cafebabel.com

Trio Joubran: ‘It’s hard to be Palestinian musicians in the world’

('Annie Rutherford',) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:25:16 -0000

Samir, Wissam and Adnan Joubran are international musicians whose performance and perspectives nonetheless remain rooted in their homeland: Palestine. Just before the UN is due to consider Palestine’s official bid to become a UN member as well as a state, we meet the brothers in Paris about how their hopes for their country influences their music

Giacomo Abbruzzese: 'I’m no longer able to make a film without talking about Palestine'

('Carol Howard',) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 10:20:45 -0000

The Italian director's short film Archipelago (2010) explores the West Bank from its various forms of transport. The arduous journey from Ramallah to Jerusalem and back highlights the absurdity of the situation that Israel and Palestine have been in for decades. Interview

Calm Lebanon ‘crisis’: Blackberrys not Kalashnikovs

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 07:30:00 -0000

On 12 January, eleven ministers from the the unity coalition government resigned en masse. Western backed caretaker prime minister Saad Hariri has refused to be a part of a coalition potentially led by the militant Shia muslim group Hezbollah

Israeli soldier: 'Arabic language of Middle East'

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:00:00 -0000

He will finish his military service in October aged 22. Daniel from Tel Aviv is sure of his ideas: Obama, peace, politics, Israel-Palestine, Europe-Turkey... A spontaneous voice far from stereotypes which the media reinforce daily. Interview

Turkey-Israel: credibility and question of anti-semitism

('Karis Eaglestone',) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:18:48 -0000

Since heavy criticism from the Turkish side after the Israeli attack on a Gaza aid ship on 31 May, relations between the two states have entered a further ice age. There has been rising concern in Europe that Turkey is increasingly turning away from the west. A babelian political theorist explains the problems inherent to the Turkish response

Obituary: Irish academic Fred Halliday dies in Barcelona

('Metsa Rahimi',) — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:09:43 -0000

The Dubliner passed away on 26 April. No student in east-west relations would have escaped the work of this internationally acclaimed scholar in international relations, unabashed European socialist and eternal friend of the Middle East. Tribute from an Iranian Londoner who met the Irish scholar in Spain

Olga Rodríguez: 'Journalists tend to be very individualistic'

('Helen Swain',) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:43:33 -0000

On a famed terrace close to Madrid’s Palacio Real (Royal Palace) at nightfall, the 34-year-old Spanish award-winning journalist talks about two of her passions, the Middle East and journalism

Wael Nawara: 'Secular is a word we Egyptians used to use wrongly'

('Sarah Gray',) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:00:00 -0000

A nocturnal meeting with the second-in-command of the El Ghad ('The Tomorrow') party, Egypt’s main force of liberal opposition to Mubarak’s regime

Middle-East: British students still mobilised

('Hayley Wood',) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:00:00 -0000

Fighting in the Gaza Strip may be over, but sit-in demonstrations organised via email and Facebook continue in 21 UK universities. Amongst other things, students demand bursaries for Palestinian students. This is a campaign which 'has only just begun'

Turin in the Israel-Palestine crossfire

('Andrea Giambartolomei',) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:30:47 -0000

During the military campaign against Hamas on the Gaza Strip, a wave of Muslim immigrants across Europe, stretching from London, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, Brussels as well as Milan and Rome – protested against Israel’s actions, supporting their Palestinian ‘brothers’. Perspective of the communities in Turin, a twin city of Gaza and Haifa

Israeli sculptress Nathalie Alony: ‘Palestinians in Gaza should be given something to lose’

('Helen Swain',) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 01:15:00 -0000

The Italy-based artist says her viewpoint on the Middle East is fairly ‘balanced’, but Europeans do not realise what it is like for ‘Israel to be attacked in its sleep and continually threatened with annihilation’

Cinema: Persepolis hits the UK

('Jens Wiesner',) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 12:00:00 -0000

Released on 25 April in an English-dubbed version, a review of Franco-Iranian artist Marjane Satrapi's Oscar-nominated animation of a girl displaced in Vienna

Exhibition brings Israel and Palestine 'face to face'

('John Smith',) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:58:00 -0000

Face2Face is a unique and edgy photography show by French and Swiss friends JR and Marco, They stick the Israeli-Palestinian conflict right under European noses

Nuclear energy: new wave in Europe

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:00:00 -0000

Brussels goes far east, caps the CAP and ideologises nuclear energy in the first EU forum - take a bite of the latest news from Brussels

Lebanon: mirage of peace

('Nabeelah Shabbir',) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 06:34:00 -0000

After an Al Qaeda video threat aimed at the French and Spaniards on 21 September, Islamist groups in Lebanon are ready to finish with the apparently quietened situation in the 'Middle East's Switzerland'

From China and the Middle East with love in Bucharest

('Luciana Grosu',) — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 12:00:00 -0000

Shopping around the city’s northern Europa complex, where two migrant businessmen from the Romanian capital’s integrated communities discuss leaping and boundng with the EU's eight-month old member state

Where Israel and Palestine meet

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:00:00 -0000

An astonishing eye-witness account of Israeli-Palestine exchanges at the checkpoints that divide the two peoples, followed by an update on EU-Palestine relations

Saad Hariri: 'impunity in Lebanon is unbearable'

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 12:00:00 -0000

The late prime minister's son speaks to European journalists in Beirut before the UN tribunal came into force on 10 June – the first bringing justice to an individual

Iranian conservatives: 'Unnecessary provocation'

('Sarah Turpin',) — Tue, 22 May 2007 12:00:00 -0000

The atmosphere from within Iran is increasingly hostile - president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s nuclear ambitions don't help

Interwar Lebanon tightens its belt

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 12:00:00 -0000

In pre-civil war ambience, how are the Lebanese making a living?

Italy: 'country of madmen'

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Afghanistan - delicate name for European governments. Italy is bridging the gulf between its international obligations and the Senate

Iran: Security Council deadline looms

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 12:00:00 -0000

February 21 is the United Nations deadline for Resolution 1737 for Iran to stop its uranium-enrichment programme

'Financial aid to Lebanon won't increase Western control'

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 12:00:00 -0000

400 million Euros from the Commission, $770 million from the US. But Lebanon remains consumed by instability

A cartoon image of enlightenment

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 00:00:00 -0000

The crisis surrounding the Mohammad cartoons is not only a European media sensation, but it also shows us that the media do not react appropriately. Instead of enlightening us, they are just adding fuel to the fire.

Piergiorgio Rosetti: Peace as a political instrument

Mon, 23 Jan 2006 02:37:00 -0000

The case for a European peace-corps is the strongest it’s ever been, Piergiorgio Rosetti tells Café Babel.

Ahmadinejad's Jihad

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 12:00:00 -0000

As the nuclear crisis deepens, isn't it time that Europe put aside its differences with Iran's opposition party, asks MEP Paulo Casaca.