Good morning, Mogadishu! Preserving Somalia’s cultural history, one tape at a time

Good morning, Mogadishu! Preserving Somalia’s cultural history, one tape at a time

Sitting in a small, windowless room in a government building in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, Mohamed Yusuf Mohamed loops another audio tape onto the dilapidated machine and presses a few buttons. He’s beginning a time-intensive process to digitize some seven decades of unique historical recordings belonging to the government-run Radio Mogadishu. One down, a couple…

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Opera, glass blowing, poncho weaving and more: UNESCO celebrates world’s cultural heritage

Opera, glass blowing, poncho weaving and more: UNESCO celebrates world’s cultural heritage

Convened in the town of Kasane, the Intergovernmental Committee is considering new entries to UNESCO’s Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage and on Tuesday night they unveiled dozens of different entries which have made the cut already, ranging from glass blowing to poncho weaving.  The session in Botswana – the latest annual gathering of the committee –…

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Banksy highlights cultural revival amid rubble strewn Kyiv suburb

Banksy highlights cultural revival amid rubble strewn Kyiv suburb

The artwork – a ballerina balancing precariously on the rubble – solidified the town’s reputation as a beacon of resilience. Despite Borodianka’s sudden fame, the efforts of its local artists musicians and librarians to revive their beloved hometown remain largely unknown outside Ukraine. Now, cultural activities, one supported by the UN’s International Organization for Migration…

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The Pakistani community in California celebrated the second Pakistan Cultural Festival

The Pakistani community in California celebrated the second Pakistan Cultural Festival

The Pakistani American community celebrated the second Pakistan Cultural Festival on Sunday in Sacramento, the capital of the US state of California. Pakistanis from every region of Pakistan, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Balochistan, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan participated in the capital Sacramento and its major cities Roswell, Folsom, Granite Bay, Rocklin, Elk Grove and Natomas….

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Water, source of Samoa’s ‘cultural identity’ and national wealth: A UN Resident Coordinator Blog

Water, source of Samoa’s ‘cultural identity’ and national wealth: A UN Resident Coordinator Blog

As the UN Water Conference continues at UN headquarters in New York, Simona Marinescu, the UN Resident Coordinator in Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tokelau explains why finding a solution to provide all people access to clean and safe water remains a priority for the UN.   “Water is life. No other definition captures quite so aptly…

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Afghanistan: 8 people including 5 journalists were killed in a bomb blast at a cultural center

Afghanistan: 8 people including 5 journalists were killed in a bomb blast at a cultural center

Mazar-e-Sharif: 8 people were killed and many were injured in a bomb blast during an event for journalists in Afghanistan. According to foreign news agency Reuters, eight people, including five journalists, were killed as a result of a bomb blast during an event held by journalists at a cultural center in the Mazar-e-Sharif district of…

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