Do you love Latin music but wish you knew your way around it better? La Onda Tropical - an exotic musical revolution, as it calls itself - will surely help.

Covering all kinds of Latin music including bossa nova, cumbia, flamenco, merengue, salsa and reggaeton, most of the articles link to MP3 streams so you can listen to the music as well as read about it.

Last Friday was an unusual day - the celebration of 6 different religious festivals fell on the same day. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists each celebrated an important festival. Time magazine examines the odds, which are apparently very small.

To mark the occasion, All things Pakistan blog published a thought-provoking article highlighting the different religious groups who have been celebrating in Pakistan.

Vietnam has experienced rapid economic growth over the last years (in 2000-2002 it was the world’s second fastest growing economy), however less than 10% of Vietnamese have a banking relationship. This means high growth prospects for the Vietnamese banking sector according to this article, which predicts more than 25% annual growth for banking revenues over the next 5-10 years.

However the most striking result of the study is the pronounced difference between attitudes of the young and old - the greatest of all the Asian countries, according to the study. Young people in Vietnam are more likely to have a bank account, own a debit card or take out a loan and have a greater openness towards foreign owned banks.

Meanwhile the Economist worries whether Vietnam’s economy is growing too fast, following large increases in the cost of living.

‘Pleasure and sustenance’ is the promise of Mandira and Aswin, authors of Ahaar, and it is jam packed with mouth-watering recipes for all kinds of Indian food. Appetising photographs of the food give you even more incentive to try out the dishes.

If you liked this…
More posts about food around the world from Topics of the World.

A collection of short stories about contemporary China which bring to life a side of China rarely seen from outside. These are stories of ordinary people, such as Ruolan, who faces alone the difficulties of growing into a teenager as her mother is sick and her father is away working for most of the year.

The stories reflect the traces of China’s history as well as the effects of recent rapid developmment and the huge contrast between village and city life which has evolved as a consequence. The mood can be bleak at times, but undoubtedly gives a tantalising insight into Chinese culture.

More information about A Thousand Years of Good Prayers from Amazon .

Take a look at Blogs of the World to read more about life in China.

Rageh inside Iran: Rageh Omaar, a Somalian born former BBC reporter visited Iran over the summer of 2006. While there he filmed this fascinating documentary about what life is really like for the Iranian people of Tehran, whom he describes as “dynamic, energetic and warm”.

This trailer gives an idea of the content if you are short of time. The full length version of the programme lasts for 90 minutes and is unfortunately only available in installments. (there is a full version available on Google Video but the picture quality is quite bad) If you have the patience to load them all it is well worth the watch!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

Link is courtesy of Mr Behi’s Iranian blog. As an Iranian himself he knows what he is talking about when he describes this as “a truly fair report” of his complex country.

Rageh Omaar writes here about his quest to follow the lives of ordinary Iranians.

Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries on earth, and suffers from severe flooding almost every year. This can be disastrous for the rice crops, which cannot survive if they stay flooded for more than 3 days. Since around two thirds of the population make their living from rice crops, a bad flood can cause many problems.

Now the International Rice Research Institute, based in Manila, has developed a strain of rice which can endure flooding for at least 10 days. This article from Al Jazeera describes how the new strain of rice can help farmers in Bangladesh.