THE SOUND KITCHEN

This week on The Sound Kitchen, you’ll hear the answer to the question about the French pension reform. There’s information on International Mother Language Day, the Sound Kitchen mailbag, great music – and of course, the new quiz question. Just click on the “Audio” arrow above and enjoy! 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  thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr 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. For Africa and Asia: 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. For Europe: WRN broadcasts the quotidian RFI English programme three times a day from Monday to Friday, from 06:00 to 06:50, from 11:00 to 11:59 and from 19:00 to 19:59 UTC/GMT. In Paris, you can hear us on World Radio Paris on DAB+, Monday to Friday from 16:00 to 16:59. To listen to our features (now podcasts only), go to our website and click on the three horizontal bars on the top right, choose Listen to RFI / Features, and you’ve got ‘em ! You can either listen directly, or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone. 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 english.service@rfi.fr 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 (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) and Chrystelle Nammour (chrystelle.nammour@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department on all your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me (thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr) 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”). 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. I fully expect Planet Radio to be bombarded with entries from you, the RFI English service listeners! This week’s quiz:  On 18 January, I asked you a question about the French government's pension reform plan - the plan which led to massive strikes which you heard a lot about from us! On 12January French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced that the government was willing to compromise on the biggest proposal to the pension reform that all the French unions – even the moderate CFDT union - would not accept. I asked you what that hotly contested proposal is. The answer is: the so-called “pivot” age. French workers would be required to work until they are 64 years old, instead of the current 62. It is to go into effect in 2027. The government has given the trade unions three months to figure out how to fund France’s pensions without raising the retirement age. The unions have until the end of April to come up with an alternative plan. The winners are: Mrs. Anjana Parvin, the secretary of the Shetu RFI Listeners Club in Naogaon, Bangladesh; RFI Club members Zenon Teles for the Christian- Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Association of Listening DX-ers in Goa, India and Helmut Matt from Herbolzheim in Germany. From Tamilnadu, India, there’s Selvaraj and from Muzaffargarh, Pakistan, Malik Nadir Abbas Khokhar - a member of the Sungat Radio Listeners Club. Congratulations winners! Here’s the music you heard on this week’s program: “Bangla Dhun” by Ravi Shankar, performed by Ravi Shankar & his ensemble; “Aquarium” from The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns; “Come Rain or Come Shine” by Harold Arlen  and Johnny Mercer, performed by the Bill Evans Trio; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “Gypsy Rag” by Romane, performed by Gypsy Swing ensemble, and  “Ami banglai gaan gai” by Pratul Mukhopadhyay, sung by Mahmuduzzaman Babu. Do you have a musical request? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr This week’s question ... You'll have to listen to the show to participate. You have until 23 March to enter this week's quiz; the winners will be announced on the 28 March 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: english.service@rfi.fr or Susan OwensbyRFI – The Sound Kitchen80, rue Camille Desmoulins92130 Issy-les-MoulineauxFrance 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  

This week on The Sound Kitchen, you’ll hear the answer to the question about the new Austrian chancellor and his coalition partner. You’ll hear  World Radio Day greetings from your fellow listeners all over the world, great music – and of course, the new quiz question. Just click on the “Audio” arrow above and enjoy! 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  thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr 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. For Africa and Asia: 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. For Europe: WRN broadcasts the quotidian RFI English programme three times a day from Monday to Friday, from 06:00 to 06:50, from 11:00 to 11:59 and from 19:00 to 19:59 UTC/GMT. In Paris, you can hear us on World Radio Paris on DAB+, Monday to Friday from 16:00 to 16:59. To listen to our features (now podcasts only), go to our website and click on the three horizontal bars on the top right, choose Listen to RFI / Features, and you’ve got ‘em ! You can either listen directly, or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone. 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 english.service@rfi.fr 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 (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) and Chrystelle Nammour (chrystelle.nammour@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department on all your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me (thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr) 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”). Welcome to our new RFI Listeners Club members, who are sisters! A hearty welcome to Srija and Shraddha Nomula from Hyderabad, India. So glad you have joined us! You too can be a member of the RFI Listeners Club – just write to me at english.service@rfi.fr 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 – the people we rarely hear from. 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. I fully expect Planet Radio to be bombarded with entries from you, the RFI English service listeners! This week’s quiz: On 11 January, I asked you a question about Austria. Earlier that week, the leader of the country’s conservatives was sworn in as chancellor, following a union with a party which had never before been in government. You were to tell me the name of the very young man who was (re) sworn in on 7 January as Austria’s chancellor, and the name of the party with whom he made an alliance. The answer is: Sebastian Kurz, and the Greens.In 2017, 33-year-old Sebastian Kurz became the world's youngest democratically elected leader. Originally aligned with the far-right FPO party, the alliance fell apart when Heinz-Christian Strache, the FPO leader and vice-chancellor of Austria, became engulfed in a graft scandal. That led to the fall of the coalition and snap elections. As chancellor, Sebastian Kurz will preside over a union that gives the Greens power in Austria’s government for the first time. Green party chief Werner Kogler serves as the country’s vice-chancellor. The winners are: Mrs Kousalya Nomula from Telangana, India; Miroslav Síleš from Košice, Slovakia; Royse Cramton from Oak Park, Illinois in the US; Asifa Riaz – a member of the RFI Listeners Club in Sheikhupura City, Pakistan, and Sultan Mahmud Sarker, the president of the Shetu RFI Listeners Club in Naogaon, Bangladesh. Congratulations winners! Here’s the music you heard on this week’s program:“Se e Tarde Me Perdoa” by Ronald Boscali and Carlos Lyra, arranged by Quincy Jones and performed by the Quincy Jones orchestra; “Alaska Walzer”, a folk song from Austria performed by Vierklee; “Inde” by After In Paris; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cuckoo” by Louis-Claude Daquin, performed by György Cziffra, and “Blue Light Yokohama”, written by Jun Hashimoto and Kyohei Tsutsumi, and sung by Ayumi Ishida. Do you have a musical request? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr This week’s question ... You'll have to listen to the show to participate. You have until 16 March to enter this week's quiz; the winners will be announced on the 21 March 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: english.service@rfi.fr or Susan OwensbyRFI – The Sound Kitchen80, rue Camille Desmoulins92130 Issy-les-MoulineauxFrance 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  

This week on The Sound Kitchen, you’ll hear the answer to the question about the island region which just voted for independence from Papua New Guinea. There’s listener news, great music – and of course, the new quiz question. Just click on the “Audio” arrow above and enjoy! 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  thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr 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. For Africa and Asia: 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. For Europe: WRN broadcasts the quotidian RFI English programme three times a day from Monday to Friday, from 06:00 to 06:50, from 11:00 to 11:59 and from 19:00 to 19:59 UTC/GMT. In Paris, you can hear us on World Radio Paris on DAB+, Monday to Friday from 16:00 to 16:59. To listen to our features (now podcasts only), go to our website and click on the three horizontal bars on the top right, choose Listen to RFI / Features, and you’ve got ‘em ! You can either listen directly, or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone. 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 english.service@rfi.fr 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 (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) and Chrystelle Nammour (chrystelle.nammour@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department on all your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me (thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr) 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”). Welcome to our new RFI Listeners Club members:Muhammad Usama from the Sungat Radio Listeners Club in Muzaffargarh, Pakistan; Dibya J Borthakur from Assam, India and Ranjit Darnal from Gandaki, Nepal. So glad you have joined us! You too can be a member of the RFI Listeners Club – just write to me at english.service@rfi.fr 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 – the people we rarely hear from. 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 – the prizes are great! Here’s the link for the guidelines. The deadline for entries is 15 March. I fully expect Planet Radio to be bombarded with entries from you, the RFI English service listeners! This week’s quiz: On 21 December, I asked you about the “birth of a nation”: earlier that month, the citizens of a group of islands in the Pacific voted overwhelmingly for independence from Papua New Guinea. You were to send me the name of that region.   The answer is: Bougainville. Bougainville Island is the largest of the several islands and atolls which make up the region. Today’s capital is the island Buka, though there is speculation that Arawa will become the permanent capital.  Bougainville has huge mineral wealth, so there’s no mystery as to why Papua New Guinea doesn’t want to let go. The population of the region is around 250,000 people. And 98 percent of them voted for independence! The winners are: Ras Franz Manko Ngogo, the president of the Kemogemba RFI Club in Tarime, Mara, Tanzania; Tasneem Saleh from Nilphamari, Bangladesh; Arundhati Mukherjee from West Bengal, India; Nomula Srinivas Rao from Hyderabad, India and Sunita Mainali from Kathmandu, Nepal. Congratulations winners! Here’s the music you heard on this week’s program:“Gnid” by Tadd Dameron, performed by the Chet Baker Trio; traditional bamboo band music from Bougainville; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “Favela” by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Vincicius DeMoraes and Ray Gilbert, performed by Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’65 and “French African Queen”, written and sung by Gregory Porter. Do you have a musical request? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr This week’s question ... You'll have to listen to the show to participate. You have until 9 March to enter this week's quiz; the winners will be announced on the 14 March 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: english.service@rfi.fr or Susan OwensbyRFI – The Sound Kitchen80, rue Camille Desmoulins92130 Issy-les-MoulineauxFrance 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  

This week on The Sound Kitchen, you’ll hear the answer to the question about voter turnout in Hong Kong’s District Council elections. There’s a little lesson on leap years, listener news, great music – and of course, the new quiz question. Just click on the “Audio” arrow above and enjoy! 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  thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr 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. For Africa and Asia: 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. For Europe: WRN broadcasts the quotidian RFI English programme three times a day from Monday to Friday, from 06:00 to 06:50, from 11:00 to 11:59 and from 19:00 to 19:59 UTC/GMT. In Paris, you can hear us on World Radio Paris on DAB+, Monday to Friday from 16:00 to 16:59. To listen to our features (now podcasts only), go to our website and click on the three horizontal bars on the top right, choose Listen to RFI / Features, and you’ve got ‘em ! You can either listen directly, or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone. 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 english.service@rfi.fr 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 (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) and Chrystelle Nammour (chrystelle.nammour@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department on all your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me (thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr) 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”). Welcome to our 15 (!) new RFI Listeners Club members: Rehana Nusreen; Fareeha Rubab Anjum; Rifat Sultana; Maira Hassan; Kousar Parveen; Asma Bashir; Muhammad Sadeem Dur-e-Aab; Muhammad Hasnain Malik; Javed Raza Saqi; Khawar Hussain Sadiq; Fahad Hussain Anjum; Muhammad Nawaz Afzal Paio; Muhammad Shakeel Anjum; Shahid Hussain Anjum and Muhammad Aqeel Bashir. They are all members of the International Radio Listeners Organization in Jhang City, Pakistan. So glad you have joined us! You too can be a member of the RFI Listeners Club – just write to me at english.service@rfi.fr 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. It 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 is 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, meetings with other ePOPers – the prizes are great! Here’s the link for the guidelines. The deadline for entries is 15 March. I fully expect Planet Radio to be bombarded with entries from you, the RFI English service listeners! This week’s quiz: On 30 November, I asked you a question about elections in Hong Kong. On 24November, Hong Kongers cast their votes for their District Council representatives. The pro-democracy candidates won 389 out of the 452 elected seats, up from the 124 they previously held - and far more than they’ve ever won. The government’s allies held just 58 seats, a remarkable collapse from their previous 300 seats. This election was viewed as a referendum on the unrest, which has created the city’s worst political crisis in decades. In a semiautonomous part of China where greater democracy is one of the protesters’ biggest demands, it gave residents a rare chance to vote. I asked you to send in the voter turnout count – how many people went and voted - in not only the 24 November 2019 elections, but in the last District Council elections, in 2015. The answer is: Voter turnout this past year was 71 %. Typically in district council elections, it’s not much more than 40 %. The previous poll in 2015 – which increased as well – turnout climbed to 47 %. This year the number of registered voters hit a record: 7 in 10 eligible voters went to the polls! The winners are: Muhammad Shamim S, the president of the RFI Golden Eagles Club in Keralam State, India and RFI Listeners Club member Muhammad Nasyr from Katsina State, Nigeria. From Sindh, Pakistan, Amin Laghari; from Rangpur, Bangladesh, Rasheduzzaman; from Telangana, India, Dr S Indu Kuamri. Congratulations winners! Here’s the music you heard on this week’s program: Concerto Grosso in the Style of Handel: “Lady Madonna” (an arrangement of the song “Lady Madonna” by Paul McCartney and John Lennon by Peter Briener) performed by the Briener Chamber Orchestra; “Hallelujah” from Handel’s Messiah, sung by the Royal Choral Society;  “Valse Triste” by Jean Sibelius, performed by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy; “Water Lily” by George Fenton and John Leach, and the traditional “Firn Di Mekhutonim Aheym” (“Escorting the parents of the bride and groom home”), performed by Itzhak Perlman and the Klezmer Conservatory Orchestra. Do you have a musical request? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr This week’s question ... You'll have to listen to the show to participate. You have until 2 March to enter this week's quiz; the winners will be announced on the 7 March 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: english.service@rfi.fr or Susan OwensbyRFI – The Sound Kitchen80, rue Camille Desmoulins92130 Issy-les-MoulineauxFrance 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  

This week on The Sound Kitchen, you’ll hear the answer to the question about the group formed by Priscillia Ludosky within the Yellow Vest movement. There’s “On This Day”, great music – and of course, the new quiz question. Just click on the “Audio” arrow above and enjoy! 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  thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr 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. For Africa and Asia: 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. For Europe: WRN broadcasts the quotidian RFI English programme three times a day from Monday to Friday, from 06:00 to 06:50, from 11:00 to 11:59 and from 19:00 to 19:59 UTC/GMT. In Paris, you can hear us on World Radio Paris on DAB+, Monday to Friday from 16:00 to 16:59. To listen to our features (now podcasts only), go to our website and click on the three horizontal bars on the top right, choose Listen to RFI / Features, and you’ve got ‘em ! You can either listen directly, or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone. 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 english.service@rfi.fr 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 (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) and Chrystelle Nammour (chrystelle.nammour@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department on all your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me (thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr) 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”). Welcome to our new RFI Listeners Club member: Muhammad Usama from District Muzaffargarh in Pakistan.  So glad you have joined us! You too can be a member of the RFI Listeners Club – just write me at english.service@rfi.fr 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. This week’s quiz: On 23 November, I asked you a question about the Yellow Vests. On 16 November the Yellow Vests marked the first anniversary of their populist movement. The demonstrations that day once again spiraled out of control and into violence and destruction of public property, especially here in Paris. And of course, RFI English reporters were out on the streets to report on it for you. Rosie Collyer interviewed one of the protest leaders in her article “A year in the life of Yellow Vest protest leader Priscillia Ludosky”. In that interview, Ludosky told Rosie about a new group she had helped form in order to ensure local voices are heard. I asked you to tell me the name of that group. The answer is: People’s Lobby. The winners are: Ferhat Bezazel, the president of the RFI Butterflies Club Ain Kechera in West Skikda, Algeria; Paresh Hazarika from the United RFI Listeners Club in Assam, India; Ekbal Hossain from the International RFI DX Radio Listeners Club in West Bengal, India, and Abdol Bari and Dewan Sabo, both from Naogaon, Bangladesh. Congratulations winners! Here’s the music you heard on this week’s program: The “finale-presto” from Haydn’s Piano trio no 43, performed by the Wanderer Trio; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and  “Una vaca y una foca” by Yusa. Do you have a musical request? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr This week’s question ... You'll have to listen to the show to participate. You have until 24 February to enter this week's quiz; the winners will be announced on the 29 February 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: english.service@rfi.fr or Susan OwensbyRFI – The Sound Kitchen80, rue Camille Desmoulins92130 Issy-les-MoulineauxFrance 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