Benin News

The first edition of the tourist and cultural festival in Tripoli will take place in late April, organizers announced on Wednesday.

The European Union ambassador and head of delega tion to Nouakchott, Hans-Georg Gerstenlauer, on Monday urged all Mauritanians to take up the challenge of gender equality in the country.

Cotonou, an Atlantic port, is the largest city in the West African nation of Benin. It was there in the early '90s that a teenager named Lionel Loueke borrowed his brother's guitar and started playing in local dance bands. It wasn't easy. There were no accessible music schools or stores, so everything had to be learned by trial and error and by ear, usually from second-generation audio cassettes. And when one of his guitar strings broke, Loueke replaced it with a bicycle brake cable.

That early struggle was the beginning of a journey that brings Loueke's jazz trio to Blues Alley Monday night. It was a path that took him to schools in the Ivory Coast, Paris, Boston and California, won him jobs in bands led by Terence Blanchard and Herbie Hancock, and landed the guitarist a contract with Blue Note Records. Last December, Loueke got word that he'd received an unrestricted $50,000 United States Artists fellowship for the 'caliber and impact' of his work.

Export-Import Bank of India has opened a line of credit of $15 million for financing exports to the Republic of Benin.

Cotonou will host, from 1 to 6 March, the 4th edition of the International Show of Francophone Poets in Benin , under the theme " women colours", organizers said here Friday.

The next round of formal UN climate change negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is sche duled to take place in April in Bonn, Germany.

This year's African Soul Rebels caravan was opened by the Tout Puissant Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou.

This was the sixth outing by the ever-changing lineup of that admirable A marketing project, the African Soul Rebels, and it was rescued by a A dominant performance by the one real star on stage, Malian diva Oumou Sangare.

Malaria researchers in Benin say they may have found a replacement for DDT in areas where mosquitoes are resistant to common insecticides.

If they don't sort themselves out soon, this will disappear. A very disappointing and joyless experience Wallace & Co London, Jane Cornwell's rating Description: The ensemble play Afrobeat and funk rhythms.

Nadege and Aaron Forbes, who met and fell in love in Africa, wear matching outfits of basine broderie made from cotton pounded with wax.

An album on the Tangent label made in Paris in the 80's I would guess. Curious mixture of soukous and tinny synth sounds and funk guitars.

As regular readers of this blog know, I travel with some regularity to West Africa , and there's a soft spot in my heart for Benin .

The Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children , a women's rights organization, in p artnership with the Yolocamba Solidaridad and the region of Madrid in Spain, wil l host a sub-regional meeting here Wednesday aimed at fashioning alternatives to f emale genital mutilation .

Former Radio Netherlands Worldwide journalist and Africa representative Soul Issiaka has been knighted.

The Libyan National Medical Centre will Sunday hold a on e-day conference on the "discovery of Neglected Tropical Diseases" , which will have in attendance many Libyan academics, PANA reported Wednesday.

Officials from the United Nations health agency and the Beninese Government are urging the West African nation's citizens to be extra vigilant in observing good hygiene amid a recent cholera outbreak that has already claimed several lives.

A new fund managed by the United Nations Development Fund for Women has announced over US$9 million in grants to support initiatives in 26 countries to empower women.

Game room. Photo: EFE/Elvira Urquijo A. LAS PALMAS DE GRAN CANARIA.- The Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno -CAAM- hosts the MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ART and more, a project by artist Meschac Gaba .

Contrary to the misconception in certain circles, the decision to integrate the New Partnership for Africaa's Development into the structures and processes of the African Union is aimed at strengthening the programme, rather than at dissolving it, NEPAD officials said h ere Friday.