 1,000 people to attend the festival. The event is being presented by the village of Royal Palm Beach and Caribbean American for Community Involvement in Florida.

It may be the current European Capital of Culture, but Liverpool still has serious problems.

The statistics that confirm the city as the country's capital of deprivation prompted the Health is Wealth Commission, a non-governmental organisation funded by the University of Liverpool, to compile a report that gives a graphic insight into the scale of the problem.

The report shows that incapacity benefit levels in Liverpool are almost 75 per cent higher than the British average, with one in eight people of working age claiming benefits. It also found that people in the city are a third more likely to die from cancer, more than twice as likely to die from liver disease and have a life expectancy three years lower than the national average.

In addition, every day nine people in the region die from smoking-related disease, five die from heart disease or stroke, and six die from cancer. The report also reveals that the city has 15,000 drug users and that 178,000 people in the area are classed as being in poor health.

The commission has drafted an action plan to help alleviate the city's poverty woes, including a proposal to create an institute in the city to study local health improvement.

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