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Europe

On the road to Warsaw

Last week-end, our German editor, Katharina Kloss, travelled to Warsaw. Thjs trip was part of our Euro Crisis on the Ground program some of you might have heard about. Every month, one cafebabel.com editor gathers a team of 4 journalists and a photographer to discover a new european city and publish a package of articles in the magazine. Among the cities, there were Paris, Vienna, Berlin... and now Warsaw!

On the ground, our team met with some local friends as well as a polish journalist and a dutch researcher in order to share ideas and discuss about the polish economy and how it coped with the economical crisis better than most other European countries.

Check out the pictures and participants below. Articles are soon to come!

Warsaw, Poland Caroline Venaille

Warsaw, Poland Emilie Prattico (right of the sofa) - Katharina Kloss

Warsaw, Poland Caroline Venaille - Anna Karla

Warsaw, Poland Alexandre Heully - Aart-Jan Riekhoff

photos : ©cafebabel.com

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Tuesday, June 22 2010 By jean - Making of

On Stage: The 120 best plays of Europe!

The ETC publishes the 9th edition of the biannual selection of the 120 best contemporary European plays for the stage. Stories written by 128 playwrights from 41 countries in 37 languages and staged on European theatres for all generations give an insight into the European cultural landscape: “European Theatre Today”.

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The European drama repertoire of “European Theatre Today”, selected by national reading committees of theatre experts and published every two years by the ETC, is available online in English and French on the ETC website and will be launched in CD-Rom format on June 27 during the festival « New Plays from Europe » in Wiesbaden, Germany.

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Monday, June 21 2010 By jean - What's On

Babelpost n°2

babelpost.jpg

Hello everyone! The Babelpost is your weekly cafebabel.com newsletter with fresh info on babelblogs and community stuff. Read it. It’s made for you!


What blogs did you read most?

1. Arirusila is still squatting the first place. Great focus on Croatia this week.

2. Brussels moves up to second place, due to the recent burning news.

3. Strasbourg

4. Berlin

5. Athens moves up as well! Greece has been in the eye of the hurricane for a while now. Great coverage!

6. Eurogeneration

7. Paris is active again! Contact them! It's still time to get involved!

8. Budapest

9. Alice in Wonderland

10. Sofia


What articles were the most successful?

1. Deeply ashamed.... Elina, our greek babelian, speaks her heart as Greece faces a tough time.

2. Why the greek public service operates against the laws of the nature

3. Petit manifeste en faveur de la contradiction |FR| Europe is filled with contradictions, are they forever?

The Blog of the week is obviously from Athens.

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It is incredibly interesting to follow the events from the inside! Right as I'm writing, a demonstration turned bad and a bank got set on fire. Follow the events day by day!


Cheers and see you next week,

Jean, your community manager

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Wednesday, May 5 2010 By jean - BabelPost

A look back on the 2010 Model European Union

"Europe is not just institutions and legislation, it's people getting together, feeling as one!"






Listen to the (maybe) future MEPs: Model European Union 2010: five portraits from Pierre-anthony Canovas on Vimeo.


There are things that you can learn much better by experiencing them for one long week than by studying them for years. We all may have heard of European spirit, even of European identity, but 180 young people from all over Europe finally understood what that means during that one week in which the simulation Model European Union 2010 took place in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Designed to give the participants an overview on the way European politics is made, MEU 2010 gathered a wide variety of young and enthusiastic people who were given the roles of Members of the European Parliament, Members of the Council, Journalists, Lobbyists and Interpreters. The two topics to be discussed were GMO and the "Return's directive", both highly contradictive and - as the participants proved with their long and passionate discussions - interesting for the young generation in Europe.


Given the opportunity to feel like real politicians in the premises of the EP, the participants used the opportunity to get together - not only while discussing strategies, plotting against their political enemies and convincing their partners, but also while using the social program to interact with their fellows from all parts of Europe. “They do not only learn about the co-decision, they train their argumentation, language and, most of all, intercultural and diplomatic skills, and they get to see their efforts work - or not - in real time, and in an European environment, as participants are European as well. That is living the European spirit“, says Inês Nascimento, Director-General of the MEU 2010.




"The European Union is not just another abstract institution that works beyond and without us. It is us."


Elena Faloutsou, a Member of the Council, representing Malta, is convinced that in this one week she learnt something much more important about the EU than the obvious that was expected. "Model European Union taught us indeed a multitude of things: not only public speaking, negotiating, diplomacy, European Law and Affairs, but also that the European Union is not just another abstract institution that works beyond and without us. It is us. I am confident in saying that we proved the European identity existent", says Elena. While the Council members had to find compromise between their respective countries, MEPs had another task - to find a common position within their own faction and to negotiate and find allies in other factions. "I focused mainly on conducting "under-the-table" negotiations and introducing amendments. I was also carrying out informal talks during coffee breaks so that I could convince other parties to vote for these amendments. To tell the truth, this "corridor diplomacy" can be as hard as debating in public!”, recounts Marilena Zidianaki, an MEP for the EPP.

A group of 15 lobbyists were trying their best to influence the decisions of the politicians by different actions - whether with their presentations, demonstrations or flyers. An active part of the whole process, they had the opportunity to discuss politics at the gala event, organised for Amnesty International. "I have always been involved in international politics and international relations from a theoretical point of view and I was searching for some practice. And the simulation went beyond my expectation: everything was so real and carefully prepared, the people were keen on what they were doing and the atmosphere was like being in a real parliament", describes his experience Filippo Buranelli from the lobbyist team. All discussions, decisions, arguments, but also the bizzare details and personal stories were covered by the press. The young journalists had to take care for two newspapers and were supported by photographers and film-makers. "Work and fun, all in MEU!" This is the conclusion of the journalist Teodora Palma who was engaged in writing for Europe Daily, while her colleages from the print press entertained the MEU group with the tabloid "EU Naked".




To make everything as realistic as possible, this year a new role was introduced in the simulation - this of the interpreters. Pairs of interpreters from Germany, Italy and Spain and one from France and Romania experienced what it is like to be in the booths of the EP, to be a vital part of the debates and to have people relying on every word you say. "I learned how it feels to be interpreting a whole day long, and how important a good night's sleep is for the interpreting performance. Also, I learned to deal with many different accents in English, which wasn't always easy. And I learned not to get frustrated when things didn't go perfectly, but to get back into interpreting and try to be better", says Yvonne Richter, a German interpreter.

It has passed one week since Model European Union 2010 came to its end. Seven days where 200 people between participants and organizers lived together a truly European spirit inside the walls of the European Parliament. You could feel it: the epicenter of Europe was located in Strasbourg. And it will be again in 2011.

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Tuesday, April 27 2010 By jean - What's On

Proposition for the Babel Day video

Objectives

  • Cafe Babel Birthday
  • Show network faces
  • Show babelian places in Europe
  • Show multilingual aspects of network

Concept

In each city where cafebabel.com is present, we will produce a 3 minutes video casting the different members of local teams and asking them “Cafebabel.com is turning 7, but what makes cafebabel.com so different?”
Answers of babelians should be short and in English (slogan, statements) and should be made in illustrative babelian city places in Europe.
At the end, all Babelians will say in their language:

  • happy birthday cafebabel.com
  • In (my city), I read cafebabel.com in (my language)

The Montage will be a compilation of all the individuals’ interviews showing the faces and voices of members of cafebabel.com local teams. They will be put together and end up with the happy birthday or the “In Berlin, I read cafebabel.com in German” (we don’t know yet)

The montage will be made by Brussel’s team, and should be as dynamic as possible (with music if we find some!)

How to do your video?

You need:

  • Camera
  • Microphone (if possible separated)

Please do not use mobile phones (quality often sucks!)
Please send us the video in the avi or mpeg at 640x480 resolution!

Find a babelian place

a place where young people and Erasmus students go, not tourists, a place which is inspiring and well known in your city! But try to find a place which is not to noisy, especially from cars!

Examples

  • In Paris : place Beaubourg, in front of the the Museum of Modern Art (Pompidu)
  • In Berlin: Alexanderplatz
  • In Brussels: place du Luxembourg

It’s up to you to find the right place!

Get members of your network together
In every city gather members of your local team.
1 to 10 persons, it doesn’t matter. The more people you have, the funnier!
You can have people with different accents, it’s great! Girls and boys are welcome!
Ask each individual the following question and have him reply in 1 short statement in English

  • What makes cafebabel.com different?

Ask them to tell in their original language:

  • happy birthday cafebabel.com
  • In (my city), I read cafebabel.com in (my language)

Please think in advance about what you’re going to say. And try to be the most original! We will show the first name of the people and the name of the city!

Shoot the video and send it to Babel Bruxelles

Deadlines

Please try to do the shooting during the weekend!
We ask all teams to send us the video contribution until Tuesday 29th January at 10 am

We will do a selection of the best contributions for the video and show the final result on 1st February on coffeefactory!

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Tuesday, January 22 2008 By Spock - What's On

Cafebabel Call for articles CULTURE February 2008

Babelians, come and find out what 2008 February’s CULTURE section will be about! To write or to propose different subjects for cafebabel’s CULTURE section you simply need to be a member of our community.

Nothing easier: go on the homepage just click on the red button “participate!” in the upper right to find out more about the conditions of being a writer for cafebabel.com.

If you’re interested in one of the topics below, do not hesitate to contact our cultural editor Katharina at redaktion@cafebabel.com. We’re looking forward to reading you in 7 languages!

1. DOSSIER: ARTS AND YHE CITY

a. Make arts from city dust: Romanian artist Nicolae Comanescu

b. Monsieur Chat: European tagging

c. Interview with young Paris architecture photographer

d. Eboy design: German-Norwegian pixelcity artists in Berlin

e. Lokstoff: when theatre discovers the city (author: Yvonne Pöppelbaum)

f. Photo-gallery: arts and the city

Monsieur Chat

2. Cultural Agenda for January

3. Literature Agenda for February

4. Culture projects panorama: “European Year of intercultural dialogue”

5. Sweet & Tender: European art project

6. Torino: World Capital of Design 2008

7. Film: Bianco e Nero - discrimination in European film business?

8. Beatles’ song as archi project in Stavanger (cultural capitals 2008)

9. Tokio Hotel phenomenon swaps Europe (author: Yvonne Pöppelbaum)

10. Expo “C’est notre histoire” + debate with Simone Veil (author: Graziella JOST)

11. Italian photographers without limits (author: Valeria Ibello)

12. Hong-Kong animation in Europe (author: Inga Pietrusinska)

13. “Tower of Babel” idies out without your help! THIS LANGUAGE SECTION REALLY NEEDS AUTHORS! I look forward to recieving your proposals and ideas. Think of any strange expression in your country and look up its origin, compare idiomatic expressions in the babelian languages, explain why a film title has been translated in a very bad way. Everything around you could be a Tower of Babel! Do not hesitate to contact me if you need help or hints! WE ARE THERE TO HELP YOU.

Katharina Kloss

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Tuesday, January 15 2008 By Katha - Making of

Brainstorming for Babel Day celebration!

Every 1st of February, there is something very important in cafebabel’s life: its our birthday! Remember, the first version of cafebabel.com was launched by Erasmus students in Strasbourg on 1st February 2001. That was the birth of cafebabel.com as the first European online media!

Now, it has become a tradition: every 1st of February, all the network of cafebabel.com gets together, thinks together to imagine an original way to celebrate our birthday.

What are we going to do in 2008? What are your ideas? How can we make this an intense babelian moment?

Here are a bunch of ideas that came up when I asked you about your ideas:

  • Organizing an event in Second life! Why about a photography exhibition? Check out some nice pictures we have made of some Babelians in 2005.
  • Organizing a video event from all Babelians in Europe! What if we would collect videos of Babelians wishing happy birthday to cafe babel?
  • Organizing a flash mob series in Europe! This was Erika’s idea from our Vilnius team. Erika, do you want to give more details about that?

Any other ideas?

It’s easy – come and join us on our Skype conference on Wednesday January 9th at 6 pm! All you have to do is to register by email to Monika. We invite you also to write a short comment to this posting, for any other feedback.

Here are the pictures of some Babelians in 2005:

2 R UMAX PowerLook III V1.7 [4]

2 R UMAX PowerLook III V1.7 [4]

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Friday, January 4 2008 By Spock - What's On

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