I have a little piece of good news to share with you which will explain why, for the next year, I won’t be posting so often on this blog, I am the newly-elected President of the Foreign Press Association in Italy (Associazione della Stampa Estera in Italia www.stampaestera.org), the biggest foreign press association in the […]
Last night I met this little Bangladeshi-American girl at a special celebration in the Boston area to mark Victory Day, when Bangladesh celebrates its liberation from Pakistan at the end of the 1971 Liberation War. “Her name is Yanka,” her father said, spelling it out for me, “it actually is not really a Bangladeshi name,
Something to Celebrate Read More »
Dear Blog Readers, Did you know that Julius Caesar was kidnapped by pirates as a boy, that Emperor Hadrian was madly in love with a young man named Antinous, that Agrippina killed her husband Emperor Claudius by feeding him poisoned mushrooms, or that the great Emperor Augustus banished his only daughter to a deserted island
Six Roman Emperors & their Mothers, Daughters and Lovers Read More »
It is time for Europe to get a grip. This week fundamentalist Islamic terrorists blasted the heart of Europe with suicide bomb attacks in Brussels that left over 30 people dead and hundreds wounded. In a deeply symbolic gesture they hit the center of European power, even targeting the Maelbeck subway stop outside the European
Get a Grip, Europe! Read More »
Dear Blog Readers — my blog buddy Adri Barr Crocetti of www.adribarrcrocetti.com asked me to ask my husband, Gustavo Piga, an economist who teaches at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, to give his opinion on my blog about the Greek referendum. Gustavo’s response is below. Some American readers asked me to shed some light
Why NO is Good for Greece Read More »
Dear Blog Readers – Here is a quick update to my earlier post (Back to Lampedusa) on visiting the Portuguese ship Viana Do Castelo. When my AP Television colleague Paolo Santalucia and I visited the ship last Wednesday there were no migrant spottings, but on Friday night the ship kicked into action overnight with their
I was tempted to title this blog post “Dump Him, Valérie!!,” but I suppose I will leave that for the conclusion, instead I’ve borrowed the headline of an Italian gossip magazine “Oggi”. I have become slightly obsessed in the past few days with the sordid sex and politics drama in Paris. I think it is
Last Tango in Paris Read More »
My kids and I often joke about a scene in the movie “The Lord of the Rings” where two mischievous hobbits Pippin and Merry are messing around while a group of solemn wizards, elves, hobbits and dwarves is deciding to create the Fellowship of the Ring and set out on a dangerous mission to Mordor
Where Are We Going? Read More »