Of minor importance in the West, calligraphy is the paramount art of the Muslim world. Firm on its seventh-century foundations, it is still vital today, an esthetic discipline that also has deep religious significance.

King Midas of Phrygia, the legends tell us, was afflicted with the Golden Touch and with ass's ears. Today, 2,700 years after his death, we can look on his face again, thanks to an extraordinary scientific detection team.

In Opa-locka, everything had a dome and a minaret, thanks to aviator Glenn Curtiss and the heat of the 1920s Florida land boom. Today, after decades of decay, Opa-locka has a restored City Hall, and a new sense of hope.

Since 1962, when three of the last free-living oryx were captured, conservationists have been working to preserve this elegant desert antelope and then to reintroduce it to its native range. They may now have succeeded.

Famous for 700 years, traditional handloomed Benaadiri cloth has withstood American cotton and Eastern synthetics, and must now face Somalia's own new textile mills - yet its stubborn, resourceful weavers weave on.