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Irene Caselli

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A Boy Looking up at a Man Holding a Book
Ideas

Freeze-Framing Happiness: A Father's Antidote To Parenting Nostalgia

It’s difficult to take a breath in the middle of all of the parenting chaos — but if we aren't able to tell when happy moments are unfolding, we risk missing them altogether.

-Essay-

I’ve spent a few days wanting to write something positive. Something like vignettes of happiness. It’s more challenging than, say, being critical or complaining. I am doing it as a sort of feat of the impossible: to perpetuate this internal sensation that we spend our lives looking for a rerun, though we know these are bubbles which burst, and, when and if they come around again, they come back in different ways, in a way that may be surprising or unexpected.

Why not? After all, I'm regularly relating a tender, loving scene about being a father on at least a daily basis to someone (usually my partner — and the kid’s mum — Irene).

I want to remember the moving things my eldest son Lorenzo, 4, says — and those little milestones achieved by my youngest León, 9 months — and writing seems to be the only way to be sure I won’t forget in the days and weeks to come.

Since I became a father — and since I don’t let some of you forget it — my entire life has practically become one of logging the children's milestones: first tooth, second tooth, first liquid poo, first solid poo, first smile, the daily smile, the first step… you get it.

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Do We Need Our Parents When We Grow Up? Doubts Of A Young Father
Society

Do We Need Our Parents When We Grow Up? Doubts Of A Young Father

As his son grows older, Argentine journalist Ignacio Pereyra wonders when a father is no longer necessary.

It’s 2am, on a Wednesday. I am trying to write about anything but Lorenzo (my eldest son), who at four years old is one of the exclusive protagonists of this newsletter.

You see, I have a whole folder full of drafts — all written and ready to go, but not yet published. There’s 30 of them, alternatively titled: “Women who take on tasks because they think they can do them better than men”; “As a father, you’ll always be doing something wrong”; “Friendship between men”; “Impressing everyone”; “Wanderlust, or the crisis of monogamy”, “We do it like this because daddy say so”.

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Image of a worker repairing a gas pipeline damaged by a Ukrainian military strike on the centre of the town of Volnovakha, Russia
FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Khodorkovsky: Don't Count On A Swift End To The War In Ukraine

The West is deceiving itself if it hopes for a quick end to the Ukraine war. Above all, it must consistently implement an energy transition — otherwise, it will remain at Putin's mercy, writes prominent Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in German daily Die Welt.

-OpEd-

LONDON — In the spring of 2014, I went to Kyiv with a large group of Russians representing the European part of the Russian cultural and social elite to express our solidarity with the Maidan protests in Ukraine, and our disapproval of the Russian annexation of Crimea.

Many of us then flew to Kharkiv and Donetsk to meet with Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine who were concerned about what was happening.

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In Donetsk, among others, I had a conversation with the leaders of those who stormed the regional administration, including Denis Vladimirovich Pushilin, the current head of the "Donetsk People's Republic." Since then, it has been absurd for me to listen to those who still do not understand that the destabilization of eastern Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea were a "special operation" of the Kremlin from the very beginning.

It is amazing that there are still people who do not understand that Putin is not simply riding the wave of an imperial renaissance in Russia. He is consistently pushing this wave himself, helped by clever propaganda and the direct financing of imperialist-minded national patriots. At the same time, he is suppressing the voices of the sane part of society.

Putin has already used war to solve domestic problems four times (1999 in Chechnya, 2008 in Georgia, 2014 and 2022 in Ukraine) — if you don't count the war in Syria and the de facto annexation of Transnistria, a region in Moldova, which did not "catch on" with public opinion. Putin's main goal is to stay in power, although in recent years there has been a shift toward "legacy." This means a partial restoration of the empire and its influence.

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Belarus May Be Pushing Migrants Into The EU Again — This Time With Russian Help
FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Belarus May Be Pushing Migrants Into The EU Again — This Time With Russian Help

In 2021, Belarus strongman Lukashenko triggered a migration crisis when he actively drove asylum seekers to the EU. According to the German government, those numbers are on the rise again.

-Analysis-

BERLIN — In the nine months between July 2022 and March 2023 alone, Germany's Federal Police registered 8,687 people who entered Germany undocumented after a Belarus connection. This has emerged from the Ministry of the Interior's response to an inquiry by MP Andrea Lindholz, deputy chair of the Christian Social Union (CSU) parliamentary group, which was made available to Die Welt.

The migration pressure on the Belarus route — which was now supposedly closed after a huge crisis in 2021 that saw Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko threatening to "flood" the EU with drugs and migrants — has thus increased significantly again.

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"Apparently, about half of the people who enter the EU illegally every month via the German-Polish border enter the EU via Belarus," Lindholz told Die Welt. In an autocratic state like this, border crossings on this scale are certainly no coincidence, she said. "It is obvious that these illegal entries are part of a strategy to destabilize the EU."

In addition to flexible controls at the border with Poland, stationary ones are also needed, said Lindholz. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser should agree on a concrete roadmap with Poland "on how to significantly reduce illegal entries into Germany." Lindholz also called on the German government to revoke landing permits for airlines that facilitate illegal migration via Russia and Belarus.

The Belarus route had already caused concern throughout the EU in 2021. At that time, sometimes highly dramatic scenes took place at the border with Poland. Thousands of migrants tried to enter the EU undocumented — many of them transported there by soldiers or border guards of Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko. Poland even feared an attempt to break through the border en masse.

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Ukraine Blacklist: Shaming The Companies Still Doing Business With Russia
FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Ukraine Blacklist: Shaming The Companies Still Doing Business With Russia

Ukraine has compiled a blacklist of companies it says are "sponsoring" war by still doing business with Russia. The list is causing a stir within the European Union, which is currently working on its 11th round of sanctions.

BRUSSELS — The blacklist is doing the rounds among diplomats in Brussels. It's a sensitive document: a list compiled by the Ukrainian government of what it calls "sponsors of war".

Kyiv accuses more than two dozen companies in Europe, America and Asia of still doing significant business with Russia.

By doing so, it says, they provide Vladimir Putin with large revenues to finance his war. Some companies, the Ukrainians believe, may even be supplying banned products to the Russian army.

Now the blacklist, compiled by a Ukrainian authority called NACP, is getting significant European Union (EU) attention for the first time. The member states are currently negotiating new sanctions against Russia, intending to launch what is now the eleventh package. Technically, they say, the list from Kyiv will not become part of this package. Nevertheless, it is causing quite a stir.

So far, the EU has banned imports of many Russian products, for example coal, oil and vodka. It seized the yachts of oligarchs loyal to Kremlin and froze central bank reserves.

In the eleventh round of sanctions, measures are planned that are to take effect beyond European borders. Experts are calling them extraterritorial sanctions. Brussels plans to punish companies outside the EU that help Putin circumvent the sanctions. That's what makes the list from Kyiv so explosive.

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Photo of a ceiling lamp in front of a blue wall
Dottoré!

Of Earthquakes And Men

"Oh, to sleep as soundly as a man," marvels our Naples-based psychiatrist.

I can feel the earthquake. Or at least, I think I can, because the ceiling lamp isn’t moving. I run upstairs in a frenzy to check on my son. He is sound asleep.

My husband is asleep, too. He hasn’t felt the earthquake, but he has heard me move about. Of course he has.

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Where 'The Zone Of Interest' Won't Go On Auschwitz — A German Critique Of New Nazi Film
Society

Where 'The Zone Of Interest' Won't Go On Auschwitz — A German Critique Of New Nazi Film

Rudolf Höss was the commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp who lived with his family close to the camp. Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest, a favorite to win at the Cannes Festival, tells Höss' story, but fails to address the true inhumanity of Nazism, says Die Welt's film critic.

-Essay-

BERLIN — This garden is the pride and joy of Hedwig, the housewife. She has planned and laid out everything — the vegetable beds and fruit trees and the greenhouse and the bathtub.

Her kingdom is bordered on one long side by a high, barbed-wire wall. Gravel paths lead to the family home, a two-story building with clean lines, no architectural frills. Her husband praises her when he comes home after work, and their three children — ages two to five — play carefree in the little "paradise," as the mother calls her refuge.

The wall is the outer wall of the concentration camp Auschwitz; in the "paradise" lives the camp commander Rudolf Höss with his family.

The film is called The Zone of Interest — after the German term "Interessengebiet," which the Nazis used to euphemistically name the restricted zone around Auschwitz — and it is a favorite among critics at this week's Cannes Film Festival.

The audacity of director Jonathan Glazer's style takes your breath away, and it doesn't quickly come back.

It is a British-Polish production in which only German is spoken. The real house of the Höss family was not directly on the wall, but some distance away, but from the upper floor, Höss's daughter Brigitte later recalled, she could see the prisoners' quarters and the chimneys of the old crematorium.

Glazer moved the house right up against the wall for the sake of his experimental arrangement, a piece of artistic license that can certainly be justified.

And so one watches the Höss family go about their daily lives: guiding visitors through the little garden, splashing in the tub, eating dinner in the house, being served by the domestic help, who are all silent prisoners. What happens behind the wall, they could hear and smell. They must have heard and smelled it. You can see the red glow over the crematorium at night. You hear the screams of the tortured and the shots of the guards. The Höss family blocks all this out.

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Crews Test Drive Damaged Vehicles After Repairs
FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

The Most Likely Result Of Ukraine's Counteroffensive? Negotiations

As we wait for Ukraine's looming counteroffensive, analysts are already looking ahead and asking what will happen after this decisive summer. After brutal battles, a general weariness risks setting in, that could push Ukraine to accept a ceasefire.

-Analysis-

BERLIN — The war in Ukraine is likely to reach its culmination this summer, becoming even more brutal and bloody than before.

Retired Australian general Mick Ryan says Russians will intensify "killing zones" of large-scale minefields, armored trenches and "dragon's teeth" — pyramidal concrete blocks designed to slow advancing military vehicles — to target and lure in Ukrainian forces during attacks.

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The decision-making phase is imminent, according to the consensus of numerous Western diplomats.

It will last until about the end of October, depending on when the rainy season will begin, rendering the soil muddy. More importantly, it will depend on the outcome of the planned Ukrainian counteroffensive, which will determine how to proceed in the fall and winter.

"Everything hangs on this counteroffensive," says former NATO vice chief Alexander Vershbow.

Leaked Pentagon documents show that Washington does not expect a resounding success from the Ukrainians this summer. Even renowned military strategist Markus Reisner of the Defense Ministry in Austria says: "I don't currently believe in a complete collapse of Russian defenses."

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Image of six colorful candies, on which a mini statue of death is standing, looking at a man running away.
Society

Talking To My Four-Year-Old About Death

As he is faced by questions about death from his 4-year-old son during a family visit to Argentina, Recalculating author Ignacio Pereyra replies honestly. "I can only tell him the truth, at least the little truth that I know..."

BUENOS AIRES — An exchange with my four year old.

— Nacho…

— Yes?

— Am I going to die in Argentina or in Greece ?

— I don’t know… why?

— I want to die in Argentina. Can I?

— Well, I don’t know, it could happen in any country. I just hope it won’t happen for a very long time!

— I want to die in Argentina.

— Why?

— Because I like Argentina.

The talk I had with Lorenzo last week was in gentle tones. It’s something I am not used to with my oldest son, who at four, is usually loud, effusive and extremely expressive when we talk.

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Photo of an ashtray full of cigarettes
Dottoré!

No Smoking When The Dottoré Is In

Our Naples-based Dottoré puts out an argument with patients during a night shift at a psychiatric ward.

There is a seemingly obvious and trivial rule that patients in a psychiatric ward have to enforce, for everyone's safety: no smoking at night.

But making sure that people understand and accept it is perhaps one of the most difficult things in our job, especially if the night is busy.

Imagine, then, an agitated patient being admitted at 2 a.m.: ambulances, hubbub, voices of people chasing each other — eventually everybody is awake, and after a while, despite things having quieted down around 3 a.m., no one can fall back to sleep. And that's when the procession starts: patient after patient knocking on my door asking for a cigarette, and a lighter.

And the night goes on, with "no" after "no" seemingly falling on deaf ears.

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A close up of the face of a Benin bronze
Society

Returner's Remorse? Why Germany Is Worried About The Benin Bronzes

Germany is returning looted Benin bronzes back to Nigeria. But there are now concerns that they will now disappear into private ownership or that they will be threatened with damage or loss

-Analysis-

BERLIN — It was supposed to be the world's most extensive repatriation of looted colonial property: the transfer of ownership of some 1,130 Benin bronzes from 20 German ethnological collections to the Nigerian government.

But there has been a great deal of agitation since it was revealed that Ewuare II, the current Oba of Benin, or traditional ruler of Nigeria's Edo State, was appointed the owner and administrator of the first 22 Benin bronzes returned by Germany to the Nigerian state — and for all other old Benin treasures returning to the country.

This was the decision of Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari, published as a decree in the official gazette number 57 of March 28, 2023.

For weeks now, people in Germany have been puzzling over the meaning and consequences of the presidential decree.

Their fear: will important cultural assets disappear into private chambers instead of being shown to the people of Africa?

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Why Is This Brazilian Town Displaying Nazi Photographs?
Society

Why Is This Brazilian Town Displaying Nazi Photographs?

In a small town in southern Brazil, photos of Nazi flags and Hitler supporters are displayed in the entrance hall of a publish building. An investigation by independent media Agência Pública looks into how the Santa Catarina state, a bastion of support of former president Jair Bolsonaro, has a long history of extremist groups and hate speech.

DONA EMMA — Whoever visits the entrance hall of the building of the head of education in Dona Emma, a town with just over 4,000 inhabitants in the southern Brazilian, is faced with a wall full of historical photographs of local families. Among them there are images of flags with the Nazi swastika.

One of the photographs shows children and a man in front of a school. In the background there is a Brazilian flag and a flag of Nazi Germany. The image is accompanied by the caption: "The private German school was maintained by the parents of the students with funds from Germany.”

In another photograph, seven men appear posing while one of them holds a Nazi flag. In the caption, they are described as "Hitler supporters in Nova Esperança," a neighborhood in Dona Emma. The photographs bearing Nazi symbols are mixed with images of the families who founded the region. There is no indication of the names of the people in those in which the swastika appears.

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