Tinariwen means “deserts” in Tamasheq language of Tuareg. It’s also a name of the band of musicians from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali. Tinariwen remains a voice of political and social conscience in the southern Sahara. They are idealized by a whole generation of young Touareg living in exile in Algeria and Libya. In the last 10 years Tinariwen has become increasingly popular in Europe and USA. Tinariwe’s lyrics tell the stories of the suffering and exile of their people, the semi-nomadic Kel Tamashek of the southern Sahara, and about the beauty of their desert home.

Eritrea, the troubled Red Sea state, is playing a complex, dangerous and destructive game that involves shady international politics, greedy industrialists and gross human rights violations.

Recent years, and now 2010, are seen as years of great natural disasters that also in a great way unify good people all over the world that are rushing to aid those who are suffering. That occasional need involves practically all the continents including Africa. But, in recent years, we need to pay attention also to another type of aid that is being supplied in abundance. This one, however, is actually greatly capable of harming people; it is the “weapon aid”.

Their stories are numerous, some similar and others flavored by particular struggles in specific sites of discontent. Overall, their attitudes are of stubborn resilience, hope, and survival in environments desperate for their labor but resentful of their presence. Unlike their predecessors who went to European countries…