Slackistan is an Independent fictionalized story of the apathetic, beautiful, young and privileged of Islamabad, Pakistan. The same Islamabad known to be a few short kilometres from the dangerous “Taliban territory” and vulnerable to unexpected carbombs. The plight of the young elite traversing from one social engagement to another while discussing their hair and what weekend party to go to sounds like any teen drama on American networks. So what exactly could be so interesting or “counter-culture” about the trial and tribulations of Pakistan’s privileged set?

I’ve recently moved to London, officially for Academic purposes, but unofficially to bask in the ultimate Global City and take part in it’s exhaustive list of arts and culture and general weekending inside the city’s heart. London is the bastion of mixing and diffusing, home to every culinary cuisine from virtually every corner of the earth, the premiere fashionista hotspot, and global trendwatching in politics, music and the catwalk.

Toronto-based MC and Poet Boonaa Mohammed never shies away from sharp words that uncover the harsh realities of immigrant life in Canada and countries of the West. The title of his latest spoken-word video, Green Card - commissioned for the Mayworks Festival of Canada - tells a powerful tale of the unjust and silent truths of immigrant hardships in countries where getting papers is like “winning the lottery”. Watch the video for a little slice of this narrator’s pointed perspective.

‘Fulton Street’ is a documentary taking place in Bed-Stuy, Fort Greene, and Clinton Hill. The project is titled for the Fulton mainway that bisects these neighborhoods in Central Brooklyn, currently in the throes of gentrification. To personify this phenomenon, I am approaching subjects who have lived and worked in Central Brooklyn their entire lives. The project connects ongoing gentrification to the quality of life for residents and business owners in a modern world community of African, Caribbean, Arab, Latino, Southern, and Asian people of color. The main subjects are predominantly African American, ranging from 18 to 80 years old.

Entering the home studio that Yassin Kassem and Mohammed Turek of the rap duo Invincible Voice (I-Voice) have built in the Palestinian Refugee Camp of Bourj el Barajneh gives do-it-yourself (DIY) a whole new meaning. A small bedroom - which on this day was subject to enduring electricity outages - is converted into a base for mixing, producing, songwriting and entertaining the journalists that have started to take an increasing interest in these boys’ story. We enter the dark studio, leaving the door open to let the outside daylight in. Grey sponge sounds-proofs the walls of the ground-floor converted bedroom, and Tupac paraphernalia decorates them. This is one of the first “production houses” inside the camps of Lebanon, and is playing a big role in spreading the rap bug in refugee camps across the country.

A week after the too-big, and controversy-laden Toronto International Film Festival has officially packed its bags (until next year), Toronto can start making room for the takeover of the 2nd Annual Toronto Palestine Film Festival …

Current TV has produced a documentary on Pakistani immigrants in Barcelona. Spain has one of the highest numbers of Pakistani migrants in Europe, second to the UK. Current TV’s documentary shows some of the challenges …

Every year, as the crisp winds of September arrive and labour day post-summer humdrum is laid to rest - a painful anniversary reminds all of us why the world we live in is a very …

“Exotic locales” in “far and dangerous places” are not new muses for musicians from the West. Although most of my own iTunes playlists consist of music and musicians from around the world - fitting into the too broad “world music” category - I am always wary of such collaborations and how they represent the muse/country in question, and of how these musical encounters can turn into self-indulgent congratulatory efforts for the recording artist. A new collaboration comes from Swedish songstress Victoria Bergsman, lead singer of The Concretes and famous for lending her soft, feminine voice to indie darlings Peter Bjorn and John. For her latest project, Bergsman travels to Pakistan with producer/guitarist/engineer Andreas Soderstrom to record her solo album “East of Eden”.

“Lebanon is beautiful, it is my home… but here, I cannot be free. My view from here is blocked and the Lebanese are asleep to all the beautiful things they have to see.”

My appreciation of Lebanon begins with recognizing its style, its ability to meld renegade culture and art, the behind the scenes political discussions, the sporadic displays of cosmopolitanism amidst mental and physical rubble, and even the excesses of the luxurious jet set that lend to its enduring cool. But there are things about Lebanon that are tainted and easily eclipse the joie de vivre the Lebanese purport to specialize in. The things about this country that frustrate are not simply disruptions to my personal comforts – daily electricity outages, ubiquitously slow Internet, dismal public transport, heavy noise pollution and sticky smog. The things that create more discomfort about Lebanon’s mentality as a society is the blatant segregtion of outsiders.