If you're tired of music festivals that require you to endure muddy mosh pits, stifling tents and rapaciously priced bottles of water, consider an escape to the plunging cliffs, turquoise waters and weathered citadels of Corsica. Every year, amid this Mediterranean island's gorgeous surroundings, musicians gather under the stars for Les Nuits de la Guitare . Since its humble beginnings more than 20 years ago in the hillside village of Patrimonio, the event has brought together virtuosos ...

I woke up this morning to discover that, despite my best efforts, I was still only married to my job. I had spent part of the night in Greenwich Village with the crowds outside the Stonewall Inn celebrating the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York state. I proposed to several passersby but every single one laughed. The thumping of "Y.M.C.A." on an adjacent boombox killed any possibility of romance. I had wandered down from a party about ...

The new arrivals at the drug rehab center in Chichevo, a tiny village two hours' drive east of Moscow, are usually given two weeks without chores to recover from the nausea, pain and sleeplessness of withdrawal. After that, between Bible study and prayer they have to start chopping firewood, hauling water from the village well or otherwise helping around the old wooden house. But a lot more leeway was allowed in the case of Irina Pavlova, ...

Sister Hong's brainwashing session began when her Bible class ended. Five peasant women had led the Catholic nun to a house in a distant village in Henan province two years ago so that she could teach the life of Jesus. Suddenly, the women vanished and a man entered. For the next five days he refused to let her leave and forced her to debate the Bible. He said the day of judgment is nigh. Jesus has returned. Chinathe Great Red ...

The angry, aggressive crowd formed within minutes of my arrival. Dozens of Muslim men, all in ankle-length galabias, came together in the middle of the dusty dirt path leading to the Church of the Two Martyrs in this poor Christian and Muslim village some 130 miles south of Cairo. They were determined to block access to what has become a sectarian sore: a church overrun by Muslim locals and desecrated, an act that has prompted desperate ...

As the residents of Moneygall ready themselves to play host to Barack Obama on May 23, many hope the visit will bring the Irish village exactly what the President's great-great-great-grandfather sought when he left there 150 years ago: prosperity. It takes less than a minute to drive through Obama's ancestral hometown, a sleepy and typical rural village whose main attractions are a single pub, a corner shop, a post office and a football field. But days before the President's arrival, the quiet that ...

South Lebanon Sunday witnessed its deadliest day since the month-long Israel-Hizballah 2006 war when 10 Palestinian demonstrators were reported shot dead and another 112 wounded as Israeli troops opened fire on protests along the border fence. The casualties came as a massive crowd of Palestinians gathered at Maroun er Ras, a small hilltop village overlooking the border with Israel, to commemorate the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba, or Catastrophe, when the state of Israel was established. By Sunday night, the militant Lebanese Shi'ite group ...

Shin Chang-seon seems to know everyone in Gapyeong, a small town about 45 miles northeast of Seoul. The 58-year-old president of the local beef association was once the village chief here; he now has a cattle farm with just over 100 cows. As he walks around town, residents approach him on the street to shake his hand and talk about local issues. But in farming-heavy Gapyeong , the conversation has shifted from countryside small talk to concern ...

Sometimes a little space is all that's needed to make things grow. That's the principle behind New Delhi's aptly named Greenhouse gallery. "In a country still ruled by posh, high-value art," says 30-year-old founder Avinash Kumar, "everyone can put up what they want here for two weeks." To date, Greenhouse has mounted a show of miniature books and an exhibition of photos by freewheeling collective Blind Boys. It has also begun to host happenings, typography workshops, readings and ...

First it was drinking. Then it was cell phones. Now text-messaging is the latest behind-the-wheel activity lawmakers are trying to curb. "All of my friends do it," says Sonalie Patel, 17, who lives in Elk Grove Village, Ill., and admits that she too occasionally sends texts despite a ban on cell phone use for drivers under 19 and adults with learners permits. "It's like an epidemic." Indeed, a Nationwide Insurance survey found that 18% of cell phone owners text ...