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Full episode 28.07.10 | 22:30 - 23:00 UTC

European Journal - The Magazine from Brussels

Full episode

European Journal - The Magazine from Brussels

Topic

SERIES: Village Scenes - Tales of Rural Life in Europe

Topic

Portugal: A very special wine

Topic

Germany/Belgium: Tragedy at the Loveparade

Europe is not just about big cities thronged with tourists. Europe is also about village life. In spite of rural depopulation, one in four Europeans lives in a small community where life has its own rhythm. European Journal presents some very special small places...

Topics

SERIES: Village Scenes - Tales of Rural Life in Europe

Part 1: Kusköy, Turkey - the whistling village

Loud, piercing and sharp...a whistle is hard to ignore. But whistling languages are in danger of dying out. But residents of Kusköy on the Black Sea coast still communicate by whistling.

An "ee" sounds higher than an "ah." Consonants are distinguished by changes in pitch over different intervals of time. Eskimos communicate with whistles; so do indigenous people in the Amazon, and in Europe shepherds keep boredom at bay and communicate by whistling to each other. But the world’s 70 whistling languages are slowly becoming extinct. Kusköy in Turkey is defending the tradition.

Portugal: A very special wine

One of Portugal’s finest wineries is located on the slow-moving Douro River. Here, the global economic crisis is just a distant rumor. The winery’s annual production of 450,000 bottles of port is sold out in just a few days.

Dirk van der Niepoort has managed something very few Portuguese companies have done. His product has a world-wide cult following. To achieve this, he had to plead with the growers who supply him with grapes not to tear out their old vines just to cash in on the European Union subsidies. Wine lovers from all over the world now make pilgrimages to the northeastern tip of Portugal to try Niepoort’s creations. And other vintners in the region are following his example.

France: Algal plague in Brittany

Tens of thousands of tons of green algae wash up on Brittany’s coast in the summer. It rots and the gasses it produces may be more dangerous than previously recognized by officials.

Experts say a worker died from the gases developed by the carpet of algae. Many communities are now making huge efforts to get the algae off of the beaches. But the job will continue to be never-ending until the causes of the plague are tackled – masses of nitrogen-rich waste water from intensive agriculture.

Serbia: The Political Child Prodigy

Threats against controversial internet bloggers are widespread in many countries. Now in Serbia there’s an extraordinary case, that of 12 year old Rastko Pocesta.

The young Serb takes on subjects such as political debates on NATO and EU accession, the Srebrenica genocide, gay rights and the legality of Kosovan independence. In doing so, he has made himself unpopular with Serbian nationalists among others. Since starting his blog, he has even received death threats. Rastko speaks fluent English and French, likes to wear a suit and is a huge fan of Barack Obama. At school he is under police protection.

Germany/Belgium: Tragedy at the Loveparade

For over 20 years it was the biggest event of the year for ravers the world over: the “Loveparade” in Germany, where hundreds of thousands danced through the streets every year. After the tragedy in Duisburg, however, the organizers have called halt to the techno music festival.

The exact number of young people who came to Duisburg for the party is still unclear. What is clear, however, is that it was far more than could fit into the area the town had made available for the event . Mass panic broke out in a cramped tunnel when too many people attempted to get out at the same time. It was a fatal mistake: at least 20 people fell or were trampled in the chaos and hundreds more were injured. The Loveparade’s safety procedures are now under fire, but the organizers of other European mega-events also have a lot of lessons to learn from this catastrophe.