My name is Habib Koité and I am from Mali, Africa. My father had 4 wives. We were 17 children living in the same area. I liked that ambiance, it was nice for me. My mother sang for traditional events, my dad and uncles played guitar so music was quite natural for me. My parents were not so convinced about the fact I wanted to be a musician. They expected me to become an engineer. One of my uncles saw my talent and pushed my parents to accept my willing to learn music more seriously and finally they accepted.

I was +/- 20 years old. For sure I remember all the lessons and it’s true that I became a teacher because I was on of the best of my class but also because at the end of my learning, the professor of guitar died… and they needed to find quickly another professor.

In 1991 in Perpignan, France, a French friend of mine who was living in Bamako, got in touch with the festival VOX POLE and proposed me for a solo. They accepted and I won the prize: the recording of 2 tracks. It was my professional beginning.

I could explain the fact the people can appreciate without understand one word by an opening mind, a desire of meeting another world, other people, the interest for other cultures. I can have the same feelings for songs for which I don’t understand any words…That’s the World of Music.

After some gigs in Europe Michel De Bock proposed me to produce an album. All the tracks were played since many years in the clubs in Bamako.

So the work to do was to make them shorter (each of them had a length of 10 to 15 minutes… too long for the European public). After this work we made the recording in 3 days, then the mixing and mastering in 4 days (also incredible) and the CD was ready. It was like a natural birth, so quick, like breathing. In 1996 we made 90 concerts in the world in one year.

I do propose a music based on the traditional rhythms with a touch of Europe because obviously I have some influences by listening and learning other music. At the beginning it was not easy for the people from Mali to agree with this, but little by little I think this adventure was appreciated.

habib koite

Luo Gang, who was born in a small town in Guangan city, southwestern Sichuan province, disappeared on his way to kindergarten 23 years ago, said his parents. Heartbroken, they did everything they could to find their son, but to no avail. They eventually gave up and later adopted a daughter.

What they didn’t know was that their son had been taken to a city in southeastern Fujian province, some 1500 kilometres from Sichuan. Although Luo’s adopted parents loved him and treated him like their own son, he said the desire to find his birth parents had always haunted him.

“Everyday before I went to bed, I forced myself to re-live the life spent in my old home,” he said. “So I wouldn’t forget.”

But the only memory Luo had of his hometown was of two bridges. He drew a rough map of his hometown from memory, before posting it on “Bring Lost Babies Home”, a Chinese website devoted to locating missing children through the help of volunteers.

Soon afterwards, a volunteer wrote back with valuable information – a couple from a small town in Sichuan’s Guangan city had lost a son 23 years ago. The time matched Luo’s abduction perfectly.

Luo searched for pictures of the Sichuan town and found they looked familiar to him. To confirm his suspicions, he turned to the satellite version Google Maps. The minute he zoomed in on an area called “Yaojiaba” near the Sichuan town, Luo recognised the two bridges. “That’s it! That’s my home,” shouted Luo, in tears.

Luo was pictured in a tearful reunion with his birth parents and grandparents in Sichuan. “In the past years, I couldn’t help crying each time I thought about my son, who could be starving without enough clothes on him,” said his mother.
It is unclear whether any criminal charges will be brought against Luo’s adoptive family. 

via scmp

*By Angelina Jolie
MY MOTHER fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56. She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was.

We often speak of “Mommy’s mommy,” and I find myself trying to explain the illness that took her away from us. They have asked if the same could happen to me. I have always told them not to worry, but the truth is I carry a “faulty” gene, BRCA1, which sharply increases my risk of developing breast cancer andovarian cancer.

My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman.

Only a fraction of breast cancers result from an inherited gene mutation. Those with a defect in BRCA1 have a 65 percent risk of getting it, on average.

Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex.

On April 27, I finished the three months of medical procedures that the mastectomies involved. During that time I have been able to keep this private and to carry on with my work.

But I am writing about it now because I hope that other women can benefit from my experience. Cancer is still a word that strikes fear into people’s hearts, producing a deep sense of powerlessness. But today it is possible to find out through a blood test whether you are highly susceptible to breast and ovarian cancer, and then take action.

My own process began on Feb. 2 with a procedure known as a “nipple delay,” which rules out disease in the breast ducts behind the nipple and draws extra blood flow to the area. This causes some pain and a lot of bruising, but it increases the chance of saving the nipple.

Two weeks later I had the major surgery, where the breast tissue is removed and temporary fillers are put in place. The operation can take eight hours. You wake up with drain tubes and expanders in your breasts. It does feel like a scene out of a science-fiction film. But days after surgery you can be back to a normal life.

Nine weeks later, the final surgery is completed with the reconstruction of the breasts with an implant. There have been many advances in this procedure in the last few years, and the results can be beautiful.

I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy. But it is one I am very happy that I made. My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.

It is reassuring that they see nothing that makes them uncomfortable. They can see my small scars and that’s it. Everything else is just Mommy, the same as she always was. And they know that I love them and will do anything to be with them as long as I can. On a personal note, I do not feel any less of a woman. I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.

I am fortunate to have a partner, Brad Pitt, who is so loving and supportive. So to anyone who has a wife or girlfriend going through this, know that you are a very important part of the transition. Brad was at the Pink Lotus Breast Center, where I was treated, for every minute of the surgeries. We managed to find moments to laugh together. We knew this was the right thing to do for our family and that it would bring us closer. And it has.

For any woman reading this, I hope it helps you to know you have options. I want to encourage every woman, especially if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, to seek out the information and medical experts who can help you through this aspect of your life, and to make your own informed choices.

I acknowledge that there are many wonderful holistic doctors working on alternatives to surgery. My own regimen will be posted in due course on the Web site of the Pink Lotus Breast Center. I hope that this will be helpful to other women.

Breast cancer alone kills some 458,000 people each year, according to the World Health Organization, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. It has got to be a priority to ensure that more women can access gene testing and lifesaving preventive treatment, whatever their means and background, wherever they live. The cost of testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2, at more than $3,000 in the United States, remains an obstacle for many women.

I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options.

Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.

via nytimes