Stories from Quick Reads and Italy
Albania: Balkans Beyond Borders Short Film Festival
The Balkans Beyond Borders Short Film Festival 2012 opens in Tirana today. This is the third time that the festival is being held; this year's theme is “TALK TO ME – multilingualism and communication”; the program of the three-day event is here.
Kosovo: Prizren Comic Book & Cartoon Festival
Macedonian artist Vesna Nichevska-Saravinova blogged about her participation in the Prizren Comics Festival, organized by the Kosovo Comic Book Artist Association, Xhennet Comics [sq]. Four out of 15 featured artists at the festival were from Macedonia, Eddie Rebel reports [mk], alongside colleagues from Italy, Turkey, Cyprus, France, Kosovo, Bulgaria, and...
Russia: “The True Blasphemy” – Slavoj Žižek on Pussy Riot
Russian collective “Chto Delat? // What is to be done?” published an essay by Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, who considers Pussy Riot “conceptual artists in the noblest sense of the word: artists who embody an Idea,” and fight against the cynicism of power-mongers who strive to return Russia to the...
Italy, Macedonia: Funny (and Inappropriate) Country Name Translation
Macedonian portal Press24 published [mk] a photo posted by a Facebook user who discovered that instead of Macedonia, a display with telephone country codes at Milan airport featured the words “Fruit Salad” – which is synonymous with “Macedonia” in Italian, Spanish and some other languages. According to Google Translate, the...
Greece: Photo ‘Road Trip’ Around Europe Debt Crisis
‘We Are The Pigs‘ – in reference to the derogatory PIGS acronym – is a crowdfunded photojournalism ‘road trip’ venture, to collect people's stories from European countries affected by the debt crisis. The project, started by two young Central European women journalists frustrated with the stereotypical hyperbole and abuse levelled in the media...
European Union: A Survey Among Immigrants about Integration
Le café pédagogique links [pdf, fr] to the results of a survey launched in 15 cities from 7 U.E. countries, among immigrants in possession of their legal documents and with or without citizenship of their host countries. The questions were aimed at integration, which appears to be highly wished for.
Italy: Volunia, a Serendipity-based Search Engine
On the blog Presse-citron, Jean-Marie Le Ray wites about”Volunia” [fr], the new search engine in 12 languages invented by Professor Massimo Marchiori of the University of Padua (Italy) : “this is a new concept of navigation of our times I think a test, a laboratory of ideas , also with a prospective vision...
Italy: African workers renew their call for open dialogue
Following the murder of two Senegalese men in Florence, Italy, migrant African workers released an open letter on the web [it] to renew their call for dialogue with citizens of Rosarno, where in January 2010 violent riots took place. ‘Those that in the past few days have spread fear when...
World: “Faithbook”, a Project Against Religious Intolerance
Two young “faith-trotters” Anne-Laure and Frederic launched “faithbook” [fr], a project that will take them across the world to meet similar pro-peace initiatives. They look to start a dialogue between people of faith who believe in peaceful coexistence through initiatives in various domains such as sports, education, culture and environment. They will shortly...
Italy: Huge celebrations for Berlusconi's resignation
Millions of Italians (worldwide) are celebrating an historic moment: the official resignation of PM Silvio Berlusconi, now on his way to the Presidential Palace. Huge celebrations are also being planned online, with live video streaming from downtown Rome, Facebook pages, YouTube videos, on-going tweets and so on.
Italy: “Wiretapping Bill” could drastically limit freedom of information
The Italian Parliament is about to vote on a very stringent “wiretapping Bill” [it] aimed at drastically limiting judicial investigations and journalism inquiries, thus blocking free speech about new scandals exposing top-level politicians, as many of such cases keep emerging. After a recent “strike” by Wikipedia Italy [it] and a...
Italy: Wikipedia Italia on strike
The homepage of Wikipedia Italia is on strike from the evening of October 4th. Its content is blocked in protest against an Italian bill on telephone interceptions that will mean that all sites and blogs must amend their contents within 48 hours of a request by any applicant who judges it...
Russia, Italy: Andrei Tarkovsky's Polaroids
Jana writes [sr] about Instant Light, a collection of 60 Polaroid photographs by film director Andrei Tarkovsky, and posts some sample photos from the book.
Italy: Social Innovation Competition with €10,000 Prize
The EUCLID network is inviting social innovators from any country to submit entries to a competition about how to solve one of six social challenges in Naples, Italy. The winning idea will be implemented by the winners together with local partners using a €10,000 prize.
Russia: WikiLeaks’ Putin-Berlusconi Story
At The Daily Beast, Julia Ioffe comments on WikiLeaks’ revelations about the relationship between the Russian PM Vladimir Putin and his Italian counterpart, Silvio Berlusconi.
Brazil: Milo Manara, master of erotic comics, visits Brazil
Fausto Salvadori, from blog Boteco Sujo [Dirty Bar, pt], writes about the famous Italian artist Milo Manara‘s visit to Brazil. Manara, a master of erotic comics, was in São Paulo and gave an interview to journalists and fans.
France: An Imaginary Dialogue between Sarkozy and Berlusconi
The Bienvenue chez les Rroms blog (“rroms” is the spelling of Roma in Romani language) imagines [Fr] a satirical conversation in which French President Nicolas Sarkozy seeks comfort and advice with his friend Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, after being unexpectedly victimized of his own suggestion that some categories of offenders should...
Russia: A governor in the gaul?
LJ user bobasta discusses [RUS] ongoing speculations if it really was the governor of Saratov, Pavel Ipatov, who was caught by Italian police on a yacht in the Mediterranean last week on suspicion of smuggling.
Brazil: Critic to Vatican's position on the death of Saramago
Leonardo Sakamoto criticizes [pt] Vatican's position on the death of portuguese Nobel Prize winner José Saramago. He says that “there are people celebrating the death of Saramago”, referring to an article which was published in Italy's main Roman Catholic newspaper “L’Osservatore Romano”.
Italy: Large protest against “gag” rule bill on local media
“No Bavaglio” (No Gag) is a large protest movement in Italy against a proposed privacy law that would impose heavy fines on newspapers (and blogs) that publish transcripts of phone calls. The law is suspect, because wiretapping has played a key role in media investigations that have led to mafia...
Global: Statistics on Countries Participating in World Cup
SRF from GeoCurrent Events blog writes about the economic geography of the 2010 FIFA World Cup participant countries.
