Bloggers in Africa have are having a riotous time writing tongue-in-

cheek articles with headlines like: Africa to send troops, food parcels to UK as riots spread. I came across an article by Ndesanjo Macha sharing African perspectives on the riots in the UK with a good dose of humour. However, one blogger, Nana Wireko, reminds us about the unpleasant things the British press were saying in the run up to the South African World Cup saying: “When your neighbor is down, don’t kick him but rather help lift him up. The UK press should take a cue from this. It’s a lesson. A very important one!”

The gorgeous historic Royal Square of Patan Durbar is about to host
literary jatra for the very first time. The World Heritage site, dotted with pagoda-like structures, is the stunning location for the festival which is sponsored by Himal magazine and will bring together writers and poets for workshops, reading and discussion. Billed as a festival of both national and international writers, some disaapointingly point out there are no representative writers/poets from Nepal’s indigenous languages (other than Newari). If you need an excuse to visit the area, the maybe this is it: September 16th-18th 2011. Festivals already take place in Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and it’s beginning to look like visitors to South Asia should be able to catch a literary gathering throughout the year

Read the views on the USA of a 25 year-old girl from Taiwan, whose
first experience of ‘abroad’ was as a student in Michigan. A lot of cross-cultural differences between those two cultures! Mindy (Min-Yi Chang) is now back home and reflects on her time in the US. Here are the two extracts I found the most interesting – from the blog post on Pocket Cultures which is always an enjoyable and insightful read.

Najwat Rehman winning logo design

International Youth Day celebrates the experiences and voices of young people between the ages of 15 to 24 years. They represent one sixth of the world’s population. Established by the UN in 2000, the purpose of the day is to draw our attention to youth issues world wide in the 10 areas of: starvation, poverty, education, employment, health, drug exploitation, childhood felony, recreation events, the child and young women, environment. Every year has a different theme and 2011’s theme is: “Youth should be given a chance to take an active part in the decision-making of local, national and global levels.”

Today is the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People.
The 9th August each year offers the world community an opportunity to reaffirm the principles of respect and protection of minorities. Created by the United Nation General Assembly in 1994, this year’s commemoration theme is: “Indigenous designs: celebrating stories and cultures, crafting our own future”.

Whether one wants to argue about the rights or wrongs of the British
Empire, few can deny that it has left a lasting legacy in many parts of the globe. Our industrial might has left trains chugging across the vast lands of India, a rail infrastructure that spans the Cape to Cairo and British steel was used in spanning vast expanses as in the Sydney Harbour Bridge. But, many of the world’s trouble spots are those left behind by the chaotic retreat of empire, and its ghosts continue to haunt today’s international scene. The problems the empire encountered have still not been resolved and in Iraq, Kashmir, Burma, Sudan, Nigeria and Hong Kong new difficulties have arisen which continue to baffle politicians and diplomats. ‘One sows the seeds of demise at the outset’ is a well-known concept that can really apply to the collapse of the British Empire…

With on-going shifts in economic power from West to East, an
interesting topic of research and debate concerns the long-term potential of the next generation around the world and in particular: what is the IQ potential of the populations of the two biggest countries, China and India?  Without doubt, British Indians seem to gain higher grades on average than their ‘white’ British counterparts. And it is a well known fact that the Chinese in the UK are more diligent at school.  We put this down to cross-cultural differences within the family in a UK environment. But what about around the world – how smart are Chinese and Indians in their home countries compared to the rest of the world?

How the world loves action adventurers who get off their butts and
make things happen! I’m no different. So, have we got a latter day Indian Jones? My best wishes go to Thomas Köhler, a Swiss citizen, who has decided to walk the length of the Japanese archipelago in a bid to support the return of foreign tourists to Japan after the devastating events of March 11th. Few people will forget the combined disaster of an earthquake in Northern Japan, followed swiftly by a major tsunami and the great suffering they caused for the people of the region.  However, the knock on effect is that tourists are staying away in droves. So, how will ‘Walking Through Japan’ help?

In 1991 the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union)

From Candy Johnnie's South Africa Safari

established the Day of the African Child (DAC). The day commemorates the incident when, on 16 June 1976 In Soweto, South Africa, thousands of black school children took to the streets to protest about the inferior quality of their education and to demand their right to be taught in their own language. Hundreds of them were shot down; and in the two weeks of protest that followed, more than a hundred people were killed and more than a thousand injured.   “This day represents a heroic and courageous fight by African children in order to be ‘heard’ and ‘seen’; and hence celebrating DAC draws attention to the plight of African children today”, said UNICEF.  Find out more information at the BBC ‘on this day’ website page.