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Geopolitics

ARABICA - A Daily Shot Of What the Arab World is Saying/Hearing/Sharing

ARABICA - A Daily Shot Of What the Arab World is Saying/Hearing/Sharing

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh's hold on power may be crumbling faster than his better-known counterpart over in Libya, and the pressure is starting to show.

A R A B I C A ارابيكا

By Kristen Gillespie


YEMEN VIA TWITTER

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh's hold on power may be crumbling faster than his better-known counterpart over in Libya, and the pressure is starting to show. Tens of thousands of protesters are hitting the streets around a country where citizens possess an estimated 23 million guns. Yemen may be fractured and tribal, but more and more people seem to agree that Saleh should step down immediately. Even his own powerful tribe appears to be deserting him. On Tuesday, Saleh claimed that the unrest in Yemen and across the Arab world is being masterminded from a room in Tel Aviv that is controlled by the White House,

*The conspiracy theory was met by @samihtoukan with a hearty: "hahahahahaha."

*@Dima_Khatib added: "Ali Abdullah Saleh is the last person to accuse Washington. Is he not the one who opened Yemen's doors for the Americans to bomb it?"

*"I was not annoyed when Ali Abdullah Saleh said that what is happening in Yemen was planned in a room in Tel Aviv, but was annoyed by the people who clapped," tweeted @almuraisy – a reference to the reaction in the room to his speech.

*Saleh's statement sounds suspiciously like Muammar Gaddafi's assertion on February 14th, just days before protests blew up in Benghazi, that one man was sitting in his house in Nice, France sending out messages to orchestrate the protests.

BLOGGED

*Harvard-trained businessman and blogger Jawad Abbassi observes that most Jordanians have moved beyond what was once the country's major social divide between those of Bedouin origin and Palestinian origin. Today, it is a "polarization that only appears when the discussion turns to reform, transparency and accountability."

GOING VIRAL

*The making of a revolution: "The people want the regime to fall" – the cry heard around the Arab world comes to Lebanon. This news report shows young people setting up the first demonstration tent in the middle of Saida. A soldier tries to get the organizers to leave, but one shouts back and says "the Lebanese are hungry" and goes back to setting up the tent. "We are all responsible for this open demonstration to bring down a corrupt regime," the same young man tells the interviewer. He expressed concern that the military would come back and try to close down the demonstration, but said they intend to stay. "We are trying to bring down a sectarian regime," another young man said. They said they are tired of war and sectarianism. "We are all Lebanese," someone else added.

DATA COLLECTION

*Egypt's youth-driven April 6 movement is beginning to collect the names of everyone who was arrested in connection with the January 25th revolution. The site asks for information about each detainee, including the reason for the arrest.

A TWEET FOR THE ROAD

*"Egyptians sparked the revolution and won their rights, including the right to demonstrate and protest so as not to use these rights and put them on a shelf," one Tweeter says, reminding citizens that work remains to be done.

March 1, 2011

photo credit: illustir

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Society

Not Your Grandma's Nonna: How Older Women In Italy Are Reclaiming Their Age

Women in Italy are living longer than ever. But severe economic and social inequality and loneliness mean that they urgently need a new model for community living – one that replaces the "one person, one house, one caregiver" narrative we have grown accustomed to.

Not Your Grandma's Nonna: How Older Women In Italy Are Reclaiming Their Age

Italy is home to many elderly people and few young ones.

Barbara Leda Kenny

ROMENina Ercolani is the oldest person in Italy. She is 112 years old. According to newspaper interviews, she enjoys eating sweets and yogurt. Mrs. Nina is not alone: over the past three years, there has been an exponential growth in the number of centenarians in Italy. With over 20,000 people who've surpassed the age of 100, Italy is in fact the country with the highest number of centenarians in Europe.

Life expectancy at the national level is already high. Experts say it can be even higher for those who cultivate their own gardens, live away from major sources of pollution, and preferably in small towns near the sea. Years of sunsets and tomatoes with a view of the sea – it used to be a romantic fantasy but is now becoming increasingly plausible.

Centenarians occupy the forefront of a transformation taking place in a country where living a long life means being among the oldest of the old. Italy is the second oldest country in the world, and it ranks first in the number of people over eighty. In simple terms, this means that Italy is home to many elderly people and few young ones: those over 65 make up almost one in four, while children (under 14) account for just over one in 10. The elderly population will continue to grow in the coming years, as the baby boomer generation, born between 1961 and 1976, is the country's largest age group.

But there is one important data set to consider when discussing our demographics: in general, women make up a slight majority of the population, but from the age of sixty onwards, the gap progressively widens. Every single Italian over 110 years old is a woman.

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