Almost every working day in Rome, I scamper up a wide, red-carpeted staircase, past a stuffed rhinoceros’ head and a marble statue of a topless dancer with a pet dragon, through an ornate doorway with the coat-of-arms of the Grazioli family and into the world of the Italy’s Foreign Press Association, a bizarre mix of …
Glamorous Roman digs for Italy’s Foreign Press Association Read More »
FISHBONES, POPES, CORKS, COBBLESTONES AND AIRCRAFT CARRIERS Adventures with AP cameraman Gianfranco Stara This week my colleague Gianfranco Stara is retiring after 30 years working for the Associated Press. Gianfranco Stara and I were hired together in October of 1994 to open the AP Television office in Rome. He was the cameraman, and in case …
ADVENTURES WITH ASSOCIATED PRESS CAMERAMAN GIANFRANCO STARA Read More »
Police in Italy arrested “The Big Strawberry” (Fragolona) on Friday, that’s the code name for Rosalia Messina Denaro, older sister of the Sicilian mafia’s top boss, Matteo Messina Denaro, captured in January after 30 years on the run. She is being held in preventive custody and investigated for mafia association. According to police, the …
Before the journalists climb up the back stairs of the papal plane at the start of an international papal trip, the Vatican takes away our passports, hands us the press passes we will need in the country we are visiting, the Pope’s speeches for the first day and copies of the telegrams sent to the …
Dear Blog Readers, This isn’t a proper blog post, just a series of notes as I prepare to cover Pope Francis’s trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and South Sudan this week. I hope to be able to do a much more interesting and informed post when I get back. This is …
Pope Francis heads to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan Read More »
EDMONTON NOTEBOOK Dear Blog Readers, I am writing from Edmonton, Canada where I came to cover the Pope’s apology to the Indigenous people for the devastating acts of the Church against children in residential schools. From the 1850s to 1970s over 150,000 Indigenous children of the First Nations, Métis, Inuit and other groups were taken …
This past weekend I flew to the Greek island of Lesbos to work with AP colleagues covering the visit of the Pope to the island. Pope Francis has made migration a priority of his papacy. During a visit to Lesbos in 2016 he stunned the world by taking 12 migrants from the camp back with …
Take 20 leaders of the nations with the world’s biggest economies, bring them to a beautiful, chaotic city with cobblestone streets and ancient ruins, add in delegations with a sprinkling of foreign and finance ministers, spouses, and a few children. Toss in a Queen and a Prince and some heads of UN organizations, throw in …