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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – The New York Times is still recovering from the verbal bashing it received from Kenyan writers shocked and angered by the paper’s outdated references to Africa in a recent ad for the job of Nairobi Bureau Chief.
How far has Africa come, wondered educator Alice Wairimu Nderitu, since the day when posters portrayed wild animals with the title “The Highlands of British East Africa as a Winter Home for Aristocrats”?
By Krishan Dutta
PARIS (IDN) – The World Heritage Committee has inscribed a total of 29 new sites on the World Heritage List – one in Africa, two in the Arab States, ten in the Asia Pacific region, 15 in Europe and North America and one in Latin America. The List now features 1,121 sites in 167 countries.
The Committee approved the removal from the List of World Heritage in Danger of the sites of Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works (Chile) and Birthplace of Jesus: the Church of the Nativity and Pilgrimage Route, Bethlehem (Palestine). One property has been added to the List of World Heritage in Danger: the Islands and Protected Areas of the Gulf of California (Mexico).
By Rene Wadlow
The writer is President of the Association of World Citizens, and author of ‘Aime Cesaire: (1913 - 2008) A Black Orpheus’.
GENEVA (IDN) – Aimé Césaire, whose birth anniversary we note on June 26, was a Martinique poet and political figure, a cultural bridge builder between the West Indies, Europe and Africa. A poet, teacher, and political figure, he had been mayor of the capital city, Fort-de-France for 56 years from 1945 to 2001, and a member of the French Parliament without a break from 1945 to 1993.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – Binyavanga Wainaina, one of Africa’s best-known authors and gay rights activist, has died in Nairobi after a short illness. He was 48.
Wainaina won the 2002 Caine prize for African writing. Credited with founding the literary magazine and collective Kwani? and advancing the fight for LGBTQ rights in Africa, he made headlines around the world in 2014, when he responded to a wave of anti-gay laws around the continent by publicly outing himself in a short essay, published to mark his 43rd birthday.
By Milena Melnikova*
NAYRN, Kyrgyzstan (IDN) – The culture of smoking hookah is becoming popular among young adults in the Central Asian countries of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, because of its affordability as well as due to its being legal as a way to relax and get rid of the accumulated stress, in the absence of other forms of entertainment. Cafes and restaurants seem like an expensive choice, discotheques are almost non-existent here.
By ACP Press
BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – Assistant-Secretary-General of the ACP Group, Léonard-Emile Ognimba, together with the Director General for Development and International Cooperation of the European Commission, Stefano Manservisi, officially launched the new ACP-EU Culture Programme on the occasion of the 26th edition of The Ouagadougou Pan-African Film and Television Festival (FESPACO), on February 24, 2019 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | OUAGADOUGOU (IDN) – Africa’s major film event 'FESPACO' – on the scale of the Oscars – celebrated its 50th year February 23 to March 2, 2019 with more films, more visitors and a disappointing showing of women selected to compete for any major prize.
And women are not having it. "Can it be that in 50 years, there hasn't been a single woman capable of telling a great story to win the Fespaco?" said South African filmmaker/actress Xolile Tshabalala, who features in “Miraculous Weapons”, directed by Jean-Pierre Bekolo, a Cameroonian.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – A baobab tree has fallen with the passing of a one-of-a-kind musician. Those were the words spoken of the legendary Mama Dorothy Masuka by South African Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa.
She was hailed alongside her friend, the late veteran star Miriam Makeba, for using music to highlight the plight of South Africans during the apartheid era.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK | HARARE (IDN) – After 67 albums and a score of awards and honorary degrees, Zimbabwe’s musical legend Oliver Mtudkudzi – affectionately known as ‘Tuku’ – lost his long battle with diabetes at the Avenues Clinic in Harare. He was 66.
He was buried January 27, with music, singing and dancing by thousands of his adoring fans.
On the Afropop music website, guitarist Banning Eyre recalled his friend: “Born in 1952, 'Tuku' grew up during the final decades of Rhodesian rule. He was a contemporary of Thomas Mapfumo, and both came of age during the brutal independence struggle of the 1970s, as Zimbabweans fought hard for liberation from the oppressive, racist Rhodesian regime.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) – After a brief spin as President of South Africa, the multi-talented Jacob Zuma is plunging into a new and exciting career path – he’ll be a recording artist of liberation songs from the anti-apartheid struggle.
A full-length album will be recorded in April during the Articulate Africa project, a program of national and international literary writings.
Zuma, who was forced to step down in February 2018 over multiple graft scandals, is remembered for singing and dancing at rallies during his tenure.
