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Founded in 1876 as an evening newspaper ("Evening Courier), the Milan daily has long been a morning paper. The flagship publication of the RCS Media Group, Corriere della Sera is noted for its sober tone, reliable reporting and moderate political stances.
PARIS — The city of lights is littered with advertisements for “Black Friday” deals. Of course, virtually none of the city’s residents will celebrate Thanksgiving — and few probably even know that the traditional Friday shopping day is linked to the uniquely American (always-on-Thursday) holiday.
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If you’ll allow me a small moment of personal commentary, as an American living abroad: There’s something sad about this all. Leaving aside all its dark historical context (which Germany’s Stern magazine explained last year to its readers), I’ve always found Thanksgiving to be a uniquely unifying holiday. It belongs to no specific religious tradition nor stirs nationalist fervor, with its defining characteristic just a whole lot of hearty eating, and reflecting on what you’re truly grateful for.
Leave it to U.S. consumer culture to tack-on to this idea of being thankful for what you have, a mad rush to buy what you haven’t yet got — and then in more recent years to export to the rest of the world just this consumeristic flipside of the coin. Black Friday has become in the past five years, the giant sales event that conquered all, from Greece to Guyane. (Although some are pushing back, like this French store that decided to make everything free on Friday.)
Nevertheless, even if Thanksgiving itself hasn’t gone global the way the day-after sales have, there’s still a healthy amount of interest as to juuuuust what those Americans are up to with their turkey and pumpkin pie…
German site Praxtipps explains how to celebrate Thanksgiving, making note of the breaking of the wishbone. Most of these align with the “6 Commandments of Thanksgiving” as Marie-Claire explains to its Francophone audience, meaning that the French and the Germans, at least, have understood the basics.
Moving south, Brazil’s O Globo asks, in a short, gif-illustrated listicle, “What if Thanksgiving were celebrated in Brazil?” and concludes that it would probably include an aunt asking uncomfortable questions about your new boyfriend (or potential lack thereof), and might even break into family drama. So, the Brazilians as well have grasped the basics!
I find myself a Homo Festivus, removed from history, living in a continual feast.
On the other side of the world, China’s Global Times decided to play the role of your contrarian uncle (or superpower rival) at the dinner table, judging that this year Americans have very little to be thankful for, and that the dinner itself is going to be far more expensive than last year, due to inflation.
To close it all off back in Paris, I can’t help but chuckle at a take only a far-right French magazine could have. Causeur asks, “can you be a good French person and celebrate Thanksgiving?” A question filled with existential dread, and a response filled with intellectual musings (“I find myself a Homo Festivus, removed from history, living in a continual feast”) and obligatory wine snobbery (“In fact, I feel the same kind of culpability that we, the French, often feel when drinking a foreign wine, worst of all a New World wine…”). The writer ultimately concludes that, yes, one can be a good French person and celebrate Thanksgiving because, after all, the values celebrated at Thanksgiving are situated, in a broad sense, in Western civilization itself.
Would that be Black Friday’s runaway consumerism, mon ami, or Thanksgiving’s original sin of colonialism? Oh nevermind: for today, I’ll just try to be thankful…
📰 FRONT PAGE: MBS Immunity
Like other global newspapers this week, Italian daily Corriere della Sera featured a front-page report on the U.S. decision to recognize diplomatic immunity for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “It was improbable that the United States, trading partner and ally of Saudi Arabia, would clear the way for the arrest of MBS,” writes Corriere’s U.S. correspondent Viviana Mazza. “But guaranteeing him immunity in this way sparked protests from human rights groups.”
🌈🔫 IN BRIEF: LGBTQ+ Gun Culture
Last week’s shooting at a gay bar in Colorado Springs, which left five dead, brought the country’s problematic gun culture back in the spotlight. Reporting from Texas for Spanish daily El Pais, Ferran Bono focuses on the rise of LGBTQ+ self-defense groups in America, that aim for an "inclusive and safe" use of weapons to protect LGBTQ+ events from far-right groups like the Proud Boys. The result: firearms and bulletproof vests among rainbow flags.
😅 SO AMERICAN: Wacky *Yankee Fans
The 2022 World Cup is under way, and virtually nobody outside the U.S. will be paying much attention to the American team’s performance on the pitch. Perdona. Instead, the team’s supporters in the stands are earning some serious applause, from Elvis to Wonder Woman and a very subtle full-body bald eagle.
International outlets are saluting the passing of the father of the Nouvelle Vague movement, considered among the most influential filmmakers ever.
Jean-Luc Godard, the French-Swiss filmmaker who revolutionized cinema in the late 1950s and 1960s as the leading figure of the Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) movement, died Tuesday at the age of 91.
The Paris-born Godard produced now-cult movies such as À bout de souffle (“Breathless” 1960), Le Mépris (“Contempt” 1963) and Alphaville (1965), with his later works always garnering interest among cinephiles, even if often considered inaccessible for the wider public.
Godard's lawyer reported that that the filmmaker had been “stricken with multiple incapacitating illnesses," and decided to end his life through assisted suicide, which is legal in Switzerland, where he'd lived for decades.
Tributes to Godard's art and life have been coming in from all over the world. "We've lost a national treasure, the eye of a genius," said French President Emmanuel Macron. Brigitte Bardot, who played in Contempt, paid her respects on Twitter and Alain Delon expressed his gratitude: "Thank you, Jean-Luc, for the beautiful memories you left us."
Here is a selection of front pages from around the world paying tribute to the iconoclast filmmaker:
U.S. Department of Defense officials report that instead of the typical battalion tactical groups in Ukraine, which number several hundred soldiers, the Russians have now shifted to attacks by smaller units.
A new Pentagon report has found that Russia is continuing to reduce the scale of its military actions toward more "small" operations, which is another sign that it has lowered the ambitions of its invasion of Ukraine.
Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage.
The Washington Post, citing a U.S. Department of Defense official, reports that instead of the typical battalion tactical groups, which number several hundred soldiers, the Russians have now shifted to attacks by smaller units, each ranging from a few dozen to a hundred soldiers. These smaller units have also scaled down their objectives and are targeting towns, villages and crossroads.
The change suggests a decrease in ambition compared to the beginning of the war when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an all-out assault and asserted that Ukraine should be liberated from its historical mistake of seeking national independence. But after a month of failing initial attempts to seize key Ukrainian cities, the Russian ministry announced that its aims would be limited to the southeastern Donbas region. And now the new report suggests even those objectives in Donbas are being scaled back, though the Washington Post reports that Russian troops have made “appreciable gains” between the southern cities of Kherson and Mykolaiv.
Russia Says 1,000 More Ukrainian Soldiers Have Surrendered In Mariupol
A new total of 771 soldiers have surrendered from Azovstal in Mariupol within the last 24 hours.
Russian authorities say that a total of 1,730 soldiers have now surrendered since Monday, after the Russian army took over the last holdout in the strategic port city.
How FSB “Confirmation Bias” Has Driven Putin’s Invasion
Russia has faced failure after failure on the battlefied: retreating first from Kyiv and then from Kharkiv. The ‘second phase of the special operation’ (the withdrawal to the administrative boundaries of Luhansk and Donetsk regions, as well as the capture of southern Ukraine as far as Transnistria) is also proceeding with difficulty.
Why push on? Why bear more losses? Speaking with former FSB agents, Anin Roman attempts to answer these questions for Russian-language digital news outlet iStories Media.
After Vladimir Putin met with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, the latter told NBC: "I think he's in his own war logic right now… his own world... I think he believes he is winning the war."
The FSB, Russia’s security services (main successor of the KGB) and, in particular its most secretive faction, the so-called Fifth Service, is feeding the Russian president’s physical and informational isolation.
"They are selling (him) smoke," a former FSB officer says of his colleagues.
"They were making things up, misinterpreting and sometimes fantasizing, and the leadership was happy to believe it," echoes another former intel officer.
"You have to report what management wants to hear, otherwise you won't get promoted. What's more, you could find yourself in trouble," confirms another secret service interlocutor.
Roman writes that psychologists refer to this cognitive distortion as “confirmation bias:” when a person chooses only the information that is consistent with their ideology or pre-established opinion.
The leadership of both the FSB and the country thereby become "executive morons", who refuse to heed all the information available. The "executive morons", in turn, recruit others like them. The ubiquity of the FSB, penetrating almost all public authorities across the country: police chiefs, judges, governors, ministers, presidential administration officials, top managers of state-owned companies, university rectors - all candidates for these positions are approved by the FSB, does not result in an all-seeing, all-knowing organisation. Rather, everyone is forced to make decisions based on the opinion of the ‘executive morons’, everyone believes the lies they know to be false.
Yuri Shevchuk is considered by some as the greatest Russian rock songwriter of his generation. On Wednesday night, he had some choice of words for President Vladimir Putin, and the Kremlin hierarchy.
In an anti-war speech at the beginning of his concert in the south-central city of Ufa, which has since gone viral, Shevchuck said: "The Motherland, my friends, is not having the president's ass kissed all the time." Most of the crowd broke out into applause before the first song was even sung.
Another Risk For Moscow: Ethnic Separatism On The Rise Across Russian Federation
Launching the large-scale military attack against Ukraine, Russia was bound to risk exacerbating existing socio-economic and political tensions across the vast territory of the Russian federation.
One of the most troublesome for Moscow is the rise of regional and ethnic separatism within many of Russia’s 85 federal subjects, which include republics, krais, oblasts and cities of federal importance (two located on the Crimean peninsula are not internationally recognized).
Pavel Lysyansky, writing for Kyiv-based Livy Bereg, notes that: “Ethnic separatism manifests in the impossibility of performing the main functions of the country since the regional elite of remote regions of Russia will not follow the instructions of the federal center if it is weakened. Read more here.
In Finland And Russia, Deescalating Rhetoric Around NATO And Nukes
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said that Finland’s application to join NATO does not include plans to deploy new military bases or nuclear weapons in the country.
In an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Marin said: "This topic is not discussed. And it all depends on our national decisions. No one will impose bases or nuclear weapons on us if we do not want it. And it does not seem to me that there is an interest to deploy nuclear weapons or open their bases in Finland."
Meanwhile, Moscow has also continued to reverse its rhetoric around the decision by
Finland and Sweden to join NATO, after initial threats by senior officials.
Speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko said in an interview with the Izvestiya newspaper published on Thursday that “in military terms, Russia's reaction will be proportionate and adequate to the presence of NATO in the territories of these two states, to what types of weapons will be deployed,” she said. “But I can assure you that Russia's security will certainly be ensured." she told the newspaper.
U.S. Embassy Reopens In Kyiv
The US flag was raised today over the US Embassy in Kyiv, to mark the official resumption of US Embassy Kyiv operations.pic.twitter.com/e7D90CmZPh
The U.S. has reopened its embassy in Kyiv, which had been closed before the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine of February 24.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the reopening of the embassy in the capital — after diplomats had been evacuated to the Western city of Lviv and then across the border in Poland — is another sign of Washington’s support for Ukraine in the face of the war against Russia.
“When we suspended operations at the embassy, we made the point clear: … this would in no way prevent our engagement with, and support for, the Ukrainian people, government, and civil society as well as our allies and partners," Blinken said.
Other countries, including Switzerland, Israel and Canada, have also reopened their embassies in Kyiv in the last few weeks.
Europe Offers €9 Billion Loan To Ukraine, €300 Billion To End Gas Reliance
International Gas Pipeline route from Russia to Europe
The European Commission has proposed a €9 billion loan to Ukraine to help keep the country going in its fight against the Russian forces. The Commission also wants to set up a reconstruction facility for after the war. "We also need to think about the day after for the wider reconstruction effort,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “The EU would and should not be the only one contributing to this effort.”
The offer was shared only minutes after the EU announced plans to mobilize up to 300 billion euros of investments to end reliance on Russian oil and gas. Russia supplies 40% of the EU's natural gas and 27% of its imported oil, both of which will be brought down to zero by 2030. "We are taking our ambition to yet another level," von der Leyen said as she presented the update at a briefing in Brussels.
G7 Finance Ministers Meet To Discuss Ukraine’s Economy
G7 finance ministers are meeting today in Konigswinter Germany, to discuss a plan to reboot Ukraine’s economy, which has been seriously damaged by the war.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said ahead of the meeting that what has been agreed on so far was “not enough” and encouraged US partners to “join in increasing their financial support.”
This comes after the United States planned to send a $40 billion aid package to Ukraine and Japan saying it will double aid for Ukraine to $600 million in a coordinated move with the World Bank.
Ukraine Forecasts Agriculture Output Will Be Cut In Half, Wheat Prices Will Nearly Double
Ukraine’s agriculture output this year is expected be half that of 2021, the country’s Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Mykola Solsky said on Wednesday.
Beyond that the cabinet minister also warned that, "the next winter planting campaign is in jeopardy" if the war continues.
According to Solsky, the world should prepare for wheat prices to rise to $700 per ton. Currently, the price of a ton of wheat on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is about $430. "Are we ready to pay $500, $600, $700 per ton? The situation is critical for Asian and African countries, which import cereals mainly from Ukraine," Solsky added.
Russian gymnast, Ivan Kulyak, has been disqualified by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) for a year, after displaying the letter “Z” on his chest in March at the World Cup stage in Qatar.
The letter “Z” has been displayed on tanks and vehicles used by the Russian military and has become a symbol of support for the invasion of Ukraine.
Russian athletes are currently suspended indefinitely from competition due to their country’s invasion of Ukraine, and even if the ban is still in effect in a year, another six months will be added to Kulyak’s disqualification.
George W. Bush’s Iraq-I-Mean-Ukraine Gaffe
Former U.S. President George W. Bush mixed up Ukraine and Iraq in a speech criticizing Vladimir Putin’s invasion. He condemned “an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq — I mean, of Ukraine. Anyway.”
Bush launched the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, which has been widely criticized in retrospect, even by those who defended it at the time. The former U.S. president has always stuck by his position.
The annual May 9 commemoration of the defeat of Nazi Germany has extra significance this year with Russia in the full throes of the invasion of Ukraine. There are conflicting reports about how President Vladimir Putin may use the occasion.
There’s no doubt that next Monday, May 9, all eyes will be on Russian President Vladimir Putin. The annual commemoration of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, known in Moscow as “Victory Day,” has extra significance this year with Russia in the full throes of the invasion of Ukraine, which may indeed be the riskiest war since 1945.
Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage.
Of course, two months since the invasion, Putin hasn’t even acknowledged that Russia is at war, calling it a “special operation.” And some sources believe that he will use the May 9 occasion to officially declare war — again, against “Nazis,” as the Kremlin refers to the government in Kyiv.
Yet there’s news published today that essentially predicts just the opposite for May 9. In an exclusive interview with Italy’s Corriere della Sera daily, Pope Francis recounted a recent meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban: “Orban, when I met him, told me the Russians have a plan, that May 9, it will all be over.”
What does the Pope have to say about Orban’s would-be scoop? “I hope it’s true, and that would explain why the escalation is accelerating these days,” the Pope said. “I’m pessimistic, but we must do everything possible to stop the war.”
Shelling Of Odessa, As Mariupol Continues To Evacuate Civilians
Russia launched new rounds of rocket attacks on Odessa and Kharkiv, while In Donbas the main efforts of the invading troops are focused on establishing control over the mid-sized cities of Rubizhne and Popasna. The evacuation of the population from the frontline zone continues, including in the besieged port city of Mariupol.
A missile hit infrastructure facilities in the southern city of Odessa including a church and a dormitory. Teenagers are among the casualties according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Mariupol mayor Vadym Boichenko has said that an evacuation convoy has begun moving from the coastal town of Berdiansk, towards territory held by Ukraine.
The convoy includes many of the first batch of people to have been evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant.
Ukrainian newspaper Novoye Vremya published a photo report showing how the first civilians from Mariupol got to Zaporizhzhya after a two-months of blockade.
The evacuation of civilians from Mariupol from Azovstal began on May 1. On May 2, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories Iryna Vereshchuk said that in the first two days, authorities evacuated more than 100 women, children and the elderly from the Azovstal metallurgical plant.
Pope Says He’s Still Waiting For Invitation From Moscow
Pope Francis says he’s been waiting in vain for more than a month for an invitation from Vladimir Putin to visit Moscow, in an attempt to gain a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine.
In an exclusive interview with Milan-based daily Corriere della Sera, the Pope spoke extensively about the Vatican’s diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
After 20 days of war, the Pope’s top diplomat contacted Moscow saying Francis was willing to go to Moscow: “Of course, it was necessary that [Putin] leaves a window open. We haven’t had any response and we’re continuing to insist, even if I fear that Putin cannot and doesn’t want to have this meeting now.”
Asked whether he would go to Kyiv to meet Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky, the Pope said “I feel like I shouldn’t go. I first have to go to Moscow, to meet Putin first. But I’m a priest, what can I do? I’ll do what I can. If Putin opens his door.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said he does not want to travel to Kyiv until his country’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visits, reports Tagesschau.
After initially standing fully behind Kyiv, Scholz has been criticized in recent weeks for ambivalent actions during the war in Ukraine. After hesitation over supplying Ukraine with heavy weapons, Berlin announced a reversal last week and there was a positive decision on the supply of anti-aircraft tanks.
But there is also criticism that, unlike many other Western leaders, he has not yet arrived in Kyiv to show his support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In the ZDF program "What now, Mr. Scholz?" Scholz defended his course.
Asked when he would leave for the Ukrainian capital, the chancellor said he still considered it "quite unprecedented" that Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier "was expelled." "It hinders the case," Scholz said.
In mid-April, Steinmeier's visit failed because the Ukrainian side did not invite him. He wanted to go to Kyiv with the heads of state of Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, who eventually left without him.
Read this recent Worldcrunch commentary from Kyiv-based Livy Bereg on why Steinmeier is persona non grata in Ukraine.
British Intelligence: Russian Army Has Been Weakened By Ukraine War
The British Ministry of Defense noted that between 2005 and 2018, Russia's defense budget has nearly doubled, due to investments in several high-quality air, ground and sea vehicles. Since 2008, this has been at the heart of a large-scale military modernization program.
"However, the modernization of its physical equipment has not allowed Russia to dominate Ukraine. Failures in both strategic planning and operational implementation have not allowed it to turn numerical capacity into a decisive advantage," said British intelligence.
"Russia's military is now much weaker, both materially and conceptually, as a result of its invasion of Ukraine. Recovery from this will be hampered by sanctions. This will have a lasting impact on Russia's ability to deploy regular military force."
Russia-Israel Clash Deepens
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has doubled down on its inflammatory remarks this weekend about Hitler and the Holocaust, saying Tuesday that Israel supports the “neo-Nazi regime” in Ukraine and again saying that Jews supported Germany’s Nazi regime.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had declared Sunday that Hitler was part-Jewish when he was asked on Italian television about Russia’s accusation that Ukraine was led by Nazis, even though the president Volodomyr Zelensky is Jewish.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Russia foreign ministry said Israel “supports the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv,” and cited “examples of cooperation between Jews and the Nazis” during the Holocaust.
Israeli daily Haaretz called on Israel’s leaders to stand more firmly behind Kyiv, with its lead editorial saying that Lavrov’s comments were a sign of “the real face of Putin.” The State of Israel, which sees itself as the moral heir to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, can’t stand on the sidelines when Jewish history is distorted to justify the atrocities that Russia is committing on Ukrainian soil,” Haaretz wrote.
In a separate article, Haaretz reported that Israeli officials are considering expanding military aid to Ukraine
More Russian Banks To Be Cut Off From SWIFT
The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrel, warned that more Russian banks will soon be disconnected from the SWIFT payment system, reports French daily Les Echos. The measure, which has been part of the sweeping sanctions against Moscow since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, keeps many Russians from doing business or having access to their savings.
Russia Gives Count Of "Rescued" Refugees From Ukraine
The Russian Defense Ministry has published an updated report of those who have arrived from Russia from Ukraine since the invasion began, though the very nature of the “evacuation” of these civilians is contested by Ukraine and the West. Russia says nearly 1.1 million people have been evacuated to Russia since February 24, including almost 200,000 children from Donbas.
"Over the past 24 hours, without the participation of the Ukrainian authorities, 11,550 people, including 1,847 children, have been evacuated to the territory of the Russian Federation from the dangerous regions of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, Ukraine," Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the Russian National Defense Control Center, said on Monday.
The Ukrainian side insists that people from these contested regions of Donbas, in southeastern Ukraine, are being taken out against their will, forced to take Russian citizenship, and resettled in depressed regions of Russia. Ukrainian media outlets have published interviews with refugees who managed to escape from Russia to other countries as evidence of this.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide laws are still the exception, but lawmakers from New Zealand to Peru to Switzerland and beyond are gradually giving more space for people to choose to get help to end their lives — sometimes with new and innovative technological methods.
The announcement last month that a “suicide capsule” device would be commercialized in Switzerland, not surprisingly, caused quite a stir. The machine called Sarcophagus, or “Sarco” for short, consists of a 3D-printed pod mounted on a stand, which releases nitrogen and gradually reduces the oxygen level from 21% to 1%, causing the person inside to lose consciousness without pain or a sense of panic, and then die of hypoxia and hypocapnia (oxygen and carbon dioxide deprivation).
While active euthanasia is illegal in Switzerland, assisted suicide is allowed under certain conditions and under the supervision of a physician, who has first to review the patient’s capacity for discernment — a condition that Sarco aims to eliminate. “We want to remove any kind of psychiatric review from the process and allow the individual to control the method themselves,” Australian doctor Philip Nitschke, the machine’s creator, told news platform SwissInfo. Some argue that this is against the country’s medical ethical rules while others expressed concerns about safety.
But Nitschke says he found the solution: an online AI-based test, which will give a code to the patient to use the device if he passes.
It turned out that the machine, which is still a prototype, has not been approved by the Swiss government agency in charge of regulating medical products, but Nitschke believes he doesn’t need such approval under current Swiss legal guidelines and plans for a third prototype to be operational in Switzerland in early 2022.
Issues surrounding the right to die have been at the center of the debate in several countries particularly this past year — maybe as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and its numerous victims, which forced us to face our own mortality head on.
While euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal in just a handful of countries around the world, more are allowing the practice in certain conditions, or for specific cases.
New Zealand offers choice for terminal patients
Switzerland has legalized 3D-printed pods that allow people to end their lives
New Zealand is one of the latest countries which legalized euthanasia, following a referendum in 2020 with nearly 65% of voters supporting the End of Life Choice Act to become law. The legislation, which came into force in November 2021, includes conditions such as suffering from a terminal illness likely to end the person’s life within six months and being aged 18 or over, with certain steps to go through to ensure a person is eligible. The government also created a committee of three experts as a safeguard, to review reports of those undergoing the procedure.
the procedures are far from widespread and some are still hesitant to legalize them.
“New Zealand became a kinder, more compassionate and humane society for allowing people who are struggling and suffering in those last few days with their terminal illness choice and compassion on how and when they go,” said Brooke van Velden, the deputy leader of the ACT New Zealand party, which promoted the End of Life Choice Act.
Although he refused to disclose the number of assisted deaths since the Act took effect, the Ministry of Health told Stuff it was “fewer than 10,” estimating that up to 950 people could apply for assisted dying each year.
Medical aid in dying for Alzheimer’s and dementia
In Europe, Austria’s parliament has recently approved legislation to legalize assisted suicide for chronically or terminally ill people starting in January 2022, Deutsche Welle reports. The move followed a decision from a court that stipulated that the country’s criminal code ban of assisted suicide was unconstitutional and violated the individual's right to self-determination.
In Quebec, Canada, a government commission has released a report at the beginning of December 2021 that greenlights extending medical aid in dying for people suffering from a serious and incurable illness leading to incapacity, such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, La Presse reports. So far, Quebec’s 2014 “End-of-life care law” had only allowed people who are deemed apt to give consent to make a request for the procedure, excluding those who suffer from neurocognitive disorders.
High-profile cases in Italy and Peru pave the way
A rally for Spain's Right to Die with Dignity movement
In Italy, a country with deep Catholic roots, euthanasia has long been a controversial topic. The practice, condemned by the Church, is punishable by law with a sentence ranging from 5 to 12 years in prison. But this year, the case of a 43-year-old man identified as Mario, who was paralyzed in a traffic accident 10 years ago and asked doctors to end his life, has not only reopened the debate about the right to die in the country but also set an important precedent.
Last summer, Mario wrote an open letter to Health Minister Roberto Speranza, saying he wanted to “die with dignity,” La Stampa reports. A petition asking to reverse the law banning assisted suicide also collected more than 750,000 signatures. In November 2021, Italian authorities cleared the way for Mario to go through with assisted suicide — a historic first for the country, Corriere della Serra reports. An ethical committee ruled that Mario met certain conditions such as suffering from an “irreversible pathology” causing “intolerable suffering” and that he had the capacity to make “free and informed decisions.”
My biggest fear is I will not be able to die.
A similar case took place on the other side of the Atlantic, in Peru, where euthanasia is punishable by up to three years in prison. In February 2021, Ana Estrada became the first person to be granted the right to die in the South American country, after a judge decriminalized the practice specifically for her, El Periodico reports.
The 44-year-old woman has been diagnosed at 12 with polymyositis, an incurable and degenerative disease that weakens her muscles and forces her to stay in bed most of the time. Although the judge refused Estrada’s request to order the Health Ministry to prepare a directive for other similar cases, some hope the ruling will constitute a step toward the legalization of euthanasia in the near future.
Battles over wording of laws
While euthanasia and assisted suicide seem to gain ground in several countries, the procedures are far from widespread and some are still hesitant to legalize them.
In January 2021, Portugal’s parliament voted to legalize euthanasia, setting the country on its way to becoming the seventh in the world to allow the procedure. But last November, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa vetoed the bill for the second time after already refusing to sign a first draft earlier this year, Diario de Noticias reports.
The leader criticized the wording of the proposed law, saying it was too imprecise when it came to the justification of assisted suicide. The legislation has since been shelved until the next elections in January 2022, during which a new parliament will be chosen.
In South Africa, Suzanne Walter, a palliative care specialist, and her patient Diethelm Harck, who have both been diagnosed with terminal diseases, are seeking the legal right to choose assisted dying when their illnesses will become unbearable. They pleaded their case before the Pretoria High Court in early 2021, with Harck saying: “my biggest fear is that when my love of life reaches the stage of fearing life, I will not be able to die.”
While the case is still under review, the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) and the Ministers of Health and Justice are all opposing a potential legalization of euthanasia, with the HPCSA arguing it could open the door to potential abuse.
Giorgia Meloni, rising star of Italy’s far-right, was a member of neofascist organizations in her youth. She insists that she's changed her way, and that fascism is not an Italian peculiarity. Not all agree.
-Essay-
ROME — A couple of weeks ago, under our apartment window, my kids and I heard a neatly lined-up demonstration passing by, chanting a single uninterrupted chorus: "Where are the anti-fascists?" It wasn't a huge crowd, and maybe that's why my kids heard the slogan differently: "Where are the other fascists?"
I recalled this after reading a letter in the Corriere della Sera daily penned by Giorgia Meloni, rising star of Italy's far-right. Her party, Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy), has recently shot up in opinion polls, on the verge of becoming Italy's most popular party. Meloni, now 44, was a member of neofascist organizations in her youth, and uses the letter to insist that fascism is not an Italian peculiarity.
Mussolini once acknowledged that fascism had not been his invention.
If the founder of modern fascism, a certain Benito Mussolini, could read that line, Meloni would get a good talking to. But then again, even Mussolini (never known for his modesty) once acknowledged that fascism had not been his invention — he had extracted it from the unconscious of Italians.
Supporters of the Leader of the Lega Matteo Salvini hold up a sign in solidarity — Photo: LaPresse/ZUMA
Writer and critic Ennio Flaino once wrote that fascism is bossy, rhetorical, xenophobic; it loathes culture, despises freedom and justice, despises the weak, serves the strong, and is always ready to indicate in others the causes of its helplessness. As the years go by, rather than fading, the standard portrait of the fascist seems to become more vivid. And that of the Italian fascist too, which Flaiano argued is part of the national character.
After all, Meloni is a fascist just like most of the rest of us are. But as she becomes more and more convincing to Italians, Meloni has the additional problem of having to tend to the few people who also claim out loud to be fascists — like those parading under my window — and who make up her hardcore supporters, around 20%, according to recent polls. And so, maybe my kids heard right — and I was wrong. They were out looking for the other fascists after all.
We've gotten used to too many people dying, and too many dying alone.
-Analysis-
MILAN — I was recently alerted to an event I had missed here in Italy: A couple of weeks ago, as the government announced the easing of coronavirus restrictions and restaurant workers protested because Italy wasn't reopening fast enough, funeral parlors also took to the streets of Rome. It was "a funeral of funerals," they said.
With wreaths of flowers, hearses and signs of condolences, participants quietly marched near the Baths of Caracalla, close to the city's center. It was an act of mourning, a reaction to the staggering loss of life, yes, but also to the burial crisis that is taking place in Rome as a result.
With hundreds of people still dying of COVID every day in Italy, the capital's cemeteries and crematoriums have been overwhelmed. Crematoriums have waiting lists of hundreds of bodies. Some 2,000 coffins are stacked in improvised waiting rooms as they await their turn to be buried in the city's cemeteries.
Funeral workers with placards ""Apologies but they don't let us bury your loved ones "" during the protest of workers in the funeral sector. — Photo: Cristiano Minichiello/ Avalon/Avalon/ZUMA
The grief of thousands of families remains truncated as a result, and there's little indication that things will change anytime soon. In at least one case, the Italian dailyCorriere della Sera reports that a family has been given an appointment to bury a relative nearly seven months after his death. "We live in a city where dying, too, has become difficult," Paolo Conti wrote for the paper.
We have become numb to the mass death that occurs around us.
I was surprised to catch myself thinking that 2,000 coffins seem like a small number these days. Last week, we gazed mesmerized at the photos of mass cremations in India, as the country became the epicenter of the pandemic and went through a tsunami of deaths. In a spine-chilling quote, a Delhi crematorium worker toldScroll.in that at his workplace: "There are more bodies than wood" to cremate them.
It must be one of the most distinctive characteristics of this phase of the pandemic. More than a year into restrictions, obsessing over how quickly we should get vaccinated, eager to savor our newly found lives, captivated by the incredible tragedies occurring in poorer far-away places, we have become numb to the mass death that occurs around us.
As Celso Ming recently wrote in Estado de Sao Paulo: "One of the consequences of this pandemic is the trivialization of death." People continue to die in large numbers, he pointed. And they die alone, without a funeral, company or last rites, departing for early oblivion and curtailing the mourning of their families. The rest of us, in the meantime, just accept it all — "as if it were a new normal."
Proposed Italian legislation to punish public acts of homophobia continues to be blocked by both the Catholic Church and right-wing politicians. But the country's most popular rapper has entered the debate.
-Analysis-
Whether it's newlywed visitors to the canals of Venice, lovers under Romeo's and Juliet's balcony in Verona or bronze-skinned couples on the beaches of Sicily, public displays of affection have long been part of the everyday scenery in Italy. But if you're gay, it could put your life at risk.
As reported in Corriere della Sera, Christopher Jean Pierre Moreno, a 24-year-old from Nicaragua, was assaulted on a Rome metro platform in February after he'd exchanged a kiss with his boyfriend, Alfredo Zenobio, 28. Before them, a young man had to go under reconstructive surgery after a group of seven people beat him up. His crime? Holding hands with his partner in the central Italian city of Pescara.
These and other stories (with video evidence) have been widely shared by LGBTQ activists who continue to call for a better legal protection of gay people. Some 8,000 people turned out last Saturday for a demonstration urging senators to pass long-awaited anti-homophobia legislation, La Repubblica reported.
Italy remains one of the few European countries deprived of a law specifically punishing homophobic discrimination and violence — the Netherlands passed its Equal Treatment Act as early as 1994, while Britain and France respectively passed similar discrimination protections in 2003 and 2004.
Too many in Italy still see gay people as a threat to the traditional idea of a family.
Over the course of the last 25 years, many attempts have been made by legislators to include LGBTQ rights in Italian law with the most recent being "Ddl Zan", a bill drafted last November by Parliament Member Alessandro Zan. If approved by the Parliament, this new law would punish violence and hate speech with additional fines of up to $7,200 and four years in prison.
With the historical influence of the Catholic Church, too many in Italy still see gay people as a threat to the traditional idea of a family. Despite recognizing same-sex unions five years ago, Italy has the highest rate of social, political and institutional homophobia in Europe, according to the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).
Catholic organisations such as Courage continue to categorize homosexuality as a disease, reports Italian news website Linkiesta, proposing to cure it through so-called "conversion therapy," a practice still legal in Italy.
Though Pope Francis has gone further than any of his predecessors in defending the rights of LGBTQ, the Italian Bishops Conference and rightwing politicians continue to block progress. "There is no need for a new law," the Bishops said in a statement. "(It) would risk opening up to controls on freedom; whereby, rather than sanctioning discrimination, the expression of a legitimate opinion would be targeted." Right-wing League party leader Matteo Salvini recently declared that his duty was to "defend the right of a child to have a mother and a father."
Matteo Salvini joins a demonstration against a proposed trans-homophobia law, in Rome, in June 2020. — Photo: Tenagli Piero/Abaca/ZUMA
Ever since November, the hate-crime legislation has been blocked in the Senate by Salvini's party allies, recently citing the priorities of the pandemic as a reason to stonewall.
One potential breakthrough came at a widely viewed televised concert on May 1 when popular Italian rapper Fedez took to the stage to accuse the League of homophobia. The 31-year-old rapper, very publicly married to fashion icon Chiara Ferragni, made his declaration in Rome, just a mile or so from the metro station where Christopher Jean Pierre Moreno was punched for simply kissing the man he loves.
