Just a year ago I wrote a post about ‘Libera‘, the Italian group which coordinates 1500 small associations composed by students, farmers, common people, that daily fight against mafia .

Today, I’m proud to tell you that there is an increasing number of actions to struggle against Mafia.

Who knows the meaning of the Italian slang ‘pizzo’? Have you ever heard this word in any movies like ‘The Godfather’?

Addiopizzo Travel

Pizzo (not pizza!) is the protection money that many shopkeepers, restaurant and hotel owners,

Eraclea Minoa

business men have to pay to the mafia.

Many of us usually feel uncomfortable when in Sicily by the idea that our money could fund organised crime.

The very good news is that there are many people who contribute to struggle against mafia. Some of them created an organisation called “Addiopizzo Travel”. Addiopizzo means “Goodbye protection money”

Mazara

The aim of this organisation is to offer tours mafia-free, and involving people in supporting a clean economy.

By choosing Addiopizzo travel, you’ll have accommodation and meals in hotels and restaurants that rebelled to the mafia.

In this way you can combine the beauty of Sicily and the commitment against organised crime.

Sicily is more than an island. Here you can find natural and historical sites, culture, food, which are the mix of a multicultural area.

Don’t miss this opportunity and spread the voice! Let’s start by visiting the web sites www.addiopizzo.org and www.addiopizzotravel.it.

Then … plan your visit!

Enjoy your trip

Segesta

Agrigento

Hi All!
For the second year I’m proud to be part of this useful and important social media action called “Blog Action Day”

The aim is to involve people as much as possible in an important topic. This year bloggers from all over the world are called to write about CLIMATE CHANGE.

I’d like to grab your attention, talking about my experience in one of the most famous paradises: the Maldives Islands.

In 1998 Maldives were affected by El Nino that is a periodic change in the atmosphere and ocean of the tropical Pacific region.

In that year, water temperature increased of 4-5 degrees over the average. One of the worst consequence was the whitening of corals.

When I visited Maldives in 2000, in some places there was a sort of ghostly underwater landscape.

Fortunately, the situation has changed and many species are retrieving their original colors.

But few days ago I was affected by another bad news about this famous archipelago.

Government of the Maldives held a cabinet meeting underwater to highlight the threat of global warming, in order to send a serious message about rising sea levels. Maldives Islands would be wiped out if oceans will rise.

The Maldives President Nasheed and the cabinet signed a document, calling on all the nations to cut down their carbon emissions.

If you’d like to have more information about this story and other correlated topics, I warmly suggest to read the annual report by Time ‘Heroes of environment’

I strongly believe that only if we work together we can help our planet, and save places like the Maldives. Don’t forget that with our behaviours we can all make a difference!

Coming soon with a reportage from Mozambique!!!

Once again, yesterday all the media reported Nobel prize winning democracy activist Aung San Su Kyi was arrested by Myanmar military junta.

Just a couple a week before the end of her previous detention.

She was arrested because few days ago an U.S. citizen entered her home, without government permission.

If convicted, she could face three to five years in prison.

I wonder how it could be possible …

However, I’m just asking all my readers, friends, bloggers to do not forget this special woman and her country.

Please, don’t leave her alone.

Hi All!
Once again, I have the honour to publish a post by my friend from Istanbul, Kubra.

It’s really interesting to see how political relationships between countries could influence a song contest!

Thank you, Kubra for offering us such an interesting point of view…

An Indispensable Event for Europeans

To be honest, it has always been an important and indispensable event for me. I used to get excited and wait for it impatiently. We, as the whole family, used to watch it when the time is ripe. It was a visual and musical feast for us. Actually, nothing has changed over the years. I still do feel the same way about it, still excited and eager. The thing I am talking about is Eurovision.

For the ones who may ask what Eurovision is: Eurovision Song Contest is an annual song competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and it is one of the longest running television shows in the world. The system is simple; each member country submits a song to be performed on live television. The most popular song in the competition is being determined after the votes.

If we look at the history of it, the first contest was held in Switzerland, on 24 May 1956. Seven countries which had participated were Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and Netherlands. The contest was won by the host nation, Switzerland. Ever since, the contest successfully continued for 53 years and became more popular each year. Today, Eurovision is one of the most-watched non-sporting events in the world.

Here’s some interesting information about Eurovision results. Did you know that:

• Lys Assia, who won the contest for Switzerland in 1956, is the very first winner of Eurovision Song Contest.
• ABBA, who won the contest for Sweden in 1974, is the most notable winning Eurovision artist.
• Sandra Kim, who won the contest for Belgium in 1986, is the youngest winner and at the time of her Eurovision win, she was only 13 years old.
• Ireland, who won the contest for 7 years, is the most winning country.
• The United Kingdom, who won the contest for 5 times, is the country that has been the host nation at most.

Eurovision is a way of gathering for European countries, a way of communicating in peace. Of course, there are also some controversial subjects such as political votes and language. As a rule, countries may not cast votes for their own songs. However, they tend to vote for neighbouring countries. Some people think that it is unethical to knowingly vote for neighbours while the others think it is normal because people tend to like similar cultures. The other controversial subject is the language of the songs. Although at the beginning there was no rule about the language, it has been changed many times over the years but finally in 1999, the rule was changed again to allow freedom of language once more. Some people still believe that native language is the most appropriate one to choose whereas the others defend English language in order to be internationally understood.

Some countries are working hard for the contest while some prefer not to attend. Do you know which countries and why?

• San Marino and Latvia withdrawed from the contest because of the economic crisis.
• Italy (since 1998) and Austria (since 2008) are not attending in order to protest the political votes.
• Morocco, who attend the contest once and only time in 1980, doesn’t think to return.
• Lebanon, Algeria, Libia, Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia are not attending because they don’t want to race with Israel.
• Monaco and Luxembourg are not attending because of the unsuccessful results that they had.
• Vatican is not attending because they don’t have a national television channel.
  
  

If we look at this year, there are 42 participant countries including Russia (the host nation), Turkey, Germany, The UK, France, Spain, and Malta. This year, Hadise is representing Turkey in the contest with her song Dum Tek Tek-Crazy For You. She is an award-winning Turkish R&B singer and songwriter who lives in Belgium.

If you like to listen to Turkey’s song in advance, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5QeLFyY7ps

By the way, you can also find further information about Eurovision Song Contest 2009 from the official website: www.eurovision.tv

Before finishing my words, I want to thank you for reading my post, and Nicoletta for letting me contribute to her admirable blog one more time. To conclude up; Eurovision was, is, and will be an important event of my life, of our lives as Europeans. I wish luck to all participating countries of Eurovision Song Contest 2009. Don’t forget that the semi-finals will be held on 2-14 May 2009 and the finals will be held on 16 May 2009. I wholeheartedly believe that it will be a great event. May the best man win!

Best regards,

Kubra Corapci

. Zucchi - Insidefoto - All rights reserved

The night between Sunday and Monday,I was awoken by my husband’s shout and I realized that everything was shaking.

I saw the time on my alarm-clock: 3.34 am. The earthquake. Just few minutes for us, as we live in Rome, 120 km far from L’Aquila.

Immediately on Facebook and Twitter, you could find people updating their status, with news about parents, earthquake, calls for help.

It was five days ago, but the earth there is still shaking. 289 dead till now. Today here in Italy is national mourning.

Again, I have to admit that there are two opposite sides of my country.

On one hand, new buildings felt down like sandcastles, because somebody didn’t respect rules and laws.

On the other hand, hundreds of people are helping each other, working together. Hundreds of volunteers

Many people by using social networks are creating something more than virtual contacts.

This my country, this is Italy… We’ll talk about this.

But today there is only silence …

In these hard times, also tourism suffers from the economic crisis effects. Everywhere the number of tourists is decreasing. But this is not true for some museums.

I’d like to tell  you about some different strategies three European museums are taking, in order to improve their service. In some cases, technology is deeply involved; in other cases, the ‘key’ is cultural diplomacy.

Enjoy your reading!

Vatican Museums

The new organization made by Antonio Paolucci is a mix of technology and customer service. By improving online tickets, contacts are increasing day by day. Online tours give people a basic knowledge of what they’re going to see.

Customers (visitors) are the ‘heart’ of this new management of Vatican Museums: customer satisfactions surveys , special prices for young people and, last but not the least, the opportunity to show some renovating areas.

It means that museum doesn’t represent a ‘static’ place, but it is something ‘live’ that can grow and improve by using technologies, knowledge, ideas.

Rome’s Museums

Rome’s Municipality decided to follow a different way, according to Web 2.0 best practices. It created a portal for all the museums managed by the municipality, and improved museum’s presence in all the most important social networks. The aim is to involve young people interest (do you note the different strategy compared to Vatican Museums?) through new media. Many exhibitions are located on Second Life, and blog is constantly updated. There is a page on Facebook, and plenty of pictures on Flickr.

From the home page, you can follow special offers (visitor’s cards), information, new events, and be part of the conversation.

In this way, Rome’s Museums reinvented their presence on the web.

British Museum

As you probably know, British Museum has an important presence on Web: pictures, research publications, galleries. But I’d like to focus your attention on ‘cultural diplomacy’. As British Museum doesn’t answer to government. It can pursue cultural initiatives with any country. Neil MacGregor, the Director of the British Museums says that “The more difficult the political relations are, the more important is to try to understand the history of the country with whom we’re having difficult conversations” (more info: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1880606,00.html)
Next exhibition is going to involve Iran, as British Museum intend to lend the “Cyrus Cylinder”.

British Museum management doesn’t want to change people’s opinions about Iranian political choices, but creating awareness about a different culture can represent a useful means to get people more close …

HAVE YOU GOT ANY OTHER MUSEUM’ EXPERIENCE TO SHARE WITH US?

Italy and France signed an agreement for the construction in Italy of four nuclear plants by 2020. This decision replaces that one expressed by referendum in 1986.

As you probably know, in Italy there are many problems related to collecting and recycling garbage. I’m just wondering how we are going to deal with nuclear waste… (More info at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7908434.stm)

On the other side, President Obama announced his investments program about energy: “…But to truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy.  So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America.  And to support that innovation, we will invest fifteen billion dollars a year to develop technologies like wind power and solar power; advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more fuel-efficient cars and trucks built right here in America…” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-of-President-Barack-Obama-Address-to-Joint-Session-of-Congress/)

I strongly believe that the future of our planet is in renewable energy, and nuclear power represents a short term solution.

—————-

Talking about green best practices, I’ve just found out a new Italian eco-tech social network: www.youimpact.it

According to Web 2.0 guidelines, the main goal is to spread environmental culture in a no-conventional way.

The community is invited to express its creativity, by publishing images, videos, audio files. Obviously, the subject is environment.

Moreover, for every uploaded image, video or audio, it will be created one square metre of new forest.

Together with some useful information about ‘green’ lifestyle, there are some interesting contests, which aim is to share green IT experiences and their ‘green effects’. There are many important IT companies involved in these projects:  Cisco,  IBM, etc.

Do you know any other green social network?  I’d really like to create a world map of these experiences …

Thanks to Marcello Del Bono, I have just read that Giorgio Armani is a guest blogger at ‘The Moment’, NYT fashion and lifestyle blog.

In this blog, he simply writes about his week in NYC. He’s there for a new store’s opening. There are two points I’m really interested in. The first one is that I’m curious to understand his point of view as ‘traveller’. Even though he’s familiar with NYC, he still tries to get something new from people and places.

The second interesting point is about the importance of his role as a blogger. In the next days I’d like to analyze comments, reactions, in order to understand how useful is for a blog to have such a guest.

What do you think about it?

If you close your eyes, and try to imagine a place where different cultures, religions, travellers meet … that’s Kochi (aka Fort Cochin)!

Arabs, British, Chinese, Portoguese… all these people have left a deep mark in this town. Moreover, here you find mosques, churches, synagogues.

You can visit Kochi by following the main touristic and historical attractions or losing yourself just walking around.

Even though there are many kinds of hotels (from cheap to luxury ones!), I experienced the “homestay”. It is like European bed & breakfast, so that you can closely live with an Indian family. As you can imagine the real ‘engine’ of a family are … women! My homestays’ family was composed by a father and two hard worker daughters.

However, I had a great time with them; the house was cosy, and very close to the main palaces and churches, in the ancient town.

There, I spent one of the most moving moment of the whole holiday, as a person who used to live in Italy came and visit me. For a long time, Thomas took care of a relative of mine. Then, he was able to come back to his country, and join his family.

I have learned from him how hard is life for an immigrant…

Let’s come back to Kochi attractions… In the ancient town, it’s a mix of Dutch, Portoguese, and British buildings.

A typical Kochi’s attraction are the Chinese fishing nets: they were brought by merchants from Kublai Khan court in the XV century. Nets, fishermen, and fish market make the promenade along the sea very busy. Furthermore, you can choose and buy fishes, and ask some nearby small restaurants to cook them for you! So, you can also follow the nice cooking smell, a mix of spices and sea…

But I believe the main reason for visiting Kochi is the perfect harmony between churches, mosques, synagogues. Just walking around you can find the signs of different religions, cultures, and traditions: St. Francis Church (where Vasco De Gama corpse was kept for more than 14 years), Santa Cruz Basilica, Pardesi Synagogue, Islamic neighbourhood, Mattancherry Palace…

I warmly suggest to free your mind and spend at least three days in Kochi!

See you in … Varkala, where I’ll tell you something more about Ayurvedic Medicine.