“I studied law and marketing, and then, I went into the creative space and realized, actually, my best medium to communicate and to make any change was to use my best gift, which was music,” Bubu said.

Born in 1984 during the last decade of the apartheid regime in South Africa’s Eastern Cape — home of the Xhosa people — she was a child of the MTV generation who straddled between the worlds of globalization and the traditions of her homeland. But to really understand her heritage, she first had to leave South Africa to gain some perspective. In 2012, Bubu left her job in the corporate world and moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, in the United States.

“[I] packed my bags to go to the New Orleans Jazz Fest with my CDs, my demo CD, ‘Journey of the Heart,’ Bubu recounted. “I was supposed to stay five days during the Jazz Fest, and I stayed three months [instead].” 

In the Big Easy, a nickname for New Orleans, Bubu found her music community and understood that the people she met wanted to learn more about her culture back home. That’s when she started to incorporate South African music into her repertoire.

“When you travel in the world, people will look at you as an African girl, an African child, and try to understand the story of your people and your life. And that helped me dig a little bit deeper, and I realized that there was like a wealth of stuff sitting with me that I could share,” Bubu said.

In her 2019 album “Folklore – Chapter 1,” Bubu took a look back into traditional folk songs from South Africa, songs with themes that are important to her, such as spirit animals, respect for ancestors and the role of women. Then she presented the songs with an Indigenous folk sound to a new generation who, like Bubu, might have taken her own culture for granted. The album was awarded Best African Adult Contemporary Album at the 2020 South African Music Awards.

“The pull of music, the work, the culture, the heritage is so big that I can only do such a small part. But if I don’t give it meaning and interpret it for the modern day, then it’s just going to remain where it is, in the past,” she said.

The past is always present, and so is the future. Bubu’s album “Folklore – Chapter 2” is set to come later in 2023 as a continuation of her themes of community and tradition with a strong spiritual bent.

In the meantime, Bubu has a new album titled “Lockdown Lovestory,” with songs like “Feel It” with artist AfroNautiq that help give her music a contemporary soul sound.

The post South Africa’s Pilani Bubu has ‘jumped off the shoulder of giants’ to create music filled with tradition appeared first on The World from PRX.

Perhaps this is why news on Reddit and Twitter that Swedes don’t feed child guests dinner caused a stir online. As one poster explained, while over at a friend’s house as a child, the family ate dinner together – and the friend was expected to wait.

Some Swedes supported these claims, saying unannounced child guests often weren’t accounted for in meal planning, that it could be down to class, or food wasn’t offered “out of respect” for the parents of the visiting child – they might have planned dinner which would then be “wasted”.

Who is allowed to go without in a prosperous and inclusive society was debated under the hashtag #Swedengate, and ignited discussion about expectations of hospitality in Sweden and further abroad.

Not here to judge but I don’t understand this. How’re you going to eat without inviting your friend? pic.twitter.com/bFEgoLiuDB

— Seeker (@SamQari) May 26, 2022

The anthropology of food

The act of eating is steeped in cultural practice. Food and eating possess cultural meanings that impose order on what is eaten, when, how and by whom.

Social anthropologists have long studied how people eat and what this says about cultural norms.

In the 1960s, Claude Lévi-Strauss’ work among Brazilian Indigenous peoples highlighted ingrained cultural habits about food preparation and how these practices can inform a culture’s system of knowledge.

In the 1980s, Pierre Bourdieu’s analysis of French society showed how a person’s ability to exercise “good taste” is connected to the operation of power and their position in society.

The company we keep during mealtimes has also been explored by anthropologists. Maurice Bloch famously quipped:

in all societies, sharing food is a way of establishing closeness, while, conversely, the refusal to share is one of the clearest marks of distance.

It is easy to observe this in our own lives. We prefer to eat with friends rather than strangers. It is possible to sit too closely to people we don’t know and sometimes not sit closely enough to loved ones. There are observable differences in expected behaviours when consuming finger food versus a sit-down dinner.

Laughing at twitter finding out that Swedish people will not feed strangers ?? as a kid growing up here we knew to just go home around dinner time. On the flipside my mom would feed Swedish kids though.

— Lovette?️‍? (@lovettejallow) May 29, 2022

The kindness of a meal

The #Swedengate controversy demonstrates how cultural norms regulate behaviour and produce expectations.

In Australia — and seemingly most countries, accounting for the ensuing discussion on Reddit and Twitter — we believe physical presence should lead to a meal invitation.

As Lévi-Strauss wrote, eating with others is based on reciprocity: receiving guests is repaid through offering a meal.

Sorry I can’t make our meeting in the morning I found out it’s weird to feed your guest dinner in Sweden so obviously I had to read 500 people discuss it until 3AM

— Maggie Mae Fish ?? (@MaggieMaeFish) May 29, 2022

Twitter users quickly suggested meals were similarly not offered to unaccounted for children in other Nordic countries, with comparisons made to more “hospitable” areas of Europe and Asia.

Connections were also made with Nordic Viking culture from antiquity and how a meal or gift was similar to a debt.

There is limited evidence of the honour and debt practices of the Vikings bearing on contemporary Nordic culture. But we can clearly see how differences in eating practices can highlight the different meanings different communities attach to sharing a meal.

Sharing meals in Iceland

The culture of not extending an invitation to guests for dinner is certainly not standard across all Nordic cultures.

In research I conducted among Icelandic families after the 2008 global financial crisis, I observed the way I was received at mealtimes as a cultural “outsider”.

At one gathering, I sat as an invited guest among a family of seven spaced out around a large dining table, highlighting the formality of the afternoon.

At another event, a farewell party, several people known to one another crowded around a four-seat kitchen table, picking at food on a few plates. The closeness of bodies at this event gestured at its informality and social intimacy.

But meals aren’t always to be shared. One woman I interviewed recalled her decision to walk out of a restaurant when a banker associated with the economic crisis arrived:

I just looked at him and walked out. We don’t forgive or forget, not these men. Most people wouldn’t scream or anything, we’re a little more polite. We walk away. They can have the restaurant to themselves.

Sweden being absolutely roasted over child guests not being offered dinner is hilarious and true.

As a kid it happened to me, on both sides I should say, and I didn’t even reflect over it.

Perhaps its time we changed that part about our culture.

— Robert ? (@Facelessdeviant) May 30, 2022

The meaning of a meal

The offer or denial of a meal can be telling of social relations. #Swedengate shows how invites can be dependent on historical precedent, parental expectation or food wastage.

Localised norms have existed in all cultures across history. Denial isn’t necessarily an act of inhospitality – it just points to cultural norms, contested as they may be, as seen through the #Swedengate controversy.

I cant believe Reddit and Twitter have changed the entire outlook of how people look at Sweden. Over 100 years of Sweden being seen as such as a good place to live and a screenshot has ruined them #swedengate

— unknown ?? (@luckytilldeathx) May 30, 2022

Hasty judgements about food and eating are not always accurate. Deeper meanings have always been behind mealtime offerings.

Perhaps what is most interesting about #Swedengate is not what it tells us about Sweden, but what it tells us about ourselves.

Timothy Heffernan is a postdoctoral fellow at UNSW Sydney. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

The post Should you feed child guests dinner? What #Swedengate tells us about food culture and social expectations. appeared first on The World from PRX.

The only attack the West needs to worry about is its own “panic attack,” proclaimed a banner on Channel One’s evening news program “Vremia” on Jan. 24, 2021. “Even the Ukrainians cannot believe how far the US has gone,” said rival news show “Vesti” on station Russia-1, referring to the evacuation of US Embassy personnel from Kyiv.

A historian of Russia interested in propaganda and media strategy, I was in Moscow both when NATO bombed Russian ally Yugoslavia in 1999 and again when Russia deployed troops to the Crimea in 2014, purportedly to protect Russian citizens under threat from political upheaval in Ukraine. Both times, many people across Russia agreed with government claims that the US had sparked the conflict by meddling behind the scenes. Both events evoked waves of patriotic fervor and scores of headlines promising a Russian fight against Western interference.

Now, as Russian troops are massed along the Ukrainian border, the government’s tone is quieter, but arguably more insidious. Weeks of jingoistic talk shows on which guests proclaimed the need for Russia to flex its muscle before the world, all clustered around the 30th anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union on Dec. 26, 1991, have been replaced with relative calm.

The only country wanting to fight, according to Russian broadcasters, is the US – and America’s real battle is an internal one.

The US in decline

Arguably the most famous anthem of the dying Soviet Union was the 1990 song “Train On Fire” by the dissident rock band “Akvarium,” in which a Soviet colonel calls his troops home, saying that after many years of war, it turns out “we have only been fighting against ourselves.” Today, Kremlin-controlled media is directing a similar message toward the United States.

Lengthy stories focus daily on US internal division — showcasing inflation, rising crime, organized shoplifting sprees, COVID-related vaccine protests, culture war battles over transgender rights and expletive-laden US presidential outbursts. Joe Biden, Russian reporters claim, is building up a false sense of threat from Moscow to deflect attention away from domestic problems.

In one case, a correspondent bolstered this claim by showing US citizens on the streets of Washington, an unlabeled map of European countries and recording their confusion when they were asked to identify the location of Ukraine.

In contrast, these reports present Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, as calm, rational and effective. Some play up the alleged superiority of Sputnik’s COVID-19 vaccine over Pfizer’s, or the orderly departure of so-called Russian “peacekeeping” forces from Kazakhstan. These soldiers were deployed to subdue citizen protests, but newscasters in Russia praise their actions and favorably compare their purported “success” to the “failed mission” and chaotic pullout of US troops from Afghanistan.

Ukraine is being used

Both Russian government officials and Russian journalists acknowledge there have been troop buildups near the Russian-Ukrainian border. But they accuse the West of engaging in overheated rhetoric and, at times, “inhuman lies and blatant provocation.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the troop buildup part of “military exercises” no different from those the US routinely conducts in Eastern European countries — just more legitimate, as they are being conducted within Russia’s own borders. He derided Washington for concerning itself with internal Russian maneuvers, while at the same time, telling Russia that US troop actions in Europe are “none of their concern.”

On the Jan. 24 daily news program “Vesti,” the Ukraine situation did not even lead the show. A weather story did, featuring photos of record snowfall in another region of Russia bordering the Black Sea. Tensions with NATO allies was the fifth story of the evening.

In any coverage of Ukraine, a recurring theme is the weakness of the country and, particularly, of its president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. On Jan. 23, Channel One evening news showed old footage of Zelenskiy from his time as a practicing comedian, in a skit where he and several other men pretended to play a piano with their own genitalia.

The next evening, criticism of Zelenskiy was more direct, mentioning a “catastrophic decline” in his popularity rating. “Experts have long said that Zelenskiy as an independent leader does not exist, that the Anglo-Saxons use him for their own purposes,” one script read. “Zelenskiy is tired” ran the lead story on Ukraina.ru, a news agency directed at Russians in Ukraine.

The West is attempting to “seduce Zelenskiy” into provoking a military confrontation, declared a “Vremia” journalist on Jan. 24. He is “torn between his desire to save his ratings with a small victorious war and his fear of losing that same war.”

Is anybody buying?

State-controlled media is not, however, the only voice being listened to by Russians.

Russian newspaper articles, talk show speakers and Twitter comments express a wider range of sentiments. In a lengthy interview titled, “Talks Mean Nothing,” published in the respected weekly, “Literaturnaia gazeta,” military analyst Konstantin Sivkov speculated about creating a 100-megaton warhead capable of striking Yellowstone Park. A prominent pro-Russian Ukrainian pianist recently re-tweeted an article by a self-proclaimed independent journalist headlined “Documents expose US biological experiments on allied soldiers in Ukraine and Georgia.”

Many Russians seem to shrug at such stories, though even Putin critics acknowledge that many also share in the president’s condemnation of NATO expansion in the post-Soviet years. Independent media outlets such as Meduza condemn “Kremlin brinksmanship” for fueling confrontation.

The question then becomes, do most Russians really believe in their homegrown propaganda?

This is hard to tell, particularly amid an ongoing crackdown to silence independent voices and organizations. Journalists have fled, opposition members have been jailed and human rights organizations have been shut down. What then becomes most difficult to assess is the sentiment of any possible “silent majority” — citizens disillusioned with politics and feeling surrounded by larger forces outside of their control.

Another question is, do they care? Similar to others around the world, many news consumers in Russia are more concerned about domestic struggles.

A Russian friend who just returned from six weeks in St. Petersburg said that nobody she knew favored a war with Ukraine, but that the issue wasn’t even on most people’s radar.

“Citizens are much more concerned about the ruble exchange rate and the economic situation,” she said. “Also, they are much more worried about police-supervised COVID vaccinations and other domestic problems. People are sick and tired of those endless political TV shows about the Ukraine; they are absolutely indifferent to international issues, and that causes big problems for Putin,” who, she claims, “doesn’t want to deal with the situation inside the country at all.”

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of experts for the public good. 

The post It’s just a ‘panic attack’ – Russian media blames US for escalating Ukraine crisis appeared first on The World from PRX.

King called the law’s passage “a great moment … something like the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln.” Johnson recognized King’s contributions to the law by gifting him a pen used to sign the historic legislation.

A year later, as Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, King again joined the president for the occasion.

But by the start of 1967, the two most famous men in America were no longer on speaking terms. In fact, they would not meet again before King fell to an assassin’s bullet on April 4, 1968.

King was foremost a minister who pastored to a local church throughout his career, even while he was doing national civil rights work. And he became concerned that his political ally Johnson was making a grave moral mistake in Vietnam. Johnson quickly escalated American troops’ presence in Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000 in 1965. And by 1968, more than half a million troops were stationed in the Southeast Asian nation.

As I write in my 2021 book “Nonviolence Before King,” the Baptist preacher had been on a “pilgrimage to nonviolence” for years. And by 1967, he was a radical apostle of Christian nonviolence.

King called on the United States to “be born again” and undergo a “radical revolution of values.” King believed that Jim Crow segregation and the war in Vietnam were rooted in the same unjust ethic of race-based domination, and he called on the nation to change its ways.

Speaking against the Vietnam War

King preached nonviolent direct action for years, and his team organized massive protest movements in the cities of Albany, Georgia, and Selma and Birmingham in Alabama. But by 1967, King’s religious vision for nonviolence went beyond nonviolent street protest to include abolishing what he called the “triple evils” crippling American society. King defined the triple evils as racism, poverty and militarism, and he believed these forces were contrary to God’s will for all people.

He came to believe, as he said in 1967, that racism, economic exploitation and war were crippling America’s ability to create a “beloved community” defined by love and nonviolence. And on April 4, 1967, he publicly rebuked the president’s war policy in Vietnam at Riverside Presbyterian Church in New York City in a speech titled “Beyond Vietnam.”

“I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam,” he told those gathered in the majestic cathedral. “I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam.”

King was initially optimistic that Johnson’s Great Society program, which aimed to make historic investments in job growth, job training and economic development, would tackle domestic poverty. But by 1967 the Great Society appeared to be a casualty of the mounting costs of the war in Vietnam. “I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such,” King said in his speech.

King saw the grinding poverty facing Black people at home as inseparable from the war overseas. As he noted, “If our nation can spend 35 billion dollars a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam, and 20 billion dollars to put a man on the moon, it can spend billions of dollars to put God’s children on their own two feet right here on earth.”

King could no longer ignore that military force ran contrary to the nonviolence he espoused. As urban revolts in Watts and Newark in the late 1960s rocked the nation, he pleaded with people to remain nonviolent.

“But they ask — and rightly so — what about Vietnam?” King said in the same 1967 speech. “They ask if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.”

King’s vision

By 1967, King’s vision of justice was one of flourishing for all people, not only civil rights for African Americans. King was criticized for expanding his vision beyond civil rights for Black Americans. Some worried that aligning with the peace movement would weaken the civil rights movement. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People even issued a statement clearly opposing what it saw as a merging of the civil rights and peace movements.

But in his 1967 “Beyond Vietnam” speech, King called “for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation … an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind.” Such unconditional love is “the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality,” and he noted that this unifying principle was present in Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism.

King was always first a religious leader. He never sought nor gained elected office, because he wanted to maintain a moral voice and be free to challenge policies he believed to be unjust.

But the cost for King’s speaking out was high: By the time of his assassination, King’s national approval rating was at an all-time low.

He was not a morally perfect man. Declassified files show how the FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover tried to target King over his extramarital affairs. Hoover used a wiretap to tape King having sex with other women and sent those to his wife, Coretta Scott King, with a letter indicating King should kill himself because of his moral transgressions.

Honoring King

For those seeking to honor King’s legacy today, his religious nonviolence is demanding. It asks that people go beyond acts of service and charity — as important as those are — to both speak and act against violence and racism as well as to organize to end those pernicious forces.

It is a radical concept of love that demands we embrace those we know and those we don’t, to acknowledge, as King said, “that all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny.”

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the challenge may be to decipher the meaning of this idea in action for our own lives. The future of what King called the beloved community depends on it – a world at peace because justice is present.

Anthony Siracusa is senior director of inclusive culture and initiatives at the University of Colorado Boulder. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of experts for the public good.

The post How the Vietnam War pushed MLK to embrace global justice, not only civil rights at home appeared first on The World from PRX.

So, for a minute or two, forget political crises, breakthroughs in space exploration and crypto: Here is Dance with The World, 2021 edition: A playlist.

The World’s Anna Kusmer, who reports on the environment for the show, recommends “Yéla Mama,” by Eat my Butterfly, AKA Dilo, an artist from Reunion Island. You may have heard Dilo on The World on Earth Day. Her song brings together her love for the beauty of Reunion Island and her concern for nature. “Also, it’s a bop!” Anna said.

And if you’re up for summer vibes with friends and dancing, check another recommendation from Anna: “Crazy Tings,” by Nigerian artist Tems. “Her new album, ‘If Orange was a Place,’ is so dreamy and fun. It reminds me of spending time with friends in the summer and forgetting about all the troubles in the world. It makes me want to dance,” Anna said.

“This was also the year that I returned to vinyl, so my selection number five, an older release that I just got on vinyl this year, ‘Gal Costa,’ by Brazilian pop singer Gal Costa makes me feel better every time I play it.”

Host Marco Werman’s music selections this year were songs that helped him stay positive and worked on his head like medicine, he said. “This was also the year that I returned to vinyl, so my selection number five, an older release that I just got on vinyl this year, ‘Gal Costa,’ by Brazilian pop singer Gal Costa makes me feel better every time I play it,” Marco said.

Marco also recommended songs and albums from artists he has interviewed on the show, like “Tango,” from Brazilian Rodrigo Amarante’s 2021 album “Drama”; “It’s a good day to fight the system,” by Shungudzo, who tackles the racist experiences she had growing up in Zimbabwe and the US in her music; “Don’t Need You,” from Ghanaian Australian singer Genesis Owusu, in her debut album “Smiling with no teeth”; And the entire album “4:00 a.m.,” by Paris-based band Delgrès.

And if you are looking for music that’s mesmerizing and peaceful, The World’s director and producer April Peavey highly recommends the album “Suba,” which she says is “one of the most beautiful albums to come out in 2021.” “Suba” is the second collaboration between Cuban pianist Omar Sosa and Senegal’s master kora player Seckou Keita.

April’s album recommendations really take us for a spin around the globe. From the new album “Sonidos De Karmatica Resonancia,” by the Latin Grammy Award-winning Mexican rock band Zoé to Ivorian Dobet Gnahoré’s “Couleur,” which celebrates women’s rights and positivity during these trying times.

“This is the sound of modern Africa from the perspective of a talented and independent woman.”

“This is the sound of modern Africa from the perspective of a talented and independent woman,” April said.

And take some music tips from our digital team. One line of Rokia Koné’s song “N’yanyan” resonated with digital editor Sara Hassan: “Things may be bad now, but it’s only a moment in time,” the song goes. “It’s not just about this moment, but any time life throws us a curveball. And how we have to remember that any difficulty is just one part the whole journey,” Sara said.

Digital editor Amanda Lichtenstein recommends “Hustle,” by Nigerian artist, Teni the Entertainer, from her brilliant 2021 album, “Wondaland.” “Teni’s raspy, smooth voice soothes the soul-wary among us, singing about the trials and tribulations of the daily grind,” Amanda said. “Sometimes, it feels like success is a trap,” Teni sings. “Sometimes I will have to say no.” But at the end of the day, “it’s all love.” “A tender jam for days when the stress gets to be too much,” Amanda said.

Some of The World’s foreign correspondents also jumped in to help build the 2021 playlist. Shanghai-based correspondent Rebecca Kanthor recommended Chinese Funk/RnB/Soul musician, Zhao Jiexi, who incorporates traditional Chinese instruments into his music. “The track ‘Be Yourself’ was inspired by Jiexi’s feelings as an Asian living in the US during increased hate crimes against Asians and Asian Americans,” Rebecca said.

“Very calm, perfect for walking on a drizzly day or sitting in a cozy cafe with some tea.”

Durrie Bouscaren, our Istanbul-based correspondent, recommended “Dualite,” by Ekin Beril, a song she loves that came out in 2020. “Very calm, perfect for walking on a drizzly day or sitting in a cozy cafe with some tea,” Durrie said.

Boston-based correspondent Bianca Hillier wants you to check out “Serotonin,” by Girl in Red, a young, queer Norwegian pop artist whose debut album, “If I could make it go quiet,” came out this year. “The song is about struggling with mental health, and it was written during the early days of the pandemic. It’s a great ‘what is happening in the world?’ type of song,” Bianca said.

“It’s so hard to make sense of days like these. Which is why I think Low’s ‘Days Like These,’ released in June of 2021, off their album ‘HEY WHAT,’ is a fitting anthem for our times,” said reporter Elana Gordon, who covers public health for the show. The Minnesota band’s reverent vocals, cathartic distortions and lines like “Everybody just chased by dreams / That’s why we’re living in days like these again…” makes space to mourn, to rage, to be grateful for what we have. … A requiem of loss, of life, of the year 2021. Play it loud,” Elana said.

Music connoisseur Mike Wilkins, The World’s engineer, recommends “Rainbow Islands (NG+),” from Manchester-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Apta. Mike does not know why the album’s cut, “Putty’s Party,” is his go-to tune. Well, check it out and let Mike know how you like it.

Radio editor Sylvia Maria Gross loves the song “Graca Divina,” by Brazilian tropicália legend and former minister of culture, Gilberto Gil. This song came out in 1995, as part of an album that focused on the intersection of science and art. “It’s a song I always turn to when I’m thinking about trust in science and medicine, and how, as informed as you might be, it’s always a leap of faith,” Sylvia said. The song was running through her head this year as each of her family members, including her children, were vaccinated. “The efficacy of divine grace, one foot in the pharmacy, the other in love,” the song plays.

As you can see, music runs through the veins of The World staff. Check out the playlist and let us know which songs you recommend adding. 

Send us your suggestions to myworld@theworld.org or wherever you follow us on social media.

The post Dance with The World, 2021 edition: A playlist appeared first on The World from PRX.

Nepal
More than 200 people are reported dead following flooding and mudslides in Nepal. Around 40 others have been injured and authorities are searching for dozens of people who remain missing. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba visited the flood-stricken areas in the western parts of the country on Thursday, promising a government relief package, but residents say they’re still waiting for assistance. Heavy rains destroyed crops, bridges and homes. The unseasonably strong downpours have also caused havoc in neighboring India.

Ethiopia
Ethiopian forces have conducted airstrikes on the regional capital of Tigray for a fourth day this week. The raids forced a United Nations humanitarian flight to abandon its landing in Mekelle, the capital of the Tigray region. Government spokesman Legesse Tulu said the strikes targeted a former military training center that is now being used as a hub by rival Tigray forces. The region has seen nearly a year of fighting between government forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Thousands of people have been killed, and 2 million have been displaced by the fighting since last November. About 6 million people face a government blockade and humanitarian groups fear widespread starvation.

Belarus
Popular Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda has had to shut down its branch in Belarus after authorities arrested a member of its local staff there. The paper came under pressure after it ran a story about a shootout in Minsk that left an opposition supporter and a KGB officer dead. The Belarusian Ministry of Information blocked access to the paper’s website in the country last week ahead of the arrest. The Committee to Protect Journalists released a statement on Thursday saying, “Belarusian authorities should stop harassing independent journalists and refrain from charging or imprisoning members of the press over their work.”

From The World

Delgrès founder pays tribute to his family’s Guadeloupean roots through music

Pascal Danaë, who founded the band Delgrès, often draws inspiration from his Guadeloupean roots and his parents’ immigrant and working-class background. The group’s latest album is “4 a.m.,” the time when most factory workers, like his father, wake up to start their long day. Danaë spoke to The World’s Marco Werman about his new album and from where he draws his inspiration.

The Global Hits Spotify playlist with music from Delgrès and other artists we have featured in the show is here — over 4 hours of global music. ?
 

Haiti’s compounding crisis

It’s fair to say that Haiti has had a brutal year. In July, the nation’s president was assassinated. A month later, a massive 7.2 earthquake rocked the country, killing more than 2,000 people. The country is now plagued by a transportation strike and shortages of gas and water. The World’s Monica Campbell is in Haiti reporting from the Pestel region to give us an on-the-ground look at the deep problems plaguing the Caribbean nation.

Double Take

Concerns over “security” led to the detention of a robot in Egypt. British-built artist robot Ai-Da ? and her sculpture were held in Egyptian customs for 10 days before being released on Wednesday, sparking a diplomatic fracas. There were worries that the robot was part of a wider espionage plot. “The British ambassador has been working through the night to get Ai-Da released, but we’re right up to the wire now,” said Aidan Meller, the human force behind Ai-Da, shortly before her release. “It’s really stressful.”

Robot artist Ai-Da released by Egyptian border guards https://t.co/7uTuwhS1Yl

— BBC North America (@BBCNorthAmerica) October 21, 2021

In case you missed it

Listen: Controversial TV pundit shakes up French politics

So far, many have considered France’s presidential election next April a close race between President Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. But recently, far-right columnist and TV commentator Eric Zemmour has been soaring in opinion polls, throwing the race wide open. And, court battles are keeping the Biden administration from completely undoing the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy. It’s kept thousands of asylum-seekers waiting in Mexican border towns while their asylum petitions move through US courts. Plus, blues-rock musician Pascal Danaë and his trio, “Delgrès,” has a new album called “4 a.m.” Danaë tells us about how his ancestors in Guadeloupe, and seeing his great-great-grandmother’s affidavit of her freedom from slavery in 1841, influenced the trio’s new album.

Don’t forget to subscribe to The World’s Latest Edition podcast using your favorite podcast player: RadioPublic, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Soundcloud, RSS.

The post Flooding and mudslides kill about 200 people in Nepal appeared first on The World from PRX.

Related: How the Beatles created a sense of ‘place’ for this Argentinian American

The degree encompases more than just a dive into the Fab Four’s music or taking a comparative literature approach to the lyrics. It digs into the band’s shifting perceptions over more than half a century, and how it’s affected other sectors like the record business and tourism.

Related: Colombian singer Carlos Vives: Protecting the environment is the ‘only way to save folklore’

Holly Tessler, the professor who came up with the idea, and who is leading the new program, joined The World’s host Marco Werman from Liverpool to explain what the degree entails.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

The post The University of Liverpool new master’s makes a whole degree of Beatlemania appeared first on The World from PRX.

It’s a strategy the Cuban government has used for decades.

Enrique “Kiki” Valera, a Cuban musician, composer and engineer born in 1966, knew from a young age that in order to gain access to musical sounds trending outside the communist country, he had to overcome these technological hurdles. His anwer: shortwave radio. 

Related: Protesters in Cuba are calling for the ‘end of the communist state’

“I knew that shortwave existed and with shortwave, you could reach out there.”

“I knew that shortwave existed and with shortwave, you could reach out there,” Valera said.

As a member of his family’s century-old group, Familia Valera Miranda, known as one of the most important purveyors of Son cubano (Cuba’s traditional musical style), Valera was eager to hear other musical trends. 

At the age of 16, he started to salvage radio and TV parts out of discarded electronics to build his own shortwave receiver and transmitter. 

Related: ‘I can speak the language of rhyme:’ Dakota Camacho on Guam

He collected pieces from transformers to resistor capacitors and within a year, as a high school student in 1980s Cuba, Valera was able to build a shortwave receiver and tune into songs from the rest of the world. 

“The first song that I heard out of my radio was Chicago Band’s ‘Street Player,’” Valera said. “I started, you know, to look for more of that. I discovered the Commodores with ‘The Brick House.’”

He also listened to tapes given to him by one of his father’s friends with music from American Jazz guitarists Wes Montgomery and Pat Metheney. This is how, Valera said, he developed his own musical perspective, by listening to a mix of sounds from overseas along with his family’s musical traditions. 

“My jaws were all the way down. … From my small musical world, the way to improvise is more inside a cage. Even though I had the ears to listen to what [these musicians] were doing, I didn’t have the knowledge.”

“My jaws were all the way down,” he said. “From my small musical world, the way to improvise is more inside a cage. Even though I had the ears to listen to what [these musicians] were doing, I didn’t have the knowledge.”

When Valera was a young man living in Santiago de Cuba, a visiting musicologist made recordings of the music Valera and his family produced — a midtempo form of Son cubano. 

His father, Félix Valera Miranda, was the lead vocal and guitar player of the multi-generational group. Valera played cuatro, clave, and sang backup vocals and his mom, Carmen Rosa Alarcón, performed maracas and backup vocals. 

Valera’s brothers and uncle also played with the septet, a group that has contributed significantly to Cuban culture through the preservation of musical traditions of the Sierra Maestra mountainous region in southeast Cuba. 

Related: Momma Nikki sings about a complicated father-child relationship

Those recordings were released as an album titled, “Antologia Integral del Son” or “Integral anthology of Son,”  and soon, Valera was touring the world alongside his family, playing festivals and concert halls under the eponymous La Familia Miranda Valera. 

The musical tour led Valera to the city of Seattle, where he now lives with his wife. 

“El amor mueve montañas. Love can move mountains,” he told The World. 

Related: ‘Homeland and life’: The chant to Cuba’s anti-government protests

Valera’s ears and heart may have drawn him outside his country of birth, but he continues to perform songs passed down through his family.

“My family, we have something that is very important that maybe no one else has. We are the bearers of this tradition, so I decided to try to keep that flame alive, to keep that tradition alive as long as I live,” Valera said.

The post Kiki Valera on Son cubano and how he developed a unique musical perspective appeared first on The World from PRX.

The album, a collaboration with Grammy-winning electronic music artist Joseph Ray, includes singles like “Ogou (Pran Ka Mwen),” “Lamizè Pa Dous” and “Bade Zile,” or “Under the Island,” which aim to reframe — or rather, smash — negative, stereotypical views of Haiti and its culture.

“I think that you cannot describe a country by only what you see on the news,” band member Steeve Valcourt said. “So, what we [are] hoping to do, personally, in ‘Lakou Mizik’ is to show the other side of Haiti, which is the culture, the love, the oneness, you know, that’s the point of it, the beauty of Haiti.”

The band mines the traditional music canon of Haiti and injects it with rhythms from reggae, hip-hop and electronic music.

Ray helped the band find a new sound, Valcourt said.

DJ and producer Ray came to Haiti as a volunteer teacher at the country’s only production and mixing school, Jacmel’s Artists Institute. In Jacmel, Ray said, he stumbled on Lakou Mizik at a tiny beachside club — their sound reminded him of electronic music clubbing.

That’s when Ray saw the potential for blending his own electronic style with Lakou Mizik’s traditional dance music.

Soon enough, Ray and the nine-piece band embarked on a six-year journey to produce “Leave the Bones.”

“We were at the studio, and we started to mix stuff. He had us singing a lot of traditional songs — ceremony songs, voodoo songs, and then see if he [could] blend [them],” Valcourt recounted of the collaboration with Ray. “Then, he sent different demos. And then we were like, ‘Yeah, this is good.’”

Valcourt says that Lakou Mizik’s music can lead to dialogue about the country’s troubled history.

“It’s [a] culture that’s never been really touched to put the word out [about Haiti] directly to people in Haiti and around the world,” Valcourt said. “Religion tried it, politics tried it, the economy tried it. It’s probably culture that we use the least to show what we really are and what we can do.”

Check this Spotify playlist with music from Lakou Mizik — and other artists we have featured on the show.

The post Lakou Mizik’s new album highlights Haiti’s creative spirit appeared first on The World from PRX.

Afghanistan
As the Taliban continues its takeover of large swaths of Afghanistan, the group completed its sweep of the country’s south on Friday, with 18 provincial capitals now under its control — including Kandahar, Herat and Lashkar Gah. A weekslong battle in Helmand province left hospitals filled with injured civilians. The latest takeover brings the Taliban even closer to the Afghan capital, Kabul. In response, the US has dispatched 3,000 troops to help evacuate Americans who are still in the country. The move comes weeks before the planned full withdrawal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan, and following two decades of war.

Venezuela
The Venezuelan government and its opposition are opening talks in Mexico on Friday in an attempt to find solutions to economic and social crises gripping the country. The last round of negotiations were held between 2017 and 2019. This time ,the talks are being brokered by Norway. President Nicolás Maduro appears to have the upper hand this time, since the opposition has weakened and fractured. Opposition coalition leader, Juan Guaidó — who the US and other countries recognize as the country’s legitimate leader — is calling for a plan for massive imports of COVID-19 vaccines along with a “National Salvation Agreement” that would include the government, its local allies, the opposition and the international community.

Ethiopia
President Joe Biden is sending his special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, to Ethiopia to push for an end to nine months of internal conflict. Continued fighting between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has raised concerns of a worsening famine and humanitarian disaster along with reports of increased violence against hundreds of women and girls. The UN says that a total of 400,000 people are at risk of famine in the Tigray region. Feltman will also travel to Djibouti and the United Arab Emirates in an attempt to promote stability in the Horn of Africa.

From The World

One of Iraq’s oldest Christian communities struggles with religious diversity

Bartella, a historically Christian town of about 15,000 people, is one of the world’s oldest Christian communities — but Christians here are now a minority. ?

All the children in this class, and their families, fled when ISIS took the town in 2014. Many of their families sought refuge in the Kurdish areas of Iraq. Now, they are back, but more than half of the Christians from Bartella never returned.

What does the climate’s best-case scenario look like?

Global Hit

Haiti’s image around the globe is often negative, but the Haitian band Lakou Mizik wants to change that perception. They want to highlight the beauty and culture of the island nation. And the way they do that is through music. Steeve Valcourt of the band spoke to host Marco Weerman ? about Haiti, music and their new album “Leave the Bones.” 

?We made a Spotify playlist with some music from Lakou Mizik — and other artists that we’ve featured on the show. ?

In case you missed it

Listen: Taliban fighters are in the streets of Afghanistan’s third-largest city

Taliban fighters are in the streets of Afghanistan’s third-largest city. Also, the new climate report from the UN calls for rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. We get a reality check on the massive effort needed to meet climate goals. And, an Olympic gold medalist from Jamaica thanks the volunteer who helped him get to his competition on time.

Don’t forget to subscribe to The World’s Latest Edition podcast using your favorite podcast player: RadioPublic, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Soundcloud, RSS.

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