In Rio de Janeiro the first Museum of Brazilian Indigenous Peoples – Aldeia Maracanã is the popular name – will be demolished in order to make a parking area close to Maracanã Football Stadium for the World Cup 2014. Sergio Cabral, governor of Rio de Janeiro, justifies this as being a requirement of FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) and the Local Organizing Committee (LOC). The FIFA is denying this (BBC News).
Continue reading Aldeia Maracanã squatted
– Utrecht. On the 31st of January the Sahara Soul ‘caravan’ with Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba and Tamikrest (without Sidi Touré) ended up at the world music venue Rasa in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Before the press conference with Bassekou Kouyaté started, we spoke to Ousmane Ag Mossa of the Tuareg group Tamikrest. The Sahara Soul project stands for solidarity and unity of Mali. Bassekou is a great proponent of this, but Ousmane explains to us that the situation is much more complicated.
Continue reading “It is the music that bonds us, not the politics” – an interview with Ousmane Ag Mossa
The drug-related violence is mostly concentrated in the northern part of Mexico, spreading out to the rest of the country (BBC News), and can be shockingly extreme. One of the latest excesses is the assault on the Mexican band Kombo Kolombia. The band played a private show in a bar in Hidalgo, in the area known as Potrero Chico, and reported missing since then.
Continue reading Kombo Kolombia assaulted
The art of belly dance has always been controversial in Egypt. As long as the body is covered it is not obstructed, but the dance is hardly shown on public television and more or less in decline (Gulf News). This doesn’t mean that this traditional oriental dance is completely out of sight. It has even become a tool of protest! The actress, singer and belly dancer Sama al-Masri uploaded some satirical songs while dancing seductively. She is not pro-revolutionary as she voted for Ahmed Shafiq, but she is not a fan of the Muslim Brotherhood either.
Continue reading Muslim Brotherhood ridiculed in belly dance video
The 23-year old Indian girl, who was gang-raped in New Delhi, died last night in the hospital of Singapore. This horrible incident is making a harsh reality of India visible. In the rankings of TrustLaw, a news service run by Thomson Reuters, India turns out to be the worst country for a woman to live in (BBC News). In New Delhi there have been protests and the whole world has become a witness. It is very important to keep the subject on top of the agenda. A very welcome contribution to this is the voice of a young rapper from Kashmir.
Continue reading Rappers comment on the Delhi rape