Stories and News

Stories and News No. 923 Protests by Native Americans in North Dakota, gathered in the movement called NoDAPL (No Access Dakota Pipeline), began in the spring of 2016 to prevent the construction of a pipeline by Energy Transfer Partners , whose route will cross the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, as well as part of Lake Oahe, near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation . After a limited review of the route, the United States Army Corps of Engineers has ruled out a significant impact. At the same time, citing potential effects and lack of consultation with the native tribes, in April 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation asked with little success to the Corps of Engineers Army for a further evaluation. In fact, in July, the engineers have approved the water crossing permits. As a result, the protest was launched by an Sioux elder from Standing Rock and her grandchildren, decided to camp out in t...

Stories and News No. 922 Hundreds of people in central Italy woke up this morning in makeshift shelters, in state of shock and exhaustion, after their cities were hit by two earthquakes . The stories follow one another and all have a lot in common, as a tragic show that sadistically must go on. A tale that, despite venial differences, has always the same opening words... The earth shakes. The first is a classic and is good for all the others. Wherever you are, how much courage you can keep in the chest, the fear comes over and starts to court you. It knows that the time is good. And what would be better? The floor starts to dance, the furniture join the dramatic ritual, prisoners of a magnetic choreography, ignorable only by those who minimize the remaining life, among diehard crazies and incurable rashes. Then there is it, the true star of the show. The chandelier begins its solo and the victim audience cannot help but stare with eyes torn by terror, with one and only de...

Stories and News No. 921 Pretending to be one of 'them': “Rejoice, dear patriots. In Gorino, a pleasant village in the province of Ferrara, Italy, the industrious and brave inhabitants, assisted by the equally bold countrymen of Goro, they promptly lifted up a barricade to prevent the invasion of twelve, monstrous alien creatures. In short, migrants, and also women. After a strong resistance by our heroes, the unwanted were rejected. Be happy, people who still feel pure ardor for your land. The honor is fine and the future of the good and heroic population is safe...” Once upon a time there was a town. The town where a sacred right was defended at the cost of life: the right to hate . The entire community had built itself on this base. Every citizen has the right to hate , said an invisible item of a particular constitution, written somewhere in the body, certainly not in the heart. This feeling can be directed to anything or anyone, for any reason. And, whatever the f...

Stories and News No. 920 Today's strike in Italy and many protest, but, lifting our gaze across the border, people have also raised in Ethiopia , where 1500 were arrested, in Congo , where the so-called security forces shot, burned, beaten and killed at least 45 civilians, and also in the Philippines two days ago, where the police used a van to disperse the alleged troublemakers. There are other worlds besides this. I like to think that, sometimes, when things get too ugly to be looked at. I have to do, when I am not even able to imagine. Of strikes and protests, for example. Strikes and protests one of them is woven of. A spherical world, as the best known should be, but much less regular. Hard stuff to draw, in fact. Part of that convoluted table of illegal forms, called by the experts of freedom, the geometry of awkward shapes . It is a strange world to draw, I agree, but if you happen to grasp, even casually, the right end of the rope, you just have to follow th...

Stories and News No. 919 Despite it seems there have already been violations, the humanitarian pause decided by Moscow began in Aleppo, Syria, to grant treatment to the wounded and sick, as well as the opportunity to civilians and combatants to leave the city . Come, ladies and gentlemen, come in. Come into the fantastic realm of humanitarian pause . Where the seconds become minutes, minutes turn into endless dreams and hours freeze to death in the tight fists of timeless creatures . Call us like that, we like it. We are homeless too, certainly, but also without doors and windows, no dresser and nightstand. Without any comfort. Hopelessness, many. No escape, too many. Nevertheless this is not the right page to cry. The lords of war and peace have rolled the die and the time hands have bowed their head. They always do, even when they dance, but this moment, only this, it is for a good cause. Humanitarian . Pause . What a weird and crazy marriage of words. Imagine th...

Stories and News No. 918 According to Calais Migrant Solidarity since 2009 there have been 100 to 5,000 migrants in Calais, come with the hope of arriving in the UK. People from around the world, such as Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Egypt, Syria, Sudan, Palestine, Chad, Eritrea, Iraq, Albania, Senegal, Kurdistan, Libya and Ethiopia. But why jungle? I read that the name is the translation of a word in Pashto , an Iranian language spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which means forest . There was once a jungle . Which in our language is a land covered with dense vegetation dominated by trees , and the nearest corresponding scientific term is maybe seasonal tropical forest . Well, then we might as well say there was once a forest . But it does not work, right? Because if someone tells you a story of forests , then you think of woods , talking animals , fairies and fairy tales . No, there is no place for such things, here. Because, despite the fact, the jungle i...

Stories and News No. 917 Last June, while Euro 2016 was beginning, another soccer tournament took place in Abkhazia. I refer to the World Cup for Rebels , championship for unrecognized nations. Among them Kurdistan , stateless nation among the most topical today, fragmented in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Armenia and Syria, with all the wars and civil conflicts with the participation of the rest of the world. The compact one, where the tanned, bearded and supposed enemy is always in plain view on top of pages and screens. There were once stateless peoples . You know? Come on, I am talking about rebels , as I said at the very beginning. However, you can call them in many other ways, because that is how they told you. And once the story goes viral, you cannot easily change it. Do you see them? They are the people who resist and young students who oppose , old men who stay behind but then they arrive too , civil society not only by words and women , a sea of women who had already s...

Stories and News No. 916 I read that in Japan the Court has forced a teacher to use her married name at work on the basis of a rule from the nineteenth century . The woman has sued her employer, the Nihon University, which has refused to allow her to use her maiden name in professional interactions with pupils and parents. The newspapers did not report the name of the woman. So I sent her my words. No, I'm not you. But I would like to know. What it means to live with a mask inevitable ordered, pleasant at the very best. Alleged missing rib of a Knight with a not so shining armor, hidden in it everywhere and most of the time. War or peace. There is always someone who fights a battle that comes from far away, where injuries are always and only for her. Only when she wins, she lives. And even when she does not lose, she can die anyway. No, I do not speak for you. But, to you. I would like the same to understand. What does it mean, every morning, afternoon and ev...

Stories and News No. 915 I read that in the mid-2000s the Stung Meanchey dump in Phnom Penh , Cambodia , has achieved the dubious distinction of being the world most famous. The reason? Simple, that is, terrible. Both day and night, thousands of garbage pickers working on the festering mountain of trash. They have lived in houses made from trash. They ate trash. Many were even born and many have died in it. Despite in 2009 the government has tried to close the landfill, some residents have simply moved, while most still live there... In the land of waste. Few rules. The first : do not throw away anything . Because the others have already done, so to speak. Then throwing away becomes an expression meaningless if taken literally. Here the whole life should be strictly interpreted and the various meanings at the same time become interchangeable. So, ‘throw away’ is transformed, depending on the opportunity, in borrow or even give , bring and take , lend and give again , ...

Stories and News No. 914 I read that thanks to commitment of the " Meeting of Civilizations " Association and the fundamental support of Third Pillar - Italian and Mediterranean " Rising from destruction " Foundation various works damaged in Iraq and Syria have been faithfully recreated using modern technology and put on display at the Colosseum in Rome. They say that things are ever getting worse. The usual pessimistic. Before was better , the future is dark and other depressions on the horizon, I know them. Fortunately, the truth is that in the peaceful world they look ahead, keeping a careful memory of what is left behind. What behind was shattered. Forever. Well, we cannot say it anymore. Meeting of civilizations , what a beautiful sentence, I write it anywhere. In my head, in the essential records of a wounded memory and on the few usable pages of a soul tattered by a destiny that I would call sadistic. Well, I cannot say it anymore. Reborn f...

Stories and News No. 913 Hurricane Matthew is a major tropical cyclone crossing these days the Atlantic Ocean, recently listed as the first Category 5 since Hurricane Felix (2007). It has already hit Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, and is currently headed toward the Bahamas. It is forecast to reach the eastern part of the United States, particularly Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Of countries and peoples. Different... Under the same name. Under the same name an infinite number of things was born, lived and walked away, dissolving on the horizon, Even those who had not aspired so much. For example, do you think is normal a hurricane called as a human being? We hurricanes do not, if you are interested. Anyway, I am Mr. Matthew and I like it, it sounds good. It makes me feel important, like I was not only air, water and all that I stir up in others, like many of you. In my case, everything I wanted, except provoking fear and angu...

Stories and News No. 912 This year the Nobel Chemistry Prize went to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, University of Strasbourg, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart, Northwestern University, and Bernard L. Feringa, University of Groningen for their work with molecular dimensions machines. What a beautiful day this is. In the small world… It took a while, but now they know it too. Well, the good news fly faster upward than the opposite. Unluckily vice versa is also true. Anyway, there is a nano-party down there, where the nano-humans live. Not to be confused with the dwarves , that are constrained by a megalomaniacal script to play the role of missed tall . In the nano-towns , however, there are no such metrics abuses. They are all equal in the common nano-life , not to be confused with dwarfism , and so on. I realize that such a wave of nano-joy in the existence of the nano-living is not a viral news. It is out of the Mass media’s eyes. In fact, it would take such a concentration of nano-l...