Ovi magazine; Sunday January 1st, 2023 – Happy New Year

The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Sunday January 1st, 2023

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Long lost past, stupidly ruins future & hope by Thanos Kalamidas

Traditions in the media universe want these days to choose a person, persons or an event that somehow marked the year that just ended. A tradition we followed in the beginning of Ovi’s life and I’m afraid for only very few years.

The main reason we stopped it was … well, the person who was cataclysmic news in January was …no news at all in February and an event that brought in the end of the world in May was just no news on Tuesday. And then the big question, why mark a whole year with an evil person or a tragic event even though it was on the news more than anything else? Just like this year. A year marked by the Ukrainian invasion by Putin and monopolised the covers from all the magazines all around the world – well, minor Russia – including the Europevision song contest.

Let me put it in a different way, if the Ukrainian people should be cover in every magazine in the world what about the Russian people. They weren’t invaded by Putin; they live under Putin for decades. Aren’t they heroes? However and there lays the hypocrisy and the surrealism of the international community, instead of feeling pity for these people, governments enforce sanctions against them and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, demands from the international community to punish them for Putin’s crimes in the spirit of the hitlerian collective responsibility. In the midtime and since that might sound too …hitlerian states all around the world forbid Tchaikovsky’s music!

Continue reading HERE!

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Maurice Bejart: Starting off the Year with a Dance by Rene Wadlow

January first is the birth anniversary of Maurice Béjart, a innovative master of modern dance.  In a world where there is both appreciation and fear of the mixing of cultural traditions, Maurice Béjart was always a champion of blending cultural influences.  He was a world citizen of culture and an inspiration to all who work for a universal culture.  His death on 22 November 2007 was a loss, but he serves as a forerunner of what needs to be done so that beauty will overcome the walls of separation.  One of the Béjart’s most impressive dance sequences was Jérusalem, cité de la Paix in which he stressed the need for reconciliation and mutual cultural enrichment.

Béjart followed in the spirit of his father, Gaston Berger (1896-1960), philosopher, administrator of university education, and one of the first to start multi-disciplinary studies of the future.  Gaston Berger was born in Saint-Louis de Sénégal, with a French mother and a Sénégalese father. Sénégal, and especially Leopold Sedar Sengore pointed with pride to Gaston Berger as a “native son” — and the second university after Dakar was built in Saint-Louis and carries the name of Gaston Berger.

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Manish’s Zodiac Signs Predictions for January 2023 #horoscope by Manish Kumar Arora

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Berserk Alert! Happy New Year #cartoon by Tony Zuvela

For more Berserk Alert! HERE!

For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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Ovi magazine; Monday January 3rd, 2022

 

The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Monday January 3rd, 2022

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022 or 2020, too ? by Dr. Anis H. Bajrektarevic

The power of writing is that the dialogue is not only held with the contemporaries. Writing can reach future generations, too. Great poet Mak says: “when nobody listens, write”. How will we reflect on events of 2020-21 in about 5 or 10 years? How will we explain our indifference, silence and retreat? What will we say to our children?

Back to the pre-Christmas days of 2019, I wrote a short text about the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and our careless joy of unselective deployment of this technology that might irreversibly change social fabrics like never before in history of humankind. Under the title “Future filled with empty choices – Tomorrow (n)ever AI-ies” the text soon after appeared in the Brussels-based New Europe and from there was taken to different outlets all over. Good old pre-Corona times.

Continue reading HERE!

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Year 2021 #thoughts by Amir Khatib

“The year passed quickly, its days were snatched by the lightness of a terrified wild animal, leaping from dull polar sunrise to sunset hidden behind mountains and forests, and my gift to myself at the beginning was that I made a wooden box and wrapped it in dark blue velvet to keep the first volume of my manuscript “Crystal Algeria”, which I completed during the year 2020.  The days of that year were closed to themselves and to the drawing only, which ended up in a volume of one hundred and forty pages, the pages of which contained seventy drawings, adorning fifty-three hymns… I bought ornate hinges and a lock inscribed in bronze and locked it.”

Continue reading HERE!

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What is PTSD? by Joseph Gatt

Let’s put it this way. “Normal” people, that is people with no signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, tend to be easygoing, transparent, clear, and tend to give you a good time. Those “normal” people tend to have had an easy life or a difficult life but they are optimistic about life.

People with Post-traumatic stress disorder tend to have lived in situations where they end up on their own. Either their parents were neglectful, or they had to fight all alone, or they overcame war, economic recessions, or some kind of traumatic event where everyone was mean to them and no one was kind to them.

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Sceptic feathers #25 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

For more Sceptic feathers, HERE!

For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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Ovi magazine; Saturday January 1st, 2022 – Happy New Year

 

The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Saturday January 1st, 2022 – Happy New Year!

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New Year wishes or New Year resolutions? by Thanos Kalamidas

New Year traditions demand to start an editorial with an account of the year past and continue with wishes and wishful prediction for the year that just started. But both, the account of the year before and the wishing-list for the year to come have stuck in exactly the same thing for the last two years: COVID-19.

It was all about COVID-19 for the year 2020 and it was again all about COVID-19 for the year 2021 and I’m afraid is going to be all about COVID-19 for the year 2021. Vaccines, pills, jabs, anti-vacciners, deniers, conspiracy theories all in huge patch work that somehow marks a new era in our global civilization we like or not to admit it.

Do you remember back in 2001, after the hit into the Twin Towers, in New York, and the new anti-terrorist laws that were enforced under the very pompous “patriot act” name? Do you remember how a lot of people reacted warning that this is perhaps the biggest damage terrorism did? Do you remember how many articles were written about the fact – we actually saw it soon after – that the fear had caused a tremendous hit to human rights? Have you realize that “patriot acts” in deferent places in this world and in the name of the war against terrorism have become a tool for authoritarian regimes like Erdogan’s in Turkey, Putin of Russia or Xi Jinping in China to surpass any kind of opposition?

Continue reading HERE!

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Nigeria: A Look Back at 2021 by Kola King

By all accounts, 2021 has turned out to be an annus horribils. It will be remembered as a year of disaster or misfortune. Even President Muhammadu Buhari alluded to this in his Christmas message. It was a year of unprecedented security challenge.

The year was ushered in with buntings and fireworks, not knowing what it held in its womb. There were pious hopes and cautious optimism since many had survived the general lockdown and the toxic effect of coronavirus the previous year. With hindsight, it is a year many would wish to erase from their memories. Generally, life became Hobessian, that is, nasty, brutish and short. From east to west and north to south, Nigerians lived in the mouth of grief, sorrow, tears and blood.

Continue reading HERE!

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Manish’s Zodiac Signs Predictions for January 2022 by Manish Kumar Arora

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Worming #25 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

For more Worming, HERE!

For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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Ovi magazine; Friday December 31st, 2021

 

The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Friday December 31st, 2021 – New Year Eve!

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Malaysia’s Floods Expose Catastrophic Policy Failure by Murray Hunter

The warning last July by Malaysian opposition parliamentarian Nurul Izzah to the government to prepare for the approaching monsoon season went totally unheeded. Now that admonition has come back to haunt a government that has far too long appeared to put the contest for power above the exercise of governance, generating widespread popular reactions of anger.

Amid claims that politicians are benefiting from catering operations to feed people evacuated in some areas, the government has been caught with its pants down over poor planning and response to the disaster. Scenes in parliament of the Dewan Rakyat Speaker Azhar Harun disallowing debate on the flooding have added to the criticism the government lacked empathy for the people suffering in this crisis.

In what is being described as the worst floods to hit Malaysia since 1971, at least 20 people have been reported dead, 10 missing and as many as 64,000 displaced from their homes. Thousands have been stranded on their roofs, some waiting days for rescue. Cases of Covid-19 are rapidly rising in flood relief centers. Markets and supermarkets are drowned under flood waters, particularly in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, causing many families to go hungry.

Continue reading HERE!

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“New Year’s Eve” #poem & #painting by Nikos Laios

“I’m relaxing
In my old boyhood
Bedroom waiting for
New Year’s Eve,
The bottle of Jim
Beam is ready,
And my brother
Is waiting.”

Continue reading HERE!

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A fistful of cactus 21#14 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

For more A fistful of cactus, HERE!

For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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Happy New Year with Ovi magazine

New Year’s Day is a day for wishes and expectations. Happy new year, healthy new year, peaceful new year! We are not going to complain and we are not going to remind you of all the bad things happening around us, we just want to wish you warm feelings for the next 52 weeks.

We want to wish to you, your families, your friends, and everybody you love and care about, a very fruitful and joyous year. Let’s hope that 2007 will make that difference we all deserve.

We wish you a creative, happy and healthy New Year and thank you for being with us in our daily efforts. Our resolution is to bring you even more innovative idea through the Ovi project.

Happy New Year!

Thanos & Asa