Canada: A legal on illegals

Jdid, a Barbadian immigrant living in Toronto, has very mixed feelings about the protests against the deportation of illegals which took place recently in Canada. “I feel badly for someone who built up a life here and then had it cruelly plucked from beneath them but at the same time...

Kurdistance: NGO Project Update

Ok, so maybe the title of today's post is a little bit of a misnomer, but our commentators today all mention NGO projects…and I'll give you some extra links to other Kurdish NGO projects as well. Pearls of Iraq officially starts her purple ribbon campaign for the people of Iraq...

Latest in the Francophone Caribbean Blogosphere

China: Blogger kills himself

Beijing-based author and China Life Shop blogger Shawn Matthews has committed suicide following several years combatting depression between Korea and China. More information from his close friend and No Problem blogger Jake here and Korea-based blogger Kevin here.

Rock Steady: Desmond Dekker

Mshairi remembers Rock Steady great, Desmond Dekker who passed away recently. Who can ever forget “Israelites”

Senegal: Conversations on Drowned Migrants

Senegalese blogger Seckasysteme has been keeping a close eye on thousands of migrants from Senegal who have attempted to reach Europe on clandestine rafts since the beginning of the year. Last week the blogger explained that 23 migrant hopefuls had been intercepted by Senegalese authorities on their way to the...

Jamaica: Family history and chicken soup

Geoffrey Philp reminisces about Struie, the small village in Westmoreland, Jamaica, where his mother grew up, and provides a “Jamaican-Miami” version of a traditional family recipe for cold-curing chicken soup.

China: Merchant life

A post today on Raymond Zhou's Not only movies blog looks at the lives of the largest group of foreigners in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou's expatriate community: African and Arab traders.

African Refugees in Australia

Enough is Enough is a drama ” on the implications of the family law for the new migrants and refugees.” The play is supported by the African Communities Council in Australia and the Legal Services Commission of South Australia – from African Refugees.

DRC: Coup Attempts and More Questions on the Upcoming Elections

Free and Fair Elections? Joseph Kabila, the founder of the PPRD (the People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy), has overseen an interim administration established by the 2002 peace agreement. The Democratic Republic of the Congo's first post-conflict presidential elections are set to be held on July 30th after months of...

Senegal: Immigration as colonization

“No Sarkozy! Immigration does not come from a vacuum,” says (Fr) Semett in a post on French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy's immigration policies. “With centuries of merciless exploitation of subsaharan countries and a continuous transfer of their riches to the North, it is logical that the disinherited masses from Africa...

Haiti: Personal geography

After discussing geography with some of the Haitians in his community, Troy, a US missionary working in rural Haiti, concludes — in what is certainly an over-generalization — that “in the Haitian experience, geography seems to consist of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Miami, New York, Toronto, and Boston – in...

Kazakhstan: A Kazakh-American Hero

News From The Caravan writes about a Kazakh-American hero who saved the lives of two young boys in a small American town in the 1950s. The story is certainly a must-read if for nothing else but the image of a 60 year old Kazakh woman charging through a crowd on...

Kurdistance: What's Montenegro Got to Do With It?

And yes, there was the Tina Turner song “What's love got to do with it?” floating in my head in the background when I wrote that title. While the world watched the vote creating an independent Montenegro, the Kurds were watching the same events with mixed feelings. Hiwa from Hiwa...

Muscovites in Kyiv: Pizza Delivery Fiasco

On weekends, Kyiv teems with tourists from Moscow. Train tickets for overnight Friday and Sunday rides between the two capitals have to be ordered well in advance. The number of Muscovites settling in Kyiv permanently to do business is growing, too. To make the new migrants’ lives easier, a special...

Lithuania: Eurovision Mania

Andy H of Csikszereda Musings writes about the Eurovision Song Contest, which he watched in Lithuania this year: “Lithuania got maximum points from Ireland, in what I thought was testament to the Irish love of a good joke, but was told today that it’s because there are loads of Lithuanians...

Haitian Diaspora: Franco-Haitian Solidarity Meeting

CollectifHaitideProvence announces (Fr) they received an invitation by Collectif Haitien de France [Haitian Collective of France] to participate in a series of meetings taking place June 3 and 4. The main themes of the meetings will be humanitarian solidarity and education, development, the problems of Haitian migrants in France, and...

Haiti: New Blog CollectifHaitideProvence

CollectifHaitideProvence [Haitian Collective of Provence, France] is the name of a new French and Creole language blog launched by a Haitian organization of the same name made up of nine organizations that seem to be based in either France, Haiti or both. Their first entry posted yesterday explains (Fr &...

Jamaica: Missing generation

Francis Wade thinks about the “missing generation” of middle-class Jamaicans who emigrated seeking better lives for their families, and suggests four reasons for expatriate Jamaicans to return to their homeland, as he himself did. “We probably should not be so ready to encourage our children to migrate, selling them on...

France: Disposable immigrants

Sotho comments on immigration chaos in the US and reports that France faces similar chaos with the enacting of a new law “Use them, abuse them, but at election time tell ‘em to go back “home” since they are occupying jobs that real nationals could be holding.”

Francophone Africa: Bloggers On Colonialism's Enduring Influence

In recent weeks, several Francophone African bloggers have grappled with their countries’ colonial legacies and the power history has to shape the present and the future. For them, independence is an illusion and in ways both psychological and material, Africa remains a colony of the old empires. All stress the...