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Russia

This Cigarette-Crazy Nation May Finally Get Public Smoking Ban

RIA NOVOSTI (Russia) KOMMERSANT (Russia)

Worldcrunch

MOSCOW - Smokers, so much for the wild East. The public smoking bans already in place in Western Europe look set to expand to Russia by 2015, RIA Novosti reports. The Russian Duma will be voting on new smoking legislation that includes restrictions on advertising and sales of cigarettes, as well as a general ban on smoking in public places.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is the proposed law’s biggest cheerleader. The Prime Minister has said that the total ban on smoking has already been instituted in the Russian White House, where his government is based, RIA Novosti reports.

Medvedev noted that there are slightly fewer smokers among the government than in the general population: One in five Duma members smokes. There are 44 million smokers in Russia, which is one third of the total Russian population, including children.

Russia has the highest percentage of smokers in the world, Kommersant reports. Not unsurprisingly, the president of the National Medical Association says the sooner smoking is banned in public places, the better.

But not everyone agrees: Lev Rubinshtein, a poet, says that if people perceive repression against smokers, they might pick up a cigarette as an act of protest, Kommersant reports.

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food / travel

When Racism Poisons Italy's Culinary Scene

This is the case of chef Mareme Cisse, a black woman, who was called a slur after a couple found out that she was the one who would be preparing their meal.

Photo of Mareme Cisse cooking

Mareme Cisse in the kitchen of Ginger People&Food

Caterina Suffici

-Essay-

TURIN — Guess who's not coming to dinner. It seems like a scene from the American Deep South during the decades of segregation. But this happened in Italy, in this summer of 2023.

Two Italians, in their sixties, got up from the restaurant table and left (without saying goodbye, as the owner points out), when they declared that they didn't want to eat in a restaurant where the chef was what they called: an 'n-word.'

Racists, poor things. And ignorant, in the sense of not knowing basic facts. They don't realize that we are all made of mixtures, come from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. And that food, of course, are blends of different ingredients and recipes.

The restaurant is called Ginger People&Food, and these visitors from out of town probably didn't understand that either.

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