I just feel to share with you some considerations on the “influenza A pandemic A (H1N1) 2009 virus” phobia. As we all know Spain was strongly hit by the Virus, but a study involving 21 Spanish hospitals and a calculation based on the experience of Britain discovered just 0.2% of people getting the flu had serious consequences. More or less like for any other kind of flue. I do not deny the danger of this flue, but as far as I understand it is a just a strong flu and not a new form of plague that inexorably kills most of hit people.

Moreover, on Newsweek you can read how impalpable is hand-washing in preventing H1N1 spreading, because humans are most likely to catch influenza by breathing in microscopic particles exhaled by infected people. Generally speaking, I know such measures make human beings feel “on control” of their life, and campaigns done by local governments for public health reinforce the role of politicians (especially shortly before elections, like in Portugal) and give current governments the legitimation of being in charge (because they care for their citizens), but honestly hand-washing sounds a weak and partially justifiable criterion for a flue prevention, not only scientifically but also according to common sense. On a more local context, I am puzzled by the bombarding campaign of the government in Portugal on hand washing, but not a single word was uttered on the disgusting national habit of constantly spitting on the floor: roads and sidewalks are paved of phlegm, fact that I am sure helps in making Portugal “a leading country” in TBC cases in Europe. In other words: lecture people on what they can accept, but do not molest their touchiness or jeopardise their right of being uncivilized.

Crossing the two pieces of information, a few questions came up to my mind:

1) Why is the prevention campaign so standardized across different countries?

2) Is there any mastermind behind? I mean, who are the people planning the “terror and reassure” strategy? I think about a cartel of pharmaceutical companies, but most governments take advantage for those situations.

3) Is it a coincidence in a period of world economic crisis main news on TV and newspapers are about facts and emergencies that turn in being the core of new stock-market investors’ strategies (bread, water and medicines)?

4) What is the role of politicians? What are their advantages?

5) Is it not that pharmaceutical companies producing the vaccine are doing a great marketing campaign paid by national governments?

I do not believe in conspiracy theories, but we do not dare to forget it is already the second time in two years (does anybody remember the bird flu H5N1?) somebody is trying to let us believe some nasty virus is going to exterminate mankind, therefore I wonder who – apart from newspapers – is taking advantage form those terror strategies.

More info at http://www.isid.org/

 

Update: watch this

One leitmotiv about Roma and Sinti is that they are nomadic populations who travel around Europe in appalling conditions, live in slums and are extremely poor. Moreover, they have been always seen as a danger for local people who claim they are robbers, thieves, and some metropolitan legends (sadly confirmed by some recent judiciary cases) say they steal or buy babies and force them to slavery for “working” as beggars.

In reality the legend is that nomads DO move from place to place, because, funnily enough they are sedentary… but when they “move”, hey!, they do it with class! With a Porsche!

The story is in the Nomad Camp of Tor de’ Cenci (Rome) on Monday February 1 the police found cocaine and heroin, some grams of mannitol – substance used for “cutting” drugs – six 7.65 calibre intact bullets, tons of copper (probably stolen) and nine cars without insurance, including a “Porsche Carrera”.

Everything you are going to read here is true, despite sounding like a joke.

On January 13 2009 finally the new Alitalia owned by the recently formed Compagnia Aerea Italiana (CAI) will take off. The “good flesh” of the company was bought by CAI on December 12 last, after a never-ending-story. It also merged with AirOne, a low-cost air company owned by Carlo Toto (who a couple of weeks ago was involved in his last corruption scandal that forced the mayor of Pescara to resign), one of the financial raiders and serial-bribers who gave birth to CAI, the very same people who Berlusconi called the “Bold Knights of Italian business”. Now the “bad company”, the part of Alitalia with debts, will be liquidated by the national government. Rumours around say in total the Italian State will use around 3 billions Euros taken by taxation for paying back Alitalia’s creditors.

Genesis of a disaster

But let’s go back for a sec to the history of the ludicrous agony of this (ex) public owned company. The Italian government and some other organizations so far have invested €4.9 billions in Alitalia since 1998, all public money that disappeared in the voracious throat of this delirious company owned by the Italian ministry of economy and its criminal administrators, obviously chosen by politicians.

Probably the worst of them was Giancarlo Cimoli (chemical engineer, with no managerial background whatsoever, therefore ideal public manager in Italy), chosen by Berlusconi as president of Alitalia in 2004, after having spent around 10 years in Ferrovie dello Stato (FS, national railway) where he almost leaded the monopolist company to bankruptcy (he got €6.7 M prize for his achievements). In 2004 the government led by Berlusconi gave a €400mn “bridge” loan to Alitalia. Cimoli used that public money for buying the bankrupt Volare Group (Volareweb, Air Europe) , hence dilapidating in another agonizing flying company the public money given by the government for cancelling Alitalia’s debt… This is what I call strategy and vision! And what a synergy: combining the incompetence of two failing companies!

In 2005 the capital of Alitalia was increased by €1.6 billion, including an over €500M bond float issued with the promise of a return to profit in 2006, but unfortunately the year ended with a loss of €626 million… surprise, surprise… Of course Italian citizens with their taxes were paying for this, while schools and hospitals were closing down as well as police cars were parked in garages without petrol for lack of money… but that is another story.

At the end of his presidency in 2007 Cimoli decided he deserved € 3M prize for having completely destroyed Alitalia. And of course he got the money.

How to get rid of an economical cancer?

Several attempts to take over or merge Alitalia were made between 2005 and 2009, especially because Italian government from 2006 theoretically could no longer offer support to the failing airline, because it was forbidden by the European Union.

In March 2008 Prodi found an agreement for selling Alitalia (the whole company, including debts) to AirFrance for around one billion Euros, but the strange coalition of trade-unions and Berlusconi doomed it. In the meanwhile Carlo Toto (who had offered 1 cent per stock versus the 35 of AirFrance) had appealed to tribunal against the bid that assigned to Air France the priority for buying Alitalia. The unions said in the AirFrance plan there were too many redundancies (around 2500), Berluskaiser used the question for electoral and populist purposes saying Alitalia had to remain an Italian company. He vaguely talked about an Italian group of proud national businessmen he was aware of who were willing to buy Alitalia. In reality he wanted to tackle Prodi’s historical success in getting rid of Alitalia, which would have meant a success for his opposing coalition, while Lega Nord, one of Berlusconi’s most trustworthy ally, strongly pushed for making Malpensa the core of Alitalia. The risk for Nordic politicians was to lose their local electoral support because AirFrance plan was of definitely shifting the core of Alitalia’s business from the Malpensa Airport (close to Varese) to the Fiumicino hub (the main Italian and Roman airport). As most people know Malpensa has been one of the most expensive failure in Italian strategy: a huge airport planned with the pretence of becoming THE Italian hub, built in a foggy valley in the middle of nothing, where the weather is so miserable that whenever it snows most flights are cancelled. The airport was possibly built just for serving Italian speaking Switzerland (Canton Ticino), given the fact it is far away from both Milan and Turin.

In March 2008 – against European laws – through a bipartisan agreement it was decided to give a bridging loan of €300M to Alitalia, just for surviving a few months longer for allowing Berlusconi to find some Italian buyer.

So Prodi did not manage to sell Alitalia, but just before the political elections in April last, around 1000 temporary employees got a permanent contract. With a company that only a couple of days before was going to make around 2500 redundancies? Yes, that is the power of quid pro quo in here, it is the typical “I give you a job, you vote for me”… But it was the Cayman who won the elections again…

As soon as he became prime minister the histrionic Berlusconi said that AirFrance would be a good buyer for Alitalia (!??!?!?). Nonetheless, he valorously worked for putting together some well known speculators around a succulent meal: he convinced the experienced businessman Colaninno – father of the responsible of economy for the PD (Democratic Party), at the opposition in Parlament – on the succulent opportunity, the tasty flesh to bleed white, offering to his friends of raiders and financial vampires the possibility of buying for a few Euros a sane flight company cleaned from the debts and with no competency on the most revenueable routs, where tickets’ costs will increase dramatically.

The financial raiders

In August 2008 Alitalia went bankrupt. The Italian government and the bankruptcy administrator agreed to the CAI take over offer on 19th November 2008. The profitable asset of Alitalia has been transferred to CAI, while the “bad company”, Alitalia’s less healthy and unprofitable parts – together with much of the current debt it carries – was transferred to another entity that would be authorized to sell assets to reduce the first $1.5 billion in debt, such as land that surrounds Rome’s Fiumicino Airport. All Alitalia’s debts will be liquidated by the State that will pay off all creditors, including the leaving indemnity for the 5000 employees (twice as much as foreseen with previous AirFrance restructuring plan), not mentioning the subsequent expenses for the dole.

The Italian “businessmen” (together with a couple of foreign bankers as well) finalized a package that would maintain Italian ownership of the airline, but flying a greatly-reduced network, and partnering with a major European airline.

Compagnia Aerea Italiana (CAI) bought Alitalia for €1.052 billion ($1.33 billion) paying €427 million in cash and taking on €625 million in Alitalia debts. The plan merged Alitalia’s healthier business aspects with Air One, an Italian airline that is smaller and privately owned. The combined company resulting from Alitalia and Air One would receive money from several sources, including five Italian investors, two private equity companies, two international banks and two Italian banks. The injection of funds and restructuring plan would make it possible for Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi to assert that he has kept his campaign promise of keeping Alitalia Italian (which, as said, is not completely true).

CAI consists of several Italian financial raiders and speculators, and a couple of foreign banks who took the place of Lehman Brothers, the bankrupted bank which was supposed to be the warranter of the operation. Most “entrepreneurs” in CAI have been convicted, investigated, were on trial. In their hands, gold becomes shit and shit becomes capital gains. Their only goal is to exploit the rich route of Fiumicino-Linate where they have the monopole – for which they obtained a 3-year moratorium from the National Antitrust Authority – and then sell the company to AirFrance. Air France at the beginning will only be the foreign partner of Alitalia, entering Alitalia’s capital with around €310M, but acquiring just 25% of the new company, being the rest of the money as an option for buying the whole company at a later stage. Almost any expert (?) believes that after 3 years (at the end of the moratorium) Air France will buy the majority of Alitalia’s stocks, and will practically be the owner. Hence, Italian people are paying taxes for allowing some Italian financial raiders and a French company to speculate… Nice!

None of CAI members had experience in the aviation sector, with the exception of Carlo Toto, as said owner of AirOne, a low cost Italian company whose fleet was bought through the “Chinese boxes system”, thanks to loans obtained by some Irish companies (owned by Carlo Toto) from international banks, each of them bought a plane on leasing. Therefore AirOne fleet practically belongs to Irish banks, but AirOne debts (€490M) are converging into the new Alitalia.

Everything for the joy of pseudo-nationalists like Berlusconi, while, for the joy of trade unions, redundancies made by CAI are twice as much as the ones agreed by Prodi and AirFrance in the first instance. And this time – while pilots and flight assistants Unions fought hardly – the national Trade Unions accepted it almost immediately (?!?!?!). I assume they had to play some sort of a game to show they were trying to do their best. In reality they just represent themselves. They have defended some privileges (their privileges) and betrayed the employees. Honestly it is hard to believe they trusted the electoral promises of Tar Head (another nickname for Berlusconi) and the notorious Italian consortium. Therefore the question to arise is: what did they get in exchange for the failure of the Air France negotiation? Well, I do not that, but I doubt it was just a question of visibility…

As soon as the old Alitalia disappeared, CAI did not respect the agreement signed just a couple of months before with the trade unions, generating a lot of anger among employees, who were all fired and most of them later offered a new job within the new company at worst conditions. But this time trade unions did not interfere in the dispute… funny, is it not?

Any clearer why Alitalia employees are more on strike than ever? How could you expect them to work decently and offer you a good service?

Anyway, Alitalia represents a paradigm, a metaphor for Italy. The bankruptcy of Alitalia is a symptom and a prelude of country’s steadying collapse. Political parties and Trade Unions know this, but just try to keep on maximizing their own profit.

In the last lines I think I gave you enough ethical reasons for boycotting Alitalia… If morality is not your cup of tea (say you are in finance, a paedophile, a priest or more probably a combination of them) but you want your flight will have good chances of taking off or landing on time, and you do not feel like paying a ticket twice as much as it was before for the same shit service, well mate, you better avoid Alitalia anyway…

http://www.tgcom.mediaset.it/fotogallery/fotogallery4545.shtml?1

In Italy there are around four different “layers” for doing a job or for accomplishing a task, not counting the different bureaucratic structures built around them.

What in other countries is generally done by some civil servants within a specific unit of a ministry, in the Boot it has a more complicated journey to go through. We do not dare to forget the hundreds of thousands of people “working” [metti link diz italo-inglese] in ministries have no skills no knowledge whatsoever – neither general culture nor job related – and they simply got that job for a political quid pro quo, a vote-job exchange. This is not surprising… it is the normal and generally accepted way of getting a job in the public administration, at any level. These people keep on getting (I would not use the verb “earning”… it does not fit here…) the wage for going to the office every once in a while, but once there they only surf on the web, do coffee-breaks, managers read newspapers (not because they are interested in them, but it is a sort of status symbol compared to the rest of employee whose only window to the world is a TV), make phone calls [comune Ladispoli: quanto hanno speso col cellulare], make photocopies and send faxes for their own private affairs… Moreover most of the times employees organize different shifts: one every 5 or 10 among them has to go to the office building for checking the badges of his group of people, then he/she leaves and somebody else scheduled for this heavy task goes back in the evening, possible a couple of hours after the official end of the working day, for ensuring everybody will get extra money for the “extra work” provided to the administration.

This way of “working” caused some problems, but not because the whole bureaucratic machine was stuck, but because European Agreements were demanding, therefore under European pressures it was necessary to do some work… hence it was necessary to create some other semi-private structures for doing the “dirty job” that theoretically was task of the “practically unemployed” employees “working” as civil servants. A lot of Authorities – whose role is still obscure – and an uncountable number of Agencies were created, and sometimes those half-public agencies are physically next to the ministries (like in the case of “the ministry of finance” and the agency doing its work, called Sogei).

Sadly enough this is not the end of the story, because politicians tend to be overwhelming with their mafia attitude, and imposed their people in those agencies as well, which means – once again – that if you want to get a job there you need to be sponsored by a politician… your experience and skills are therefore not important anymore….

This fact meant those special agencies created for doing the work on behalf of ministry employees – because ministries were filled of unskilled people – became some sort of ministries themselves, where people do work a tiny bit, but given the strong connection with the political-mafia (synonymous of political parties and trade unions) they are not forced to work… they do not have to… Therefore most of the work is outsourced to some private companies that in most cases avail themselves of some contract heavily-underpaid people, with almost no rights, no holidays, no sick nor pregnancy leave. They are the only ones who really work under the menace of their contract not being renewed if they do not accept the nasty rules of their job, whose conditions are closer to slavery if compared to anything else in civilized countries.

In a way those people, the real workers, pay for not being part of the mafia elite that rules the country. Politically speaking there is no left nor right wing: mafia is a way of living, a spread mentality that pervades the whole country, from the most important politician to the last citizen. Either you accept it, or you leave the country…

From another prospective you realize that for just doing one task there are at least three (generally four) administrative layers and “levels” of people getting paid, while in any decent country one person would be enough…. this is the Italian way for a generalized welfare and the local answer to socialism… for one person really working (the contract-servant) there are 4 working-class-people who are paid for, to whom you must add the different managers and the bureaucrats involved in parallel agencies aimed at coordinating the NON work, which makes a whole country sustained by a few percentage of “slaves”.

TURIN (Dec 7, 2008). Moments of terror were lived by some Roma in Turin, where they were attacked by some other Roma armed with knives and engine saws (yep, the ones you see in horror movies!).

As reconstructed by the police, three men and one woman were playing cards in a shed when they heard noises. Outside there were two men who got there with the clear intention to kill . One of the four Roma was wounded to death while two others, a man and a woman, are now hospitalized. The investigators of the Police believe it could have been a sort of “settling of scores” within the Roma community, most likely because the victims knew their attackers.

Another step towards a decent integration…

By Lorenzo Totaro

Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) — Italy, the third-biggest economy in the euro region, slipped into a recession in the third quarter as the fallout from the yearlong credit crisis choked growth.

The Italian economy fell into the fourth recession in less than a decade with gross domestic product shrinking 0.5 percent from the second quarter, when it contracted a revised 0.4 percent, the Rome-based statistics office said today. The two quarters of contraction represent the nation’s worst recession since 1992.

Italy follows Germany, Europe’s largest economy, in posting two consecutive quarters of contraction — the technical definition of a recession. While France unexpectedly reported 0.1 percent growth for the latest quarter, Europe’s economy sank into its first recession since 1993, which could lead to further cuts in interest rates and taxes amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

“Italy will be in recession up to the third quarter of next year,” said Dominic Bryant, economist for the euro zone for BNP Paribas in London. “Hopefully lower interest rates will help revive the economy, but it will take time to see the effects.”

The European Central Bank last week cut its benchmark rate by a half-point to 3.25 percent, the second such reduction within a month. Having raised rates as recently as July to combat inflation, policy makers are now signaling that slumping growth may lead to further cuts.

Worst Recession

The Spanish economy contracted 0.2 percent in the third quarter, a separate report showed today. Germany’s economy shrank a bigger-than-expected 0.5 percent, pushing the nation into the worst recession in at least 12 years, data showed yesterday.

The French economy, the euro region’s second-largest, unexpectedly grew 0.1 percent in the third quarter, avoiding a recession, the government in Paris said today. Gross domestic product in the 15 euro nations shrank 0.2 percent from the previous three months, when it also contracted 0.2 percent, the European Union’s Luxembourg-based statistics office said today.

The financial crisis has prompted European governments to pump about $1.7 trillion into the banking system to try to restart lending and investment and stem a rout in the stock market. The economy has suffered other shocks as well, including the euro’s rise to a record $1.60 in mid-summer, the strongest inflation in almost 16 years and oil’s jump to an unprecedented $147 a barrel in July.

Italy’s business confidence dropped to the lowest in almost 15 years in October as the credit crisis deepened. Italy’s benchmark S&P/MIB index, which has plunged 46 percent this year, was up 2.6 percent at 20,945 at 12:55 p.m.

Taking Its Toll

The recession is already taking its toll on Italian companies ranging from automakers to microchip producers. STMicroelectronics NV, Europe’s largest chipmaker, forecast a drop in fourth-quarter revenue of as much as 8 percent.

Fiat SpA, Italy’s largest automaker, said on Oct. 23 earnings may fall as much as 85 percent next year in a “worst- case” scenario. The company, which has already scaled back car production in Italy, said yesterday that it planned temporary layoffs of 3,000 workers in Brazil to cut output by 20 percent.

“We don’t expect a quick or simple economic recovery anytime soon,” Aldo Soldi, president of Coop, Italy’s largest supermarket chain, said in a Nov. 12 interview. “We may have to wait until the second half of 2009 or even until 2010.”

Italy’s economy will stagnate this year and next, making it the worst-performer after Ireland among the nations sharing the euro, the European Commission forecast on Nov. 3.

From the year-earlier quarter, the economy contracted 0.9 percent in the latest three months, the sharpest decline in more than 15 years, the statistics office said in today’s report. The office will provide a breakdown of the GDP figures when it releases its final report on Dec. 12.

taken from: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601092&sid=a8zfqzRJMeSI

There are lot of speculations about the recent election of Barack Obama as next President of the United States. First of all the is a huge prejudice: the fact he is the first non WASP (and I stress the “W” much more than the “P”) president does not mean he is gonna be a revolutionary politician, nor a good president.

Anyway, the election of a person who had an African father (completely absent in Obama’s life, though) and lived in Jakarta (but only until 10) might offer us some hopes that the new US president will have a broader vision than his predecessors.

Therefore, tackling the silly idea that a person just for the color of his skin can represent THE CHANGE, we do prefer to base our hopes on the personal history of the president elect, being also aware that it was also influenced by the color of his skin.

We hope Obama won’t be a butcher who slaughters nations around for exporting US capitalism or for covering “I did not have sex with that woman” like most of his predecessors…

There is hope Obama will take the US Army at home, for fighting the Ku Klux Klan, pedophiles, Nazis and – possibly – US Banks…

…hope Obama will find a decent agreement with the Vatican for deciding about the ownership of Italy… we cannot keep on worshiping both!!!

… hope Obama would lead the Stars&Stripes berserkers closer to the minimum standards of civilization…

… hope Obama will manage to say “NO” to the multinational US companies that use any way (mainly illicit and immoral, like tanks) for expanding their market

…hope Obama knows what liberalism is, and would not confuse it – like most Americans do – with colonialism.

Thank God, the election of Obama gave us some hopes… and that is the most important thing about his victory.

Rome, Oct 28, 2008 (YES! 2008!!!) – A 10 year old child and a baby of just 29 days of Rumanian nationality yesterday night were found by the police in a garbage bin in Prenestino area, east of Rome (Italy).

While the policemen were checking the generalities of a 52 year old man and a girl of 16 who had a suspicious behaviour, they heard some noise coming from the bins, and found the two children lying on garbage bags in a bin full of malodorous rubbish. The man said he was the father of the child, while the infant belongs to the young girl. According to the reconstruction made by the police, the man was also the pimp of the girl, who had a box full of condoms with her. They possibly left the children in the bin full of rubbish for protecting them from the rain while she and her father-pimp were looking for customers. The police proceed only against the man for mistreatment of children, including the mistreatment towards the daughter-prostitute, who is still a minor. The baby was transported to the Sandro Pertini hospital where doctors found he was underfed.

What a lovely family! Lots of them imported to Italy in the last months!

Around 75% of people arrested in Rome for having committed crimes are Rumanian criminals. On a daily basis most of the crimes in Italy are committed by criminals of Rumanian nationality, and for sure at least once a week somebody is sent to hospital (or cemetery) for being attacked, severely injured or even killed by a Rumanian.

Are all Rumanians killers and criminals? Of course not! Rumanians, Chineses, Pakistanis, Moroccans (you name it, there is no difference for most of us: nationality, religion, gender, ethnicity do not matter) who are here for working and do respect laws are obviously welcomed. But we are fed up with all the criminals (a lot of them arrived from Romania) who keep on killing and harassing in here.

It is sad and racist to label somebody just for belonging to a country, but it is undoubted that even if we abandon the statistics and we refer to the most violent criminal situations here, sadly the answer is always the same, because most of the times the involved criminals are Rumanians. In the city of Rome only – just during the last months – a girl was killed in the underground by a Rumanian prostitute who used an umbrella like a sword and stung it into the eye (and the brain) of the poor victim, just for silly reasons; a man was savagely beaten to death while he was cycling just for stealing his mobile phone; there were some shootings close to my house (a very decent, tranquil middle-class area) for a war between Rumanian bands; a woman was raped and brutally killed just for stealing her pursue; some Dutch tourists were hardly beaten and sent to hospital with severe fractures all over the body just for stealing their stuff, etc… What we though they were just nightmares or scenes from hollywood scary movies risk to become daily routine here…

Also a left wing newspaper like Repubblica hosted a discussion on the unbearable problems that this invasion in causing. Even the leader of the national left wing party pushed the former national left wing government for tackling this invasion of criminals (I said criminals, not Rumanians) coming from a country (Romania) where magically criminality dropped of 60% in the last year…

Life is really difficult here at the moment, and fear pervades the whole country. We live with the terror of being robbed or physical attacked any second. So I am sure people abroad can understand why we cannot stand people who arrogantly call Italians racist without having a clue about what we are living in here at the moment.