Celebrating Community
On October 21st, almost 150 (mostly Ukrainian) intellectuals signed an open letter to Unesco encouraging the international organization to ask President Zelensky to defer some decisions about Odessa’s World Heritage sites until the end of the war. Odessa, in southern Ukraine, is a multicultural city with a strong Russian-speaking component. There has been pressure to remove historical sites connected to […]
As President Macron surprisingly called a snap legislative election in the aftermath of his loss to the far right in the June 9th EU elections, France is today close to having its first far-right Prime Minister: Jordan Bardella, the rising star of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN). By the time of this writing, France has already held the first voting round, which […]
It’s Potsdam, Germany, around noon, Chaled-Uwe Said, local leader of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), is giving away flyers, bottle openers and pens for his re-election campaign to the City Council. But people coming out from the nearby supermarket rarely stop at his table. Even though AfD leads as the second party in the national polls, there is […]
As the Gaza war continues, Europe is hit by demonstrations organized by pro-Palestine activists in every town, notwithstanding its size or importance. In Pisa, a leading university city, last February 23rd, a small and peaceful demonstration organized by local students ended up with many 15-19 year olds beaten by police with truncheons. The case, starting as a local news, soon […]
Since WWII, Germany has been the closest ally of Israel in Europe. The historical shame coming from the Holocaust crimes pushed Berlin/Bonn to support Israel in all the wars that happened with its Arab neighbors. Weapons, intelligence and diplomacy—Germany has assured them all to Tel-Aviv. Right now Germany keeps its so-called “special relationship” with Israel. Several Federated States have prohibited […]
Telephone pranks are usually seen as an entertainment for kids – but international politics has actually discovered that it could also be a very serious issue, moreover if the victim is Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, a front-runner of Ukrainian support. On November 1st, a Russian comic duo, Vovan and Lexus, released online the audio of a prank where Meloni was […]
All major European tourist destination are filled with German tourists. Not young ones, but mostly the elderly, in groups, walking the streets slowly, driven by their guide talking to them through headphones. This situation gets worse in the mountains, where every European camping spot and hiking route is invaded by German tourists of any age, fully equipped, moreso than any […]
Silvio Berlusconi is dead, long live Silvio Berlusconi!” As the four times former Italian Prime Minister passed away last June 12th, most of the Boot’s press has started an apologetical narration on his life, portraying him as a statesman that, even though he had sparked outrage and polemics throughout all his life, eventually had always been caring towards his country. […]
Another French airplane for Zelensky (to go to the G7)” states a comic strip on the French weekly Canard Enchaîné, portraying Zelensky getting on an airbus and a French politician telling him “We’ve agreed that it’s just a loan.” Far from being just a comic strip, this little joke shows how airplane diplomacy is having an impact on the country’s […]
Three years ago the whole world was hit hard by the Covid-19. I still remember, like most of us, being locked at home, doing online learning, preparing I don’t know how much bread and pizza (sounds Italian, eh?) and seeing the outside from the little apartment where I lived with my family. In that period, April 2020, I started writing […]