Niñas italianas ilegales en Cuba

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Leer en Cuba noticias disidentes >>

Inspired by Ybor uncle, actor calls for protest in Cuba

By Paul Guzzo | Tribune Staff

Orestes Matacena. Photo credit Orestes Matacena

TAMPA — A former anti-Castro militant turned Hollywood actor with family ties to Ybor City has launched a social media campaign that’s drawing international attention with its call for a moment of civil disobedience in Cuba to protest socialism.

Orestes Matacena has over 30 credits to his name, most notably as Jim Carey’s foil in 1994’s “The Mask.”

The 72-year-old entertainment veteran lives in Los Angeles so he wouldn’t expect people in Tampa to recognize him. He’s less forgiving of those who have never heard of his uncle, Orestes Ferrara.

“He is a historic figure,” Matacena said. “And he was an exceptional man. Everyone should know him.”

Ferrara has a historic marker in his honor on the corner of Seventh Avenue and 17th Street in Ybor City, where he gave a speech in 1896 that rallied many local Cubans to return to their native country and take up arms in its War of Independence against Spain.

Ferrara, an Italian native with no ancestral link to the island nation, later fought in the war.

Matacena, a Cuban native, first followed in his uncle’s footsteps as part of an underground militia in the 1960s that sought to overthrow Fidel Castro.

Today, he hopes to push Ferrara’s legacy forward by inspiring others to fight socialism in Cuba.

Orestes Ferrara. Photo provided by Orestes Ferrara (Nephew)

Matacena launched his social media campaign in February. He is asking any Cuban citizen dissatisfied with the government to take to the streets April 1 at noon and make their feelings known via peaceful means.

“It is time for the people of Cuba to demand change,” he said, “They deserve better.”

tbo.com

Pigs eat man: Mafia boss Francesco Raccosta suffers brutal murder in Italy

ITN

Un italiano 'cuentapropista' en Cuba

Restaurante Divino en Calle Raquel No. 50 / Esperanza y Lindero, Mantilla, Arroyo Naranjo, Havana, Cuba 10900/ www.facebook.com

como fue que le entregaron en "usufructo" a un extranjero tan temprano como en 1999 una finca de 2 hectareas rebautizada como "La Yoandra" en referencia a su esposa con mansion incluida, es cosa que habria que preguntarle a la rama italiana del clan de biran.

----------------------------- 

Agencias
LA HABANA , Cuba.- Marco Deluca llegó desde Italia hace más de 20 años a Cuba, fundó una familia y ahora un restaurante, el Divino, donde sirve limoncello, un licor tradicional de su país, que, como él mismo, se adaptó al trópico.

"Mi llegada fue cosa del destino", dijo a ANSA Deluca, sentado junto a su esposa Yoandra Alvarez, cubana, con quien comparte la administración de Divino y de una finca de 20.000 metros cuadrados entregada por el gobierno "en usufructo" en 1999.

De hecho, Deluca, de 51 años, es un "cuentapropista" italiano en Cuba al ser favorecido por las nuevas leyes aprobadas por el gobierno del presidente Raúl Castro en los últimos cinco años.

Estas medidas permiten a privados operar unos 200 negocios y servicios.

Deluca es un informático de profesión y su esposa Yoandra, especialista en temas agrícolas. Forman un matrimonio con cuatro hijos y ambos además son granjeros que recibieron tierras del Estado en usufructo.

"Vine a cuba por vez primera de turista. Aquí un italiano me comentó que en La Habana había un gran centro de cálculo que tenía problemas. Pude contribuir a arreglarlo y me quedé", dijo sobre su arribo.

El incidente le permitió aplicar un programa de cálculo, el Assets, que usan muchas entidades cubanas estatales, incluyendo ministerios. DeLuca es hoy el presidente de la firma Assets.

El restaurante Divino está situado en el barrio de Nazareno, entre el campo y la ciudad, pero sólo a unos 10 kilómetros del centro de La Habana.

Regalo de la casa

Tiene capacidad para 50 comensales "como indica la ley cubana", advierte Deluca, y ofrece un momento de paz cercana a la que se le atribuye al paraíso. Su menú diario ofrece comida cubana e italiana. El limoncello es un "regalo de la casa".

"Se hace con limones especiales en Italia. En Cuba abusé un poquito de la fórmula y uso la cáscara del limón criollo, el alcohol de caña de azúcar. Hago un 'limoncello' italiano pero a la vez 'cubano'", sostuvo.

El 'limoncello cubano', con cierta licencia poética, se parece a su creador. "Extraño a Italia como todo italiano que se precie, pero ya no puedo sustituir a Cuba", dijo.

Si Divino es un típico negocio nacido en Cuba al calor de las transformaciones, con 14 empleados la finca La Yoandra es algo diferente.

Es considerada un jardín botánico en el cual además se cumplen "tareas comunitarias" y planes de ayuda social a familias de los alrededores, especialmente a niños.

Produce 107 especies de frutales, entre estos guayaba y también anón, chirimoya y guanábana, frutas autóctonas muy escasas y hasta raras actualmente por no haber sido priorizadas por los "planes estatales".

"Vengan a invertir"

DeLuca envió un mensaje a sus colegas empresarios italianos. "Pueden venir a invertir. Cuba estuvo casi paralizada por 50 años y ahora trabaja duro. Habrá que olvidarse de la imagen paradisíaca de tomar piña colada debajo de la palmera", advirtió.

El hombre, que es delegado en Cuba de la asociación italiana Sommeliers, muestra a ANSA con orgullo su bodega de "envejecimiento" del vino, una "cava", como la llama, que es "la mejor de Cuba". Con temperaturas y humedad constantes, como indica la mejor tecnología vitivinícola, guarda vinos excelentes y también colecciones de botellas de vino, cervezas, rones y refrescos de Cuba de otras épocas y de diversos países.

En esa especie de sótano, un empleado prepara Limoncello. "Ese es mi regalo a los amigos", subrayó.

Unhappy Italian climbs onto dome of St Peter’s in protest - again

photoblog

Andreas Solaro / AFP - Getty Images

Italian businessman Marcello De Finizio stands on the dome
of St Peter's basilica to protest against austerity measures on
May 21, 2013 at the Vatican.

By Reuters

A man climbed onto a ledge on the dome of St Peter's Basilica on Monday and unfurled a banner protesting against a "political horror show," an apparent reference to Italy's embattled coalition struggling with recession and high unemployment.

Identified by police as Marcello Di Finizio, the man unfurled a white banner reading "Stop this massacre!" in English, scrawled in black and red ink, with "Help us Pope Francis" in Italian.

Di Finizio, who was still on the ledge on Tuesday, has staged similar protests in the past. Last October he stayed overnight on the dome with a banner criticizing multinationals, Europe, and former Prime Minister Mario Monti. Read the full story.

Fallen Italian nobles turn castles into Bed & Breakfasts

Silvia Marchetti , NBC News contributor

Courtesy Miari Fulcis Family

Italian princes and countesses, struggling under the European economic crisis, are converting their dream-like castles into bed and breakfasts and luxury vacation rentals. The wealth of the aristocracy has shrunk across centuries and heirs, unable to live-off what remains of family fortunes and assets, have become entrepreneurs.

While noble titles haven't held legal value since Italy's monarchy was abolished in 1946, a loophole in the Republic's 1947 constitution allowed them to be retained as part of a family name. The titles still carry cachet, however, when it comes to attracting tourists to rent out the spare tower.

Courtesy Castel Venezze

“Americans who love to meet, talk and dine with a count or prince”, Countess Maria Giustiniani, landlord of Castel Venezze, a 1400’s rural domain near Venice she turned into a resort, told NBC News. Renovations cost several million dollars and required taking out a since-repaid mortgage. Monthly maintenance on the 80 acre property runs several thousand dollars per month. The countess declined to specify revenue, except to say she was satisfied with it.

Not everyone is happy with their numbers, though. "Our business is currently in deficit”, said Count Francesco Miari Fulcis. He manages the 740-acre Fattoria di Maiano for his mother, Countess Lucrezia Miari Fulcis of the Corsini Princes. European royalty, including Queen Victoria, used to stay over at the invitation of its former English owner, Sir John Temple Leader.

Courtesy Countess Stefania Von Holstein

The Castle of Scipione boasts two suites, one of which is in the watch tower, 

rented out for $170 a day.

“Revenues have dropped 25-30 percent compared to 2007, sustaining agriculture is expensive, while sky-high property taxes and hell-like bureaucracy are straining us. You can’t live on asset value anymore,” said the Count. Overall maintenance for both tourist and agriculture activities, including the costs of running the on-site olive oil farm and production facility, average to a million dollars per year, he said.

Prince Gabriele Alliata di Villafranca restyled his 1600’s country estate in Sicily, "Le Case del Principe," into a set of luxury villas which he rents out for tourists, business meetings, weddings, and other events.

"You don’t get a single penny from agricultural farms like mine in southern Italy, and if you hope to live on the production of oil, oranges and wine... campa cavallo che l'erba cresce," said the Prince [translation: while the grass grows, the steed starves].

But finding new uses for the historic villas keeps aloft more than just the balance sheet.

Remembering when as a boy he used to ride on his bicycle out to the estate that was his family summer's home, Prince Gabriele said, "I didn't want this place to become a ruin."

To keep the estate from crumbling into the ground, Countess Maria Giustiniani's father renovated the estate after it was abandoned for several decades after major floods hit in the 1950's. "I’ll never be able to recover all the capital I spent here, but my five sons will," she said. "The estate now works marvelously: it’s an oasis in the desert."

Countess Stefania Von Holstein runs with her husband the medieval Castle of Scipione of the Marquises Pallavicino, among Italy’s oldest families. The economic crisis has hit them too. Unlike the other estates, they only opened it up to tourism after the beginning of the downturn in 2008.

"A castle is a common good to be shared with others, as in the Middle Ages when travelers took refuge here," said the Countess.

Keep reading on NBCNews >>

Italy's constitutional crisis: An ageing problem

EconomistMagazine

Polls: Cigar-chomping former communist will be Italy’s next leader

Pier Luigi Bersani/ Reuters

worldnews

By Frances D'Emilio, The Associated Press

ROME -- If opinion polls are right, he's the man headed to win Italy's elections this month.

No, not Silvio Berlusconi, the flamboyant media mogul chased out of office by Europe's debt crisis and attempting a comeback. Nor Mario Monti, the star economist-turned-premier credited by financial circles with saving Italy from ruin.

Grabbing fewer headlines but a greater share of support: Pier Luigi Bersani — a cigar-chomping former communist with a resume thick with unglamorous posts and almost zero name recognition outside Italy.

His high forehead burrowed in a frown, Bersani came across as looking so stern in early campaign posters that aides had to scramble to replace them with ones showing him smiling. Still, he handily beat the easy-going, rakishly handsome young mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, in a primary last fall of their Democratic Party to become the center-left candidate for premier.

'The opposite of Berlusconi'And that might point to his appeal: Italians seem to find his complete lack of glamour refreshing after the rambunctious Berlusconi years.

"His strongest point is he's the opposite of Berlusconi," said Jonathan Hopkin, a political scientist at the London School of Economics. "Berlusconi is a showman. He (Bersani) is not entertaining."

The ascent of Bersani — whose camp in late January enjoyed roughly 33 percent support against some 27 percent for the Berlusconi side — also has much to do with his ability to draw on the former Communist Party's entrenched network of activists, funding and economic connections, such as business cooperatives. The publication of poll results is banned in the last two weeks before elections in Italy.

But in the counterintuitive world of Italian politics, Bersani has long embraced economic liberalization in several stints in government.

As industry minister, Bersani waged an uphill battle to free up such areas of the economy as energy, insurance and banking services.

Even the smallest reform efforts brought resistance. Operators of Italy's gasoline retail network called a strike in 2007 when the government decided to allow supermarkets to sell gasoline. Similar protests frustrated plans to auction off taxi licenses and to allow supermarkets to sell nonprescription drugs such as aspirin. Years later, even Monti had no luck trying to persuade the powerful lobby of pharmacists to surrender their hold on nonprescription drugs.

As transport minister, Bersani branded unions "irresponsible" when an airport ground workers' strike combined with an air traffic controllers' strike on the same weekend train workers walked off the job.

He also worked to undo the center-left's image as supportive of a sprawling state economy, especially in the energy sector. He championed legislation that ended a 37-year-old monopoly by then state-controlled electric utility ENEL.

Born in 1951 — 15 years to the day after Berlusconi — Bersani grew up in Emilia Romagna, the affluent north-central region at the heart of Italy's so-called "red belt." There, citizens in cities like Bologna voted for decades for Italy's communists, and later, for the communists' post-Soviet heirs.

Bersani's website shows him posing in a childhood photo with his parents against a backdrop of Esso gas pumps. His father, a car mechanic, ran a gas station.

In his autobiography, Bersani recounts an episode from his childhood that points to what might drive him as a leader.

He once organized a strike of fellow altar boys after the church pastor refused to divvy out to the tips that families left for them after weddings or baptisms. "The pastor would seize the money and buy sweets and nougat bars for us at Easter and Christmas. That didn't seem fair to me."

So during one ceremony, the altar boys took off their cassocks and walked out of the church. "The next Christmas, the pastor gave the boys an equal share of the tips of that year, stipulating one condition: that our mothers knew the exact figure we got."

Fairness is a quality Bersani promises to promote if elected premier: "At the first Cabinet meeting, we have to think about those who have nothing to eat," he told a campaign rally.

Why Italy's scariest Mob loves Canada

National Post/

Nicolo Rizzuto

SIDERNO - For a man who lives with an imperishable death sentence hanging over his head, shadowed by bodyguards everywhere he goes, Alberto Cisterna is full of welcoming good grace and joviality as he sweeps into his office on the fourth floor of the National Anti-Mafia Directorate, housed in a brown-brick building on a quiet street in the historic centre of Rome. Informally attired in a checkered shirt and fashionable eyeglasses, the 41-year-old is one of Italy's most famous anti-Mafia magistrates.
For the past two decades, he has waged war against the 'Ndrangheta, (pronounced ENdrangGETA), which is now Italy's most powerful, secretive and richest Mafia organization, having eclipsed Sicily's Cosa Nostra in influence.
Moreover, he has been so effective in prosecuting 'Ndrangheta leaders that a few years ago the Italian police discovered he had been targeted for assassination, his car slated for an ambush using armourpiercing bullets.
It is the kind of dramatic plot typical of the bold tactics of the 'Ndrangheta, which originates from Calabria, the southernmost province of Italy's mainland and which has emerged as Europe's most dominant organized crime group, responsible for importing 80% of the cocaine consumed on the continent and earning an estimated ¤36-billion ($52-billion) a year in revenue from its illegal and legitimate enterprises.
What is more, says Mr. Cisterna, the organization has a heavy presence in Canada. "There is a massive number of their people in North America, especially in Canada and Toronto," he said in an interview. "And for two reasons. The first is linked to the banking system. Canada's banking system is very secretive; it does not allow investigation. So Canada is the ideal place to launder money. The second reason is to smuggle drugs." Indeed, the 'Ndrangheta, like most organized crime, have found Canada a useful North American entry point given its porous ports and proximity to the United States.
The 'Ndrangheta's presence in Canada is long and storied. It has been here since at least the 1950s, with its Canadian branch labelled the "Siderno Group" because its members primarily came from the Ionian coastal town of Siderno in Calabria. Siderno is also home to one of the 'Ndrangheta's biggest and most important clans, heavily involved in the global cocaine business and money laundering.
Three years ago, a couple of important members of the Siderno clan fled to Canada to escape prison sentences in Italy, moving into the middle-class, sprawling northern suburbs of Toronto. One of them, Antonio (The Lawyer) Commisso is actually the boss of the Siderno clan, while Riccardo Gattuso was wanted for murder, suspected as one of the clan's hit men. They were both deported to Italy in 2005.
"The criminal minds of Siderno are in Canada," said a senior member of the Siderno police force, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Indeed, there are believed to be at least eight members of the Calabrian Mafia living openly in northern Toronto who are wanted fugitives in Italy.
Giuseppe Lumia, vice-president of Italy's parliamentary anti-Mafia commission, says the 'Ndrangheta outpost in Canada is heavily involved in cocaine trafficking. "They don't have a monopoly on cocaine trafficking, but they are very present with other Mafioso organizations," he says, observing that the 'Ndrangheta has also worked with Montreal godfather Vito Rizzuto, included in a plan authorities believe was to launder billions of dollars through a bridge to be built from Sicily to Italy's mainland.

The window through which the fatal bullet was fired to kill Nicolo Rizzuto

The reach of the 'Ndrangheta is vast, extending not only the length of Italy and throughout most of Europe, but as far afield as the cocaine cartels of Colombia and outposts in Australia and the United States. Whether it is laundering drug profits through supermarkets and hotels in Germany, purchasing entire neighbourhood blocks in Brussels, landing public works construction contracts in Italy, trafficking Kalashnikov assault rifles, or even trading in nuclear waste, the 'Ndrangheta is ubiquitous. Moreover, it is corrupting Italy's political institutions.
"As the 'Ndrangheta has increased its economic power, it has transformed it into political power," says Mr. Lumia.
The 'Ndrangheta is rarely out of the headlines in Italy these days: There is the fallout from recent killings in the German city of Duisburg -- when six men were mowed down with machine guns as they left a pizzeria, wiped out by a rival 'Ndrangheta faction over a grab for power; the unfolding soap opera of Italy's justice minister trying to transfer a magistrate from Calabria who is investigating links between the 'Ndrangheta and politicians; and reports that one of the clan's soldiers, a co-operating witness to the 2005 murder of a Calabrian politician, had committed suicide while in protective custody.
This last case shows the difficulty Italian authorities are having in curbing the rise of what magistrates describe as a perfect organized crime entity. Much like the Cosa Nostra, the 'Ndrangheta's roots go back to the 1800s when it emerged as a local enforcement organization in the dirt-poor, lawless southern tip of Italy. The word 'Ndrangheta loosely translates as "honoured society," drawn from a decentralized structure based on small clans (or ndrine) originating in tiny villages.
Today, there are an estimated 75 to 150 clans with 10,000 "made men," who typically recruit blood relations. "The 'Ndrangheta has a family structure," explains Nicola Gratteri, the senior magistrate in Calabria who has fought the 'Ndrangheta since 1991. "Every locali, or cell, is composed of people that belong to a family.... This is why they never collaborate with us."
Indeed, while 1,000 members (called pentito) of the Cosa Nostra have co-operated with the Italian police -- helping break the back of the Sicilian Mafia in the '90s -- only 42 such turncoats have emerged from the 'Ndrangheta.
While the 'Ndrangheta has always made money extorting local businesses (levying a tax called il pizzo) and snagging public works construction contracts, what helped propel them into the big leagues was kidnapping. The most famous occurred in 1973 when the 'Ndrangheta kidnapped John Paul Getty III, grandson of American oil billionaire J. Paul Getty, and cut off one of the teenager's ears to garner a US$3.2-million ransom. Mr. Gratteri says the profit from kidnapping allowed the clans to move into cocaine smuggling in the '80s, forming close ties to Colombia's Medellin cartel. The magistrate says the Colombians prefer dealing with the 'Ndrangheta because "they are sure they will never be betrayed by them."
Despite its wealth and power, the 'Ndrangheta remains rooted in small villages clinging to six square miles of the Aspromonte mountains in Calabria, in particular two hamlets, Plati and San Luca. Neither of the villages has more than 4,200 residents, and both are heavily dominated by members of the 'Ndrangheta. They are windswept, desolate places whose streets are filled with widows dressed in black. In 2001, when Mr. Gratteri ordered a raid on Plati, the police discovered an underground network of tunnels and bunkers designed to hide fugitive 'Ndrangheta bosses.
San Luca, called the "mother of the 'Ndrangheta," is home to two clans embroiled in a feud leading to the killings in Duisburg this past August. Two of the dead men came from this village. The feud was sparked afresh last December when the wife of one clan leader was gunned down outside her home. Today, the only person who will speak to journalists is the local pastor, Don Pino Strangio, labelled the "mafia priest" by Italy's media.
Sitting in the antechamber of San Luca's monastery, the priest says the feud has taken its toll on everyone. "Every murder is a debacle," he says. "For us, we are used to live a 'death life', which is not a life, it's a dramatic experience difficult to explain."
The 'Ndrangheta wields violence to settle scores, eliminate those who pose a threat, or simply to terrorize the locals. Their methods can be gruesome: In 1991, the 'Ndrangheta murdered a butcher in the village of Taurianova in broad daylight, in front of his own shop, by cutting off his head with one of his own knives and then using the head for target practice in the main piazza. Not one eyewitness to this public slaying came forward. Last year, a businessman in the port town of Giaio Tauro was found dead in his torched car on a beach, having been shot in the neck. Fedele Scarcella, 71, had fought the 'Ndrangheta's attempts to extort money from his retail business.
Despite all of this, while the 'Ndrangheta was once able to go about its business quietly, it now has Italy's undivided attention. "The state concentrated on the Cosa Nostra and underestimated the 'Ndrangheta," concedes Giuseppe Lumia of Italy's anti-Mafia parliamentary commission. "It was a mistake.... They can be stopped. They have the power in Calabria, but they can be stopped."

Italy's reporter detained in Cuba to fly back tomorrow

no picture allowed for whom you know. we have to wait until they are safe in italy.
------------------------------- 
Agenzia Giornalistica Italia/

(AGI) - Trieste, Sept 30 - Messaggero Veneto journalist Domenico Pecile will be back in Italy tomorrow. Cuban police had detained Pecile and three other Italian reporters who had come to the island to interview a man suspected of double murder in Lignano Sabbiadoro with his half-sister. Pecile will leave Cuba tonight and will arrive in Milan's Malpensa airport tomorrow evening after a 5 p.m. connection flight in Madrid.
 Pecile told regional Friuli Venezia TV news that he was in good physical shape though somewhat stressed, and that he had been treated well. Pecile said Reiver Laborde Rico was completely at ease during their interview about the murder on Saturday.
 Laborde Rico said he was not hiding anything. The man said he had nothing to do with the murder in Lignano and that his sister had been forced to confess. (AGI) . .

Tres periodistas italianos se encuentran detenidos en Cuba

Lisandra Laborde Rico/ nanduti.com.py

EFE/

Roma -- - Tres periodistas italianos se encuentran detenidos en Cuba, donde habían viajado para investigar sobre el homicidio de una pareja de ancianos en Italia el pasado agosto, y por el que confesó la joven cubana Lisandra Laborde Rico, confirmó hoy el Ministerio de Exteriores italiano.
La página de internet del telediario TgCom24, que pertenece al grupo Mediaset, informó hoy de que este viernes fueron detenidos la periodista de este medio Ilaria Cavo; el cámara que la acompañaba, Fabio Tricarico; el redactor del diario “Messaggero Veneto”, Domenico Pacile, mientras que el fotógrafo del “Corriere della Sera” Stefano Cavicchi fue puesto en libertad después de algunas horas por “irregularidades en su visado”.
Los periodistas habían viajado a Cuba para entrevistar al hermano de Lisandra, Reiver Laborde Rico, de 24 años, que está acusado por la Justicia italiana de haber participado en el asesinato del matrimonio italiano el pasado 19 de agosto en Lignano Sabbiadoro (norte).
Lisandra, residente en Italia desde hace más de diez años y vecina de la pareja de ancianos, confesó ser la autora del asesinato de tras ser arrestada por los Carabineros (policía militar italiana) el 16 de septiembre.
Desde entonces, las autoridades italianas buscan a su hermano, del que después se supo que había regresado a Cuba, ya que es sospechoso de haber sido cómplice en el doble asesinato.

Read more here: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2012/09/29/1310809/tres-periodistas-italianos-se.html#storylink=cpy

Ryder Hesjedal makes history as first Canadian to win Giro d'Italia

Attack on Italian nuke chief raises fears of anarchist violence

Luca Zennaro / EPA

Italian military police investigate the site where Roberto Adinolfi, the chief executive of a state-controlled nuclear company, was shot in Genoa, Italy, on Monday.

By msnbc.com and news services

MILAN - The head of a nuclear power company was shot in the leg by an unidentified gunman in Italy on Monday, police said, in an incident reminiscent of politically motivated violence that raged in the country in the 1970s and 1980s.

Roberto Adinolfi, chief executive of Ansaldo Nucleare, a company linked to Italian defence conglomerate Finmeccanica, was shot in the street outside his house in Genoa in northern Italy, police said.

Shooting people in the legs was a trademark practice by the Red Brigades, a left-wing guerrilla group that carried out a campaign of murder and kidnapping aimed at destabilizing Italy in the 1970s and 1980s.  More >>

ITALIA vs CUBA : Olympic Boxing

That's why nobody like olimpic boxing.

Scientists: Venice sinking five times faster than thought

Read >>

How to Refloat a Capsized Liner

Discovery News/ Eric Niiler

How do you turn over a 952-foot cruise ship that’s capsized on a rocky shoreline?

Marine engineers around the world are speculating on the best way to refloat the Costa Concordia, an operation that will begin as soon as authorities account for all the missing passengers.The Italian ship with 4,200 passengers and crew ran aground Friday in 45 feet of water as it was passing the island of Giglio off the coast of Tuscany. As of Tuesday, 11 people had been killed and more than a dozen were still missing.

Although the ship lies on its starboard side and is in shallow water just offshore, Italian coast guard authorities fear that worsening weather is pushing it into deeper water which could make the rescue and salvage operation more difficult. Italian environmental officials have also asked the ship’s owner, Miami-based Carnival Cruise Cruise Lines, to come up with a plan to remove 2,000 metric tons of diesel fuel that remain in the hull of the stricken liner.

“Nobody wants a wreck removal where you have to chop it up,” said Joe Farrell III, a marine salver and naval architect at Resolve Marine Group in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “You want to take enough weight off it so it will float off the bottom. The thing is on its side. You’d need to roll it right side up and you would need a crazy amount of force to do that.”

Farrell recently returned from Sri Lanka where he salvaged a group of four ships, and also rescued a stranded cruise ship in the Arctic Canadian waters last year. Once the diesel fuel is removed from the ship, a process that will take at least several weeks, it will become more buoyant.

Salvers also may decide to force air into its ballast tanks in order to blow out water that has leaked through a 165 foot gash along the side. The damage would likely be repaired only after workers cut away the jagged edges around the gash and weld steel plates to the hull. The entire operation can be modeled on computer programs that predict the kinds of stresses that the ship can handle.  Read More >>

Captain's favor to head waiter to blame for cruise ship disaster?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services

La Repubblica newspaper has published what it says is a telephone conversation between the port authority and the captain of the Costa Concordia on the night the cruise ship veered off course and crashed into rocks off the coast of Tuscany, NBC News reports.

The transcript of the conversation is in the hands of prosecutors.

The captain, Francesco Schettino, had sailed perilously close to the coast so that the Costa Concordia's head waiter could salute his family on land, according to other media reports.

Here is the translation of the conversation between him and the port authority shortly after the accident, according to NBC News:

00:32amThe port authority asks the captain, Francesco Schettino, how many people are left on board. He says 200-300, therefore claiming unrealistically that 4,000 people were evacuated in only 40 minutes. It quickly becomes clear he has already abandoned ship.

Schettino: "Now I'll go back up", he claims. "I came out to check out to figure out what was happening."

PA (Port Authority):"Will you be the last on board?"

Schsttino:"I will be the last on board."

00:42amPA asks how many people still need to be evacuated.

Schettino:"I called and they told me there are about 100 people. I am coordinating the operations. But I can't go back on it. We have abandoned the ship."

PA:"Captain, did you really abandon the ship??"

Schettino:"No, no, I am here, I am coordinating the evacuation."

PA:"Captain, this is an order, now I am in charge. Get back on that ship and coordinate the operations. There are already casualties."

Enzo Russo/AFP/Getty Images

The captain of the Costa Concordia, Francesco Schettino, is escorted by an Italian policeman in Grosseto on Saturday.

Schettino:"How many?"

PA:"You should tell me that! What do you want to do, go home? Now you get back on that ship and tell us what can be done, how many people are still there and what do they need."

Schettino:"OK, OK, I am going."

(The captain will not get back on the ship)

Meanwhile, Italian coast guard officials late Monday raised number of missing from Friday's shipwreck to 29 -- four crew members and 25 passengers, a top coast guard official, Marco Brusco, said on state TV. That total is up from 16 cited by authorities earlier in the day. Bruno didn't immediately explain the rise. Six bodies have been recovered.

Story updated 4:53 p.m. ET: The captain of the luxury cruise ship that capsized after hitting rocks off Italy had sailed perilously close to the coast to "make a bow" to people on a Tuscan island, according to media reports.
Francesco Schettino made the dangerous maneuver so that the Costa Concordia's head waiter could salute his family on land, according to reports.
Schettino denies charges of manslaughter and his lawyer has said his actions had saved many lives. More >>

On The Inside- The Leaning Tower of Pisa [Documental]

The End of Silvio Berlusconi's Political Life

Original Sin And The Euro Crisis

Paul Krugman/ NYT
A quick note right now, maybe more later.
One question that keeps coming up is, how can I reconcile my scorn for warnings about bond vigilantes with what is happening to Italy? This seems especially pointed because I have in the past used Italy’s ability to carry debt exceeding its GDP as an illustration that debt concerns were overblown.
The answer lies in the concept of original sin. Not the Pope’s kind, but the economics kind — the long-standing notion that developing countries were especially vulnerable to financial crises because they borrowed in foreign currency. (Yes, the linked paper actually raises some distinctions between currency mismatch and original sin; never mind for now).
The key point is that by joining the euro, Italy took a bite of the apple — it converted its advanced-country status, as a nation issuing debt in its own currency, into original sin, with debts in someone else’s currency (Europe’s in principle, Germany’s in practice). That is the root of its new vulnerability.
More on all this later, I hope.