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Italy

The Unbelievably Over-The-Top City Of Naples Stuffed Into One Awesome Traffic Jam

LA REPUBBLICA (Italy)

Worldcrunch

NAPLES- They say if you want to enjoy Italian theater, just walk out the front door. That goes 20 times over in the endlessly colorful southern city of Naples.

Just such teatro di strada is all here in this amateur video (below), as a man unsuccessfully tries a U-turn in a tight street on the outskirts of the city. What follows? A motorcycle club, the middle-aged driver worrying about his mamma and his Fiat, a chanting Catholic procession, useless emergency workers, a prosciutto strapped on the back of a bike...and just about everyone and everything else around getting soaked up into this singular, once-in-a-lifetime moment. Just like every other day in Naples...

Note: Check below for a viewer's guide in case you miss anything. But don't worry about the bits of dialogue in the local dialect -- they are saying what you'd guess they're saying. So otherwise, just enjoy this sweet slice of Neapolitan life...


Video highlights:

0:06 - Uh oh..problemmino

0:14 - First honking starts

0:38- The bikers pull up

1:07- The procession arrives, singing slowly fades...

1:28- Coming down from the balcony for a closer look

1:35- An angry lady ain't holding back

1:55- The driver says: “Mamma, don’t worry, I’ll get us out of here”

2:12- The priest hands over his cross so he can coordinates the collective U-turn.

2:29- The priest is firmly in charge

2:47- They ask the priest whether they should all lift the car up and turn it themselves? The priest sees the broken wing mirror on a nearby car and tries to keep order in the crowd that has gathered.

3:00- Explaining to the alterboys what’s going on

3:05- Shot of the leg of ham (prosciutto) on one of the motorbikes.

3:18- The angry lady again

3:35- "Leave me alone, let me turn the car"

3:59- The priest guides car out

4:04- As the car clears the turn, assembled crowd lets out sarcastic (or maybe sincere?) chorus of: “bravo, bravo, bravo, bravo, bravo!”

4:34- A flower send-off

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Finally Time For Negotiations? Russia And Ukraine Have The Exact Same Answer

The war in Ukraine appears to have reached a stalemate, with neither side able to make significant progress on the battlefield. A number of Western experts and politicians are now pushing for negotiations. But the irreconcilable positions of both the Russian and Ukrainian sides make such negotiations tricky, if not impossible.

photo of : Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, left, presents a battle flag to a soldier as he kisses it

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky presents a battle flag to a soldier at the Kyiv Fortress, October 1, 2023.

Ukraine Presidency/Ukrainian Pre/Planet Pix via ZUMA
Yuri Fedorov

-Analysis-

The Russian-Ukrainian war appears to have reached a strategic impasse — a veritable stalemate. Neither side is in a position at this point to achieve a fundamental change on the ground in their favor. Inevitably, this has triggered no shortage of analysts and politicians saying it's time for negotiations.

Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage.

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These conversations especially intensified after the results of the summer-autumn counteroffensive were analyzed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valerii Zaluzhny, with not very optimistic details.

Though there are advances of the Ukrainian army, it is mostly “stuck in minefields under attacks from Russian artillery and drones,” and there is a increasing prospect of trench warfare that “could drag on for years and exhaust the Ukrainian state.”

Zaluzhny concluded: “Russia should not be underestimated. It suffered heavy losses and used up a lot of ammunition, but it will have an advantage in weapons, equipment, missiles and ammunition for a long time," he said. "Our NATO partners are also dramatically increasing their production capacity, but this requires at least a year, and in some cases, such as aircraft and control systems, two years.”

For the Ukrainian army to truly succeed, it needs air superiority, highly effective electronic and counter-battery warfare, new technologies for mining and crossing minefields, and the ability to mobilize and train more reserves.

China and most countries of the so-called global South have expressed their support for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Meanwhile in the West, certain influential voices are pushing for negotiations, guided by a purely pragmatic principle that if military victory is impossible, it is necessary to move on to diplomacy.

The position of the allies is crucial: Ukraine’s ability to fight a long war of attrition and eventually change the situation at the front in its favor depends on the military, economic and political support of the West. And this support, at least on the scale necessary for victory, is not guaranteed.

Still, the question of negotiations is no less complicated, as the positions of Russia and Ukraine today are so irreconcilable that it is difficult to imagine productive negotiations.

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