All the major parties have stressed, during this election campaign, that Italy faces huge challenges ushered in by globalisation. The way to confront this differs, depending upon your political persuasion, but the challenge can’t be ignored. Lucky for Italy that they have some of the most up-to-date and competitive entrepreneurs in the world. One sector, […]
Amongst other thorny issues largely ignored by the two major parties competing in this weekend’s general election is gay marriage. Veltroni and Berlusconi have studiously avoided being drawn into the issue. Veltroni’s party, filled with a sizeable proportion of theo-cons (including the cilice wearing Opus Dei senator Paola Binetti, who in an interview aired during […]
Last year I saw Michael Glawogger’s documentary Workingman’s Death and it occurred to me to wonder what was the toughest of all professions. Mining coal? Looking after the terminally ill? Smelting steel? Sitting at a cash register for ten hours without a break? The answer is none of the above. When it comes to being […]
“Poles can pay less” is the cheering headline in April 4th’s Gazeta Wyborcza. This storyette, tucked away in the boring old business section, is about how a Polish building company operating in Germany has won the right to pay its workers less than the existing, collectively bargained industry rate in Germany. The European Court decided […]
The Lisbon Constitution was accepted by Poland’s parliament. This comes under the heading of absurd because of the storm in the teacup that preceded it: I’m hazy on the details but half-former primesident Kaczyński was for it when he was not former and agin it when he was. If you follow. It was good when […]
This Monkey has neither the time nor the inclination to follow up on Berlusconi’s latest gaffs. Given that we’re in an election, they’re bursting forth at an incredible rate. I couldn’t resist, though, drawing your attention, dear reader, to this letter, sent by blogger Andrea Baldi, in response to one of Berlusconi’s ‘humorous’ pronouncements. The […]
So far only Walter Veltroni of the Partito Democratico and Enrico Boselli of the Italian Socialist party have responded to the question posed by the authoratitive (and innovative) economics website La Voce: “If elected Prime Minister, what will you do against the Mafia?” Before getting into Veltroni’s response (ignoring Boselli, as his electoral support is […]
Too make a long story short, a bunch of Polish spies (or Military Counter Intelligence agents) on duty in Afghanistan put photographs of themselves with their full names on a popular website here called “nasza-klasa” (our class). It’s a school reunion site where old boys, schoolmates, Taliban fighters and so on meet up to see […]
The questioning of the role of the public gallery is not a new phenomenon. It is something that has been argued over since its very conception, and the debate is ongoing.