Posts Tagged ‘Radio’
Caught between ‘The Ringtone and the Drum’
Images of Africa in the western media are often characterised by famine and conflict. The discussion of poverty in African countries often overlooks the facts of everyday life. A new book The Ringtone and the Drumsets out to change this. Its author, an expert on development policy, presents the fast-changing politics and culture in three of the world’s poorest and least visited countries – Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau and Burkina Faso.
Interview: Mark Weston, author, The Ringtone and the Drum
Why did you decide to travel around three of the world’s poorest countries?
I’ve worked in international development for quite a long time now, trying to work out what’s gone wrong in the world’s poorest countries. What can be done to help improve the lives of people living there? But although I’d spent time in Africa before, and in Asia on short trips, I felt as that I hadn’t really got under the skin of what it’s like to live in poverty. I wanted to find out what the people who lived in the world’s poorest countries talk about. What do they do every day? How are they adjusting to the onrush of modernity and globalisation that’s transforming so much of the developing world?
France Info – Mali et Algérie dans la presse européenne
L’intervention française au Mali et la situation au Sahel ont réellement été le principal sujet d’actualité de la semaine selon les deux invités : Gero von RANDOW de l’hebdomadaire allemand “Die Zeït” et Daniel FINNAN, journaliste britannique à RFI (Radio France International).
La presse allemande a été critique sur la réaction du gouvernement de Mme Merkel ; il a affiché sa solidarité avec la France mais a passé plus de temps à expliquer qu’il ne pouvait agir plus loin. Les allemands ont-ils compris l’importance du Sahel ?
Réaction différente dans la presse britannique car comme la France, le Royaume-Uni a une longue histoire de guerres en Afrique. Londres apporte son soutien à la France.
Jeudi à Bruxelles, les 27 ministres des Affaires étrangères ont approuvé l’opération Serval, et certains ont annoncé un appui logistique. Tous sont tombés d’accord sur la nécessité d’envoyer vite des instructeurs européens pour la formation de l’armée malienne. Mais cela est-il suffisant ?
Video games, bonobo, lemon curd and lies
This week’s Sound Kitchen visits the MuseoGames exhibition at the Arts et Metiers museum in Paris to play video games and find out why it’s just been extended until December. Rachel Khoo, a food creative, and author of Pâtes à tartiner shows us how to make lemon curd. Our regular quiz taxes your ears with another mystery sound. And we have dance music from Bonobo, Alltrics and Fenech Soler.
Radio Magazine: The Sound Kitchen
Skunk Anansie and Cypress Hill at Rock en Seine
With a line-up to die for, Paris’ Rock en Seine festival this weekend gives French fans a last chance to party before the hordes return to the capital. Californian hip hop bad boys Cypress Hill told RFI about collaborating with Blink 182’s drummer, while British rockers Skunk Anansie talk about thievery, preaching to the converted and their new album Wonderlustre.
Radio Feature: Focus on France
Andre Manoukian talks jazz and philosophy
Andre Manoukian is the closest the French have to Simon Cowell. The composer and philosopher, who is a judge on the equivalent to Pop Idol, talked about music, life and why he likes Gilles Deleuze, at the Paris Saint-German-Des-Pres jazz festival, which kicked off last week.
Radio Feature: Culture in France
Unlikely couples in Paris on Valentine’s Day
For this year’s Valentine’s Day, where else would you find improbable couples such as monks, nuns and prostitutes? At the Carnaval de Paris – a vibrant mix of musicians and performers who are entertaining Parisians on Sunday alongside giant statues and carnival floats.
Radio Report: Focus on France
260,500 euros for rusty old car found at bottom of lake
A rusty 1925 Bugatti Type 22 which spent years at the bottom of a Swiss lake sold for 260,500 euros in Paris today at the Retro Mobile classic car show at Porte de Versailles. Although not the most expensive vehicle in the Bonhams auction, it certainly had the most colourful past.
Radio Feature: Culture in France
Rock en Seine 2009 – Preview: Last chance to party before the Rentrée
As the sleepy French capital wakes its head from the quiet, humid days of summer, and Parisians return to the city for the so-called rentrée, when French wardrobes miraculously turn from summer to autumn overnight, and the free newspapers return to newsstands at the metro station, there is one last chance to party: the 7th Rock en Seine festival, just outside of Paris in Saint Cloud!
Glastonbury festival 2009 – more than just music
The Glastonbury festival has a hippy past stretching back to the 1970s when Michael Eavis decided to turn his farm in Pilton, Somerset into an enormous party. In 2009 it attracted some of the music industry’s hottest acts, but it is more than just music. Besides the anything goes ethos, there’s an agenda for change which embodies the philosophy of one of the world’s largest greenfield festivals.
Special Feature
Graffiti gets into the Grand Palais

Outside the Tag graffiti exhibition, Grand Palais, Paris
Under the glass-panelled roof of the Grand Palais, the Tag exhibition marks an important moment for graffiti. It’s the first time such a collection of street art has been housed in a neoclassical building, which is more used to displaying collections of fine art.