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Aya Nakamura is a proud Black woman. Is that why she’s not 'French enough’ for the Paris Olympics? | Rokhaya Diallo
by Rokhaya Diallo on March 19, 2024 at 7:00 am
She is the world’s most listened-to French-speaking artist – but in France, hostility towards her goes beyond the far right
Since the start of her career, Aya Nakamura has faced setbacks, discrimination and harassment every step of the way. Nakamura is a music superstar. She is the most-listened-to French-speaking artist in the world, and the only woman to feature in the country’s top 20 best-selling albums of 2023. Her 2018 hit Djadja has reached almost 1bn listens on YouTube, and in 2021 her second album surpassed 1bn streams on Spotify. When she announced two concerts at the legendary Bercy arena in Paris last year, tickets sold out in 15 minutes – unprecedented for a French-speaking artist.
Yet from shows where presenters struggle to pronounce her name to public debate about the unorthodox way she uses the French language, the French-Malian singer can, it seems, never be judged solely on her music.
Rokhaya Diallo is a Guardian Europe columnist
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Booze, jigsaws and rainbows: revisiting Ray’s a Laugh – in pictures
by Guardian Staff on March 19, 2024 at 7:00 am
First published in 1996 to enormous acclaim, a new version of Richard Billingham’s seminal photobook features fresh images and the same stark depiction of poverty that feels more relevant than ever
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In the company of wolves and kings: Suffolk’s new medieval cycle trail
by Sarah Baxter on March 19, 2024 at 7:00 am
The Wolf Way – a magnificent, not too hilly, cycling route – takes in the county’s myths, market towns and Gainsborough landscapes
It was an inauspicious start. Having cycled no more than a few metres, from the steps of the Angel hotel into the grounds of St Edmundsbury Cathedral, I fell off my bike.
I blamed the wolf: in dismounting to take its photo, I had kicked my own pannier and sent myself sprawling. The good passersby of Bury St Edmunds came to my (embarrassed) aid. Saint Edmund himself, sculpted in bronze, standing beside the wolf statue, looked the other way.
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From ocean to plate: the female-led seaweed company – from the agencies
by Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty Images on March 19, 2024 at 7:00 am
Lofoten Seaweed in Norway creates products for everyone from home cooks to professional chefs. Seaweed including nori, grass kelp, knotted wrack, truffle seaweed, among many other local species, are used in different sectors of the food industry to replace condiments, or provide alternative flavours
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Indonesia fishing village flooded with tide of rubbish after heavy rains
by Guardian staff and agencies on March 19, 2024 at 6:13 am
Teluk has one of country’s dirtiest beaches and the problem has worsened due to weather
An Indonesian fishing village has been inundated with tonnes of rubbish after recent heavy rains resulted in stronger tides.
Teluk, in the Indonesian province of Banten on the western edge of Java island, has one of the country’s dirtiest beaches. But the arrival of tonnes of rubbish on the shore has shocked residents.
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As a child, I roamed Dartmoor – and it shaped me. But across England, that freedom is being trampled on | Rosie Jewell
by Rosie Jewell on March 19, 2024 at 6:00 am
How can we expect people to care for the countryside if they are denied access to it? We must fight for our right to roam
When people ask me where I’m from, I wryly tell them “the middle of nowhere”. So, imagine my surprise when I saw that my old landlord and the remote place where I grew up were making national headlines over a court battle for the right to wild camp on Dartmoor.
Alexander Darwall bought the 1,619-hectare (4,000-acre) Blachford estate on southern Dartmoor in 2011. Dartmoor is the only place in England where wild camping is allowed, in designated areas, without permission from a landowner. Darwall successfully contested this right in court, arguing that the right to wild camp – as opposed to walking or picnicking – on the moors never existed. Then an appeal restored it. Now, he’s taking the case to the supreme court.
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Japan raises interest rates for first time since 2007
by Justin McCurry in Tokyo on March 19, 2024 at 5:50 am
Shift makes Bank of Japan the last central bank to end negative rates in move that has ‘a lot of symbolic significance’ according to analysts
Japan’s central bank has ended eight years of negative interest rates, in an overhaul of one of the world’s most aggressive monetary easing programmes that sought to encourage bank lending and spur demand.
In its first interest rate hike in 17 years, the Bank of Japan [BOJ] said it was lifting its short-term policy rate from -0.1% to between zero and 0.1%, although analysts said a fragile economic recovery meant it would continue go slow with any further rise in borrowing costs.
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Who congratulated Putin on his election victory and what does it say about global alliances?
by Jonathan Yerushalmy on March 19, 2024 at 5:45 am
While the Russian election results were condemned in the west, the reaction across Asia, Africa and Latin America shows a new global dynamic is emerging
After Vladimir Putin’s landslide presidential election victory on Sunday, western governments lined up to characterise the win as unfair and undemocratic.
The elections underlined the “depth of repression” in Russia, according to British foreign minister David Cameron, while the US state department said the jailing and disqualification of opponents meant the process was “incredibly undemocratic”.
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