Nayeli Urquiza

Working in New York four years ago, filmmaker Katharina Rohrer read an article on human trafficking in The New York Times. The extent of it as well as the cynicism of it shocked her, and launched her on a journey to research and create awareness about a crime done against an estimated 800,000 people every year around the world.

The Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF) does more than screen premieres and import Hollywood’s glamour to one of the poorest cities in the Balkans. It is a time when the city itself tries to heal the scars left from the war through the power of cinema.

“This festival in particular – the reason why many directors, actors, and producers come every year – celebrates that freedom that its birth gave it,” says Cat Villiers, British Co-producer of No Man’s Land.

When the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in 2002, critics said it would not achieve much. But ever since it issued its first warrant
against a standing Head of State, Sudan’s president
Omar al-Bashir, the so-called “court without teeth” has been accused of spoiling not only the peace process for Darfur, but also the North-South peace agreement signed in 2005.
“I think it was a big mistake,” said Werner Fasslabend, President of the Austrian Institute for European and Austrian Security at a panel discussion
on Apr. 24, organized by the Austrian Institute
for International Foreign Affairs (ÖIIP) and the Austrian Diplomatic Academy (DA).

Europe is like an old lady who has had too much surgery. Her wrinkles and wounds have been lifted so many times that people hardly recognize her anymore. Still there are surely a few distinguishable traits that persist.

But which ones?  Is it her height or her voice? Is it her temper, or the scar near her ear? Is it the birthmark on her shoulder or the lines framing her cheeks?

Four experienced European observers could not agree on whether this venerable lady should have either a major face-lift or just new make-up at the panel discussion “Europe’s Borders” on Mar.17 organized by the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) and the Austrian daily Der Standard.

World War II did not end in 1945 -- at least not for the Dwyer family of Hastings, Nebraska, U.S.A. Their son Stanley, the second-born, was missing in action after his B17 bomber crashed on a hillside in Lower Austria. And now sixty years later, with the support of a recovery team from the US military Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) and the eye witness accounts of local residents, his family has been able to piece together the story of what happened to 1st Lt. Stanley N. Dwyer on that May morning in 1944, and gain a peace of mind that has long eluded them.

There are all-Inclusive resorts located liter- ally just a few steps away from archeological sites like Uxmal, Chichen Itza. For those who prefer to be close to the beach but still visit the ruins, there are plenty hotels, hostels, and five-star re- sorts in Cancun. Travel agencies and bus lines run trips to the ruins: It takes about two and half hours from Cancun to Uxmal, and an hour and a half from Cancún to Chichen Itzá.

Communication is at the center of the conflict between the West and the East explained political analyst Karin Kneissl a presentation of her latest book “The Vicious Circle: Why Orient and the Occident Misunderstand Each Other,” at Webster University on March 28th.

The problem, said Kneissl, is that “there is an absence of curiosity to look at what the other does and is,” yet this is paradoxical, as we live in the era of mass communications and saturation of information 24 hours a day through news networks, newspapers, radio news casts.

There is another side of Vienna beyond the romantic scenes of elegant women in shimmering ball gowns, taking a gentleman’s arm as they cross to the Opera. Just around the Ring- strasse, near Gumpendorferstrasse in the 6th District, men and women pre- fer to wear slithering latex and leather straps while being spanked.

The SMart Café on Koestlergasse is a treff punkt for Vienna’s sadomaso- chistic community – and yes, there is one. The window curtains remain closed and a warning sign against people under 18 signals that it is not just another café.