Spring in Bavaria

Kichwa - head shingo ...

Moosecow — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:53:48 +0000

Kichwa - head
shingo - neck
masikio - ears
macho - eyes
pua - nose

Posted by Moosecow | Comments
Tags: africa, kenya, learning kisuaheli/swahili

Step by step

Moosecow — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:32:11 +0000

I try to learn Swahili with the help of my friend. Words I learned today:
Meza - table
Mezani - on the table
Kalamu - pen
Kijiko - spoon
Sahani - plate
Maji - water
Mkate - bread
Maziwa - milk
Viazi - potato

Posted by Moosecow | Comments
Tags: africa, kenya, learning kisuaheli/swahili

Asa

Moosecow — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:47:00 +0000

(Listen to it at my youtube)
From soul to funky guitar chords and bittersweet ingredients of r&b to surprising reggae twists, Asa (pronounced Asha) carries rich musical heritage and intensely spiritual strength. Asa was born in Paris and raised in Lagos, south-western Nigeria, where absorbing influences of jazz and African music, transforming it into a fresh sound, she constantly craved for singing her heart out. As her first eponymous album flows with ease, groovy rhythms and emotion, Asa projects positive values and her honest point of view on today’s realities.

Those of you who’ve been getting into Ayo in recent months will love the sultry tones of Asa, another talented young singer-guitarist from Nigeria who is at her sublime vocal best solo. Like Ayo, Asa grew up listening to her father’s record collection, soaking up the heady sounds of soul, reggae and folk-jazz via Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley and classics from the Gold Coast. The budding young talent was later inspired by the likes of Macy Gray, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill, but the artist young Asa has most frequently been compared to is the dreadlocked queen of Afro-folk, Tracy Chapman.
Like Ayo and her American counterparts, Asa shares a certain taste for musical sophistication and ‘protest’ songwriting. And, like Ayo, Bukola Elemide - now better known by her stage name Asa ("falcon" in Yoruba) - made her debut signing to a French record label. Asa, currently using Paris as a springboard for a budding international career, was actually born in the French capital in September 1982 and spent just over two years there, her father working at the Nigerian embassy in Paris. "I kept all the photos and the memories my parents gave me and I vowed I’d go back to Paris one day!" she says.
Twenty years on, Asa fulfilled that dream in style. "At the beginning of 2004, I sent off a cassette to the ‘Visa’ programme run by the AFAA, the cultural section of the French foreign ministry. It was like throwing a bottle into the sea. But I was lucky because somehow I got my message heard." In fact, Asa did more than that. She ended up doing a music course in France which helped her turn professional and allowed her to stay in the country three months, during which precious time she met the likes of Manu Dibango, Richard Bona, Daby Touré, Tony Allen and sisterly double act Les Nubians.
Profiting from her newly-acquired experience, Asa returned to Lagos and concentrated on developing her own musical style there. At the beginning of 2007, the young singer went into the studio and spent six weeks recording with Cobhams Emmanuel Asuquo, a blind multi-instrumentalist she has worked with for three years now. Her debut 11-track album is simply called Asa, "because all the songs on it are pieces of the puzzle that make up my personality." Featuring impeccable percussion, a funky Hammond organ, reggae-infused bass and contributions from celebrity flautist Magic Malik, Asa’s debut album contains two stand-out tracks: Jailer, a song about "the irony of oppression, not just political or racial oppression, but the kind that operates in everyday life" and Fire In The Mountain - a melody which has every bit as much chart-topping potential as anything by her Afro-folk sister Ayo!

Posted by Moosecow | Comments
Tags: music, africa

Concentration Camp Terezín - Theresienstadt (Czech Republic)

Moosecow — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 12:26:19 +0000

Terezín (IPA: [ˈtɛrɛzi:n]; German: Theresienstadt) is the name of a former military fortress and garrison town in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic.
Early history
In the late 18th century the Habsburg Monarchy erected the fortress near the confluence of the Labe and Ohře Rivers, and named it after Empress Maria Theresa.
Construction started in 1780 and lasted ten years. The total area of the fortress was 3.89 km². The fortification was designed in the tradition of Sébastian le Prestre de Vauban. In peacetime it held 5,655 soldiers, and in wartime around 11,000 soldiers could be placed here, and neighbouring areas could be inundated. Fortress Josefov in eastern Bohemia was built at the same time and had a similar purpose.
The fortress was never under direct siege. During the Austro-Prussian War, on 28th July 1866, part of the garrison attacked and destroyed an important railway bridge near Neratovice (rail line Turnov - Kralupy nad Vltavou) that was shortly before repaired by the Prussians.
During the second half of the 19th century the fortress was also used as a prison.
During World War I, the fortress was used as a prisoner-of-war camp. Many thousand supporters of Russia (Russophiles from Galicia and Bukovina) were placed by Austro-Hungarian authorities in the fortress. Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and his wife, starting the war, died there of tuberculosis in 1918.
Terezín During World War II
On June 10, 1940, the Gestapo took control of Terezín and set up prison in the Small Fortress (kleine Festung), see below. By 24 November 1941, the Main Fortress (große Festung, i.e. the town Theresienstadt) was turned into a walled ghetto. The function of Theresienstadt was to provide a front for the extermination operation of Jews. To the outside it was presented by the Nazis as a model Jewish settlement, but in reality it was a concentration camp. Theresienstadt was also used as a transit camp for European Jews en route to Auschwitz and other extermination camps.
Dr. Siegfried Seidl, an SS-Hauptsturmführer, served as the first camp commandant in 1941. Seidl oversaw the labor of 342 young men, known as the Aufbaukommando, who converted the fortress into a concentration camp. Although the Aufbaukommando were promised that they and their families would be spared transport, eventually all were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943, for Sonderbehandlung, or "special treatment", i.e. immediate gassing of all upon arrival.
As in other European ghettos, a Jewish Council nominally ruled over the ghetto. The first of the Jewish Elders of Theresienstadt was Jakob Edelstein, a Polish-born Zionist and former head of the Prague Jewish community. In 1943, he was deported to Auschwitz, where he was shot together with his family. The second was Paul Eppstein, a sociologist originally from Mannheim, Germany. Earlier, Eppstein was the speaker of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland, the central organization of Jews in Nazi Germany. In the course of the liquidation transports in autumn 1944, when some two thirds of the ghetto population were deported to Auschwitz, Eppstein was shot in the Small Fortress. He died on Yom kippur, the holiest day in the Hebrew calendar, after he informed the deported people what was awaiting them in the "East". Benjamin Murmelstein, a Lvov-born Vienna rabbi succeeded Eppstein. His popularity in the ghetto was similar with the one of the SS command. In the last days of existence of the ghetto, rabbi Leo Baeck served as the Elder. In 1943 to 1945, he was the speaker of the Council of Elders of Theresienstadt, after being deported from Berlin, where he served as the head of the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland.
This camp was established by the head of the RSHA and Reich Protector for Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich. It soon became the "home" for a great number of Jews from occupied Czechoslovakia. The 7,000 non-Jewish Czechs living in Terezín were expelled by the Nazis in the spring 1942. As a consequence, the Jewish community became a closed environment.
On 1 May 1945 control of the camp was transferred from the Germans to the Red Cross. A week later, on 8 May 1945 Terezín was liberated by Soviet troops.
Many of the 80,000 Czech Jews who died in the Holocaust were killed in Theresienstadt, where the conditions were extremely difficult. In a space previously inhabited by 7,000 Czechs, now over 50,000 Jews were gathered. Food was scarce and in 1942 almost 16,000 people died, including Esther Adolphine (a sister of Sigmund Freud) who died on September 29, 1942; Friedrich Münzer (a German classicist), who died on October 20, 1942. Medicine and tobacco were strictly prohibited; possession could be punished by hard labor or death. Men and women were officially forbidden to meet, or to communicate with a Gentile without German permission.
Theresienstadt supplied the German war effort with a source of Jewish slave labor. Their major contribution was the splitting of mica mined from local Czechoslovakia. Blind prisoners were often spared deportation by assignment to this task. Others manufactured boxes or coffins. Others sprayed military uniforms with a white dye to provide camouflage for Nazi soldiers on the Russian front.
456 Jews from Denmark were sent to Theresienstadt in 1943 . These were Jews who had not escaped to Sweden before the arrival of the Nazis. Included also in the transports were some of the European Jewish children whom Danish organizations had been attempting to conceal in foster homes. The arrival of the Danes is of great significance as the Danes insisted on the Red Cross having access to the ghetto. This was a rare move, given that most European governments did not insist on their fellow Jewish citizens being treated according to some fundamental principles. The Danish king, Christian X, later secured the release of the Danish internees on April 15, 1945. The White Buses, in cooperation with the Danish Red Cross, collected the 413 who had survived.
On February 5, 1945, the SS chief Heinrich Himmler allowed a transport of 1,210 Jews from Theresienstadt, most of them originating from the Netherlands, to Switzerland. According to an agreement between Himmler and Jean-Marie Musy, a pro-Nazi former Swiss president, the group was released after $1.25 million were placed in Swiss banks by Jewish organizations working in Switzerland.
After the victory of the Allies in 1945, Theresienstadt was used by Czech partisans and former inmates to hold German SS personnel and civilians as retaliation for their atrocities.
Used as propaganda tool
On June 23, 1944, the Nazis permitted the visit by the Red Cross in order to dispel rumors about the extermination camps. The commission included E. Juel-Henningsen, the head physician at the Danish Ministry of Health, and Franz Hvass, the top civil servant at the Danish Foreign Ministry. Dr. Paul Eppstein was instructed by the SS to appear in the role of the mayor of Theresienstadt.
To minimize the appearance of overcrowding in Theresienstadt, the Nazis deported many Jews to Auschwitz. Also deported in these actions were most of the Czechoslovakian workers assigned to 'Operation Embellishment.' They also erected fake shops and cafés to imply that the Jews lived in relative comfort. The Danes whom the Red Cross visited lived in freshly painted rooms, not more than three in a room. The guests enjoyed the performance of a children's opera, Brundibar, which was written by inmate Hans Krása.
The hoax against the Red Cross was so successful for the Nazis that they went on to make a propaganda film at Theresienstadt. Production of the film began on February 26 , 1944. Directed by Jewish prisoner Kurt Gerron (a director, cabaret performer, and actor who appeared with Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel), it was meant to show how well the Jews lived under the "benevolent" protection of the Third Reich. After the shooting most of the cast, and even the filmmaker himself, were deported to Auschwitz. Gerron and his wife were executed in the gas chambers on October 28, 1944. The film was not released at the time, but was edited into pieces that served their purpose, and only segments of it have remained.
Statistics
Approximately 144,000 Jews were sent to Theresienstadt. Some 40,000 of them originated from Germany, 15,000 from Austria, 5,000 from the Netherlands and 300 from Luxembourg. In addition to the group of approx. 500 Jews from Denmark, also Slovak and Hungarian Jews were deported to the ghetto. Some 1,600 Jewish children from Białystok, Poland, were deported to Auschwitz from Theresienstadt; none survived. Most inmates were Czech Jews. About a quarter of the inmates (33,000) died in Theresienstadt, mostly because of the deadly conditions (hunger, stress, and disease, especially the typhus epidemic at the very end of war). About 88,000 were deported to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. When the war finished, there were a mere 17,247 survivors. There were 15,000 children living in the children's home inside the camp; only 93 of those children survived.

My Pictures

Posted by Moosecow | Comments
Tags: holocaust, towns i visited

Salif Keita

Moosecow — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:29:35 +0000

Salif Keita
The Golden Voice of Mali
By David Dacks

Salif Keita possesses one of the world’s unique voices — powerful, sensitive, and blessed with a huge range; he draws from styles and forms of his Malian homeland, incorporating Islamic, soul, rock, French chanson, Spanish and Caribbean elements into his songs. His journey to international recognition has been just as unique. His life is defined by contrasts, and his mission is to fuse the disparate elements of his experience into a singular sensibility. He was born into Malian royalty but scorned as an outcast because of his albinism. He was one of the original “world music” stars, at once an ambassador of African music but also aspiring to universal pop stardom. Trying to incorporate his many cultural influences over his nearly 40-year career, he has vacillated between astonishingly synthetic pop and post-modern African music. The dual forces of tradition and modernity, of his heritage and his journeys throughout the world continue to add to his musical vocabulary. At present, he is at the peak of his career, having released two widely acclaimed discs in a row and having finally reconciled his responsibilities and heritage in Mali with the demands of international recording and touring. This summer, he plays select high profile shows in Canada for the first time since the late ’90s.

1200s
Sundiata Keita, the real life Lion King from whom Salif is directly descended, founds the Malian empire in the 13th century. At its height, this empire was the largest in Africa, as big as Europe. The central cities of the empire were located along the trade routes between North Africa, the Sahara desert and the sub-Saharan forest. Trade routes also stimulated cultural exchanges between the nomads of the Saharan desert and the more sedentary forest dwellers. A social order developed within the empire, with the Mandinkan Keita clan as its ruling family, and its history and culture to be disseminated by the griots. Griots were poets, musicians and advisers to the kings — the yin to the political/warrior ruler yang. Outside of their specific status as oral historians, though, griots were essentially a lower caste. Roles were well defined; the deeds of kings and griots did not intermix. Nevertheless, the two functioned in symbiosis.

1949 to 1968
Mali is now a French colony. Keita’s family are fairly well-to-do landowners who retain their noble caste. Salifou Keita is born August 25 1949, in Djoliba, a town in the south of Mali near the heartland of the old empire. His father had been informed by a “marabout” (a West African Islamic scholar/mystic) that he would have a son destined for greatness, but only with great sacrifice. Keita is born albino, which shocks and scandalises his family. It is believed an albino baby, especially born of royalty, possesses dangerous, even demonic powers. Initially, Keita’s father sends him and his mother away. Keita’s mother has to hide him for fear of reprisals from superstitious mobs. After Keita’s father receives council from a religious chief, Keita and his mother return to live an uneasy life on the family’s farm. He works the fields, shouting and vocalising in order to chase away baboons and birds, before his father forces him to go to school. At first his appearance frightens his classmates; later he is simply shunned and ridiculed. His poor eyesight affects his ability to succeed in school, and Keita is thrown out.

Keita finds himself drawn to griots’ musicality, and the sounds emanating from the nearby Islamic school. His parents grow troubled over Keita’s constant guitar playing around the house — it breaks ancestral rules forbidding the performance of music by the royal family. His situation becomes increasingly desperate — he cannot fulfil his familial expectations, he has not completed school and he is an outcast due to his skin colour. At the age of 20, he leaves home for Bamako, the capital of Mali. In an interview, he is terse about his early years: “I cried for 20 years. When I was thrown out of school I had no other solution [than to turn to music]. When I was 20 I accepted [my fate] and became resigned to it.” He has said that he would have either have chosen music or petty crime, and music won out.

1969 to 1973
While in Bamako “I was living in the streets because I didn’t know anyone in Bamako. I spent two years living in the market.” He plays guitar and sings in bars and cafes. His soaring, powerful voice makes an impression on all who hear him. In 1970, a member of the Rail Band of Bamako, who play at the hotel restaurant at the railway station, spots Keita and invites him to audition. Salif isn’t the first choice: “I went to a competition to become the lead singer of the Rail Band, and there were four candidates. I wasn’t chosen, but the winner never came to rehearsal so they ended up with me.” Typically in Bamako, hotels or wealthy individuals sponsor bands, providing instruments, accommodations and clothing. The Rail Band — located at the only train station in Bamako — is sponsored by the Malian government. Authorities insist their repertoire be composed of traditional Malian tunes. Nevertheless, the Rail Band revolutionise these traditional styles by setting them to electric instruments, and incorporating Afro-Cuban influences.

1973 to 1983
In 1973, Salif leaves the Rail Band to join Les Ambassadeurs, led by Guinean guitarist and singer Kanté Manfila. Manfila becomes a musical confidant, Keita tells Mondomix magazine: “Since I was not in a griot family, I was not allowed to learn traditional compositions. Kanté Manfila was my school.” The band’s headquarters are the Bamako Motel, where they play for a more international clientele. The band itself are multicultural, featuring Nigerian, Malian and Senegalese musicians and draw from a much wider palette of music. As the political situation in Mali becomes tenser, Keita and Manfila move to Abidjan, the capital of Cote D’Ivoire, which is more musically active and technically better equipped than Bamako. The group change their name to Les Ambassadeurs Internationaux.

In 1978, Keita enters a proper recording studio for the first time. The resulting album, Mandjou, is a huge success and showcases Les Ambassadeurs Internationaux’s distinctiveness. His work at this time is documented on Les Ambassadeurs Internationaux featuring Salif Keita on U.S. folk/world label Rounder.
In December 1980, Keita and Manfila, financed by a Malian businessman, travel to Washington where they stay three months and record two albums, Primpin and Tounkan. These albums eventually show up on the Celluloid label several years later to little fanfare. Returning to Cote D’Ivoire, Manfila and Keita make another album, which is bootlegged until its official release as The Lost Album on Syllart in 2005. This album features some rough and ready studio craft, such as sped-up guitars, big reverb and a mixture of traditional and pop instrumentation. Fusion is inevitable, Keita tells Rootsworld magazine, and he embraces it: “You listen to people. You meet culture. You meet a lot of musicians and you listen to a lot of musicians who do all kinds of music. So it is only normal that you will change, you grow up and carry on until you die. Until the day you die, you are growing up and changing.”

1984 to 1987
In 1983, Keita quits Les Ambassadeurs Internationaux, leaves Abidjan and returns to Bamako. His parents are aging, and Keita desires reconciliation with his family, who have softened their stance on his choice of profession. In 1984, he accepts a gig at the Musiques Metisses Festival in Angoulème, France (for “cross-breed music”), where he is a sensation.

Following this concert, he moves to the Paris suburb of Montreuil, the home of some 15,000 Malians. The environment is very supportive for African musicians. He recalls, “At the time I arrived there was a policy to encourage African music and not to be subject to racism.” Musicians like Mory Kante, Toure Kunda and Manu Dibango are recording in Paris, producing next-generation African records that incorporate musicians from many countries and much more studio polish than ever before. Pan-African musical styles emerge, which represent exciting new possibilities for international pop music. Yet Keita does not rush into a contract with labels that are piling on to the new marketing arena of “world music.” He spends many years playing parties and traditional celebrations within the Malian community, acclimating himself to Paris. In 1985, Dibango, the elder statesman of African musicians in France, asks him to participate in recording the single “Tam Tam pour l’Ethiopie,” French Africans’ counterpart to Band Aid.

After a six-year gap between albums, he releases Soro on Sterns Records in 1987. The record is produced by up and coming Senegalese producer Ibrahim Sylla, and arranged by French duo François Bréant and Jean-Philippe Rykiel. The result is an entirely new environment for Keita’s soaring vocals. Partly traditional, especially in the vocal inflections and its fundamental rhythmic base, Soro takes many chances with big brass sections, expensive sounding synths, and overall pop sheen. The album sells 60,000 copies. Later this year, Keita is invited to England to participate in an all-star Afro-Anglo affair celebrating the still-jailed Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday. This event confirms his ascendancy to international world music stardom.

1988 to 1991
Island Records licenses Soro; it eventually sells more than 100,000 records worldwide. In 1989, he releases his second major label album, Ko-Yan. Glossy late ‘80s electronics encroach on more of the mix, complete with dreadful synth horn patches. His voice, in contrast with Soro, is more earthbound this time around. Perhaps this reflects the songs’ themes of the souring of the African experience in France, where the rise of the National Front, harassment and unemployment have become major problems.

1991 to 1993
Amen, produced by Weather Report main man Joe Zawinul and featuring Wayne Shorter and Carlos Santana, is released in 1991. Zawinul has a leaden touch with drum machines, but somehow Salif’s voice is not as subsumed by the production as on his previous disc. This is his greatest bid for mainstream stardom yet, and the album is nominated for a Grammy. A world tour follows, which continues into 1993, including a special performance at Peter Gabriel’s WOMAD festival in England. He guests on the Cole Porter tribute Red Hot and Blue, radically revising “Begin the Beguine.”

Later in 1991, his life story, Destiny Of A Noble Outcast, is documented by the BBC. Keita is filmed extensively in Mali, in his home village, the fields in which he learned to sing, and consorting with griots. The pain of his past and his present success are uncomfortably merged in the doc. His aged parents are featured prominently and appear to have reconciled (or resigned) themselves with their son’s path.

1994 to 1999
Island puts out the retrospective Mansa of Mali collection, and Sonodisc releases 69-80, which documents his early years. Folon… The Past is released in 1995 and sounds both more natural and more electronically sophisticated than his previous albums. Stylistically, more polyrhythms surface in his music, influenced by Antillean zouk and Afro-Cuban sources. As well, reggae and jazz figure more prominently in the cocktail of influences. Lyrically, as the title of the album suggests, he seems more drawn to Malian and African topics, reprising “Mandjou,” and dedicating a song to Nelson Mandela.

Back in Mali, his father dies. By the end, Salif says, there has been a full reconciliation. Salif gives a concert in Bamako in December, and embarks on another international tour the following March. Increasingly, he is drawn back home when not touring. He takes up residence in Mali in 1996, and balances his time between Paris and Bamako.

Folon’s polar opposite, Sosie, comes out the following year. Sosie is a saccharine, adult contemporary treatment of classic French love songs, but it’s a repertoire he enjoys singing. One review characterises it thusly: “Fans of Gainsbourg won’t get it. African music purists will hate it. Those with a taste for slightly confused and skewed pop music will love it.” Island declines the disc, and it is released on the tiny Mellemfolkgleit label. When asked whether record labels have ever pressured him, he says confidently, “If a label gives me trouble, I just walk away.”

The following year, he opens a recording studio in Bamako called Wanda Productions. Late in 1997, the first release in the Salif Keita Presents series appears: N’tin Naari by singer Fantani Touré. His next production is for Rokia Traoré, who has since become one of the brightest stars of Africa in recent years.

In 1999 he releases Papa on Blue Note subsidiary Metro Blue, produced by Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid. It is recorded in Bamako, Paris and New York — although the material recorded in Bamako is completely unusable due to technical problems. Not surprisingly, there is a tougher, more rock-oriented sound to the album; never has the music been so ill-suited to his voice.

2000 to 2003
In 2000, he guests with Africando, the all-star African salsa band under the direction of Ibrahim Sylla. He is right at home on a Latinized version of his own “Ntoman,” which sends a wake up call to fans around the world that he’s still got it. In 2001 he opens a club in Bamako named Moffou, after a one-hole flute that he played as a child. The following year, switching labels to Universal, he releases the album Moffou. Synths and electronics are gone; few electric instruments are present on this album at all. The title song incorporates still more new influences, such as guest Cesaria Evora’s Cape Verdean singing, but the array of hammered balafons, stringed instruments and percussion is marshalled by old hand Manfila into a densely textured sound that is Malian yet pan-African and Caribbean as well. Critics around the world hail it as a triumphant return to Salif’s acoustic roots, when in fact this is only an exciting new phase in his relentless fusion of influences, albeit produced by acoustic ingredients. It ends up selling over 100,000 copies in France and 150,000 around the world. Keita is nominated for his second Grammy.

2004 to 2006
Mouffou’s futuristic yet traditional sound makes it something of a cult favourite among electronic producers. Following Martin Solveig’s remix of “Madan,” Universal releases Remixes from Mouffou featuring Osunlade, Doctor L and Frederic Galliano. Later in 2004, Salif decides to move back to Mali permanently. Upon his return, he organises three concerts in Bamako, and a special day of debate on the theme of “the development of the African music sector and its impact on the campaign against poverty, AIDS and other pandemics in Africa.” His ability to mobilise and organise is recognised by the United Nations and in November, he is appointed UN Ambassador for Sport and Music.

He spends much of 2005 working on his next album in his studio, which has been rebuilt by Universal. Finally released at the end of 2005, M’bemba (“The Ancestor”) is another career highlight. While preserving the acoustic focus of Mouffou, this album is both more intimate and more angular in its production. This is Keita’s most successful fusion of technology and tradition to date. He has transformed the language of the acoustic sounds and rhythms of his homeland into a stimulating fusion for the most sophisticated ears. His vocals remain as clear and powerful as ever. Keita sounds like a man possessed by the spirits of his ancestors and ready to settle into this next phase of his life.

In Destiny Of A Noble Outcast Keita reflects on his heritage and his career trajectory “I’m very happy I was born [in Mali], I accepted nature as it is, in the depths of its gentleness. I went elsewhere and I saw scientific life. I got to know other societies. Then I made a fusion and I saw that I was born where I should have been.” There has never been one word to fully describe Keita’s music; chances are there never will be.

The Essential Salif Keita

Soro (Sterns/Island, 1987)
Soro is an acquired taste. If you still have affection for Batman-era Prince keyboard sounds, you’ll get into this. For much of his career, Salif’s music has been marked by adult contemporary pop influences, mostly by choice. This album presented him as an African pop star — able to meld traditional instrumentation and rhythms with the heights of technological gloss. There is more than enough sensitivity in the arrangements, and sheer passion in Keita’s voice to overcome the masses of guitars, backing vocals, drum machines and synths. There are plenty of atmospheric moments on this album — the reverse of the bright and brassy soukous and zouk styles in vogue at the time.

Mouffou (Universal, 2002)
Much more than a man and a mic, it is a finely tuned mix of various hammered and plucked Malian instruments and with liberal sprinklings of electric and acoustic guitars. A few tracks absolutely throb with dance floor potential, but instead of having bass lines and kick drums, the required pulses are teased out of the lower frequencies of the instruments by compression and EQ. Dub influences abound, particularly on the faster selections like “Iniagige,” where the stereo panning is simply mind-expanding. This is no mere use of acoustic instrumentation to suggest a sense of authenticity, Mouffou extends the possibilities of traditional instrumental sources made abstract by studio wizardry.

M’Bemba (Universal, 2005)
M’Bemba is another acoustic album sporting a rigorous mix, but it is even more successful. Lyrically, this is Keita’s most historically themed disc, examining the history of Mali and his own obligations to the country. Up to five acoustic guitars intertwine with percussion, and the judicious arrangement of bass frequencies is a labyrinth of polyrhythmic activity. The album really takes off in “Laban” where the serene groove changes midway to a reverbed electric Afro-rumba groove wherein Salif’s vocals take off to ecstatic heights unheard of on any of his albums to date. “Yambo” boasts a mix that conjures Richie Hawtin’s tightly controlled rhythmic variations in a more exuberant context. This disc is a triumph of concept and execution, and is profoundly soulful.

Discography

Soro - 1987 - Mango
Ko-Yan - 1989 - Mango
Amen - 1991 - Mango
Destiny of a Noble Outcast - 1991 - PolyGram
69-80 - 1994 - Sonodisc
Folon - 1995 - Mango
Rail Band - 1996 - Melodie
Seydou Bathili - 1997 - Sonodisc
Papa - 1999 - Blue Note
Mama - 2000 - Capitol
Sosie - 2001 - Mellemfolkeligt
Moffou - 2002 - Universal Jazz France
The Best of the Early Years - 2002 - Wrasse
Remixes from Moffou - 2004 - Universal Jazz France
M'Bemba - 2005 - Universal Jazz France
The Lost Album - 2006 - Cantos

Posted by Moosecow | Comments (1)
Tags: music, africa

Army crackdown: 7 arrested in Uganda

Moosecow — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:28:09 +0000

Ugandan authorities have repatriated seven suspected members of the Sabaot Land Defence Force amid reports that the top leaders of the militia may have fled the country just days before the military operation was launched.

Security officers patrol Kipsigon trading centre in Chebyuk, Mt Elgon District. A joint police and military operation was recently launched to crack down on the Sabaot Land Defence Force, which has been blamed for killings sparked by disputed land allocation in the district. Photo/JARED NYATAYA

Sources in Mt Elgon said that the suspected leader of the militia, 24-year-old Wycliffe Kirui Komon Matakwei, and about 450 of his men, fled the Chemondi Kimama area – where the conflict that has claimed 700 lives and displaced 80,000 people in 18 months of clashes started. The group fled two days ahead of the joint army/police crackdown.
“They left in three squads,” said a source linked to the rebel leader. “Most of the boys escaped with their ammunition. They had been informed of the military plan days before.”
Track down leaders
However, the security personnel leading the Mt Elgon crackdown do not believe this claim. At the weekend, the joint army/police operation media liaison officer, Mr Charles Wahong’o, said: “Whatever it takes, however long, we will track down the (SLDF) leaders. We have to bring them to book.”
One of those on the “wanted list” was elected as a councillor in Mt Elgon during the December elections. He is described as one of the group’s commanders. Although local government authorities said the suspect was not sworn in, other sources claimed he secretly took the oath of office a week after the other councillors.
Ugandan authorities seized the seven suspects on the Lwakhakha side of its border on March 15. The suspects were then handed over to Kenyan authorities immediately.
“We are working closely with Ugandan authorities,” Mt Elgon district commissioner Mohamed Birik said in an interview with the Nation at his Kapsokwony offices.
The hunt is on for a Laiboni (community elder) called Psongoywo who is believed to have escaped into Uganda. He is the alleged architect of the militia and the person believed to have administered an oath on the fighters.
Holed up in caves
The joint army/police operation command said it was aware that word leaked about the impending crackdown against the militias. However, sources in the army said they still believed the group was holed up in caves in areas such as Chemondi, Chebwek, Kimama and near the top of Mt Elgon.
Some militias had offered to surrender to the Cheptais district officer, Mr K. Tirop, at Kapkironga Trading Centre near the foot of the mountain. “We waited but they didn’t appear,” Mr Tirop said at the weekend.
The area’s acting chief, Mr Jamin Chemos, said hundreds of youths were picked up by soldiers to assist in investigations. He said it was true that the militia forcibly conscripted some youths in his area. “They were then given pangas, knives and were trained on how to fight.”
Soldiers and the police mounted an operation at Kapkirongo after rumours that Matakwei, the leader of the militia, was to hold a meeting there.
“The Army was given wrong information. Matakwei was not here,” said Mr Chemos.
A source on Friday said that a David Sichei, who is believed to have trained the youths, surrendered on Thursday. The police also seized 17 guns from him. Sichei is an Israeli-trained former guard attached to the presidential security detail.
“He gave himself up Sunday and gave us valuable information about the whereabouts of his comrades in crime. We know they are here in Mt Elgon and in Uganda,” said the source.
Earlier in the day, the Kapsokwony district officer, Mr Donald Koech, had revealed that security personnel were closing in on Sichei and Matakwei.
Three-quarters of Mt Elgon district is under forest cover, which complicates any military onslaught. The area also has many caves, some extending to the Ugandan side. Among the communities that live in the district are the Sabaots, Bukusu and Teso, whose members are to be found on either side of the Kenya/Uganda border.
The security operation has paralysed many businesses and other activities in the districts. Hundreds of suspects have been arrested but many of them were later freed after interrogation. Some civilians claimed that hundreds of people had been killed in the bombings of the caves and other parts of the forest, allegations denied by security officials who talk about “a dozen or so” but insist they need time to compile the death toll.
Some residents also claimed that a military aircraft had been dropping the bodies of militiamen at Chesakwa, deep in the Mt Elgon forest, and at Ng’atip Kong, where the militias used to kill and dump their victims. “The bodies are being airlifted and thrown out deep in the forest,” said a community elder.
Sources at Webuye and Bungoma hospitals, the largest referral centres in the region, said the mortuaries had not received any bodies from Mt Elgon since the operation began a fortnight ago. Bungoma and Webuye hospitals had received one and nine bodies of victims before the military operation began.
Mt Elgon district commissioner Mohamed Birik said the security personnel had seized 30 firearms and hundreds of grenades. Human rights activists, including Job Bwonya of the Western Kenya Human Rights Watch, said the security chiefs could do better. “That there were close to 3,000 militias in the forests and caves out there, we tend to think the SLDF had something like 1,500 guns at their disposal,” said the organisation’s executive director.
The security team is looking for Matakwei’s father and Psongoywo, who is said to have administered oaths on the boys, making them believe they could not be felled by police bullets.
In the early days of the operation, an unknown number of militias were bombed in a cave after they defied an order to surrender, said a highly placed source in the provincial administration in Western Province.
The military has vowed to track down the militia that has killed about 700 people in Mt Elgon and the larger Trans Nzoia districts since August 2006. The figure of the death toll was compiled by the Western Kenya Human Rights Watch, an NGO. Of those victims, about 200 died in the past three months, raising the possibility that the insurgents may have taken advantage of the post-election violence to escalate their attacks.
Some of the bodies are lying unclaimed at the Webuye mortuary, said hospital sources. Security sources said the operation had discovered mass graves at Ng’atip Kong and at Meza.
The Mt Elgon conflict was sparked by a dispute over land allocation in the district. Corruption riddled the Chebyuk Settlement Scheme Phase Three allocations after some squatters who had lived on the land were evicted after they allegedly failed to acquire the plots.
Missed out
Among those who missed out on the allocation was one community elder identified as Psongoywo and a Matakwei, father of the militia’s leader, Wycliffe Matakwei. The two owned 200 acres each which they then subdivided among their sons. “When they were evicted by the provincial administration, the area erupted in violence and their sons went to the bush to fight,” said a source.
But Mr Wahong’o, the security operations press officer, said the conflict had moved from land clashes to the targeting of innocent people in Mt Elgon, Trans Nzoia and Bungoma districts. “The crisis was in Chebyuk but the killings are being done outside. These are criminals,” he said.
He urged the displaced families to return. “We call upon those who are innocent to go back home. Everything is all right.”
Story by KEN OPALA
Publication Date: 3/24/2008

Posted by Moosecow | Comments
Tags: africa, kenya

Two die as rains cause havoc in towns

Moosecow — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 09:13:29 +0000

Published on March 22, 2008, 12:00 am

By Saturday Standard Team
Two people died and more than 2,000 others were displaced after an overnight downpour in Marsabit District.
The District Commissioner Mr Njenga Miiri confirmed the deaths. The two were buried alive when a building collapsed.
Two other people were rushed to hospital in critical condition.
Mirii said the torrential rains destroyed several manyattas, permanent buildings — schools and health centres.
"The rains accompanied by strong winds took many by surprise on Thursday evening. We have sent rescue teams to the affected Mubisa area in North Horr constituency," said the DC.
Speaking on telephone on Friday, the DC said police and a team from the Red Cross had moved children and the elderly to safer grounds.
Isacko Galgalo, the district ODM-Kenya chairman, expressed fears of a disease outbreak.
Galgalo said NGOs and the Government should assist the displaced to rebuild their houses and business premises.
In Meru Central District, a storm destroyed property worth about Sh1 million.
More than 50 houses were flattened. A church under construction had a section of its roof blown off during the Thursday evening incident.
Several trees were uprooted and hundreds of acres under food crops destroyed.
The storm swept through Kimbo location in Abothuguchi West division and caused havoc for about three hours.
Mr Daniel Maingi said he lost a jacket containing Sh47,000 he had withdrawn from a bank in Meru town.
In Naivasha, property was destroyed after heavy rains pounded the town.
Transport came to a standstill as the raging waters flooded roads.
During the late afternoon downpour, several shops and hotels had their property washed away as customers fled.
The proprietor of one of the hotels, Mr George Ng’ang’a, was in shock as he watched his life savings washed down the drainage.
"I will sue the council and the construction company re-carpeting the Mai Mahiu-Naivasha road. They have not put up a proper drainage," he said.

Posted by Moosecow | Comments
Tags: africa, kenya

Anne Frank

Moosecow — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 11:49:49 +0000

Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (June 12, 1929–early March 1945) was a German-born Jewish girl from the city of Frankfurt, who wrote a diary while in hiding with her family, the Van Pels family and Fritz Pfeffer in Amsterdam during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.
Anne and her family moved to Amsterdam in 1933 after the Nazis gained power in Germany, and were trapped by the occupation of the Netherlands, which began in 1940. As persecutions against the Jewish population increased, the family went into hiding in July 1942 in hidden rooms in her father Otto Frank´s office building. After two years, the group was betrayed and transported to concentration camps. Seven months after her arrest, Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, within days of the death of her sister, Margot Frank. Her father Otto, the only survivor of the group, returned to Amsterdam after the war to find that her diary had been saved, and his efforts led to its publication in 1947. It was translated from its original Dutch and first published in English in 1952 as The Diary of a Young Girl.
The diary, which was given to Anne on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life from June 12, 1942 until August 1, 1944. It has been translated into many languages, has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films. Anne Frank has been acknowledged for the quality of her writing, and has become one of the most renowned and discussed of Holocaust victims.

Life in the Achterhuis
On the morning of Monday, July 6, 1942, the family moved into the hiding place. Their apartment was left in a state of disarray to create the impression that they had left suddenly, and Otto Frank left a note that hinted they were going to Switzerland. The need for secrecy forced them to leave behind Anne's cat, Moortje. As Jews were not allowed to use public transport, they walked several kilometres from their home, with each of them wearing several layers of clothing as they did not dare to be seen carrying luggage.The Achterhuis (a Dutch word denoting the rear part of a house, translated as the "Secret Annexe" in English editions of the diary) was a three-story space entered from a landing above the Opekta offices. Two small rooms, with an adjoining bathroom and toilet, were on the first level, and above that a larger open room, with a small room beside it. From this smaller room, a ladder led to the attic. The door to the Achterhuis was later covered by a bookcase to ensure it remained undiscovered. The main building, situated a block from the Westerkerk, was nondescript, old and typical of buildings in the western quarters of Amsterdam.

Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman, Miep Gies, and Bep Voskuijl were the only employees who knew of the people in hiding, and with Gies' husband Jan Gies and Voskuijl's father Johannes Hendrik Voskuijl, were their "helpers" for the duration of their confinement. They provided the only contact between the outside world and the occupants of the house, and they kept them informed of war news and political developments. They catered for all of their needs, ensured their safety and supplied them with food, a task that grew more difficult with the passage of time. Anne wrote of their dedication and of their efforts to boost morale within the household during the most dangerous of times. All were aware that if caught they could face the death penalty for sheltering Jews.
In late July, the Franks were joined by the van Pels family: Hermann, Auguste, and 16-year-old Peter, and then in November by Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist and friend of the family. Anne wrote of her pleasure at having new people to talk to, but tensions quickly developed within the group forced to live in such confined conditions. After sharing her room with Pfeffer, she found him to be insufferable and resented his intrusion,and she clashed with Auguste van Pels, whom she regarded as foolish. She regarded Hermann van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer as selfish, particularly in regards to the amount of food they consumed. Some time later, after first dismissing the shy and awkward Peter van Pels, she recognized a kinship with him and the two entered a romance. She received her first kiss from him, but her infatuation with him began to wane as she questioned whether her feelings for him were genuine, or resulted from their shared confinement. Anne Frank formed a close bond with each of the helpers and Otto Frank later recalled that she had anticipated their daily visits with impatient enthusiasm. He observed that Anne's closest friendship was with Bep Voskuijl, "the young typist... the two of them often stood whispering in the corner".
In her writing, Anne Frank examined her relationships with the members of her family, and the strong differences in each of their personalities. She considered herself to be closest emotionally to her father, who later commented, "I got on better with Anne than with Margot, who was more attached to her mother. The reason for that may have been that Margot rarely showed her feelings and didn't need as much support because she didn't suffer from mood swings as much as Anne did". Anne and Margot formed a closer relationship than had existed before they went into hiding, although Anne sometimes expressed jealousy towards Margot, particularly when members of the household criticized Anne for lacking Margot's gentle and placid nature. As Anne began to mature, the sisters were able to confide in each other. In her entry of January 12, 1944, Anne wrote, "Margot's much nicer.... She's not nearly so catty these days and is becoming a real friend. She no longer thinks of me as a little baby who doesn't count".
Anne frequently wrote of her difficult relationship with her mother, and of her ambivalence towards her. On November 7, 1942 she described her "contempt" for her mother and her inability to "confront her with her carelessness, her sarcasm and her hard-heartedness", before concluding, "She's not a mother to me". Later, as she revised her diary, Anne felt ashamed of her harsh attitude, writing "Anne is it really you who mentioned hate, oh Anne, how could you?" She came to understand that their differences resulted from misunderstandings that were as much her fault as her mother's, and saw that she had added unnecessarily to her mother's suffering. With this realization, Anne began to treat her mother with a degree of tolerance and respect.
Margot and Anne each hoped to return to school as soon as they were able and continued with their studies. Margot took a short hand course by correspondence in Bep Voskuijl's name and received high marks. She also kept a diary, however it is believed to be lost. Most of Anne's time was spent reading and studying, and she regularly wrote and edited her diary entries. In addition to providing a narrative of events as they occurred, she wrote about her feelings, beliefs and ambitions, subjects she felt she could not discuss with anyone. As her confidence in her writing grew, and as she began to mature, she wrote of more abstract subjects such as her belief in God, and how she defined human nature. She continued writing regularly until her final entry of August 1, 1944.

Arrest
On the morning of August 4, 1944, the Achterhuis was stormed by the German Security Police (Grüne Polizei) following a tip-off from an informer who was never identified. Led by Schutzstaffel Oberscharführer Karl Silberbauer of the Sicherheitsdienst, the group included at least three members of the Security Police. The Franks, van Pelses and Pfeffer were taken to the Gestapo headquarters where they were interrogated and held overnight. On August 5, they were transferred to the Huis van Bewaring (House of Detention), an overcrowded prison on the Weteringschans. Two days later they were transported to Westerbork. Ostensibly a transit camp, by this time more than 100,000 Jews had passed through it. Having been arrested in hiding, they were considered criminals and were sent to the Punishment Barracks for hard labor.
Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman were arrested and jailed at the penal camp for enemies of the regime at Amersfoort. Kleiman was released after seven weeks, but Kugler was held in various work camps until the war's end. Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl were questioned and threatened by the Security Police but were not detained. They returned to the Achterhuis the following day, and found Anne's papers strewn on the floor. They collected them, as well as several family photograph albums, and Gies resolved to return them to Anne after the war. On August 7, 1944, Gies attempted to facilitate the release of the prisoners by confronting Silberbauer and offering him money to intervene, but he refused.
Deportation and death
On September 3, the group was deported on what would be the last transport from Westerbork to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and arrived after a three day journey. In the chaos that marked the unloading of the trains, the men were forcibly separated from the women and children, and Otto Frank was wrenched from his family. Of the 1019 passengers, 549—including all children younger than fifteen—were sent directly to the gas chambers. Anne had turned fifteen three months earlier and was one of the youngest people to be spared from her transport. She was soon made aware that most people were gassed upon arrival, and never learnt that the entire group from the Achterhuis had survived this selection. She reasoned that her father, in his mid fifties and not particularly robust, had been killed immediately after they were separated.
With the other females not selected for immediate death, Anne was forced to strip naked to be disinfected, had her head shaved and was tattooed with an identifying number on her arm. By day, the women were used as slave labour and Anne was forced to haul rocks and dig rolls of sod; by night, they were crammed into overcrowded barracks. Witnesses later testified that Anne became withdrawn and tearful when she saw children being led to the gas chambers, though other witnesses reported that more often she displayed strength and courage, and that her gregarious and confident nature allowed her to obtain extra bread rations for Edith, Margot and herself. Disease was rampant and before long, Anne's skin became badly infected by scabies. She and Margot were moved into an infirmary, which was in a state of constant darkness, and infested with rats and mice. Edith Frank stopped eating, saving every morsel of food for her daughters and passing her rations to them, through a hole she made at the bottom of the infirmary wall.
On October 28, selections began for women to be relocated to Bergen-Belsen. More than 8,000 women, including Anne and Margot Frank and Auguste van Pels, were transported, but Edith Frank was left behind and later died from starvation. Tents were erected at Bergen-Belsen to accommodate the influx of prisoners, and as the population rose, the death toll due to disease increased rapidly. Anne was briefly reunited with two friends, Hanneli Goslar and Nanette Blitz, who were confined in another section of the camp. Goslar and Blitz both survived the war and later discussed the brief conversations that they had conducted with Anne through a fence. Blitz described her as bald, emaciated and shivering and Goslar noted that Auguste van Pels was with Anne and Margot Frank, and was caring for Margot who was severely ill. Neither of them saw Margot as she was too weak to leave her bunk. Anne told both Blitz and Goslar that she believed her parents were dead, and for that reason did not wish to live any longer. Goslar later estimated that their meetings had taken place in late January or early February, 1945.
In March 1945, a typhus epidemic spread through the camp and killed an estimated 17,000 prisoners. Witnesses later testified that Margot fell from her bunk in her weakened state and was killed by the shock, and that a few days later Anne died. They estimated that this occurred a few weeks before the camp was liberated by British troops on April 15, 1945, although the exact dates were not recorded. After liberation, the camp was burned in an effort to prevent further spread of disease, and Anne and Margot were buried in a mass grave, the exact whereabouts of which is unknown.
After the war, it was estimated that of the 107,000 Jews deported from the Netherlands between 1942 and 1944, only 5,000 survived. It was also estimated that up to 30,000 Jews remained in The Netherlands, with many people aided by the Dutch underground. Approximately two-thirds of these people survived the war.
Otto Frank survived his internment in Auschwitz and after the war ended he returned to Amsterdam where he was sheltered by Jan and Miep Gies, as he attempted to locate his family. He learnt of the death of his wife, Edith, in Auschwitz, but he remained hopeful that his daughters had survived. After several weeks, he discovered that Margot and Anne had also died. He attempted to determine the fates of his daughters' friends, and learnt that many had been murdered. Susanne Ledermann, often mentioned in Anne's diary, had been gassed along with her parents, though her sister, Barbara, a close friend of Margot, had survived. Several of the Frank sisters' school friends had survived, as had the extended families of both Otto and Edith Frank, as they had fled Germany during the mid 1930s, with individual family members settling in Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

I was in the same age like Anne Frank when I was reading her diary for the first time. I ever felt so close to her and was understanding her sorrows with her mother. But I never had to suffer in the same way like her. I wrote this for you because we never have to forget about this terrible things which happened not long time ago.

Posted by Moosecow | Comments
Tags: books, holocaust

22 killed as bandits raid districts in fresh violence

Moosecow — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:26:35 +0000

Twenty-two people were killed during cattle raids in Baringo East and Samburu districts as fresh violence erupted in parts of Rift Valley.
Among the victims were seven members of one family who were killed in Lokodi village, Baringo East. Five of the other casualties were the family’s neighbours while five others were bandits who were felled by police bullets.
In the Samburu attack, five people were killed on Tuesday night.
Over 200 raiders, suspected to be from either Turkana or Samburu districts, stole more than 200 animals in the Baringo raid.
Many of those injured in the attack were children and they were taken to Kabarnet District Hospital for treatment. Among them were two children aged eight and 11 who were shot on the elbow and the knee respectively.
Great pain
Baringo Medical Officer of Health Joseph Odhiambo denied the Nation access to the patients saying they needed to rest “because they are in great pain”.
Churo ward councillor Julia Lochingamoi, who represents the Lokodi area, said the attackers headed towards Samburu district after stealing the livestock.
In the Samburu attack, the over 200 heavily armed bandits gunned down five herdsmen and seriously injured three others in Nasur, Lorroki division.
Speaking from Maralal Town, area OCPD Charles Wasike said security officers were pursuing the killers who had fled towards East Pokot.
When Nation visited the scene on Wednesda, the bodies were still lying at the scene of the attack while the injured were taken to Maralal district hospital for treatment.
“My officers are still on the ground pursuing the raiders but the difficult terrain is a major hindrance,” he said.
The Baringo attack comes only two weeks after MPs Asman Kamama of Baringo East, who is also the Public Service minister, and MP William Cheptumo of Baringo North held a joint peace meeting in Nakuru. Mrs Lochingamoi urged the Government to increase security surveillance in the region as hundreds of people have been rendered homeless by bandits.
She said idle youths have been a major contributor to the outdated tradition of stealing cattle because most of them lacked formal education. An area resident, Mr Francis Chesang, who accompanied the injured to hospital, said the Government should beef up the youth enterprise fund, build more schools to eradicate illiteracy and tarmac more roads to enhance security.
A long-term strategy should be drawn for the communities to discard cattle rustling and other retrogressive cultural practices.
The district has of late been hit by rising cases of cattle rustling and four primary schools were closed due to the insecurity. Chemintany, Kapturo, Kinyach and Chemoe primary schools were closed after raiders invaded villages and occupied the houses abandoned by the displaced people.
Mr Kamama appealed to the Commissioner of Police to consider sending helicopters to the area.
He also demanded that security personnel recover the animals and bring the culprits to justice.
Additional Reporting by Kennedy Masibo
Story by KIBIWOTT KOROSS and PETER LEMETEKI
Publication Date: 3/20/2008

Posted by Moosecow | Comments
Tags: africa, kenya

My hometown Dresden - Germany

Moosecow — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 08:15:00 +0000

Dresden (etymologically from Old Sorbian Drežďany, meaning people of the riverside forest, Sorbian: Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German Federal Free State of Saxony. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area.
Dresden has a long history as the capital and royal residence for the Electors and Kings of Saxony, who for centuries furnished the city with cultural and artistic splendour. The controversial bombing of Dresden in World War II by the British Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force, plus 40 years in the Soviet bloc state of the German Democratic Republic as well as contemporary city development changed the face of the city broadly. Considerable restoration work has settled the damage.
Since German reunification in 1990, Dresden has emerged as a cultural, political, and economic centre in the eastern part of Germany.
Location
Dresden lies on both banks of the river Elbe, mostly in the Dresden Elbe Valley Basin, with the further reaches of the eastern Ore Mountains to the south, the steep slope of the Lusatian granitic crust to the north, and the Elbe Sandstone Mountains to the east at an altitude of about 113 meters. The highest point of Dresden is about 384 meters in altitude.
With a pleasant location and a mild climate on the Elbe, as well as Baroque-style architecture and numerous world-renowned museums and art collections, Dresden has been called "Elbflorenz" (Florence of the Elbe). The incorporation of neighbouring rural communities over the past 60 years has made Dresden the fourth largest urban district in Germany after Berlin, Hamburg, and Cologne.
Nature

Dresden claims to be one of the greenest cities in Europe, with 63% of the city being green areas and forests. The Dresdner Heide to the north is a forest 50 km² in size. There are four nature reserves. The additional Special Conservation Areas cover 18 km². The protected gardens, parkways, parks and old graveyards host 110 natural monuments in the city. The Dresden Elbe Valley is a world heritage site which is focused on the conservation of the cultural landscape in Dresden. One important part of that landscape is the Elbe meadows which cross the city, 20 kilometers long.

Sandstone mountains
Post-war period
After the Second World War, Dresden became a major industrial centre in the German Democratic Republic with a great deal of research infrastructure. Many important historic buildings were rebuilt including the Semper Opera House, the Zwinger Palace and a great many other historic buildings, although the communist leaders of the city chose to reconstruct large areas of the city in a "socialist modern" style, partly for economic reasons but also in order to break away from the city's past as the royal capital of Saxony and a stronghold of the German bourgeoisie. However, some of the bombed-out ruins of churches, royal buildings and palaces, such as the gothic Sophienkirche, the Alberttheater and the Wackerbarth-Palais were razed by the Soviet and East German authorities in the 1950s and 1960s instead of being repaired.
From 1985 to 1990 the KGB stationed Vladimir Putin, the future present President of Russia, in Dresden. On 3 October 1989 (the so-called "battle of Dresden"), a convoy of trains carrying East German refugees from Prague passed through Dresden on its way to the Federal Republic of Germany. Local activists and residents joined in the growing civil disobedience movement spreading across the German Democratic Republic by staging demonstrations and demanding the removal of the non-democratic government.
Post-reunification
Dresden has experienced dramatic changes since the reunification of Germany in the early 1990s. The city still bears many wounds from the bombing raids of 1945, but it has undergone significant reconstruction in recent decades. The Dresden Frauenkirche, as symbol of the more comprehensive reconstructions was completed in 2005, a year before Dresden's 800th birthday. The urban renewal process, which includes the reconstruction of the area around the Neumarkt square on which the Frauenkirche is situated, will continue for many decades, but public and government interest remains high, and there are numerous large projects underway — both historic reconstructions and modern plans — that will continue the city's recent architectural renaissance.

Frauenkirche 1945
Dresden remains a major cultural centre of historical memory, owing to the city's destruction in World War II. Every year on 13 February, the anniversary of the major American fire-bombing raid that destroyed most of the city, tens of thousands of demonstrators gather to commemorate the event. Since reunification, the ceremony has taken on a more neutral and pacifist tone (after being used more politically in Cold War times). In recent years, however, white power skinheads have tried to use the event for their own political ends. In 2005, Dresden was host to the largest Neo-Nazi demonstration in the post-war history of Germany. Between five and eight thousand Neo-Nazis took part, mourning what they call the "Allied bomb-holocaust".

In 2002 torrential rains caused the Elbe to flood 9 m above its normal height, i.e. even higher than the old record height from 1845, damaging many landmarks (See 2002 European flood). The destruction from this "millennium flood" is no longer visible, due to the speed of reconstruction.

The United Nations cultural organization UNESCO declared the Dresden Elbe Valley to be a World Heritage Site in 2004. After being placed on the list of endangered World Heritage Sites in 2006, the city is most likely going to lose the title in July 2007 due to the construction of the Waldschlößchenbrücke. UNESCO stated in 2006 that the bridge will destroy the cultural landscape. The city council's legal moves to prevent the bridge being built failed.

Frauenkirche

Zwinger

Semperoper

Posted by Moosecow | Comments (4)
Tags: towns i visited, east germany - west germany