Professor Wangari Maathai: Remembering a Great Woman, Friend & Colleague
It is autumn in England. Instead of light winds and falling leaves of amber and gold, we are experiencing a spell of unseasonably good weather. The trees outside my window are enjoying one last burst of green life before they have to give up their leaves to rest awhile and prepare to be reborn again in a few months.
Kenya’s Nobel Peace laureate, activist and former government minister Wangari Maathai loved trees more than most other people could imagine. She appreciated them as the lungs of our world and recognised the role that we all play in the interwoven scheme of life. But her work did not end in the forests of Kenya. Wangari Maathai was a visionary, an academic and a campaigner. She was a great environmentalist and a driving force that empowered people to improve their own lives.
Serbia, Albania & Macedonia Join Forces For Shakespearean Trilogy
Serbia, Albania and Macedonia will come together at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre for a unique run of performances of all three parts of Henry VI as part of an ambitious cultural festival. Actors from the three national theatres will fly to London to take part in what is billed as a Balkan Trilogy of Shakespeare – and each theatre troupe will perform Shakespeare in their own language and costumes.
Globe to Globe, which falls within the World Shakespeare Festival as a celebration of Shakespeare as the world’s playwright, will see 37 international theatre companies presenting all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays in37 different languages. Serbian, Albanian and Macedonian will join the long list of languages to be performed, including languages less frequently heard on the British stage.
Wi-Fi Can Set You Free : Belgrade Knows This Well
Belgrade surpasses London in at least one enviable respect: it provides free wi-fi readily available in so many places across the city. As a foreigner who often uses Google Maps to get out of a jam or to satisfy my craving, my dependence on email and Twitter, this can be invaluable.
In Belgrade, I have found that almost every café, restaurant and hotel bar provides wi-fi, often accessible free by use of a generously available password. It is not just Belgrade: even regional towns like Novi Sad and Banja Luka have more free wi-fi than most larger EU cities. This is not how it is in London, where free wireless in public places is still quite limited and, usually, must be bought via mobile phone subscription or a one-off fee. So while I am quick to make the most of the full online options of my iPhone, I prefer not to pay extra to link up my my phone to my laptop.
Amulette by Amira & Bojan Z: An Album of Indisputable Quality, Beauty & Style
If anyone was in doubt about the highly distinctive purity, quality and class of Bosnia’s foremost female singing sensation Amira, then her new album Amulettewill put paid to their uncertainty. This third studio album represents a marked leap forward from her lauded earlier works and shows a singer who has grown in confidence, ability and audience. Amira is a world-class artist at the top of her game.
Sarajevo-born Amira Medunjanin has already proven that she is a dab hand at sevdah, the long-established Bosnian singing style that characteristically recounts tales of longing, love and loss. With three impressive albums, she has carved her name in the stone annals of the genre and received widespread plaudits for taking the rich heritage of sevdah and moulding it into her own fresh and distinctive forms.
