Sweden: Moroccan-Swede singer wins Eurovision Song Contest

Sweden: Moroccan-Swede singer wins Eurovision Song Contest

 


Via NPR:

Sweden's Loreen clinched the top spot at this year's Eurovision Song Contest with her dance hit "Euphoria," pushing aside competition from a sextet of Russian grannies and a Serbian balladeer.

Juries and television viewers from across Europe awarded Loreen a total of 372 points, handing her an easy win in an event that ended in the early hours Sunday in host country Azerbaijan. Sweden will take over hosting duties next year.

Softly spoken Loreen, a 28-year-old of Moroccan-Berber descent, thanked her fans for their support.

(source)

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Germany: Iranian death threat sends rapper underground

Germany: Iranian death threat sends rapper underground

Via DW:

A Germany-based rapper has cancelled his concerts and turned to the police for protection. An Iranian ayatollah proclaimed one of Shahin Najafi's songs blasphemy, opening the door for him to be killed.

Najafi said on Friday he had cancelled concerts in Europe, but that he wanted to continue working despite the threat to his life.

"I am young, and I am an artist, and I have to perform," the 31-year old told German public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk, saying that he couldn't accept the idea of living underground for a long amount of time.

(source)

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Norway: Anti-racists criticise musician

Norway: Anti-racists criticise musician

Via the Foreigner:

Norwegian NGOs are censuring singer-songwriter Hans Rotmo for being immigrant and Muslim-hostile following release of his new composition.

Mr Rotmo’s song, ‘Vi fra andre’, is allegedly a pastiche on a poem by Norwegian writer Henrik Wergeland (1808-1845) from 1841 called ‘Vi ere en Nation, vi med’, which advocates 17th May – Norway’s National Day – should also be for children.

However, the connections with Wergeland’s work become more clouded in the singer-songwriter’s version. Norwegian Centre Against Racism director Kari Helene Partapuoli thinks the text is mostly in “extremely bad taste” and “malicious at times.”

“The entire text is based on quite a few simplistic prejudices against immigrants and Muslims in Norway,” she tells Adresseavisen, “it is a cheerful mixture of misguided xenophobia and incorrect assumptions about the Muslim revolution.”

(source)

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EU: Islamic terrorists issue threat against Eurovision

EU: Islamic terrorists issue threat against Eurovision

Via Irish Independent (h/t Bivouac-ID)

TERRORISTS have threatened to target Jedward and other Eurovision participants at the annual music competition in May.

The Azeri terrorists, an Islamic group, have said they will target the participants of the Eurovision song contest in Azerbaijan as they are “European scum”. It has threatened the use of “knives and chemical weapons” at the contest.

The terror group said in a statement yesterday “Blood of the European scum must be shed by the will of Allah.”

(source)

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UK: How daytimers got young British Asians dancing

UK: How daytimers got young British Asians dancing

Via the Guardian:

It was the era of the nightclub, a time when dance music took hold in the UK. But the young British Asians who came of age during the 1980s and 1990s had, on the whole, conservative parents who disapproved of their children going to sweaty nightclubs, getting drunk and hooking up with the opposite sex.

Against this repressive backdrop, something new emerged that passed largely unnoticed by the mainstream: club events where thousands of young Asians would listen to music – bhangra mainly – performed by bands and later played by DJs. These events took place not at night but during the afternoon, when those kids were thought to be at college, school or the library. And so they were christened daytimers.

"They were a national phenomenon," says Rajinder Dudrah, author of Bhangra: Birmingham and Beyond. "In Nottingham, Bradford, London, Manchester, Birmingham and Luton, kids were getting on buses to go to a club where there would be 2,000 Asians dancing away. The trick was to arrive back spotless, as if nothing had happened, so you'd live to tell the tale."

(source)

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Paris: Arab nudes defy taboos in new exhibit

Paris: Arab nudes defy taboos in new exhibit



Via AFP:

The naked body in Arab art is the theme of a new Paris exhibit meant to broaden views of Arab culture, spotlighting the many artists willing to break taboos and depict nudity in all its forms.

"The Body Uncovered" at Paris' Arab World Institute aims to "challenge the stereotypes usually associated with the Arab world that reduce it to the single image of religious fanaticism," said the institute's chairman Renaud Muselier.

(source)

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Vienna: "Diversity and Tolerance" contest

Vienna: "Diversity and Tolerance" contest

First Prize winner of the U. S. Embassy Vienna Video Contest "Diversity and Tolerance"

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Vienna: Boys Choir Backs Integration Through Music

Vienna: Boys Choir Backs Integration Through Music

Via the Austrian Times:

Immigrant children in Austria are being given singing lessons organised by the Vienna Boys choir as part of a project to encourage integration through music.

The idea that started as a pilot scheme three years ago has now grown so popular that more than 600 children across the capital Vienna are now getting free singing lessons.

(source)

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Belgium: Mixed Kebab, the story of a gay Belgian Turk

Belgium: Mixed Kebab, the story of a gay Belgian Turk

Ibrahim chooses to fall for young and handsome Kevin over marrying his cute but expensive cousin Elif while kid brother Furkan converts to Islamic fundamentalism.

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