Girl Power!

This week on The Sound Kitchen, you’ll hear the answer to the question about 27 January 1945. We have an International Women’s Day celebration featuring Sound Kitchen listeners, some great music, and of course, the new quiz question. Just click on the “Audio” arrow above and enjoy!

Sound Kitchen Podcast RFI

Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday. You’ll hear the winner’s names announced and the week’s quiz question, along with all the other ingredients you’ve grown accustomed to: your letters and essays, “On This Day”, quirky facts and news, interviews, and great music … so be sure and listen every week.

Send me your music requests! I’ll make programs of your favorite music when I can’t be in the kitchen to cook something up new for you … write to me at  [e-mail]

For our DX enthusiast and shortwave listener friends: I am sad to announce we no longer have a shortwave frequency; we have severe budget constraints which no longer permit us to broadcast via shortwave.

"Paris Live", our afternoon news program, is on-the-air Monday – Friday, from 13:00 to 14:00 UTC/GMT. You can hear "Paris Live" on our website, rfienglish.com, or on  World Radio Network.

For North America: WRN broadcasts the quotidian RFI English programme three times a day from Monday to Friday, from 05:00 to 05:59, from 09:00 to 09:59 and from 15:00 to 15h59 UTC/GMT.

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To listen to our features from your PC, go to our website and click on the three horizontal bars on the top right, choose Listen to RFI / Podcasts, and you’ve got ‘em ! You can either listen directly or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone.

To listen to our features from your mobile phone, the three horizontal bars are on the top left. Click and choose “Features”. There they are!

Teachers, take note! I save postcards and stamps from all over the world to send to you for your students. If you would like stamps and postcards for your students, just write and let me know. The address is [e-mail]

Did you know there’s an RFI English newsletter? If you subscribe, you'll receive our newsletter every day. Just click on Newsletters, fill out the form, and you'll stay up-to-date with RFI English.

RFI Clubs: Be sure to always include Audrey Iattoni ([e-mail]) and Chrystelle Nammour ([e-mail]) from our Listener Relations department on all your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me ([e-mail]) when you write them so that I know what is going on, too. N.B. You do not need to send them your quiz answers! Email overload!

We’ve made a Facebook page just for you, the RFI English Clubs. It is a closed group, so when you apply to join, be sure you include the name of your RFI Club and your membership number. Everyone can look at it, but only members of the group can post on it. If you haven’t yet asked to join the group, go to the Facebook link above and fill out the questionnaire!!!!! (if you do not answer the questions, I click “decline”).

We have five new members to welcome! They are all from Bangladesh: there’s Faria Khanam Mumu and Maria Khanam Moure from Munshiganj, and from Narayanganj, there’s Saif Ahmed Utsha, H M Tarek, and Amena Khanam Sale.

So glad you have joined us!

You too can be a member of the RFI Listeners Club – just write to me at [e-mail] and tell me you want to join, and I’ll send you a membership number. It’s that easy. When you win a Sound Kitchen quiz as an RFI Listeners Club member, you receive a premium prize.

RFI’s Planet Radio department is sponsoring an e-POP (e-Participatory Observers Project) competition. It’s a video contest, with some really great prizes! This is the first year that English speakers have been invited to participate, so let’s show RFI how many of you are out there, and are an active part of the RFI English service!

It’s a really cool project: Planet Radio is looking for two-minute videos about climate change, told by the humans who are experiencing it first hand – the people we rarely get to hear from. Your grandfather. Your aunt. People in your community. Your video should be inter-generational: interview an older member of your family or in your community who has lived the changes climate change has brought. This project is about humans; that’s the whole point of ePOP, how climate change has affected the “ordinary” citizen . Your video can be in any language – you just have to provide the translation into English to Planet Radio. And it can’t be more than two minutes. It’s open to everyone, although there is one prize for women under the age of 25 (Young sisters! Get to work!).  Most of the prizes involve a trip to Paris, and I would get to meet you! Plus there’s video equipment to be given away – as noted, the prizes are great!

Here’s the link for the guidelines.

The deadline for entries is 15 March - just a week away! So get to work, my friends! I fully expect Planet Radio to be bombarded with entries from you, the RFI English service listeners!

This week’s quiz:  On 1 February, I asked you about a very important date in history which we must never forget: 27 January 1945. I asked you what happened on 27 January 1945, which was marked around the world.  

The answer is: the 75^th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp, Auschwitz, by Soviet forces.

1.1 million of our fellow humans were exterminated there; 1 million were Jews. Some 75,000 Polish civilians, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, 25,000 Roma and Sinti, as well as Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals and political prisoners were also put to death by the German state at the Auschwitz complex.

6 million Jews in all were put to death by the Nazi regime.

I often read that many young people do not know about this rip in the fundamental fabric of being a human, and that, my friends, is very wrong. We see now in our world such hatred, that if we are not careful, history could so easily repeat itself. We must ensure that what the Nazi regime did is never forgotten. 

Toxic political rhetoricand attacks directed at groups of peoples - using language to dehumanize them - have become common around the world.

The New York Times spoke with Zofia Posmysz, a 96-year-old Polish survivor of Auschwitz. She said, from her apartment in Warsaw: “I fear that over time, it will become easier to distort history. I cannot say it will never happen again, because when you look at some leaders of today, those dangerous ambitions, pride and sense of being better than others are still at play. Who knows where they can lead.”

The winners are: Hari Sundar Nomula from Telangana, India; WO Salahuddin from Dhaka, Bangladesh; Jam Glory Mbeng from the North-West region of Cameroon; Guomei Zhu from Maanshan, China, and last but not least, faithful listener Hans Verner Lollike from Hedehusene, Denmark.

Congratulations winners!

Here’s the music you heard on this week’s program: “Beautiful Like a Flower”, written and performed by India Arie; “Valencia” from Escales by JacquesIbert, performed by Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra; the theme from Superwoman, written by Alicia Keyes, Steve Mostyn, and Linda Perry, sung by Alicia Keyes; “Niwot’s Curse” written and performed by Mary Youngblood; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “Four” by Sonny Stitt, performed by the Sonny Stitt ensemble, and “Champion” written by Carrie Underwood, Chris DeStefano, Ludacris, and Brett James, and sung by Carrie Underwood.

Do you have a musical request? Send it to [e-mail]

This week’s question ... You'll have to listen to the show to participate. You have until 6 April to enter this week's quiz; the winners will be announced on the 11 April podcast. When you enter, be sure you send your postal address in with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

Send your answers to:

[e-mail]

or

Susan Owensby
RFI – The Sound Kitchen
80, rue Camille Desmoulins
92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux
France

or

By text … You can also send your quiz answers to The Sound Kitchen mobile phone. Dial your country’s international access code, or “ + ”, then 33 6 31 12 96 82. Don’t forget to include your mailing address in your text – and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.

To find out how you can win a special Sound Kitchen prize, click here

To find out how you can become a member of the RFI Listeners Club, or to form your own official RFI Club, click here