The cultural chief in Gothenburg said Tuesday he was surprised to hear that Peru plans to sue Sweden's second city for the alleged theft of pre-Columbian textiles on exhibit at its museum.

"This comes as a total surprise to us, because we've had a good dialogue with Peru ever since they demanded we return the items in question," Bjoern Sandmark, who heads Gothenburg city's culture service division, told Agence France Presse.

Pope Benedict XVI on Monday reviewed work by 60 artists during the debut of a program he spearheaded hoping to strengthen links between the cultural world and the Roman Catholic Church.

The exhibition, titled "Splendor of the truth, beauty of the Truth", featured mainly European artists, sculptures, architects and musicians who agreed to display their work at the Vatican's Paul VI Audience Hall.

Armed commandos cordoned off a medieval Hindu temple in south India on Monday after gold coins and precious stones worth billions of dollars were found in its vaults.

The chief minister of southern Kerala state, Oommen Chandy, said local authorities needed to take precautions and had set up a three-tier security ring involving 100 armed police.

For decades, the only foreign visitors to venture into Papua were gold-diggers, anthropologists, missionaries and soldiers fighting imperial wars.

But the vast, western half of New Guinea island is slowly opening its doors to tourists as a "hidden paradise", a land of ancient tribal cultures, glittering reefs, soaring glaciers and teeming wildlife.

More than 22,000 youngsters -- from China to Canada -- took to the stage as a single choir Friday in the small Baltic republic of Estonia, where music is seen as a bedrock of the national identity.

A total of 22,239 performers gave the opening performance of a three-day song and dance festival, tapping into an unbroken tradition stretching back almost 150 years, organisers said.

At the international airport in Chongqing in southwest China, travelers are greeted with a massive sign inviting them to "sing red songs" and spread the Communist party's good word.

Thirty-five years after the death of Mao Zedong, the revolutionary spirit is alive and thriving in this teeming province-sized mega-city, despite the more capitalist leanings adopted by the world's second-largest economy.

With the aim of promoting cultural exchange week between the Canadian and Lebanese communities, the McGill Alumni Association in Lebanon organized “McGill Maple Syrup Week” at the American University of Beirut on July 1-2, 2011.

Offering free pancakes and maple syrup outside West Hall, Canadian Embassy volunteers explained to visitors the importance of maple syrup in Canada’s cultural fabric.

It has taken half a century, but archaeologists in Cambodia have finally completed the renovation of an ancient Angkor temple described as the world's largest three dimensional puzzle.

The restoration of the 11th-century Baphuon ruin is the result of decades of painstaking work, hampered by tropical rains and civil war, to take apart hundreds of thousands of sandstone blocks and piece them back together again.

Tens of thousands of yoga fans are expected in Berlin this weekend for a huge festival organized in the German capital's 1930s Olympic Stadium by one of India's best-known gurus, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

The July 2-3 World Culture Festival is billed as a "unique celebration of harmony in diversity", bringing together a hoped-for 70,000 participants from 151 countries.

A historic train service from downtown Singapore to Malaysia faces its final run Thursday as part of a multibillion-dollar territorial settlement between the two neighbors.

The last train to Kuala Lumpur from Tanjong Pagar station in Singapore's port district is set to leave before Malaysia formally cedes ownership of the facility at midnight (1600 GMT), with railway buffs and tourists on board to mark the journey.