Build your own DIY synth
DW, Spectrum – 2 April 2013. There’s a growing movement of musicians and engineers building their own DIY synths. You may not see so many electronics shops selling circuit boards and components on the high street anymore, but you can get all the gear over the Net. So, I bought a DIY kit on Ebay, [...]
In Django’s footsteps
DW, Pulse – 12 March 2013. Mixing Sinti stories and sounds with American jazz motifs, Dotschy Reinhardt’s music has won her plenty of press attention. She tells Pulse what it’s like to grow up as part of an ethnic minority in southern Germany.
Chasing the moving spotlight
DW, Pulse – 26 February 2013. Australian-born Josh Teicher’s musical journey has taken him around the world from Melbourne to Iceland to Berlin, where he is currently based. Teicher’s one man band Mez Medallion has been making waves on the indie/synth-pop scene. He told me about his new album “Move Towards the Light” and the [...]
Painting murals inspires children in Sarajevo
DW, Pulse – 21 February 2013. Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, was torn apart by war. Twenty years later, Ervina Muftic, a young architecture student is bringing color back to Dobrinja, one of the most bombarded parts of the city, through murals painted with the help of local schoolchildren.
Getting under the skin of tattoo cultures
DW, Culture – 12 February 2013 Cultural tradition, fashion trend, therapy or drunken mistake – tattoos symbolize a breadth of different meanings. In Germany, people of all ages, professions and backgrounds are taking the plunge and getting inked. In Western society, tattoos have never been more popular. In fact, social researchers say that Generation Y [...]
More and more people ‘getting inked’
DW, Pulse – 12 February 2013. Social researchers say that Generation Y – the group of people born from the mid 1980s to the 2000s – are the first generation in which tattoos have become mainstream. In fact, one US survey found that 40% of people in this age bracket have a tattoo. In Germany, [...]
A labour of love in Sarajevo
DW, Pulse – 5 February 2013. Young British tourist Juliet Walker could not have anticipated how life would turn out when she traveled to Bosnia three years ago. Not only did she master a new language, but she also learned the ancient art of coppersmithy. Today a laundromat and café double as her workshop in [...]
The Living Planet Food Special
DW, Living Planet – 3 January 2013. This week we look at food production and the impact it has on the earth. We go from a farmer’s market in Bonn, to preparing meat for traditional Muslim holidays, to struggling farmers in Fukushima. And, we look at how Brazilian restaurants are composting the extras that they [...]
Roma music school teaches a new generation
DW, Inside Europe - 16 December 2012. Around 12 million Roma and Sinti people live in poverty often on the outskirts of European cities, eking out an existence any way they can. But music has served to strengthen Romani culture, identity and belonging. The author Carol Silverman once said, Romani people “are revered as musicians [...]
Women’s Rights Special
DW, World In Progress – 21 November 2012. DW’s women’s special hosted by Pavel Sraj. The United Nations, governments and NGOs around the world commence the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women to raise awareness of the many forms of violence against women and girls. Pavel Sraj spoke to Karin Nordmeyer, president [...]
Development News
DW, World In Progress - 28 November 2012. TEXT Developing nations demand more progress in Doha African negotiators attending the United Nations climate change talks in Doha, Qatar say they are determined to ensure that developed countries do not let the Kyoto Protocol die as its commitment period comes to an end. The protocol’s first commitment [...]
I hack and I vote
DW, Sci-Tech – 7 November 2012. Millions of Americans voted in the presidential elections using the simple paper ballot. Twenty-five percent embraced e-voting – but some computer experts say the machines are open to hacks. Of the many software malfunctions and breakdowns of voting machines during Tuesday’s ballot, the most famous example is a video [...]
Roma & Sinti Holocaust Memorial unveiled
DW, Inside Europe – 4 November 2012. Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel unveiled a new memorial, dedicated to Roma and Sinti victims of the Holocaust. It comes after years of campaigning for public recognition of their suffering at the hands of the Nazis. With persecution of the Roma minority on the rise, the unveiling [...]
Europe’s birds threatened at home and abroad
DW – October 17 2012. Across Europe, billions of migratory birds are now setting off on their long journey south to Africa. Their numbers are dropping though, as they face threats to their habitat both at home and en route. The Ljubljana marsh is a grassland reserve on a large floodplain in central Slovenia. It’s [...]
A migrating bird’s troubled journey
DW, Living Planet - 11 October 2012 It’s getting chilly here in Europe, as the summer fades into memory and autumn winds shake the leaves from the trees. Five billion birds are in transit across the continuent – and they are suffering from population decline. Fewer birds return each year as their breeding grounds are destroyed by [...]
EU farmers storm the streets of Brussels
DW, Living Planet – 27 September 2012 Farmers and activists from across the European Union gathered in the Belgian capital earlier this month to demand a food policy that treats small farmers and the environment with more care. We followed one passionate landlover who travelled all the way from Transylvania. TEXT Transylvania, Romania. The home [...]
Oktoberfest overseas
The home of the Oktoberfest may be in Germany, but you don’t need to go to Munich to experience the famous Bavarian beer festival. Instead, you can head to London, Ohio, Sydney, Brazil – or even Palestine. Lederhosen and dirndl-clad waitresses are not regularly sighted in the US. But according to data from the US [...]
A chronology of the anti-Muslim film protests
DW – 14 September 2012. Across the Muslim world, protesters demonstrate against the anti-Islam movie “The Innocence of Muslims.” The film was first shown in July 2012 and then in excerpts got available on the Internet sparking violent protests. July 1, 2012 A 13 minute trailer of a feature length film “The Innocence of Muslims” [...]
Greece and the Balkans – a long way from Brussels
Balkan News Blog – 2011. I recently asked my Greek friend why Greece is in such a financial mess. “I’ll tell you a story,” he replied. Years ago, my friend had done some work for the then Greek Prime Minister who was on a tour in Australia. The price was agreed as $1000 Australian dollars, [...]
Ratko Mladić, War Crimes and International Justice
Balkan News Blog – 2011. 16 years after the end of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the two ‘big fish’ of the Bosnian genocide are behind bars. Radovan Karadžić, was captured in July 2008 and Ratko Mladić was arrested less than one week ago. Mladić is currently in the process of being extradited to the Hague [...]
4th Anniversary Northern Territory Intervention
SBS Radio – October 2011. A feature on the 4th Anniversary of the Northern Territory Intervention for the SBS flagship news program WorldView . I interviewed the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda, the author of the Little Children Are Sacred Report Rex Wilde QC, Indigenous activist Barbara Shaw, Jacqueline Phillips from Australians for Native Title and [...]
Interview – Slovene President Dr. Danilo Türk
SBS – October 2010. An interview with former Slovene President Dr. Danilo Türk for the SBS Slovene language program. I spoke with Dr. Türk about being the first Slovene Ambassador to the United Nations, his work with Kofi Annan and his presidential duties and achievements.
Shakespeare in Carlton
SBS Radio – January 2010. A piece for Alchemy (SBS Radio) on “Shakespeare in Carlton”, an English language and theatre course for teenagers from refugee and migrant backgrounds.