Lebanon is accusing Israel of usurping its most precious culinary specialties. It intends to create a geographical label to identify ‘authentic’ Lebanese cuisine. To further stress its point, Lebanon also intends to beat the largest hummus dish world record, currently held by Israel. Read more...

UNESCO will choose its new general director this evening. It's Farouk Hosni, Egyptian Culture Minister since 1986, who looks set to succeed Koïchiro Matsuura at the head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. But will the man who pledged to "burn" Israeli books really fit the bill? Read more...

A Japanese publishing firm has re-edited a translation of Adolf Hitler's ideological pamphlet, first published in 1924. But this edition has a new twist: it's a manga-style comic. It's made quite a splash in Japanese bookshops. Read more...  

Luis Soriano, an unemployed Colombian schoolteacher, spreads knowledge and literature to places where no librarian has ever set foot. He brings his books by donkeys to Colombia’s poorest and most isolated provinces. Read more...

One of our Observers in Russia, blogger Sean Guillory, has made us aware of an unusual addition to the country's "extremist" list. The authorities have added none other than, punks, to their blacklist. Read more...

American soldiers can now get closer to their Iraqi and Afghani neighbours before their feet hit the ground. With virtual teachers, soldiers learn the lingo and the local customs at the same time... in a virtual game. Read more...

French writer Jean-Marie Le Clézio has just received the Nobel Prize for Literature. For blogger Guillaume Thouroude, the award is proof that despite "American sniggers", French culture is not dead after all. Read more...

Language gaps and cultural misunderstandings are an integral part of daily life for Canadians dealing with their fellow countrymen from the other side of the French - British divide. This rather amusing sketch about the issue is also a serious warning about the future of Canadian culture, which according to the clip, faces near-extinction. Read more...

In Beirut, the restaurant "Buns and Guns" markets its sandwiches by giving them questionable names. Why don’t you try a Kalashnikov burger served on terrorist pita bread? In Lebanon, nobody seems to find the trend shocking or offensive. Read more...

“Miranda regresa” (“Miranda Returns”) is the first major film produced by President Hugo Chavez’s state-run production company. A historical saga, it depicts the life of Francisco de Miranda, leader of Venezuela's independence struggle against Spanish colonialism at the turn of the nineteenth century. Miranda dreamed of creating a republic called Colombia that would have covered a large chunk of South America. Read more...