Al Jazeera | Small Jewish communities emerge in Ivory Coast

For Al Jazeera English, I photographed a small but growing Jewish community in Côte d’Ivoire. Inside the country’s first synagogue, the Kol-Yehuda, the community has learned the prayers in Hebrew and adopted Orthodox Jewish practices.

With only 34 registered Jews in Côte d’Ivoire 20 years ago, there are now at least four different independent Jewish communities in Abidjan, each with their respective synagogues and between 20 and 300 members. Most Ivorians who have adopted Jewish practices still haven’t been officially converted to Judaism and are not recognized by Israel.

An Ivorian Jew reads the prayers in Hebrew during Shabbat services at the Kol Yehuda Synagogue and Kabbalah Centre on Friday evening. [Isabel Bonnet/Al Jazeera]

Coda Story | In Nicaragua, there are no more newspapers

Journalists are either in jail or in exile, as Daniel Ortega sets about destroying the country’s independent media. And the rest of Central America is following in line.

The facilities of the newspaper La Prensa were raided on August 13, 2021 by order of the Daniel Ortega regime. Juan Lorenzo Holmann, editor-in-chief, was arrested a few hours later. Courtesy of Juan Lorenzo Holmann’s family / La Prensa Archive

NBC | Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega goes after the Catholic Church in his latest effort to stop criticism of the government

While Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega makes much of his own relationship with Christianity, the former leftist revolutionary's government has precipitated an unprecedented crackdown on the country's Catholic leadership.

On national television last month, Vice President Rosario Murillo, who is Ortega's wife, touted her love for and faith in God during celebrations of the 43rd anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. “Our Christian faith will stand,” she said.

At the same time, Nicaragua’s repression of the Catholic Church has intensified.

Courtesy of Padre Rafael

Euronews | Incarcerated people use mail-in voting for first time in a presidential election

As high abstention rates are expected in this year’s French elections, participation rates have significantly increased inside prisons in the first round. This is the first time that incarcerated people were able to vote in a presidential election from inside a prison.

Credit: AFP

El Pais | El trauma del aislamiento en las cárceles permanece años después de la liberación

Cada vez que llega a casa, Warren Ovalle se lava las manos siete veces. No le tiene miedo a la covid-19, pero aún puede sentir la suciedad de los años que pasó en su celda de aislamiento. “Cuando no te sientes bien por dentro, no te sientes bien por fuera”, dice. “La prisión está tan sucia que siento que tengo acumulación de suciedad en mi”. Ovalle solo tenía permitido darse una ducha de 10 minutos una vez por semana. Tres años más tarde, su higiene se volvió excesiva y ahora dice tenerle fobia a los gérmenes.

Cada día, alrededor del 9% de las 48.000 personas en las 54 prisiones del estado de Nueva York están encerradas solas en una celda de aislamiento. Pueden pasar meses o incluso años sin ninguna interacción social. Múltiples estudios muestran que este tipo de castigo puede provocar ataques de pánico, ansiedad, depresión, psicosis, aislamiento social, estallidos de violencia y suicidio, incluso años después de haber sido liberados.

Articles written at Columbia Journalism School

As part of my master’s degree, I wrote several local news articles in New York City. You can read some of the articles here:

• Nearly a year after owner’s death, Harlem iconic jazz club Paris Blues remains close (Feb. 2021)

• As the city reopens, NY barber shops struggle to get back to normal (March 2021)

• Virtual learning prioritizes English education, jeopardizes bilingual education (March 2021)

• He was persecuted by Maduro’s regime. He is now an asylum seeker in New York (April 2021)

• Burmese immigrants in NYC protest abuses happening back home (April 2021)

Vice | The Ivory Coast's Government Has Forced Thousands Into Homelessness

© Isabel Bonnet

Côte d'Ivoire is one of Africa's fastest growing economies.

Much of the country’s success has been credited to President Ouattara, whose curriculum of new infrastructure seems to inspire dreams of a modern, emergent and growing economy. It is, realistically, only the wealthy who have benefited from this.

I went to six different districts in the country's economic capital, Abidjan, and wrote about the human cost of such emergence.

Rostra | Africa's Impossible Task: Preventing the COVID-19 Outbreak in 2 Weeks

On Monday, there were roughly 5,300 registered cases of COVID-19 and over 200 deaths in the African continent.

On 17 July 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Ebola a global health emergency for the fifth time. As the world’s poorest continent continues to fight against this virus and other life-threatening diseases such as HIV and malaria, the first case of the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, was confirmed in the region on February 14 in Egypt. It spread faster across the continent than it took for the testing kits to arrive.

© Isabel Bonnet

The Amsterdammer | Investigation: Dutch student media threatened to lose their independence

Ending its second year, The Amsterdammer seeks to understand the development of student journalism in the Netherlands by taking a look at the past.

Since their inception in the beginning of the 19th century, student magazines quickly gained importance around the country and today, there are roughly 45 university publications in the Netherlands. The Amsterdammer was able to talk to 17 of them.

The Amsterdammer | Pop-up Store Sells Banana Bread to Fight Food Waste

During National Banana Day on Wednesday, the Banana Bar popup store opened its doors for one day, only to promote the recently-funded organisation SUNT. Visitors were invited to bring banana leftovers in exchange for banana bread. By 4pm, about 40 people had already stopped by at the Banana Bar to drop off their leftover fruit. The term “Sunt” means ‘waste’ in Dutch and ‘tasty’ in Norwegian.

The Amsterdammer | UNICEF and Enactus Gala: A Ball with a Point

Around 100 merrymakers attended the Winter Charity Gala hosted by the UNICEF Student Team Amsterdam and Enactus VU at CREA Café on Saturday, February 9.

Two board members of the UNICEF Student Team introduce the sponsors of the gala on Saturday evening. Isabel Bonnet / The Amsterdammer

The donations given for the event will be sent directly to a school in Aleppo, Syria. With CREA’s music hall successfully filled for the event, the event raised up to 801€ that evening.

“We feel privileged and lucky that we can contribute to this cause” said Lena Hoffmann, a 22-year-old German PPE student at the VU and the chair of the UNICEF Student Team in Amsterdam. “There’s a lot of things you can do without a lot of means with other organizations.”

The Amsterdammer | ISN Welcomes 850 International Students During Largest Ever Introduction Week

Last Wednesday, members of the ISN committees and volunteers welcomed around 500 exchange students to Amsterdam at Schiphol Airport. About 850 students participated from Thursday to Saturday in the Winter Introduction Weekend, or Wintro, which is the largest introduction week ever organized by ISN. Last year, the Wintro received 750 students.

 The three-day event included a canal boat tour, workshops, Dutch crash courses, a sports day at USC, as well as parties in Coco’s Outback, Q-Factory and Radion. The activities aimed to connect international and exchange students upon their arrival in the city.

The Amsterdammer | Student’s Stand-Up Comedy Fill Crea Café on Monday

Personal anecdotes and laughs echoed at CREA Café on Monday evening during the performances of 8 university students. Moderated by one of the founders, Lara Ricote, about 60 people attended the Comedy Crea Open Mic for free.

Twice a month, Comedy Crea gives students the opportunity to perform their 5-minute stand-up routines.

The Amsterdammer | Photo Story: About 100 Venezuelans Protest for Democracy in Dam Square on Saturday

On Saturday, about 100 Venezuelans living in the Netherlands gathered in Dam Square to join the international day of protest for democracy. Organized by the association Multicultureel Viva Venezuela, protesters stood in support for the Interim President of Venezuela, Juan Guaido, and against Nicolas Maduro.

After the Venezuelan protesters took a group picture with the flag, they marched around the Dam Square on Saturday afternoon. Isabel Bonnet / The Amsterdammer

Amsterdam Attracts More Than 10,000 Tourists on National Tulip Day

On Saturday, January 19, 2019, Netherlands’ celebrated its eighth National Tulip Day. This year’s celebration saw more than ten thousand tourists and Amsterdam locals gathered in Dam square to pick their own bouquets of flowers. Over 200,000 tulips from colors across the spectrum were available for free, as part of the annual celebration, with the theme “Flower Power,” this year.

The Amsterdammer | Sinterklaas Arrived in Amsterdam on Sunday

While Saturday saw 30,000 people celebrating their official arrival in the Netherlands in Zaanstad, 400,000 gathered on Sunday in Amsterdam. “I like to call the other arrivals the ‘fake ones’,” said Pam Evenhuis, spokesperson for Sint in Amsterdam, which organises the Amsterdam event. The arrival of Sinterklaas in Amsterdam is the largest one in the world. However, the main celebration will be on December 5, his birthday, one day before Sinterklaas’ departure.

The Amsterdammer | Iamsterdam Letters to Be Removed from Museumplein in the Next Few Weeks

Last Thursday, Amsterdam councillors voted to remove the Iamsterdam letters from Museumplein as part of the budget plan for 2019. The sign will be removed in the next couple of weeks.

© Isabel Bonnet

The Amsterdammer | Night of Protest Through the Lenses

The Amsterdammer | Best 10 Places to Watch the 2018 FIFA World Cup

Tomorrow, the 2018 FIFA World Cup will begin- without the Dutch football team. In light of this news, some of the most iconic places in Amsterdam have decided not to continue their tradition of showing the tournament this year. Sadly, among them are Vondelpark3 and Radio 538 Oranjeplein, who showed the tournament in 2014 but will not do so now.

The Amsterdammer | Low Participation Rates on this Year’s Student Council Elections

June 7, 2018 / The Amsterdammer

The director announced the results of this year’s Student Council elections on May 24 at Maagdenhuis. Every Spring, students from the University of Amsterdam are invited to vote for the new Faculty Student Council and the Central Student Council members. The newly elected council members will commence their positions on September 1st, 2018.