{{Austrian drag act Conchita Wurst has been crowned the winner of the 59th annual Eurovision Song Contest held in Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen.}}
The singer, whose real name is Tom Neuwirth, won with the song Rise Like a Phoenix, collecting 290 points.
The Netherlands finished second with 238 points, with Sweden in third place with 218 points.
The UK’s Molly Smitten-Downes came 17th, with 40 points for her song Children of the Universe.
It is the first time Austria has won the contest since 1966, and only the second time the country has competed in the final in the past 10 years as it either did not participate or qualify.
Wurst had been the second favourite to win behind Sweden going in to the competition, with many predicting the act could be too divisive among voters.
However she was the clear winner, with her victory announced after 34 of the 37 countries had submitted their scores.
Collecting her trophy on stage the singer said: “This night is dedicated to everyone who believes in a future of peace and freedom. You know who you are – we are unity and we are unstoppable.”
Speaking backstage later, Wurst said she felt Europe had taken a stand by voting her the winner.
“I dream of a world where we don’t have to talk about unnecessary things like sexuality, who you love. I felt like tonight Europe showed that we are a community of respect and tolerance,” she said.
Smitten-Downes, who closed the performances, had been tipped to score highly with bookmakers placing her in the top five.
She received points from only nine countries: San Marino, Denmark, Malta, Iceland, Norway, Ireland, Spain, Belgium and Georgia.
Her result was still better than the UK’s entry last year, when Bonnie Tyler finished 19th on the final scoreboard with 23 points.
The evening’s events were overshadowed by the current events in Ukraine, with Russia’s entry – The Tolmachevy Sisters – receiving boos from the audience during the results when countries including Azerbaijan awarded them the highest number of points.
When Russia’s delegate appeared on screen to announce its votes – seven points of which were for Ukraine – more booing could be heard. Ukraine gave four points to Russia in return.
Russia ended the night in seventh place with 89 points, behind Ukraine with 113.
The Tolmachevy Sisters received points from 13 countries, compared with last year’s Russian entrant who received votes from 27 countries.
The contest featured the usual mix of pop tunes and ballads, accompanied by spectacular stage performances.
Ukraine kicked off the show with a man in a giant hamster wheel, while Greece included a trampolinist and Poland offered a number of busty performers who suggestively churned butter and washed laundry on stage.
Some 26 countries performed at the B&W Hallerne arena for an expected television audience of more than 120 million fans.
DOADOA; the East African Performing Arts Market brings the art to another generation!
Arts practitioners and lovers of all ages have May 7-10 tumble down Jinja Town for this year’s edition.
Doa Doa is a networking, marketing and promotion platform seeking to help East African artistes project their sound outside the region.
The four-day event kicked off in Kampala Uganda, at National Theatre on May 6 and will climax with the Bayimba Regional Festival of the Arts.
Doa is Swahili for spot and according to the programme coordinator, Herman Kabubi, the show intends to put the spot on artistes – give them a chance to network with various industry stakeholders from all over East Africa.
Seeing different East African acts like Ochieng’ Nelly from Kenya, Swahilli Ally from Tanzania, Santuri Safari DJs, and Christopher and Angel both from Rwanda, among others is no easy fate for any festival organizer.
“This is the perfect setting for artists, for both regional and international industry stake holder in the performing arts business to meet and perform, and what a great opportunity for residents to see them in their own backyard,” says Philp Masembe, who is the media coordinator of Bayimba Regional Festival of the Arts.
Some of the high profile delegates headlining the various panel discussions in Jinja include Marion van Dijck from Kenya’s Sawa Sawa Festival, Ben Mandelson, a Producer from WOMEX, the acclaimed world music market and Tabu Osusa from the Kenya-based Ketebul Music label.
Others are Paul Duhaney from the Liverpool-based Africa Oyé Festival, Uganda’s Deborah Asiimwe, Coordinator of Sundance EA and Carmela Sinco a Filipino New York-based Composer/Musician.
{{Objects that belonged to the Nazi leaders Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering have been withdrawn from an auction in Paris, after Jewish groups objected to the sale.}}
The memorabilia included Goering’s passport and a wooden chest marked with swastikas, which was owned by Hitler.
The French Culture Minister had joined Jewish groups in denouncing the sale.
The auction house, Vermot de Pas, said it had not intended to stir controversy.
“We were pitching this as part of the responsibility to remember – but in no way to shock or create a polemic,” media quoted co-manager Laudine de Pas, as saying.
{{‘Moral indecency’}}
The sale on 26 April was due to feature some 40 items seized from Hitler’s Bavarian home in the last days of Nazi Germany in May 1945, according to the auction house.
Among them was a napkin bearing Hitler’s initials and a 17th Century manuscript presented to Hitler’s former deputy, Goering, in 1935.
France’s best-known association of Jewish groups, CRIF, had denounced the sale as “harming the memory of victims of Nazi barbarity”.
In a statement, the organisation said selling the objects would give them “unhealthy symbolic value that resembles cynicism and a form of moral indecency”.
Another group, the National Office of Vigilance against Anti-Semitism, had joined calls for the sale to be blocked, calling it “obscene”.
French Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti welcomed the cancellation on Monday, saying it was “necessary in the light of history and morality”, according to local media .
She had reportedly sent a letter to France’s auctions authority, The Council of Voluntary Sales (CVV), questioning the validity of the sale.
She referred to France’s official ban on the public display of objects linked to Nazi ideology, according to reporters.
Catherine Chadelat, president of the CVV, told reporters that the items were by their very nature likely to shock and that Vermot de Pas had decided to withdraw them from the sale.
{{Youth Literacy Organisation (YouLI) has, this week, released a book containing a collection of 20 poems, on themes of genocide commemoration and remembrance.}}
The 20 poems are written by young Rwandans aged between 14 and 28. They were
compiled under The Poetry Project 19, a project launched by YouLI in March 2013, just ahead of the 19th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
Through the project, YouLI aims to encourage Rwandan youth to (1) tell their own stories and the story of Rwanda, (2) contribute to the literature on Rwanda and the history of the genocide, and (3) foster their creative expression skills through writing.
Each poem within the collection tells a unique story but they all embrace remembrance, forgiveness, and hope for a brighter future.
They take the reader from experiences of anger, blame and regret over a despicable history, to the rising promise of a new generation that carries the responsibility of turning “never again” into reality.
Speaking at the Kwibuka20 Café Littéraire on Sunday, 6 April 2014, YouLI’s Executive
Director, Gilbert Rwabigwi, said, “This is more than just a collection of poems because it also represents what the youth today stands for.
They stand for unity, and rebuilding, with dignity and strong commitments to renew the national, despite the very tragic history of our country.”
“For us,” he said, “writing about our views and experiences related to the history of
Rwanda is very important as we seek to heal the wounds that were left by the genocide andpreserve the memories.”
Published by Bloo Books, Ltd., the first copies of the book were available at the Kwibuka20 Café Littéraire and at the Parliament before Walk to Remember. Copies of the book are now available at publisher’s office in town and Ikirezi Bookshop.
An electronic version of the collection will also be made available in the next few weeks through major eBooks markets.
{{Hong Kong police are investigating the disappearance of a painting worth $3.7m (£2.2m) from a hotel, amid reports it may have been accidentally thrown away.}}
The painting is believed to be a Chinese ink work by artist Cui Ruzhuo entitled Snowy Mountain.
It was reported missing by auctioneers Poly Auction on Tuesday, having been successfully sold on Monday.
Several local media reports suggest cleaners at the Grand Hyatt could have thrown the painting out as rubbish.
According to the South China Morning Post, CCTV footage showed a security guard kick the packaged painting over to a pile of rubbish.
Citing a police source, the paper said that cleaners were then seen throwing the rubbish away, with the rubbish taken to landfill.
In a statement, the hotel said it was working with investigators.
“As the organiser has rented our event venue for this auction, Grand Hyatt Hong Kong is doing its best to offer assistance to Poly Auction including letting the police view the CCTV footage along with our security team,” it said.
The hotel said the auctioneers were responsible for items they sold.
Police have found no trace of the painting, which could now be one of the most expensive pieces of rubbish ever.
{{If the consensus seems to be that France is in a bad mood these days, one thing might cheer the country’s citizens up: despite reports to the contrary, their language is alive and well.}}
A recent study by French investment bank Natixis suggests that French could be the most-spoken language – ahead of even English and Mandarin – within 40 years.
That projection, which estimates 750 million French speakers by 2050, is based on the fact that the language is spoken in the fastest-growing areas of the world, particularly sub-Saharan Africa.
The methodology of the study has been disputed, notably by Forbes, since it counts all inhabitants of countries in which French is an official language as Francophone.
Still, the report comes as good news for defenders of the French tongue, which remains an official language of major international bodies like the UN, EU and Olympics Committee.
The Natixis report comes on the heels of a New York Times article about a French-language renaissance in New York – at least in public schools, where bilingual French-English curriculums are becoming increasingly common and popular.
{{“As a deep expression of the human mind and as a universal art, poetry is a tool for dialogue and rapprochement. The dissemination of poetry helps to promote dialogue among cultures and understanding between peoples because it gives access to the authentic expression of a language.”}}
{In honour of the day, IGIHE presents to you a collection of poems by the late great Ghanaian Poet and Writer, Professor Kofi Awoonor in photo below}
{{OF HOME AND SEA I ALREADY SANG}}
A calm settles
at the beckon of sweet age…
Joy and hope soar
for the ultimate task
ahead written about, already
promised in the trajectories of jail,
in absence and exile…
That we will perform our duty by the people
depose the recalcitrant brutes
and march ahead of our beloved masses
to a coming kingdom…
Let the dream not die, master;
Let the dove coo at dawn again,
Let the masthead rear its head
out of the storm
and share the night with me on this sea.
Let me sing the song you gave me.
Before death comes, master,
Let me dance to the drums you gave me.
Let me sit in the warmth of the fire
Of the only native land you gave me.
{{A DEATH FORETOLD}}
Sometimes, the pain and the sorrow return
particularly at night.
I will grieve again and again tomorrow
for the memory of a death foretold….
I believe in hope and the future
of hope, in victory before death
collective, inexorable, obligatory;
in the enduring prospect of love
though the bed is empty,
in the child’s happiness
though the meal is meagre.
I believe in light and day
beyond the tomb far from the solitude
of the womb, and the mystical night,
in the coming of fruits
the striped salmon and the crooked crab;
I believe in men and the gods
in the spirit and the substance,
in death and the reawakening
in the promised festival and denial
in our heroes and the nation
in the wisdom of the people
the certainty of victory
the validity of struggle….
I will not grieve again tomorrow.
I will not grieve again.
{{GRAINS AND TEARS}}
…. Go and tell them I paid the price
I stood by the truth
I fought anger and hatred
on behalf of the people.
I ate their meagre meals in the barracks
shared their footsteps and tears
in freedom’s name
I promised once in a slave house in Ussher
to postpone dying until
the morning after freedom.
I promise.
{{SONGS OF SORROW}}
I.
Dzogbese Lisa has treated me thus
It has led me among the sharps of the forest
Returning is not possible
And going forward is a great difficulty
The affairs of this world are like the chameleon faeces
Into which I have stepped
When I clean it cannot go.
I am on the world’s extreme corner,
I am not sitting in the row with the eminent
But those who are lucky
Sit in the middle and forget
I am on the world’s extreme corner
I can only go beyond and forget.
My people, I have been somewhere
If I turn here, the rain beats me
If I turn there the sun burns me
The firewood of this world
Is for only those who can take heart
That is why not all can gather it.
The world is not good for anybody
But you are so happy with your fate;
Alas! The travelers are back
All covered with debt.
II.
Something has happened to me
The things so great that I cannot weep;
I have no sons to fire the gun when I die
And no daughters to wail when I close my mouth
I have wandered on the wilderness
The great wilderness men call life
The rain has beaten me,
And the sharp stumps cut as keen as knives
I shall go beyond and rest.
I have no kin and no brother,
Death has made war upon our house;
And Kpeti’s great household is no more,
Only the broken fence stands;
And those who dared not look us in his face
Have come out as men.
How well their pride is with them.
Let those gone before take note
They have treated their offspring badly.
What is the wailing for?
Somebody is dead. Agosu himself
Alas! A snake has bitten me
My right arm is broken,
And the tree on which I lean is fallen.
Agosi if you go tell them,
Tell Nyidevu, Kpeti, and Kove
That they have done us evil;
Tell them their house is falling
And the trees in the fence
Have been eaten by termites;
That the martels curse them.
Ask them why they idle there
While we suffer, and eat sand.
And the crow and the vulture
Hover always above our broken fences
And strangers walk over our portion.
{{THE WEAVER BIRD}}
The weaver bird built in our house
And laid its eggs on our only tree.
We did not send it away.
We watched the building of the nest
And supervised the egg-laying.
And the weaver returned in the guise of the owner.
Preaching salvation to us that owned the house.
They say it came from the west
Where the storms at sea had felled the gulls
And the fishers dried their nets by lantern light.
Its sermon is the divination of ourselves
And our new horizon limits at its nest.
But we cannot join the prayers and answers of the
communicants.
We look for new homes every day.
For new altars we strive to re-build
The old shrines defiled by the weaver’s excrement.
{{REDISCOVERY}}
When our tears are dry on the shore
and the fishermen carry their nets home
and the seagulls return to bird island
and the laughter of the children recedes at night,
there shall still linger here the communion we forged,
{{Rwanda’s popular Hiphop star Jay Polly has announced his support for Andika Rwanda, a national competition for writing stories and poems for children. }}
“I’m a writer,” Jay Polly said. “I write because I want to change people’s lives through the messages in my songs. You have to write to express yourself, you have to let people know what you think.”
The rapper made the comments at Lycee de Kigali on Friday during a surprise appearance at the secondary school’s morning assembly.
The competition, which launched last month, is a joint initiative of the Rwanda Education Board, the USAID-funded Literacy, Language, and Learning (L3) Initiative, implemented by the Education Development Center, and Drakkar Ltd.
The visit was to urge students and youth in general to adopt the culture of writing and to submit a story or poem to the competition.
Primary and secondary students—at both public and private schools—as well as adults are eligible to participate.
Winners receive tablets, books, and a trip to Kigali for a writers symposium and awards ceremony, as well as professional publication of their stories and poems.
The published volumes of winning stories and poems will then be distributed to primary schools across the country, providing children access to interesting, locally-authored stories and poems.
“Anyone can be a writer,” said Jay Polly. “Why not enter the competition?”
Primary and secondary students can learn more from their teachers, and adults can visit their sector offices for more information.
Interested participants can also visit www.reb.rw. The deadline for submissions is Friday, May 9th.
‘Dust’, the debut novel by Kenyan author Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, is being hailed by reviewers in the United States as an “astonishing” and “dazzling” work.
A featured review in the March 2 New York Times edition says readers of Ms Owuor’s story “will find the entirety of human experience — tears, bloodshed, lust, love — in staggering proportions.”
The Washington Post noted last month that while “few American readers have heard of this 45-year-old author before, that must change.” Ms Owuor, the Post’s reviewer comments, “demonstrates extraordinary talent and range in these pages.”
Sunday New York Times reviewer Taiye Selasi, herself the author of an acclaimed novel about Ghana, further advises that ‘Dust’ is “not just for Afrophiles. It is for bibliophiles.”
‘Dust’ is a fictionalised account of Kenya’s history, as experienced through Ms Owuor’s imagined Oganda family. The book is likely to prove controversial in Kenya because of the author’s unsparing account of the nation’s failures and tragedies.
“The novel concerns itself with that country’s blood-soaked history — from the Mau Mau uprisings of the early 1950s to the political assassination of [nationalist Tom Mboya in] 1969 to the post-election violence of 2007,” Ms Selasi writes in her Times review.
Inventive prose
But the author’s inventive prose enraptures readers despite the novel’s emotionally wrenching storyline, reviewers agree, with Ms Selasi hailing “the magic Owuor has made of the classic nation-at-war novel.”
“The richness of the plot alone will challenge a lazy reader,” Ms Selasi adds. “But the visceral lusciousness of the prose will thrill a lover of language.”
“Ultimately,” she continues. “the disjointed prose mirrors brilliantly the fragmented nature of both memory-keeping and nation-building.”
The Washington Post’s reviewer, Ron Charles, offers a similar appraisal of the challenges and rewards of Ms Owuor’s writing.
The Kenyan winner of the Caine Prize in 2003 “has constructed a book that gradually teaches you how to read it,” the Post suggests. “Let the sensuous language of Dust wash over you with the assurance that its fragmentary scenes and allusive references will be visited again and gradually brought into clearer focus.”
Not every review of ‘Dust’, published in the US by Knopf, a leading New York publishing house, has been entirely positive.
A commentator on National Public Radio observes that every character in the novel “is given such ample room to wax philosophic on lofty concepts like nothingness and the idea of Kenya that it’s a struggle to actually get to know them.”
But this reviewer, too, was swept away by Ms Owuor’s writing.
“Her prose can be inventive, even breathtaking, turning phrases or fusing unexpected words in ways that confound and inspire.”
