Tag Archives: Italy

Berlusconi praises dictator Mussolini

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This video is called Berlusconi defends Mussolini’s alliance with Hitler.

By Marianne Arens:

Former Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi praises Mussolini

8 February 2013

Italy’s former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, used the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, to praise the fascist “Duce” Benito Mussolini. Mussolini had “done a great deal of good”, notwithstanding the racial laws that were “his worst mistake”, Berlusconi said.

Italian responsibility for the Shoah was “not comparable to that of Germany”, Berlusconi continued. It had been “difficult” for Mussolini, who acted under pressure from Hitler. Italians had merely tolerated Nazi racial policy and were “not really aware of it at the beginning”, he said.

Italy’s political leaders immediately sought to play down the significance of Berlusconi’s statements, describing the provocations of the 76-year-old multi-billionaire as a “minor offense”.

Mario Monti, the outgoing prime minister, remarked tersely that Berlusconi had used an “unfortunate phrase on the wrong day and in the wrong place”. Just prior to his comments, the Ansa news agency reported that Monti did not rule out collaboration with Berlusconi’s party, PdL (People of Freedom), following parliamentary elections on February 24, on condition that Berlusconi did not take up a leading post in the new administration.

The Christian Democrat Pierferdinando Casini (UDC) declared that Berlusconi had “spoken nonsense”. Politicians aligned with the country’s so-called “left” also made just brief comments on the incident and were quick to move on.

Pier Luigi Bersani, the leader of the Democrats and leading candidate for the post of prime minister, complained that Berlusconi had made the “Day of Remembrance” a “day of election campaign maneuver”. The regional president of Puglia, Nichi Vendola (Left, Ecology and Freedom, SEL), described Berlusconi as a “falsifier, who would be advised to keep silent”.

Berlusconi expressed his comments on fascism during the official inauguration ceremony of a Holocaust memorial on “Platform 21” of the Milan Central Station. The memorial has been erected around the hidden railway tunnel originally used by the fascists to conduct deportations.

From 1943 to 1945, thousands of Italian Jews were deported from this point to extermination camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen, and the Italian camps of Bolzano and Fossoli. A total of around 8,600 Jews were deported from Italy to the death camps.

Contrary to Berlusconi’s remarks, anti-Semitism was not merely imposed on Italian fascism externally by Hitler and Nazi Germany—the persecution of the Jews was entirely in line with Italian fascism and Mussolini’s own racist ideology. Jews were socially isolated and dispossessed; they were banned from attending state schools in Italy, heading a business, carrying out an official function, and could not marry Italians.

In order to create a new “Roman Empire” around the Mediterranean Sea the Italian fascists occupied North Africa and parts of Yugoslavia, classifying Africans, Slavs and Jews as “subhuman” and discriminating against them. The defense of a “pure Italian race” was used, especially in Abyssinia and Libya, to justify massacres and genocide.

As historian Carlo Moos demonstrates, racial laws against the Jews were first introduced in Italy in 1938 in accordance with the racial policies of the Third Reich. At the same time they corresponded to “a long-existing, general-fascist racial concept” (Moos, Carlo: Late Italian Fascism and the Jews, 2008).

Berlusconi, who is facing a series of criminal charges for business and sex crimes, is deliberately turning towards the extreme right in his election campaign.

One of his candidates for the Senate is Mussolini’s granddaughter, Alessandra Mussolini. Berlusconi’s party, the PdL, has not only allied itself with its long-time former partner, the racist Northern League, but also with ultra-right-wing parties such as the neo-fascist La Destra, led by Francesco Storace. The ranks of La Destra include Giuliana De Medici, stepdaughter of the fascist leader and founder of the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), Giorgio Almirante (1914-1988).

Berlusconi has continually relied on the fascists in the course of his political career. In 1994 he drew the MSI into government for the first time since the overthrow of the fascist dictatorship. The MSI at that time openly professed its adherence to Mussolini. The party later changed its name to National Alliance (NA) and joined Berlusconi’s supporters to form the PdL. Former MSI leader Gianfranco Fini is currently backing the electoral list headed by Mario Monti.

…

Following Berlusconi’s resignation in November 2011 as head of government, his PdL party fully backed the austerity measures of the Monti government for a year in parliament. Berlusconi is now trying to divert increasing social anger into right-wing channels. While all other parties, including alleged “leftist” organizations, advocate the continuation of Monti’s austerity measures and support for the European Union, Berlusconi is conducting a populist nationalist campaign, blaming the European Union and the German government for the social decline of Italy. …

In this context Berlusconi’s allegation that Mussolini had done “much good” assumes menacing dimensions. Mussolini smashed the organized labor movement, destroyed its social gains and democratic rights, and went on to conduct brutal colonial wars in Libya and Abyssinia. …

Across Europe bourgeois politicians are forming alliances with racist, ultra-nationalist and fascist parties. Such parties have been playing an important role for some time in political life in Hungary, Greece, France and Austria. Against a background of increasing social tensions they are needed by the ruling class as a battering ram against the working class.

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Berlusconi praises Hitler-Mussolini axis at Holocaust event

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This video is called Berlusconi defends Mussolini for backing Hitler.

From Associated Press:

Silvio Berlusconi praises dictator Mussolini for ‘having done good’

Sunday 27 January 2013

Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi praised Benito Mussolini for “having done good” despite the Fascist dictator’s anti-Jewish laws, immediately sparking expressions of outrage as Europe today held Holocaust remembrances.

Berlusconi also defended Mussolini for allying himself with Hitler, saying his likely reasoning was that it would be better to be on the winning side.

The media mogul, whose conservative forces are polling second in voter surveys ahead of next month’s election, spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a ceremony in Milan to commemorate the Holocaust.

In 1938, before the outbreak of the Second World War, Mussolini’s regime passed the so-called “racial laws,” barring Jews from Italy’s universities and many professions, among other bans.

When Germany’s Nazi regime occupied Italy during the war, thousands from the tiny Italian Jewish community were deported to death camps.

“It is difficult now to put oneself in the shoes of who was making decisions back then,” Berlusconi said of Mussolini’s support for Hitler.

“Certainly the government then, fearing that German power would turn into a general victory, preferred to be allied with Hitler’s Germany rather than oppose it.”

Berlusconi added that “within this alliance came the imposition of the fight against, and extermination of, the Jews. Thus, the racial laws are the worst fault of Mussolini, who, in so many other aspects, did good.”

More than 7,000 Jews were deported under Mussolini’s regime, and nearly 6,000 of them were killed.

Reactions of outrage, along with a demand that Berlusconi be prosecuted for promoting Fascism, quickly followed his words.

Berlusconi’s praise of Mussolini constitutes “an insult to the democratic conscience of Italy,” said Rosy Bindi, a centre-left leader.

“Only Berlusconi’s political cynicism, combined with the worst historic revisionism, could separate the shame of the racist laws from the Fascist dictatorship.”

Italian laws enacted following the country’s disastrous experience in the war forbid the encouragement of Fascism.

A candidate for local elections, Gianfranco Mascia, pledged that he and his supporters will present a formal complaint tomorrow to Italian prosecutors, seeking to have Berlusconi prosecuted.

Advocating aggressive nationalism, Mussolini used brutish force and populist appeal evoking ancient Rome’s glories to achieve and keep his dictatorial grip on power, starting in the early 1920s and lasting well into the Second World War.

His Fascist “blackshirt” loyalists cracked down on dissidents, through beatings and jailings.

He encouraged big families to propagate the Italian population, established a sprawling state economy and erected monumental buildings and statues to evoke ancient Rome.

Mussolini sought to impose order on a generally individualistic-minded people, and Italians sometimes note trains ran on time during Fascism.

With dreams of an empire, he sent Italian troops on missions to attack or occupy foreign lands, including Ethiopia and Albania.

Eventually, Italian military failures in Africa and in Greece fostered rebellion among Fascist officials, and in 1943 he was placed under arrest by orders of the Italian king. His end came at the vengeful hands of partisan fighters who shot him and his mistress, and left their bodies to hang in a Milan square in April 1945.

Berlusconi’s former government allies have included political heirs to neo-fascist movements admiring Mussolini.

In 2010, he told world leaders at a Paris conference that he had been reading Mussolini’s journals, and years earlier Berlusconi had claimed that Mussolini “never killed anyone.”

Berlusconi is running in the February 24-25 Parliamentary elections and has repeatedly changed his mind on whether he is seeking a fourth term as premier.

Monti is also running, but polls put him far behind front-runner Pier Luigi Bersani, a centre-left leader who supported Monti’s austerity measures to save Italy from the Eurozone debt crisis.

Polls show about one-third of eligible voters are undecided.

Christmas nativity scenes’ origin

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This video from Britain says about itself:

Mr Bean recreates the nativity using toys in a shop at Christmas. From Merry Christmas Mr Bean.

From Smithsonian.com in the USA:

December 14, 2012 12:28 pm

The First Nativity Scene Was Created in 1223

At some point in childhood, many kids don a blue shawl or fake beard and act out the nativity scene in front of doting parents and grandparents. Whether performed by children, set up as little figurines in a home or installed as a life-size tableau in front of a church, these scenes are a staple of the Christmas holidays. But when did this tradition begin?

Slate explores the history of the nativity scene:

Blame St. Francis of Assisi, who is credited with staging the first nativity scene in 1223. The only historical account we have of Francis’ nativity scene comes from The Life of St. Francis of Assisi by St. Bonaventure, a Franciscan monk who was born five years before Francis’ death.

According to Bonaventure’s biography, St. Francis got permission from Pope Honorious III to set up a manger with hay and two live animals—an ox and an ass—in a cave in the Italian village of Grecio. He then invited the villagers to come gaze upon the scene while he preached about “the babe of Bethlehem.” (Francis was supposedly so overcome by emotion that he couldn’t say “Jesus.”) Bonaventure also claims that the hay used by Francis miraculously acquired the power to cure local cattle diseases and pestilences.

The nativity scene’s popularity took off from there. Within a couple of centuries, nativity scenes had spread throughout Europe. We don’t know if people actually played Mary and Joseph during Francis’ time, or whether they just imagined those figures’ presence. We do know that later scenes began incorporating dioramas and life actors, and the cast of characters gradually expanded beyond Mary, Joseph and sweet baby Jesus, to sometimes include an entire village.

Nativity buffs will know, however, that the familiar cast of characters relied upon today—the three wise men and the shepherds—is not biblically accurate. Of the New Testament’s four gospels, only Matthew and Luke describe Jesus’ birth. Matthew mentions wise men, while Luke comments on shepherds. But nowhere in the Bible do shepherds and wise men appear together. What’s worse, no one mentions donkeys, oxen, cattle or other farmyard friends in conjunction with Jesus’ birth. But what would a nativity scene be without those staples? Luckily for all the kids cast as King #2 or random shepherd, some artistic interpretation is permitted.

Read more articles about the holidays with our Smithsonian Holiday Guide here

More from Smithsonian.com:

That Moon on Your Christmas Card
Christmas Shopping Around the World

Should My Child Believe in Christmas If I Don’t? Here.

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Hermann’s tortoises, new research

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This video is called Identification of Hermann’s Tortoise Subspecies.

From the BBC:

16 November 2012 Last updated at 04:00

Paternity tests for ‘promiscuous’ Hermann’s tortoise

By Michelle Warwicker, BBC Nature

Baby tortoises have been given paternity tests to find out whether sperm storage affects fertilisation.

Female Hermann’s tortoises mate with multiple partners and can store sperm inside their bodies for years.

Scientists found that in egg clutches with multiple fathers, mating order did not affect males’ fertilisation success.

Previous studies into similar species have found that a higher proportion of eggs are fertilised by the last mate.

“[This] ‘last in first out’ hypothesis was our main hypothesis,” said research team member Dr Sara Fratini from the University of Florence.

She explained that, according to the mechanics of a tube such as those found in the females’ reproductive system, the first substance to enter would be the last to come back out when emptied.

But in the study, published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, Dr Fratini and colleagues Giulia Cutuli, Dr Stefano Cannicci and Prof Marco Vannini did not find evidence to match this logic.

Instead the team’s findings support the idea that sperm may become randomly mixed inside the female’s oviduct, the passageway from the ovaries.

Sperm storage has been frequently reported in reptiles and birds, and is associated with a promiscuous mating system.

Chelonian species are known for their long-term sperm storage, and females are capable of storing viable sperm for three or four years in specialised tubes within their oviduct.

To better understand this system the team set up a series of planned matings between Hermann’s tortoises (Testudo hermanni hermanni) and conducted paternity tests on tortoise hatchlings from 16 egg clutches.

They found that 46% of the clutches had been “multi-sired”: fertilised by two or three males.

Of the clutches that were fertilised by three tortoises they reported that a “significant contribution” of previous years’ partners was found in the distribution of sperm.

The results indicate that males that contribute more sperm fertilise a greater proportion of an egg clutch; a theory which has been found to be valid in some aquatic turtles.

But Dr Fratini said the findings could also suggest that females may actively optimise the use of stored sperm to use old sperm first – before it becomes unviable – and newly aquired sperm afterwards.

“At the present time, we cannot say which hypothesis is the real one,” she told BBC Nature.

Sex-starved females?

The study also examined how a multi-partner mating system affected the tortoises’ courtship behaviour.

The team found that male Hermann’s tortoises’ behaviour did not change depending on the order in which they mated with the female during a single reproduction cycle. Whether first or second to court a female, the males invested equally in activity.

However, when males were placed with females that had not mated for three years, their courtship attempts were more succesful with the female accepting being mounted and not trying to escape.

“For this we hypothesised that these females may have the ‘perception’ that their stored sperm is finishing,” explained Dr Fratini. “And for this they are motivated to re-mate.”

She commented that one possible reason for females storing sperm is that the density of wild Hermann’s tortoise populations is “generally low”.

“It is not easy to find a partner.”

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Archer fish water jets, new research

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This video, from an aquarium in Sussex, England is about archer fish target practice for their spitting skills.

From the BBC:

25 October 2012 Last updated at 07:50

Archer fish spitting mystery solved, scientists say

By Michelle Warwicker BBC Nature

Italian scientists say they have solved the mystery of how archer fish can spit powerful jets of water.

Archer fish shoot water jets with enough force to knock prey into the water from overhanging vegetation.

Research by a team from the University of Milan shows that the fish’s forceful strike is formed externally using water dynamics, rather than using the body’s internal muscles.

This technique allows the animals to take accurate shots from up to 2m away.

For years scientists studied archer fish (Toxotes jaculatrix), searching for evidence of specialised internal organs that are adapted to this water-pistol-like hunting technique.

But previous studies have ruled out this idea.

The new research, published in the PLoS ONE journal, demonstrated that archer fish “modulate” the water they spit out so that the jet increases in velocity (speed in a given direction) as it travels from the fish’s mouth through air.

The team used high-speed video recordings to make their discovery.

Professor Alberto Vailati, a member of the research team from the University of Milan, Italy, described the action as being similar to “when you shoot water… using a water pistol or by squeezing a rubber toy”.

Underwater Olympians

It is the accuracy with which archer fish shoot deadly darts of water at prey that earned the species its name.

The jets of water are produced when archer fish press their tongues against a groove in their mouths to form a gun-barrel-like shape, and close their gills to force out a spurt of water.

The water jet travels through the air, increasing in velocity, and forms into a single large drop of water, Prof Vailati explained. The energy gathers at the head of the water jet, for maximum impact when it hits the prey.

The water spurts are up to six times stronger than the fish’s muscular power – strong enough to abruptly knock even firmly anchored prey into the water so that the archer fish can devour them.

Other animals, such as chameleons, use a “catapult” technique by storing energy in collagen fibres within their bodies.

These internal structures “act as a kind of spring”, allowing chameleons to suddenly shoot their tongues out to capture prey, said Prof Vailati.

The findings by Prof Vailati and his colleagues are the first to suggest that it is external powers of physics rather than biological causes that afford archer fish with their deadly darts.