Gulu, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah has asked the Acholi sub-region to increase productivity as a tool to eradicate poverty and place the region on the right pedestal to prosperity. Oulanyah said unlike the struggle against past insurgencies, the campaign against poverty can now be waged …
Read More »Reggae, music ‘of love and humanity’, secures UN culture listing
Port Louis, Mauritius | AFP | Jamaican reggae, the music of the oppressed which Bob Marley catapulted onto the global stage, won a coveted spot on the United Nations’ list of global cultural treasures Thursday. UNESCO, the world body’s cultural and scientific agency, added reggae to its collection of “intangible …
Read More »China’s youth embrace street dance amid hip-hop crackdown
Beijing, China | AFP | In China, where children are often saddled with a packed schedule of extracurricular activities before they even enter grade school, some parents are making room for a surprising pursuit: hip-hop dance classes. Inside a dance studio in central Beijing, a group of kids bopped up …
Read More »‘We’ve got the power!’ In DRC, rap moves to take on rumba
Kinshasa, DR Congo | AFP | It is a conflict at once cultural, generational and political: rap music in DR Congo is staging a frontal assault on rumba, accusing its ageing stars of only singing of love and other banalities. DRC’s growing army of rappers say their urban lyrics reflect …
Read More »Cinema makes return to Saudi Arabia
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia | AFP | Saudi Arabia hosted its first public film screening in over 35 years on Friday, two days after US movie giant AMC unveiled the kingdom’s debut theatre in Riyadh. Clutching prized tickets for the sold-out showing of Hollywood blockbuster action film “Black Panther”, men …
Read More »Irish pubs open on Good Friday for first time in 91 yrs
Dublin, Ireland | AFP | Pubs in Ireland were open on Good Friday for the first time in almost a century after the repeal of a law banning sales of alcohol on the Christian holiday. The Intoxicating Liquor Act, passed in 1927, prohibited sales in shops and bars on three …
Read More »Couples make Valentine’s Day deposit in ‘Love Bank’
Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia | AFP | In a small medieval Slovak town, couples are getting ready on Valentine’s Day to make a “deposit” about their romance in a place dedicated to love stories. The “Love Bank” is the main attraction of an exhibition commemorating the world’s longest love poem, “Marina” …
Read More »ARTS: Colours of Turkey
Makerere gallery features explorations of ancient culture through paintings Kampala, Uganda | DOMINIC MUWANGUZI | Turkey has a rich cultural heritage. It is largely known as part of the cradle of civilization in Europe with recorded history stretching back over 15,000 years ago. It remains a dominant influence on contemporary European social, …
Read More »Nigeria turns the page on literary past
Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Mention Nigerian literature and the first names likely to spring to mind are Chinua Achebe, the author of “Things Fall Apart”, or the venerable Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka. But Africa’s most populous nation has a new crop of writers whose work is a far cry from …
Read More »COMMENT: Totems under threat
How failure to share family cultural history endangers symbols that represent common ancestral origin COMMENT | NATHAN KIWERE | Writing on page 137 of his book, ‘The Baganda’ (Macmillan and Co., 1911), John Roscoe, a British colonial historian, states that when animals were becoming scarce, Kintu, with the general consent of …
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