· September, 2007

Stories about Western Europe from September, 2007

Morocco: Berbers can be blonde

  30 September 2007

Major media outlets and bloggers went into a frenzy a few days ago when a blurry photograph taken by a Spanish tourist in Morocco's Rif mountain region showed a small blonde girl bearing a strong resemblance to missing British child Madeleine McCann perched on the back of a Moroccan woman. As it turns out, the photo was not of Maddie but of a 2-year-old Moroccan girl. What do Moroccans think of this matter? Jillian York has the story.

Africa: Black victims of Nazi holocoust

  24 September 2007

Black Looks writes: “Finally a memorial is to be erected outside the home of one Black victim of the Nazi holocoust giving a name to the nameless. Mahjub bin Adam Mohamed originally from Tanzania who married a German woman and was charged with ‘miscegenation’. He died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp,...

World Reaction to the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights

  24 September 2007

In every society in which they find themselves, the world's 370 million indigenous peoples are among the most vulnerable and marginalized. After over 22 years of negotiations and consultations, the United Nations approved the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples earlier this month, a broad, non-binding agreement articulating basic...

Russia: Conference on Renewable Energy Sources

  23 September 2007

Web 2.0. is finally coming to the Balkans: SeminarskiRad.com, a portal based on the share principle and offering free resources to Serbian students, has become really popular very quickly. A few days ago, the portal's blog supplement opened on Blogger, dedicated to the topics relevant to Serbia's youth. The first post is a report from a recent Moscow conference on renewable energy, whose aim was to educate young scientists in order to make this planet greener.

[GV Show Special] Trinidad & Tobago: Anti-smelter activism meets the Internet

  20 September 2007

Atillah Springer is a journalist, activist and blogger from Trinidad and Tobago and a member of a protest movement which, earlier this year, succeeded in driving the aluminium industry giant Alcoa out of a community in rural Trinidad where they had proposed to establish a smelter under somewhat dubious circumstances. In this podcast I talk with Atillah about the movement's use of the Internet in their organising activities.

Syria: Message of Peace

  19 September 2007

Syrian blogger Yaser met with Giordano and Luca, two Italians, “travelling around the countries of the Mediterranean to spread the message of peace and harmony with a simple gesture ..a hug.” Click the link to read more.

France: DNA Testing for Immigrants

  17 September 2007

Vous reprendrez bien un peu d'humanisme? critiques a UMP-proposed amendment (Fr) to require legal immigrants in France who want their immediate family members to immigrate under a family reunification scheme to submit to DNA tests so prove they are related. Humanisme thinks the plan unconstitutional, hypocritical and an affront to...

Sassou's postcard from the Riviera

  10 September 2007

Vous reprendrez bien un peu d'humanisme reposts a satirical “postcard” by MwindaPress from the Congolese president to his people about all the fun he's having in France and Spain: “We found ourselves in good company, a lot of whites, a lot of businessmen who swear by my greatness, my good...

Famed Musician Rossy Returns to Madagascar

  10 September 2007

Rossy's back! (Fr) Harinjaka writes that Rossy, a.k.a. Paul-Bert Rahasimanana, arguably Madagascar's most famous musician, is back in his native country, which he left for France following the violently contested 2002 presidential election. Hari also posts a video of Rossy's newest release.

Colombia: Dutch Woman's Secret FARC Guerrilla Diary

  6 September 2007

During a raid on a FARC guerrilla camp, the Colombian army found part of a diary kept by a Dutch woman who for the past 5 years has been living and working with the FARC. Colombian bloggers react to this discovery by lamenting the misguided ideas of these foreigners and others wonder what is the fascination with adventures like these.

It's time for non-Western IMF leadership

  4 September 2007

Convention Pour Une Nouvelle Guadeloupe criticizes the probable selection of a European (Fr) as the next head of the IMF, writing that it's time for someone from Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean or Africa to take the helm; global governance needs to be reformed so that it “takes into account...