cafebabel.com

cafebabel.com boys speak: what makes Europe’s twentysomething men happy

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:00:00 -0000

We girls probably think that macho attitudes, making money and succeeding are what make boys happy. After all, why is it so hard to get them to share on ‘happiness’? Apparently not. Winning a game, doing nothing, a tipple, the latest gadget, friends, girls - a pan-European select number of lads share what makes them smile – and why we girls are different. Vox-pop

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

Join the family business in Crete

('Monica Mircescu',) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 09:44:00 -0000

According to a study conducted by Philomila Tsoukala, a lecturer at Georgetown University, 75% of Greek companies are family-owned, and even then, youths start earning a living between the ages of 30-35. What's going on?

Theatre: French director Pierre Notte’s Bidules Trucs in Paris

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 12:25:21 -0000

A variety of characters from every corner of the world have come to life in French theatre director Pierre Notte’s fairytales. Rendezvous: the Theatre La Bruyère in Paris

Esma Redzepova: 'Roma are cosmopolitan'

('Annie Rutherford',) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:30:00 -0000

A mother of 47, a career spanning 20 albums and 40 years and songs in Serbian, Macedonian and Romany. At the Sin Fronteras festival in France, the Macedonian 'gypsy music queen' brings a bit of Roma culture to a country which is planning to export large numbers of its gypsy population 'back' to Romania and Bulgaria by the end of the month

France's 'war on criminality' aside, focus on Parisian Roma in 'social insertion villages'

('English language version of cafebabel.com',) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:19:08 -0000

Four years after their creation in Europe, 'social integration villages' are being presented as a 'Roma paradise'. European associations for minority protection expose some of the difficulties facing the most discriminated community in the EU. Meanwhile, the French government has since planned to dissolve 300 Roma settlements, whilst the UK is seeing its biggest Romany gypsy site, Dale Farm in Essex, bulldozed

Cafe Niesen in Prenzlauer Berg: no children please

('Emily Corfe',) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 10:20:44 -0000

Prams, buggies, babies, toddlers, kids... you name it, anything child related, Prenzlauer Berg will have it. This includes a cafe which has been open since 2005 but is getting media attention now - extract from the official blog of the cafebabel.com team in Berlin

Rural Spain: can love really arrive in a wagon?

('Gemma Turner',) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:25:04 -0000

Since the fifties, villages all over Spain have been losing their inhabitants to the lure of the bright lights of the cities. Over the decades a new curious initiative has arisen to remedy this loss and to console those who have been left alone. If Mohammed won’t come to the mountain, the mountain - or in this case the women - will have to come to Mohammed – in a wagon

Le Corps Mince de Francoise: 'fuck off saying we’re trendy. We sing about what we are'

('Nabeelah Shabbir',) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:14:35 -0000

The trio hail from Helsinki, record in Berlin and are managed in the UK. We meet in Paris to dissect their pan-European wanderings and find out why exactly they diss boys and Finland so much in their screamy surface pop-experimental sound

Three globalised couples share their expat love stories

('Nabeelah Shabbir',) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:00:17 -0000

It’s normal to move abroad for professional or financial reasons. But why leave your country sto be with that special someone? Familiar reservations, a new culture and linguistic barriers are all problems often dealt with, from Australia to Canada via France and Germany

Drug trade: Chefchaouen, Morocco is Spain's Amsterdam

('Darren Thompson',) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:45:00 -0000

'Le Rif – paradis du Kif” (The Rif – paradise for Kif). The rhyme has become the tourist slogan for Chefchaouen, a mountainous village in North Morocco well renowned for its blue medina quarter and it’s cannabis plantations. These plantations are the point of origin for tonnes of the drug that are headed for Europe

London and Berlin reviews of Mark Ravenhill's 'Over There' play

('Annie Rutherford',) — Tue, 19 May 2009 18:30:46 -0000

Mark Ravenhill’s unconventional play about identical twins who are reunited after growing up in east and west Germany travelled from London to Berlin this spring. Our London reviewer calls it a timely commentary on the EU’s current political troubles. Our Berlin reviewer wonders if the British director reproaches the Germans with the repression of history. Cross-reviews from the Royal Court and Schaubühne theatres

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

Hungry Senegalese fishermen

('Susannah Readett-Bayley',) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:00:00 -0000

Amidst a global food crisis and scarcer fish, the fishermen 'victims' of EU commercial agreements set off in their pirogues for the shores of Europe

Juliane Kokott: 'there's no macho atmosphere at the European Court of Justice'

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:00:00 -0000

The German mother-of-six, 50, is a woman of superlatives: as one of three women in an eight-man advocate general team at the ECJ, she most famously helped put Berlusconi on trial

International Roma Day: Aladár Horváth on reality TV in Hungary

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:00:00 -0000

A leading activist denounces ghettos and the media-created ‘exotic trash’ images of Europe's biggest minority of eight million people, who celebrate their day on 8 April

Estelle Swaray: 'the singlest woman alive'

('Titus Aguigah',) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:00:00 -0000

Why the British rapper, hip hop singer and producer, 28, swapped London, its boys and the UK music industry for Brooklyn's cabbies, leading to ‘an unexpected duet’ with American rapper Kanye West

Feminism in France: the Rose Revolution

('John Smith',) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:32:00 -0000

May 1968 was a turning point in world history, but it was also a rupture for women's history. Feminists of yesterday and today tell us about their war

Russian tears for 'Hausfrau' Eva Herman

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 00:00:00 -0000

On 9 September the controversial German TV personality was sacked after a comment praising Nazi family policy. Moscow is astonished

Kindergarten tactics

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:00:00 -0000

Go back to work, have more children, and we'll look after every third child, says the new daycare reform in Germany, a country with one of the lowest birth rates in Europe. But conservatives aren't happy

A capital that can’t grow up

('Kate Martin',) — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0000

Last May, the German daily newspaper Tagesspeigel warned that in Berlin one child in three lives off 'Hartz IV' (government aid). This is a new high for Germany and is more than twice the national average. Is it an avatar of reunification?

'Poland belongs to its women'

('Nabeelah Shabbir',) — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 12:00:00 -0000

A new Polish women-only party battles traditional stereotypes in a conservative government

Georgian women, invisible citizens

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

Women’s rights are neglected in the Caucasus, as illustrated in Tblisi, Georgia's capital

Gypsy king: 'The EU offers new hope for the Roma'

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

Florin Cioaba, 'Roma King,' wants to unify the fragmented ethnic gypsy tribes and represent them politically

A retired fighter

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 07:03:00 -0000

Torgoszyn, Poland, summer 2006

The times are a chang(el)ing

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 02:00:00 -0000

For centuries, stories of changelings have circulated in Europe. What could explain the similarity of these tales of human babies being snatched, and being replaced by changelings – elven babies with unquenchable appetites?

What’s love got to do with it?

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 14:00:00 -0000

February 14th is a special “day of love” in most places in the world. Do we really need it or is it just a marketing scam?