This music video is Bella ciao Italian traditional Partisan song.
From Dutch NOS TV:
Italian cities have started a campaign to ban foreign restaurants. …
In Lucca and Milan, people who want to start restaurants for foreign food already cannot get a license any more. French restaurants are supposedly exempt from the ban. Sicilian restaurants are not, however. Supposedly there are too many Arabic influences in them.
Minister Zaia of Agriculture, who says that he has never ever eaten kebab, backs the ban. However, the opposition and Italian top chefs call the ban “gastronomical racism”.
Both the Italian central government and many local governments are run by Rightist coalitions, often including open racists and ex(??) fascists.
ITALIAN President Giorgio Napolitano warned on Friday of a “worrisome” increase in intolerance toward immigrants: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
2009-02-02 16:50
President calls for xenophobia halt
Indian immigrant set alight in latest ‘horrifying episode’
(ANSA) – Rome, February 2 – President Giorgio Napolitano on Monday appealed for a stop to xenophobia in Italy after an incident in which three men beat and set fire to a homeless Indian immigrant. The 35-year-old immigrant had been sleeping rough at a train station at a seaside town near Rome when he was attacked and covered in petrol on Sunday. Police are questioning two adults and a minor over the incident, which Napolitano described as one in a series of ”horrifying episodes”. ”By now these cannot be considered as isolated events but as alarming symptoms of a widespread trend that is unfortunately growing,” he said. ”I appeal strongly to those who have institutional, cultural and educational responsibility to commit themselves fully to putting a stop to any display of xenophobia, racism and violence”. Some observers however suggested that the attack on the Indian immigrant was not racially motivated, citing a similar incident in Rimini last year when an Italian homeless person was set alight.
Police said the three men admitted they had attacked the Indian immigrant in order to ”cap off” a night on the town, fuelled by drugs and alcohol, by doing something ”sensational, to experience an intense emotion”.
Nevertheless, Italy has seen a string of apparently racist attacks over the last year, including the burning of gypsy camps in Naples in May. Among other high-profile cases, an immigrant from Burkina Faso was killed in September by a Milan shopkeeper who allegedly beat him to death with an iron bar after hurling racist insults, claiming he had stolen a packet of biscuits. In October a Chinese immigrant was beaten up by teenagers while waiting for a bus in Rome and a young student from Ghana was allegedly beaten by traffic police who mistook him for a drugs pusher in Parma. The Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner has repeatedly criticised Italy for a government crackdown on gypsies and illegal immigrants, warning that it could fuel xenophobia and racism in the country. The government has rebutted such criticism and said in January that it would formally complain about Thomas Hammarberg’s comments, which ”gravely offended the feelings of Italians” and ”took an unacceptable tone against a European country whose history and traditions of democracy, tolerance and respect for human rights cannot be called into question”.
The government insists that its crackdown on gypsy camps is to help gypsies integrate and encourage children into school, while its immigration policy is bringing Italy into line with the rest of the European Union.
A government report on immigrant relations presented in April showed that 42% of Italians are happy to see immigrants in Italy, recognising them as an economic resource for national industry as well as providing valuable services in caring for the elderly.
But anti-immigrant feeling has hit a new high here after a 21-year-old Italian woman was allegedly gang raped and her boyfriend brutally beaten by a group of five Romanians near Rome last week.
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Feb 2, 12:12 PM EST
Indian immigrant set on fire in Italy
ROME (AP) — Italian police have arrested three young men for allegedly beating and setting on fire an Indian immigrant who was sleeping on a train station bench in a seaside town near Rome, investigators said Monday.
The attack on the 35-year-old man in Nettuno sparked outrage in Italy and fueled a debate on attitudes toward immigrants.
Carabinieri paramilitary police said the three poured gasoline on the man early Sunday, then set him on fire. The man was hospitalized with severe leg burns but is expected to survive, Italian state radio said.
The mood among some citizens has turned ugly in recent years following the arrest of immigrants as suspects in several high-profile crimes, including the slaying of an Italian admiral’s wife in suburban Rome and the rape of a young Italian woman in the countryside near Rome.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano warned in a statement against “any display and risk of xenophobia, racism and violence.”
Police said the suspects in the Nettuno attack include a 16-year-old and a 19-year-old. The third suspect is 29.
Investigators said the suspects apparently had been using drugs and alcohol.
“We can exclude racism as a motive because they were so high,” Carabinieri Maj. Emanuele Gaeta told SKY TG24 TV.
Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative government has been cracking down on illegal immigration in Italy, which surveys show many citizens link to crime.
His top security official, Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, told reporters the Nettuno violence “isn’t a racist attack. It’s something worse,” he said, a lack of fundamental values in society.
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Una lista «anticapitalista» con la “A” maiuscola! unitaria per i Comunisti italiani e Rifondazione comunista, che si presenteranno sotto lo stesso simbolo insieme a Socialismo 2000 e Consumatori uniti. Una sfida per le prossime europee, ma non solo perché «le forze che danno vita alla lista si impegnano a continuare il coordinamento della loro iniziativa politica anche dopo le elezioni». È quanto si legge nel documento sottoscritto dalle quattro formazioni, «Finalmente i comunisti tornano a presentarsi uniti alle elezioni dopo tanti anni. Torna la falce e martello sulle schede; o meglio, per la prima volta da tanto tempo ci sarà solo “una’ falce e martello”», sottolinea il segretario del PdCI, Oliviero Diliberto. Della necessità di «costruire la sinistra in Italia e in Europa» parla per il Prc Paolo Ferrero, che ribadisce «noi aderiremo al gruppo unito della sinistra in Europa, che fa opposizione politica al trattato di Maastricht e al trattato di Lisbona, che sono all’origine di questa crisi economica». Rinasce l’opposizione politica e sociale, nelle stesse ore in cui la destra al governo si autocelebra nella sua kermesse congressuale. Al populismo berlusconiano e al post-fascismo interclassista, i comunisti rispondono rilanciando un progetto di azione politica unitaria, radicato nella società, critico nei confronti di un sistema diseguale fondato sullo sfruttamento. Per la difesa del lavoratori, dei loro salari e diritti, dei loro interessi e condizioni di vita, ora c’è un voto utile, «di classe».
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2009-08-31 15:32
Ethnic restaurants boom
Foreigners also moving into Italian food
(ANSA) – Rome, August 31 – Ethnic eateries are booming in Italy and foreigners have also carved out a big chunk of new Italian restaurants.
Restaurants serving foreign food have risen from 2,500 in 2000 to more than 4,000 in 2009, says Fipe-Confcommercio, Italy’s association of restaurant and bar owners.
And of the Italian restaurants opened each year, more than 40% are owned by foreigners, it added.
The boom has been fuelled by foreigners’ family-based model which permits savings of ”more than 50%,” said Edi Sommariva, head of the Fipe-Confcommercio association.
Sommariva said he did not agree with recent bans on ethnic food in parts of Milan and the Tuscan town of Lucca, which have sparked charges of ”gastronomic racism”.
But he warned that immigrants who go into Italian cuisine should be careful of denting Italy’s tradition of food excellence.
”Our traditions are unique, linked to produce, and the increase in restaurateurs who know them only marginally risks damaging the system”.
However, instead of restrictions, ”the way to go is to offer tax breaks for those who commit to keeping up traditions,” Sommariva said. Chinese restaurants account for some two thirds of the ethnic boom, followed by Japanese cuisine, which has however stalled because of high prices.
Vietnamese and Korean cuisine is also showing healthy gains, Fipe said.
The recent spread of highly popular kekab shops cannot be quantified because they come under the category of artisans and not eateries, Sommariva said.
Moves to curb their spread are ”not right,” he said.
Earlier this year the conservative town council of Lucca moved to stop kebab bars spoiling the ”identity” of its historic centre.
Milan also unveiled a drive to ”preserve native food” led by the regionalist Northern League, which is sometimes accused of being against immigrants.
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Brits prefer curry over fish & chips
Food: Britain is a nation of pasta and curry lovers, an online survey has shown.
Most diners search the web for Italian restaurants, followed by Indian and French, while English cuisine comes in at 10th.
The findings were part of a survey by toptable.com into the favourite restaurants of three million diners who booked and ate at one of top-table’s 5,000 restaurants during 2009.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/85547
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