In the news: a strange view on Italy

Italy in the news: 02.22.2006

2006-02-22T13:16:00.000+01:00

The looty comes home at last. Well, part of it
Grand Theft Art used to be a national sport for all invaders coming to Italy, but even freelance smugglers do their job quite well. At least, those guys at the MET decided to give us back some neat stuff, says the NYT. Next, we gotta persuade the French to the same, thus emptying a good part of the Louvre. That's a good joke.

Someone's willing to restore Italy's image worldwide...

...says the Financial Times. Too bad he's the one responsible for a good part of our bad reputation AND he put racist demagogues in our Government AND he's allying with neo - Fascists to try not to lose the elections too badly.

Italy in the news: 01.29.2006

2006-01-29T19:04:00.000+01:00

Par condicio, anyone?
So, the electoral race begun, and someone is just boring me to death, since the little dwarf (a crossover between Bashful and Grumpy) is ever - present on TV. Our President called for the respect of par condicio i.e. equal opportunities for every political party to go on air. As the International Herald Tribune muses, this has been to no avail.

You are a fraud! Not a king at all! (King Herod from Jesus Christ Superstar)
Did Jesus Christ truly exist? That's a question best left to historians, isn't it? The Guardian notes that it is strange to debate the issue in a tribunal, where a priest is accused of fraud for commercially exploiting a false historical event. Hilarious!

Italy in the news: 01.18.2006

2006-01-18T13:07:00.000+01:00

Shoot first, ask questions later...
...there's only a small chance you will be prosecuted, anyway. If you are in the US military, that is, you can even play cableway-dodge. The Houston Chronicle says our prosecutors here MAYBE will charge some trigger-happy soldier for the murder of one of our secret service agents, poor Nicola Calipari, In Iraq. Of course, that would be useless, since the US government believes its soldiers to be above all jurisdiriction but theirs.

Chocolate wars
Looks like we don't go along very well with the EU lately.
This time, as confectionerynews.com reports, pure chocolate is on the line. For a change, I cannot but agree with the Italian Parliament. "Chocolate" is cocoa butter plus cocoa powder and a few other ingredients. "Vegetal oils" have nothing to do with it other than being a cheap scam. We should have established a "real chocolate" labelling for products using only cocoa butter, discarding the rest as the rubbish it is. Meh.

Italy in the news: 01.17.2006

2006-01-17T13:31:00.000+01:00

Free patents for everyone
Those guys in Brussels are working hard to build a common European Patents system. Obviously we couldn't just allow them to actually curb bureaucracy, could we? So our government made the sensible move, potentially allowing the registering or totally useless patents which would effectively bar further research in the same field. So much for technological innovation. Oh, and that earned us an article on the NY Times, too.

Changing the rules of the game is one great win to secure victory
Stratfor has made an excellent analysis of the electoral scene in Italy. You know, being in charge allows you to change the electoral rules in your favor. Well, the true spirit of democracy would suggest you to fully agree with the opposition on this matters, but, hey, it's Berlusconi we're talking about here. If he means business, no democratic or legal queasiness will stand in his way; it never did, in fact. On the other hand, the left wing is anything but a good adversary; as it is, it's more prone to cut its own throat. Too bad.

Italy in the news: 01.16.2006

2006-01-16T12:51:00.000+01:00

Berlusconi pays a visit to prosecutors. Voluntarily, for a change
Berlusconi goes to testify about his supposed inside knowledge about dirty deals done by his adversaries. Of course, the fact that political elections are due in April is not totally irrelevant, as noted by the Financial Times

Is Italy really a lay state? Those guys think it should
People in Milan protest against religious interferences in lawmaking, especially regarding abortion and the new abortive pill. Well, the International Herald Tribune certainly talked about the protest much more than most Italian media.

Italy in the news: 01.13.2006

2006-01-13T13:24:00.000+01:00

The robbers are in the banks
Like a nice comedian said, we want the good old-fashioned back robbers back. At least you can recognize them for wearing a mask, toting a gun about and all of that. Nowadays, they are all business-suit-and-tie types. For starters, we pay damn too much for bank services, Forbes reports.

Cool! We're gonna sell junk food to Americans...
...that's like selling fridges to Eqsuimese people, or sand to Beduins! Woe betide you, Spokane International Airport travellers! Autogrill is coming your way, and that's bad, bad news. For the ones wandering what the heck Autogrill is, well, it's sort of a highway-diner, fuel stations and convenience stores chain which usually serve semi-edible stuff, guaranteed to give you a stomachache in no time. [Ok, I cheated, the source is Agenzia Giornalistica Italiana and not an international newspaper, but I couldn't find a similar article anywhere else]

Italy in the news: 01.12.2006

2006-01-12T13:26:00.000+01:00

Poison Pasta
Woe on the bastard feeding us cancerogenic wheat...a nice article on the Guardian tells about the Casillo case (pun intended) but with a little mistake: we don't eat bread rolls with pasta, but with second courses (meat, fish, and so on)

Of Turkish killers and malcontents
The release of the Pope would-be killer triggered a quite angry response in Turkey, says the BBC. Well, if he was so dangerous, why didn't they keep him in jail there instead of letting him loose and free to wreak havoc here?

Italy in the news: 01.10.2006

2006-01-10T23:06:00.000+01:00

Crime doesn't pay...enough
Looks like despite all their maneuvering, those Unipol guys made too low a bid. The Washington Post takes notice and briefly summarizes all the dirty deal.

If you already own the media, consider buying some telecom stock
Yeah, we really needed our Prime Minister to get some stock from the former-state-monopoly-but-still-incumbent telephone company, after he took control of almost all TV networks and approximately 20% of the press. Forbes promptly notices him abandoning the sinking HOPA ship.

Italy loves its expatriates
The Seattle Post Intelligencer reports on a guy which went away from Italy like 40 years ago and now has a right to seat in our Parliament. Ain't that sweet?

Strange beginnings

2006-01-10T14:07:00.000+01:00

So it begins. I've got no great expectations about this blog, but simply keeping it updated will actually force me to periodically review international press articles about Italy.

Since I'm Italian and I've got more than a passing interest in communication and journalism, I cannot help but notice that our own media system is badly flawed. Important matters, regarding energy, environment, economics and foreign policy and are often overlooked in favour of trivial ones and, worst of all, gossip.

Many times I turned on international press to obtain more reliable and complete informations, which I often readily found. This blog (I hope) will be an updated collection of just such news, forcing me to practice with my English writing and (hopefully) hear some foreigners' opinion about matters I care about.