ACCRA, Ghana — On the job at a Internet cafe near the city center, cousins Aaron Animley and Rashid Teye Appeynarh inflict their musical tastes on the paying customers. Their fondness for hip-hop, especially selections featuring four-letter words, unsurprisingly conforms to the passion of their peers across the Atlantic. The artists in permanent heavy rotation by the self-styled DJs include the late Tupac Shakur and hip-hop impresario Jay-Z. “I like Jay-Z from the scratch to the up. A boy on the street grow up to be a superstar, millionaire,” Appeynarh, 23, said. “He encourage me whenever I see him. The [...]
BUDAPEST, Hungary — In parts, the May 26 speech Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany gave to his Socialist party was something of a grand mea culpa. “I almost died when I had to pretend for one and a half years as if we were governing,” he said on tape. “I am through with this. We either do it and then you’ve got your man, or you pick someone else.” At other times, the speech seemed a sweeping political treatise delivered in the belligerent incoherence of a taxi driver stuck in traffic. “Since they know my mother’s name . . . [...]
JERUSALEM — When Israelis heard that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was coming to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, their reaction required no words, a shrug of the shoulders was enough. Most believed that Condi’s diplomatic prowess would achieve little in the Holy Land. This may be the land of miracles, but it is also the land of grudges, even among cousins. Make that especially among cousins. The prevailing view here even before Condi arrived on Wednesday was that as long as Palestinians continued battling one another, unable to decide on a unified strategy for the future, anything [...]
