Afronline – The Voice Of Africa

With his dynamic well-defined flamboyance and gestures in music, from the smallest detail to the overall shape of a piece, world-famous Italian Maestro Riccardo Muti, Conductor and Music Director, ascended to the podium sending a crowd of Kenyan Classical music lovers into elated bliss. He skillfully demonstrated mastery of various musical styles backed by his more than 200 members of different Orchestras at a concert in Nairobi's Uhuru Park grounds on July 9. Before an estimated crowd of about 4,000 people who flocked the park to quench their souls, a humble Riccardo Muti saluted his audience to welcome the arrival of Ravenna festival roads of friendship in Kenya which went down the annals of history as his first concert in sub Sahara Africa. Credits: Eric Sande

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Our reporter snapshot of some selected parts of Tripoli. Ranging from: Burned corpses to executions, wounded militants hiding in hospitals to rebels who patrol neighbourhood and from car ride celebrations on the waterfront to people praying for peace. From Bab al-Aziza to prison than lim Abus, the Revolution Live in the crucial days of the fall of the city. Reported for Afronline and Vita by: Michela A.G. Iaccarino

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COOPI -Cooperazione Internazionale is an italian, non-sectarian and no-profit independent organization that operate where there are serious problems of food, water environment, education and human rights. COOPI has been active in Darfur since 2004 implementing food security and livelihood and water, sanitation and hygiene promotion programs. During 2008, with the financial support of the European agency ECHO, COOPI implemented agricultural and livestock interventions in the localities of Mellit Seyah and Malha in North Darfur. Photos by COOPI

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The Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) has documented evidence of attacks by armored vehicles and the destruction of villages in Sudan's disputed border region of Abyei following the reported bombardment and occupation of the area by the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) on May 20-21. The SSP report, “Abyei Invasion: Evidence of SAF Incursion into the Abyei Region” captures the razing of structures north of Abyei town, including the destruction of a southern-aligned base at Todach; the potential abandonment of a southern base at Tajalei; and fires burning in the town of Dungop and another point near Abyei town. SSP also documents the apparent absence of previously documented forces at a northern-aligned militia base at Goli. This imagery is consistent with reports that northern-aligned forces have razed buildings in Abyei.

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Thousands of North African migrants on a dozen boats have reached the Italian island of Lampedusa which is mainly associated to hosting migrants. Groups have been arriving at this double faced Island to flee from uprisings which started around mid February. Most of the migrants are said to come from Tunisia amid turmoil there and in neighbouring Libya. Several thousands have also arrived on the Sicilian island.Italy has sought EU help as it copes with the influx amid fears of a larger exodus from North African countries. Every year hundreds of migrants die before reaching the island.

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In the spirit of people-power, the project, titled "INSIDE OUT: Artocracy in Tunisia", features a hundred ordinary Tunisians, putting their images where only presidents once hung. The portraits were taken by six Tunisian photographers, in collaboration with the renowned French street artist known as JR and other international artists.

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16 Burundian peacekeepers from African Union troops were killed in a renewed offensive against Al Shebab rebels in Mogadishu. Burundian and Ugandan troops make up the 8,000-strong AU force propping up the weak, Western-backed Somali transitional government. Some of the following pictures might affect your sensitivity.

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Luanda – The Angolan fashion designer, Nadir Tati, has won the category of “Best Designer of the year 2010”, a trophy of “Moda Luanda”. This was announced by the organisation after about a month of public voting. In this 14th edition, “Moda Luanda” also awarded the best male and female models of 2010 to Fredy Costa and Sharon, while Maris Borges appeared as the revelation. Borges Matula and Erica Chissapa were given the title of best television actor and actress, respectively, for their performance in the soap opera”Minha Terra Minha Mãe”. As for the best TV presenters, the prize went to Sérgio Rodrigues and Analtina Dias from Angolan Public Television (TPA). The music prizes went to Banda Movimento, followed by group Zona 5 as the award-winning group of modern music, while Puto Português has won the best performer prize. Yola Semedo won two awards. One as best album and the other for best female performer.For the best show of the year, that by Step Model at Coqueiros stadium, with American musician, R. Kelly, was chosen. This year, the “Moda Luanda 2011” went with the theme "The oceans".

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World Social Forum, kicked off in Senegal on Sunday the 6th of February 2011 with tens of thousands marching in the capital Dakar. Participants in the 11th World Social Forum started the six-day event Sunday with a march in the Senegalese capital Dakar, demanding democracy and better living conditions. Others sang freedom songs and played drums whilst marching peacefully through the streets along a route that began near the offices of Senegal’s public broadcaster, RTS, and ended at the Cheikh Anta Diop University, the main venue for the weeklong gathering. Focusing on the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, Bolivian President Evo Morales spoke of a crisis of capitalism in a 35-minute speech, saying that capitalism was "dying in the face of a people's rebellion."

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Ghana is famous for its cultural festivals, ceremonies and durbars (parades and processions of chiefs). The country’s modern government is assisted at the community level by chiefs entrusted with authority over social, family, and land-related matters. These pictures were taken at the Ayikese (final funeral rites) of Chief Oyeeman Wereko Ampem II, who led the people of Akuapem in Eastern Ghana from 1975 till his death in 2005. The ayikese was held on 27 November 2010 as a final farewell to send his soul - represented by a life size papier mâché effigy that uncannily resembled the late chief - to the after world. There was a big procession through the streets of his hometown of Amankrom, with muscular young men carrying the effigy on a palanquin as royal guards fired muskets in his honour. Nearly everyone at the ceremony wore red and black kente cloth.

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Photos by Silvia Morara

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Today, over half the world's population lives in cities. In particular, the regions of the Global South face rapid globalisation, with African cities recording the highest urbanisation rates. Afropolis is the first exhibition in the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum's new building showcases five African cities (Cairo, Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa and Johannesburg) presenting around 30 artistic positions on issues of urbanity in them.

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Directed by Debs Gardner-Paterson and written by Rhidian Brook, Africa United is a road-movie that follows the adventures of five children who travel 3,000 miles across the continent to attend the opening ceremony of the football World Cup in Johannesburg. The idea originated with the Rwandan filmmaker Eric Kabera, as a push to change Africa's 'sad’ image. The film won a standing ovation when it was shown at the Toronto Film Festival.

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The “Fabuleux cercueils” (Fabulous coffins) exhibition in Besancon, eastern France, features 30 crazy coffins from Ghana and the United Kingdom. Coffins in Ghana are designed to represent a feature of the dead persons life, such as fish if their livelihood was the sea or a guitar if he was a guitarist. A tradition recently imported in UK.

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The positive aid response to the food crisis, which has affected more than seven million people in Niger, has helped save lives, but more effort is needed to mitigate its longer term effects, the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos, said. Photos by Oxfam International.

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Senegalese and French, Germaine Acogny founded her first dance studio in Dakar in 1968. Thirty-six year later, she established “L’Ecole des sables”, one of the most important and influent International Center for Traditional and Contemporary African Dances in the continent. With Songook Yaakaar, Acogny offers us a word on Africa, its splendour and its failures, without violence, but courageous. In this solo, danced, spoken, full of commitment and universal, she proves that she remains an adventuress ready to take risks. Pictures by Antoine Sempé.

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"Beauty is always an encounter". Fashion is a phenomenon affected by change, contamination and global dynamics, and is therefore currently witnessing huge growth in contemporary Africa. Photos from Africa e Mediterraneo, Issue 69 (03-04/2009)

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Fans support South Africa's national soccer teams Bafana Bafana and Mexico in front of the Soccer City in Johannesburg.

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Marking the 50 years independent anniversary of some African countries in 2010, the Royal Museum of Central Africa of Brussels and the Centre for Fine Arts are organizing the visionary African festival from 8 June to 26 September 2010. It will be an event with concerts, exhibitions, theatre and dance performances. It will offer an opportunity to look back and ahead to what the future may bring to Africa. This is the first time the traditional works of art are looked at in a relation to contemporary cultural movements in Africa. Among the exhibitions, there is Geo-graphics. A map of art practices in Africa. Past and present. The project’s artistic director, the architect David Adjaye, will also present his own photographs of African cities. The exhibition will demonstrate the influence that the original context of creation exerts on cultural output. Visit www.bozar.be for more information. By Muhammed Lamin Jadama

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In the biggest township of Cape Town, FIFA has built the first Football For Hope centre. The Khayelitsha centre - which is part of the CSR FIFA’s programme - is the first of twenty centres that FIFA will build all over Africa until the end of 2010. In November 2009, the centre started its education activities with young people from Cape Town. It was financed by FIFA, but it is a Cape Town city property. The general management is up to the Grassroot soccer NGO, an organization funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Pictures by Emanuela Citterio, Afronline.org World Cup correspondent.

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Human trafficking is the third market in the world, after arms and drugs trafficking. It was estimated that 2.1 million of children are trafficked for sexual slavery or work exploitation and South Africa is the main African route for traffickers.But NGOs are not watching in silence. Terre des Hommes and ECPAT believe that the 2010 South African World Cup can be an important chance to promote global audience awareness of children vulnerability and of African children situation. Among the initiatives, Ecpat and Terre des Hommes have launched a series of portraits realized by the Italian photographer Andrea Frazzetta. © Andrea Frazzetta/LUZphoto

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For the second time in its history, a FIFA World Cup is accompanied by a major official licensed art project. The Official Art Poster Edition of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa (as a selection of posters on Afronline.org shows) comprises works on football by seventeen internationally acclaimed artists with a special relation to the African continent. 2010 art prints have been made of each of the seventeen football artworks. These prints are now available as a strictly Limited Edition of Official Art Posters.

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Namesakes, Heroes and Soccer on the Cape Flats. Samantha Reiners of the Twenty Ten project met and photographed young people in Cape Town's Cape Flats area named after football legends. With the World Cup soccer showcase about to kick off in their home country, who knows what future stars will be named after today's players and go on to represent their nation in the years to come. Pictures by Samantha Reiners.

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His roots are Cameroonian, but he lives in Gand, Belgium. Pascal Marthine Tayou is a member of that generation of African artists who love re-shaping post-colonial culture and confronting, or even mixing, their original experiences with the new ones found in Europe. It’s a perpetual re-definition of modern tradition. In the occasion of the cultural event Lille3000, held in France, Tayou proposes his audience a new version - a bit modified - of Human Beings, a lucky exhibition which was already shown in Venice in 2009. Traffic Jam “is built by blocks of history crossing in the shadows and in the light,” says Tayou. “It is the reflex of my soul and a kind of extension of my atelier.” Until June 13 2010 Website: www.lille3000.com

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In Nairobi, Kenya’s capital and the economic core of Eastern Africa, Dandora is the only dumpsite. Here more than 2,000 tons of garbage get dumped daily. This is the product of more than four million citizens. It is has become the starting point of a dangerous cycle which may be putting inhabitants’ lives at risk. Pictures by Andrea Rigon

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This year’s centre of stage will be taken by the 2010 FIFA World Cup. In June 2010 it will be held in South Africa - the first African country to host this event - and the appointment will be represented in a special section of the 20th edition of the African, Asian and Latin American Film Festival, to be held in Milan, Italy, from 15 to 21 March 2010. The photo exibition "Africa on the ball" produced by the Italian magazine "Africa" is dedicated to the most exciting and contradictory aspects of African football. For more information visit: www.festivalcinemaafricano.org/eng/index.php

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Faruk Lakasi, a Nigerian producer and director, would do anything to have Denzel Washington starring in one of his movies. His colleague from Niger, Rahmatou Keita, would like to have made Marlon Brando play the part of a bulls’ breeder, while the young Senegalese actress Khady Ndiaye fell in love with cinema during a Titanic screening, feeling like Kate Winslet being embraced by Leonardo di Caprio, at the Parcelles Assainies Cinema in Dakar. These pictures, offered by Afronline.org, give a view on the world of African cinema, through its protagonists’ stories. Portraits are by the Italian photographer Andrea Frazzetta, and cards are by Afronline.org’s journalist Joshua Massarenti. In February 2009, they went to Burkina Faso to cover the Panafrican Festival of Cinema and Television in Ouagadougou (Fespaco). For more information: www.andreafrazzetta.com - www.fespaco.bf

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In Lompoul sur mer, Senegal, has recently been inaugurated the first village for responsible tourists, build with the contribution of Senegalese migrants living in Italy. Inaugurated during the 2009 Christmas holydays, the campement has been made with the collaboration of the Italic-Senegalese association Trait-d’Union. Mamadou Samb, who has been living in Italy for 20 years, is the creator of this initiative and considers this project a good starting point to spread among Europeans the idea that migrants are “bearers of values and cultural richness”. The main partner of the project is the local association Ugpl – Union Group of Producers of Lompoul – which gathers in Lompoul more than 30 groups and 1,5000 members operative in fishing, crafts and agriculture.

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160 sculptures and a trip through numerous African areas are the elements of the new exhibition “Il tempo ritrovato. Forme e storia dell’arte Africana nella collezione Corsi”, hosted by the African Museum of Verona, created by the Combonian Missionaries, and sponsored by the Cattolica Assicurazioni Foundation. Focused on Sub Saharan Africa, the exposition shows both ancient finds like the Songhai from Mali, Koma and Ashanti from Ghana, and products of the most recent tribal art, like the ones produced by Dogon from Mali, Punu from Gabon and Luba from Congo. Il tempo ritrovato – Until 20 June 2010, Museum of African Art/ Combonian Missionaries, Verona Pictures by Museo africano/CCM Centro Comboni Multimedia

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The global financial crisis threatens to deprive millions of children of their education, according to Unesco. As part of the launch of its Global Monitoring Report 2010, Unesco has published these photos of how children are learning in Liberia and Uganda. Pictures by MARC HOFER and GLENNA GORDON/UNESCO

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The southern Italian town of Rosarno was the stage of days of racial riots against African workers. Even though at least 1,000 African farm workers have been evacuated to immigrant detention centres in the cities of Crotone and Bari, a long term solution remains unclear surrounding the future of migrants, whose conditions were desperate. Pictures by Doctors Without Borders.

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Things that happen at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, promoted by the UN and taking place from 7 to 18 December 2009.

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Amani, an italian NGO, has asked Fabio Sironi, illustrator at the Italian newspaper "Corriere della Sera", to paint the Nairobi's streets daily life. The project started in 2006 when Sironi went to Nairobi with Amani and Father Kizito Sesana to meet the street children of the Nairobi's slums. Now the paintings are collected in the Amani non profit calendar 2010.

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Thirty pictures to remember the tragedy of Darfur and living conditions of refugees in the camps. Photos made and chosen by Antonella Napoli, who is journalist and President of the association Italians for Darfur.

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"Ri - Africa" - a work by the Tuscan photographer Claudia Romiti - gives a different take on the issue of immigration. Today it is one of the main problems debated at a political level, but the aim of the photographer's work was to make migrants escape anonymity and give them their identity, going far from stereotypes and abstraction.

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"Self-portrait of Kalongo. Young photographers describe their Africa”. 30 pictures on forgotten conflicts and the return back home made by 30 young students from Uganda. Through pictures’ labs, promoted by Photographers without Borders, who use photography as education tool, young Ugandans represented their experience as displaced people to talk about themselves, their dreams and hopes for the future. In a month they were transformed in photo reporter with camera and recorder to collect life experiences in the displaced people camp of Kalongo. The exhibition is an initiative of the “Foundation4Africa” project. It is the first time that four Italian foundations, Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione Cariparma, Cariplo and Monte dei Paschi di Siena with 14 among the most important Italian NGOs are making together two projects, one for displaced people in North Uganda and one for rural people in Senegal.

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The cartoonist from Burkina Faso and opinionist of Afronline shows his view on the European Dev Days and the rural issue.

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Following Fifa's week-long inspection tour of the 2010 Fifa World Cup stadiums, here are the latest images from inside the six new stadiums. The Soccer City near Soweto, Johannesburg; the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban; the Green Point Stadium in Cape Town; the Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane; the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth; the Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit. By South Africa Good News

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Would Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart have loved the cheeky wit of turning his orchestra into eight marimbas and the “Magic flute” into a silvery jazz trumpet? We will never know it. But surely the encounter between the South African producer Eric Abraham and the English screenwriter Mark Dornford-Mayba, based in South Africa, has given the world an astonishing and faithful adaptation of the opera written by Mozart. In 2008 the Magical Flute – “Impempe Yomlingo” in the original language – of the Isango Portobello Company won the “Laurence Oliver Wards”, one of the most prestigious theatre prize in the world. The South African actors’ company will be on stage at the Théâtre du Chatelêt in Paris until October 18. From 20 to October 25 the show will be hosted in Rotterdam at the Luxor Theatre. More info on www.magicflutethemusical.com

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After the successful exhibition dedicated to women in African arts, the Dapper Museum of Paris hosts a complementary show on men in the African art. “The Art of Being a Man. Africa, Oceania” will take place from October 15 2009 to July 11 2010. © Museum Dapper – photo Hughes Dubois / MRAC Tervuren © Photo Roger Asselberghs / MRAC Tervuren © Photo Jean-Marc Vandyck / © Dapper Museum Archives and Hughes Dubois / © Photo Mauro Magliani / Private collection. © Photo: Courtesy of the owner / Private collection. © Photo Mauro Magliani. More info on www.dapper.com.fr

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With more than 70% of the total population in sub-Saharan Africa living in rural areas, access of education is a major problem, with reports indicating that only 68 out 100 children in rural areas have access to primary education. With moribund infrastructure and sometimes a complete lack of it, most children living in rural areas are notwithstanding, determined to excel in their fields of specialty, with or without the wherewithal, just like their urban equivalents, who have superior resources. (Photo by Africa24 Media/Giulio D' Ercole)

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The publication "Drivers of Change: Personal and inspiring testimonials from the African diaspora" includes the stories of ten Africans living in the Netherlands, who are contributing to security and development in their country of origin. The book will be presented during the African Diaspora 20x20 Night.

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Transferred into a new housing project promoted by the Kenyan government and the UN, the inhabitants of Africa’s largest slum – the Kibera settlement in Nairobi, which hosts an estimated population of one million – have been moved by the authorities into 300 newly built apartments. The following pictures show the status of the new buildings and the current abitative conditions in Kibera. Photos made by Eric Sande – NewsfromAfrica

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Nawewe (You Too) is a documentary that shows the absurdity of the war that in the 1990s devastated Burundi’s population. Seventeen minutes of film shot by the Belgian director Ivan Goldschmidt who answered Media Menya’s call for help. The Burundian NGO and its coordinator Sybille Cishahayo were looking for a project on reporting the violence of a forgotten conflict. Afronline has been given access to the pictures of the movie’s shooting, which took place last August 2009 in the outskirts of Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi.

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Works by Gérard Quenum, from the exhibition “Benin, Ancestralidade and Contemporaneidade”, hosted by the Afro Brasil Museum in São Paulo. Gérard Quenum is a young Beninese artist who works primary as sculptor. The exhibition was dedicated to the roots linking Brazil to Africa and particularly Benin. Info: www.museuafrobrasil.com.br

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Through 130 works the exhibition at Musée Dapper "Women in African Arts", which ends the next 12th July, addresses the multiplicity of women's representations. © Musée Dapper / photo Hughes Dubois - Photo Rainer Wolfsberger / Museum Rietberg, Zurich - Photo Roger Asselberghs, MRAC Tervuren - abm – archives Barbier-Mueller / studio Ferrazzini-Bouchet, Genève - Photo Jean-Marc Vandyck, MRAC Tervuren - Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde (Munich) / photo Marianne Franke

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Since the beginning of this year an estimated 10,000 Somalis have crossed the border and sought shelter in Dolo Ado, a remote, sun-scorched and predominantly Somali corner of south-east Ethiopia. Credits: UNHCR/P. Wiggers

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Photos by Jean-Claude Capt, Fondation Hirondelle. Cotton Tree News (CTN), a daily radio news package from the studios of Radio Mount Aureol at Fourah Bay College, was launched in Freetown, Sierra Leone on 14 February 2007.
CTN is a project of Fondation Hirondelle (Lausanne, Switzerland), a no profit organisation of journalists that sets up and operates media services in crisis areas.

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For the first time The Union of the Comoros partecipates in the 53rd International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia presenting Djahazi, a project by the Italian artist Paolo W. Tamburella in the water area in front of the entrance to the Giardini della Biennale.
The commissioner is Wahidat Hassani.

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11th June in Rome. The Afro Project makes its first steps in a crowded press-room at the Association of Foreign Press.

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