ARTS & CULTURE

Photo: The "Baker" explosion, part of Operation Crossroads, a nuclear weapon test by the United States military at Bikini Atoll, Micronesia, on 25 July 1946. Credit: United States Department of Defense (either the U.S. Army or the U.S. Navy), Library of Congress.

From Crossroads to Godzilla: The Cinematic Legacies of The First Postwar Nuclear Tests

Viewpoint by Timothy Noël Peacock

Dr Timothy Noël Peacock FRHistS is a Lecturer in History at the University of Glasgow, founder/co-director of the Arts interdisciplinary Games and Gaming Research Lab (GGLab), and a Visiting Fellow at the British Library Eccles Centre. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

GLASGOW (IDN) — As I sat in a darkened cinema in 1998, mesmerised and unnerved by the opening nuclear bomb explosions that framed the beginning of Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla, it felt like I was watching the most expensive special effect in history.

: Opinion Editor; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 24 July 2021

Photo (Left to Right): Bandula Vithanarachchi of TTV Media Hub and Manish Uprety F.R.A.S. of ALCAP

ALCAP Ventures into Sri Lanka for Joint Movie Production

By Niba Mirza*

COLOMBO (IDN) — Sri Lanka which from time immemorial is linked to South America through the Indian Ocean is now also connected through Joint Movie/ Documentary co-production and audiovisual exchange.

The Asociación Latinoamericana de Comunicación Audiovisual Parlamentaria, ALCAP, or the Latin American Parliamentary Association of Audiovisual Communication, signed a MOU with TTV Media Hub of Sri Lanka so that bridges between Sri Lanka and South America can be diversified and strengthened via enhanced Audiovisual exchange and Joint Movie Production.

: Asia Editor; SUSTAINABILITY; Quality Education; 20 July 2021

Photo: Banner Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium

Belgium to Return Plundered Artworks to DR Congo

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — Belgium is the latest European country to promise to return artworks plundered from its former Congolese colony, as it seeks to confront its brutal colonial past.

Belgium’s Africa Museum has said up to 2,000 works, including statues, musical instruments and weapons, were acquired illegally during the colonial rule of a swathe of central Africa, mostly the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 12 July 2021

Photo: The late Professor Mzilikazi Khumalo helped create the new South African National Anthem, Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika. (Bongiwe Mchunu/ANA)

Moving Tributes for South Africa's Iconic Composer

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — Two anthems, one country. Such was the inspiration for President Nelson Mandela in 1994 to declare that both "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" (Lord bless Africa) and "Die Stem van Suid-Afrika" (English: "The Call of South Africa")—the state anthem inherited from the previous apartheid government—would be the national anthems of the new South Africa.

: Global Information Network; ARTS & CULTURE; 30 June 2021

Image: Memorial to Dulcie September in the Basque/Spanish town of Guernica. Wikimedia Commons.

Life of Anti-Apartheid Activist Dulcie September Profiled in New Documentary

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — South African anti-apartheid activist Dulcie September was the representative of the African National Congress (ANC) in France, Luxembourg, and Switzerland until her murder outside of ANC offices in Paris in 1988. Despite an array of clues, her killer was never identified and the story of the 52-year-old activist drifted into oblivion.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 14 June 2021

Photo: Tsitsi Dangarembga in November 2006 during a UK tour. C BY-SA 3.0

Zimbabwean Novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga Called ‘Voice of Hope’

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — For her “ability to capture and communicate vital truths even amidst times of upheaval”, Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Dangarembga will receive the PEN Pinter prize in memory of the Nobel laureate Harold Pinter.

Dangarembga is the author of Nervous Conditions, which she wrote when she was 25, and which was described by Doris Lessing as one of the most important novels of the 20th century.

: Global Information Network; ARTS & CULTURE; 14 June 2021

Photo: Tahua-Reva … the sacred mountain in Tahiti-Iti. Image: #ProtectTahuaReva

Tahitian Community Keen To Save Endangered Sacred Mountain

By Asia Pacific Report News desk

TAHITI (IDN) — A collective of community groups in Tahiti, trying to preserve a historical-cultural icon at Tautira, have condemned the Tahitian government for “deliberately trying to destroy our heritage”.

The iconic Tahua-Reva is the community’s sacred mountain on the southeastern tip of Tahiti-Iti, the smaller section adjoining the main island of Tahiti.

: Kalinga Seneviratne; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 17 May 2021

Photo: Nelson Mandela's former house, now Mandela Family Museum, Soweto, Johannesburg. CC BY-SA 3.0

Corona May Shutter South Africa’s Beloved Heritage Museums

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — Popular exhibits at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg and other legacy museums are barely surviving and may close over funding shortfalls due to COVID-19.

A pair of boxing gloves worn by Nelson Mandela at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, one of the most popular exhibits, is now covered with dust in a darkened room, according to Mfuneko Toyana, writing for Reuters.

: Global Information Network; ARTS & CULTURE; 11 May 2021

Photo: The statue of Duke Ellington in New York’s Central Park. Source: UNAI

Musings on Jazz and the 30th Anniversary of the 1991 Windhoek Declaration on a Free Press

By Ramu Damodaran

The writer is Chief, United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) hosted in the Department of Global Communications. Following are excerpts of the OpEd, first published in #WhyWeCare on May 7.

NEW YORK (IDN | UNAI) — Last weekend was bookended by two celebratory observances, the International Day of Jazz on April 30, and World Press Freedom Day on May 3.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 10 May 2021

UNESCO Creative Cities of Music Celebrate Intl. Jazz Day

By Robert Johnson

PARIS (IDN | UNESCO) — As the great Nina Simone said, "Jazz is not just music, it is a way of life, it is a way of being, a way of thinking", says UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It adds: "The story of Jazz is written into the quest for human dignity, democracy and civil rights. It has given strength to the struggle against discrimination and racism."