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Naples Takes Out the Trash - By Setting It on Fire

CitizenSugar — Mon, 19 May 2008 07:40:14 -0700

Italy's garbage problem reached its flashpoint overnight as trashed-out residents set fire to piles of the the 3,500 tons of uncollected refuse.

Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's newly reelected prime minister, may force local councils to accept new rubbish dumps, despite protests. He says, "I am no longer prepared to wait until everyone is in agreement, while the piles of rubbish become mountains of trash."

One city official said local authorities were managing to remove more than 1,000 tons of trash a day while waiting for the decision on where to put it all. He begged residents to be patient and not become vigilante trash removers by setting the rubbish on fire.

Thanks to the additional collections, we should be able to overcome this emergency in four or five days, but people must collaborate. They have to stop throwing bags of rubbish out on to the streets, and, above all, they mustn't burn them.

Would piles of trash for months on your streets inspire you to a firey protest? Is setting the stinky mess on fire just adding to the woes? Is the problem of where to put the trash a troubling sign for global garbage? Are we out of space?

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Who's More Trashy: Naples vs. San Francisco

LibertySugar — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:00:14 -0700

The European Commission (EC) has filed a suit against Italy in the European Court of Justice. The EC thinks a lawsuit will clean up Naples, Italy, which has been enveloped in piles of trash and a toxic stench, as seen in the pictures below. The EC hopes that potential harsh fines will prompt politicians to take more serious action to end the massive years-long garbage crisis, brought on by organized crime.

Meanwhile in San Francisco, residents recycle 70 percent of their waste. Recycling-obsessed Mayor Gavin Newsom wants to give city residents an incentive to take their recycling prowess to the next level - either they recycle, or they don't get their trash picked up.

Mayor Newsom is proposing legislation that would make it mandatory to recycle cans, bottles, paper, yard waste, and food scraps. So it looks like recycling may no longer be something you do to feel good about yourself - it will be the law. Newsom told the New York Times what's behind his plan:

It’s purposefulness that could otherwise be construed as ego. You want to be the greatest city. You want to be the leading city. You want to be on the cutting edge. I’m very intense about it.

Should recycling be mandatory? Will the Newsom's proposal make San Francisco the next Naples, if residents get lazy about recycling? Can a lawsuit clean up Naples, or is it just a waste of time?

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Tons of Trash Piles up in Naples, Italy

LibertySugar — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:45:10 -0800

Naples, Italy is still in the midst of a garbage crisis. Thanks to mafia control of the waste-management system, mixed with government incompetence, 200,000 tons of piled waste sits in the southern Italian city.

Last December, garbage collectors stopped picking up trash, as there was nowhere to put it. Last week, outgoing Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said the trash will be gone by May as a result of new dumps and the creation of three incinerators. May! Naples reached an agreement with a German waste-management company and piles of garbage will be sent to Germany to be burned.

According to Greenpeace, incinerators will result in irreversible environmental damage. If fact, schools have been forced to close a few days, as the smell from festering trash made it unsafe for children to go outside.

Check out the video above of Vespas floating in a sea of trash, narrated in beautiful Italian. You're safe from the stench on this side of the camera. How do you say recycle in Italian?

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Check This: Abortion Debate Revisited in Italy

LibertySugar — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 00:09:51 -0800

Elections in Italy are only two months away, and an unexpected issue - abortion - has now taken center stage. Thirty years ago, the Catholic country legalized abortion. But just last week, an intense situation at a Naples hospital sparked pro-choice rallies across the country.

In what is being described as an anti-mafia type raid, Naples police stormed a hospital after getting word that a woman had had an abortion after the legal cut off. Police interrogated the woman who was still under anesthesia from the procedure, and seized the terminated fetus. In fact, the woman was only 21 weeks along, within the 24 week cut off.

Pro-choice Italians are not the only ones getting fired up about the issue. Giuliano Ferrara, a conservative journalist and close ally of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, recently began using his newspaper as a platform for his pro-life position. He announced that he will seek election to parliament in April, and will be running on an anti-abortion platform.

Obviously abortion is a controversial and touchy subject spurring passionate opinions. But, how do you feel about how police handled the situation in Naples? Is there any way to police alleged late abortions? And, also - what do you think about politicians running on a single issue, whether it be anti-abortion, or anti-war? Would you vote for a politician who promised to address the issue most important to you, even if you disagreed with him or her on the rest?

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6 Wacky and Weird Stories From This Week

CitizenSugar — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 08:00:46 -0800

We may have spent this week fixated on Former Tennessee GOP leader Chip Saltsman's Mixed CD scandal, rounding up the very best of 2008 and ringing in the New Year, but all kinds of wacky things were happening around the globe.

Women Said No Sex for Men Who Shoot Fireworks - A group of hundreds of women in Naples announced they wouldn't make love if their men shot off dangerous fireworks on New Year's Eve. Apparently local firework displays injure or maim hundreds each year. No word on how the protest went.
2008 Lasted an Extra Second - The world's official timekeepers added what they call a "leap second" to the last day of the year to help sync clocks to the earth's slowing spin on its axis.
Alleged Drug Dealer Accepted Gift Cards - Athens, AL police have a 38-year-old man in custody for allegedly accepting gift cards for payment for crack cocaine and prescription drugs.
Peruvian Jesus Born to Virgin Mary on Christmas - A 20-year-old Peruvian woman named Virgin Mary gave birth to a baby boy on Christmas day and named him Jesus. The baby's father isn't name Joseph, but he is a carpenter.
Woman Gave Intruder "The Squeeze" - An 88-year-old woman in Oregon fended off a naked intruder by grabbing the man's crotch and squeezing.
Soothsayers Predict Peace and Calm for 2009 - Chinese soothsayers warned that the road to economic recovery will be long, but say the world can expect peace and calm for 2009.

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Berlusconi Promises To Make Italy Less Like Africa?

LibertySugar — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 03:01:01 -0700

This week Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced his plans to outlaw graffiti. The Prime Minister hopes to take well-precedented steps toward forbidding citizens to write on public buildings without permission. The new law would make defacing historical monuments punishable by €30,000 ($38, 871), as well as 40 days in prison.

Berlusconi says he wants to make graffiti punishable by fines or prison time "because in some of our cities, it looks like we’re in Africa rather than Europe." Considering Italy has spent years dealing with a massive trash problem that's caused a toxic stench and piles of refuge in Naples, maybe the graffiti makes Italy look like . . . Italy.

In addition to cleaning unwanted art off the street, yesterday the Italian government faced tens of thousands of school workers who marched through Rome to protest school reforms. In Florence, 100 students stopped trains by occupying the tracks. One high school student said, "We are so many people, and if we can't change anything then it means this is a form of dictatorship." A dictatorship that cleans up graffiti!

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Austria Redux? Italian Woman Held Prisoner for 18 Years

CitizenSugar — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:00:51 -0700

Italian authorities discovered a woman who has been kept in a locked room in her family’s home for 18 years, immediately drawing comparisons to the Josef Fritzl story out of Austria.

After receiving a tip authorities freed the 47-year-old woman, Maria Monaco, from her befouled living quarters. Her 80-year-old mother, a sister, and a brother have been accused of kidnapping.

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After becoming pregnant out of wedlock, Monaco was kept locked up at home. when she was found the police said, “she could barely walk, and instead of speaking she emitted a sort of wailing sound.” She was immediately transferred to a psychiatric ward in a Naples hospital.

Though the parallels to the Austria case were quick to fly, a lawyer representing the family said the comparison was false. To find out why, read more.

The lawyer said that Monaco had severe psychological problems. “The family was only trying to be discreet,” said the lawyer adding that she had not been prevented from leaving the family home. Because of her "serious psychological problems and [that she] refused to undergo any therapy,” or take care of her personal hygiene, the family kept her out of sight.

The room where Monaco was kept was accessible through a locked gate she had access to a “fetid washroom,” according to police. In perhaps the most striking detail, Monaco's family used dog bowls to feed her.

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Leaning Tower of Pisa Stops Sliding, Now Solid as Rock

CitizenSugar — Fri, 30 May 2008 03:00:00 -0700

Italy's famous leaning tower of Pisa has stopped moving for the first time in its 800-year history, say the engineers who are trying to take the "ever more precariously leaning" part out of the tower's slump.

Taking more than 10 years to fix the tower and moving 70 tons of dirt to the sinking side encouraged it to stand up a little straighter. The man in charge of the $40 million project says the tower should be comfortable for another 200 years. As the project went on, the tower started to straighten a bit, but special monitors in the ground show it's solid as a rock now, and not moving anymore.

Has the Leaning Tower always been such? Yup. Even while it was being built, in the late 12th Century, workers saw it starting to tilt. Trying to fix as they went resulted in the completed tower being very slightly bent. Oh, and it's not the crookedest building anymore. That honor now goes to a slouching steeple in Germany.

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Well that's one thing in Italy that's been straightened up. . . I wonder how Naples is doing with their trash situation?

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Italy Cracks Down on Immigrants, Roma Population

LibertySugar — Fri, 16 May 2008 03:00:28 -0700

Italian authorities arrested hundreds of alleged illegal immigrants yesterday, in a crackdown that included a raid on a Roma (Gypsies) housing camp. Earlier this week, many Roma living in Naples fled the city, after their homes were set on fire by residents. Immigration authorities target the Roma population, a group that carries the perception of criminality.

The Roma people, Europe's largest minority, are often stateless - meaning they are without citizenship documents from any country. Their ancestors migrated from modern day India at the beginning of the second millennium. They have their own language and distinct cultural traditions. You may know them as the people who suspiciously linger around Europe's tourist attractions. Since their migration, those who have not successfully assimilated have been the victims of enslavement, forced sterilization, genocide, discrimination, and overall marginalization.

Fortunately, increased attention given to the Roma population by international organizations has decreased human rights violations. Of course, more can be done.

Do you think the arrests in Italy are an appropriate law enforcement response, or are the authorities giving into a hostile and prejudice majority? Do immigration solutions become more complicated when there is nowhere to send undocumented residents?

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Legal or Not, Italian Doctors Say No to Abortion

LibertySugar — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:00:49 -0700

Nearly 70 percent of Italian gynecologists refuse to perform abortions. Taking refuge in the "conscientious objection" clause of the abortion law, doctors are increasingly denying abortions, making it difficult for women to find a provider.

Abortion has been legal in Italy since 1978; but there has been a recent surge in doctors refusing to conduct them. Between 2003 and 2007, the percent refusing rose from 58.7 percent to 69.2 percent. Around Naples the number is 83 percent, and in Sicily 84.2 percent.

Between 2006 and 2007, the number of legal abortions decreased 3 percent to 127,000, and illegal abortions also went down to around 15,000.

The Vatican, a strong political force in Italy, loudly opposes abortion. According to estimates, around 87 percent of Italians identify as Roman Catholics; but only 36 percent are practicing.

Does the morality clause significantly compromise the law legalizing abortion? What do you think is behind the recent surge in "conscientious" doctors? What sort of pressure does it put on the doctors that do provide the legal procedure?

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