LONDON (AFP) - Counterculture and hippy life are served up in a visual and musical blend at London‘s Victoria and Albert Museum, where a new exhibition delves into the swinging sixties. “With this exhibition we explore the era-defining significance and impact of the late 1960s upon life today,” says Victoria Broackes, curator of the exhibition “You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966-1970,” which opens on Saturday. “The years from 1966 to 1970 -- just 1,826 days -- undeniably shap

FLORENCE, Italy (AP) -- Italian taxi drivers and concierges are being enlisted to encourage tourists to visit some museums. In Florence, supermarket customers raised 250,000 euros ($275,000) by opting to help the city’s art instead of receiving store loyalty rewards. And in Venice, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection is partnering with big-name businesses including ones that make watches, grappa and cologne.Whatever the formula, museums are increasingly looking to private-sector donations, collabora

NEW YORK (AFP) - Kanye West showed the loftiness of his ambition Wednesday by commandeering the same presidential park Hillary Clinton used for kick-starting her White House run to unveil his latest fashion collection of body suits and stilettos.Yeezy Season Four is the rapper and global sensation’s latest collaboration for Adidas, which has seen him fend off complaints the clothes are too expensive for the mass market he has in mind.The event kicked off more than an hour and a half late at Four

This year's Cultural Communication Forum organized by Corea Image Communication Institute invited 20 leading cultural figures from 18 countries to experience Korean culture and to discuss ways to promote cultural communication across national borders. Following is an excerpt from interviews with some of the delegates who attended the three-day program.Benson PuahAfter building a notable career in hotel construction and management, Benson Puah reached a turning point in his life. “I asked myself,

Traditional markets, theme cafes and palace visits in traditional Korean garment hanbok are the top three Korean trends both foreigners and Koreans alike would like to try, a Corea Image Communication Institute survey on Koreans’ and foreigners’ perceptions of Korea showed.The results of the survey of 307 Koreans and 223 foreigners were unveiled during the CICI’s Culture Communication Forum 2016 Night, held at the Grand Hyatt Seoul on Tuesday, also showed that Koreans and non-Koreans were both p

“The Terror Years: From al-Qaeda to the Islamic State”By Lawrence WrightKnopf (384 pages, $28.95)“The Terror Years,” Lawrence Wright’s wide-ranging and intensively reported collection of stories on the Middle East in the 9/11 age, begins with a pair of masterful profiles. The first, “The Man Behind Bin Laden,” tracks the upbringing and radicalization of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of al-Qaida. The second, “The Counterterrorist,” explores the career and death of John P. O’Neill, the FBI

“Hell Fire” By Karin Fossum, translated from the Norwegian by Karl DixonHoughton Mifflin Harcourt (272 pages, $24)With Scandinavian crime fiction all the rage and enormous attention paid to writers like Jo Nesbo, Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, it’s almost, well, criminal, that Norway’s Karin Fossum isn’t better known.Translated into dozens of languages and winner of the Glass Key Award for best Nordic crime novel, Fossum’s exceptional qualities are on view in her new novel, “Hell Fire,” the

Being a parent is always full of ups and downs, of course, but being the parent of an autistic child, Carolyn Parkhurst writes in her splendid new novel, is a lot like riding a roller coaster that never stops to let you off and catch your breath. Sometimes you marvel at your child’s brilliance. Often, though, you are exhausted by her behavior. You may be prone, like Alexandra Hammond in Parkhurst’s “Harmony,” to compare your growing helplessness to the proliferation of bedbugs in your house.“It’

Standing in the heart of Koreatown, novelist Krys Lee turned around.Was this direction to the Korean market where her family made a pilgrimage every weekend and her mother would rent her cache of Korean videotapes? Which way was the tofu restaurant she and her pastor father walked to countless times after her mother died and there was no one to cook him Korean food?And where was her father’s final apartment where he lived, broken, until he suffered a heart attack mid-sermon at the pulpit?The gle

MONTPELIER, Vermont (AP) -- Best-selling children’s book author and illustrator Anna Dewdney, who gained fame with her series of Llama Llama stories, has died at age 50.Dewdney, who had a 15-month battle with brain cancer, died Saturday at her home in Chester, publisher Penguin Young Readers said. “The entire Penguin Young Readers family is heartbroken,” Jen Loja, president of Penguin Young Readers, said in a statement. “And as we grieve, we also celebrate Anna’s life, in dedicating ourselves to

Culture leaders discuss international image of Korea and how to preserve, communicate its uniqueness

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - The 6,148 whiskey shots perched atop glasses of energy drink waited for the push that might send them tumbling into the record books -- just another night in Dubai, and another chance to make a certain kind of history.Superlatives like “the world's biggest” and “the world’s first” are almost as ubiquitous as the skyscrapers and mega-projects that have come to define this city-state on the Arabian Peninsula, home to the tallest building and the busiest internati