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Renoir Painting Is an Unlikely U.S. Flea Market Find

A box of bric-a-brac purchased for several dollars at a Virginia flea market contained an unlikely treasure: a painting by French Impressionist master Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

The canvas, which shows a scene along the Seine River titled "Paysage Bords de Seine," is scheduled to be auctioned later this month by the Potomack Company, an auction house in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside Washington, DC.

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Swazi King Mswati III Woos Investors with Culture

Swaziland is poor in resources, so King Mswati III is courting investors with his kingdom's vast cultural traditions as he tries to lift the nation out of an economic crisis.

Every year the nation's international trade fair coincides with the famous reed dance, a massive showcase of local culture in which tens of thousands of young women swarm across the kingdom to dance bare-breasted in beaded mini-skirts and colorful pompoms for the king at his royal palace.

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Arab Author Eltayeb on Sudan Voyage of Discovery

He speaks with a German accent and prefers coffee to Sudan's favourite, tea, but three decades after last setting foot in his ancestral home Sudan, Arab author Tarek Eltayeb has returned on a voyage of discovery.

Eltayeb, 52, has published 10 books including two novels that chronicle the immigrant experience which shaped his own lif.

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Topsy-Turvy Weather Leaves Winemakers in a Spin

Record rainfall, cold snaps, hail storms and rampant vine disease: the conditions for making wine in large parts of France and in England have rarely been as tough as they have been this year.

Yet winemakers on both sides of the Channel are defiantly optimistic that 2012 could still turn out to be a vintage to remember for its quality as well as for the financially devastating impact of low yields.

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Christians, Muslims, Jews Call for Peace from Sarajevo

Leaders of Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Muslim and Jewish communities Sunday made a pressing call for peace from Bosnia which was the scene of the worst atrocities committed in Europe since World War II.

Stressing the "commitment of Serb people to the strengthening of peace" Serb Orthodox Church Patriarch Irinej said he wished that the future of peoples in the Balkans be "freed from the tragic and painful experiences of the past."

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Chileans March to Remember Pinochet Victims

Thousands of Chileans took to the streets Sunday in a march to remember those abducted and killed in the coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power, almost 39 years after the turmoil.

Police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the crowd after some marchers threw rocks at government buildings and destroyed some traffic lights.

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Syrian Writer in Hiding Unable to Collect Award

In hiding in Damascus since the start of Syria's anti-regime revolt in March 2011, a prominent dissident writer said on Friday he is unable to collect a prestigious award from the Netherlands.

The Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development award is "actually a tribute to the Syrian people and the Syrian revolution," author Yassin al-Haj Saleh, who was jailed from 1980 to 1996, told Agence France Presse.

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Activists to Protest Spanish Bull-Spearing Festival

Animal rights activists said Friday they would protest a centuries-old festival in central Spain which a bull is chased and then lanced to death.

Hundreds of people, many on horseback, are expected to mark the Toro de la Vega festival in Tordesillas on Tuesday by chasing a bull into a plain near the town and then throwing lances into the animal until it dies.

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Chinese 'Blind Spot' For Western Readers

A potent mix of state censorship, conservative publishing choices and scant translation means international readers are given a narrow view of contemporary China, industry critics say.

There are the occasional books by Chinese authors that hit the international bestseller lists such as the blockbuster "Wild Swans" by Jung Chang, which has sold millions worldwide, and Adeline Yen Mah's "Falling Leaves".

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Fires Dim on Chinese Art Market

A year ago, China was the sensation of the international art market, but as New York auction houses prepare next week's autumn sales of Asian works, the Chinese dragon has clearly lost some fire.

"It's no longer break-neck," Henry Howard-Sneyd, vice chairman for Asian art at Sotheby's, told Agence France Presse.

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