Arts and Culture
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Juliet’s Secretaries
Shakespeare turned Romeo and Juliet into the most famous teenage couple in history. Their hometown, the Italian city of Verona, has long been a place of pilgrimage for lovesick tourists from all over the world. Now an American movie has pulled the city back into the romantic spotlight. “Letters to Juliet” was inspired by a…
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Slowing Down with the Baru Nut
Brazil. Home to the Brazil nut and it’s much lesser-known cousin, the castanha de Baru (or Baru nut). It’s tasty, high in protein, and low in fat. But for the slow movement, the Baru nut is more. It’s a symbol of traditional, local farming methods and products which have been protected and even promoted. Dany…
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Letters to Juliet
The film “Letters to Juliet” has just come out in America and is soon to be on general release in most countries throughout Europe. Starring Vanessa Redgrave and Amanda Seyfried, it’s a romantic comedy set in the north Italian city of Verona. Famous as the setting for Shakespeare’s best loved tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, the…
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Reconnecting Through Music Neapolitan Style
Meg is a singer from the city of Naples in the south of Italy. The city is famous for being the birthplace of pizza and traditional romantic serenades but also for crime and, most recently, for the rubbish on the streets. Meg used to be in a Neapolitan electronic hip hop-rap band called 99 Posse,…
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Backstage at the National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre is one of the UK’s most important publicly funded theatre companies. Situated on London’s south bank, each year “The National” welcomes over 800,000 visitors through its doors. The building is home to three theatres – the Olivier, Lyttelton and Cottesloe – and presents an eclectic mix of new plays and classics…
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The Pre-Raphaelites and the Italian Dream
The Pre-Raphaelite movement was founded in 1848 by a group of artists and intellectuals who rejected what they considered “the frivolous art of the day” and embraced a return to greater “truth to nature”. Until now, they’ve often been overshadowed by their contemporaries, the Impressionists, but recently they’ve been making a comeback: with exhibitions dedicated…
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Bhopal survivors take their message to Europe
A quarter of a century after the world’s worst industrial disaster, there is no end in sight to the survivors’ struggle for justice. Those responsible for the Bhopal gas tragedy are yet to be brought to justice, and the clean-up of the affected area is not yet complete. Twenty-five years ago, the people of the…
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Photographer Steve Bloom: from wildlife to the slums of Nairobi
Award-winning photographer, Steve Bloom, became a wildlife photographer in the early Nineties and his pictures are published all over the world. Born in Cape Town, he first used the camera to document the injustices of life in South Africa during the apartheid years before moving to England, where he co-founded one of London’s leading photographic…
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L’Aquila’s Farmers
It’s now 6 months since a massive earthquake struck the region of Abruzzo in central Italy, killing over 300 people, devastating the city of L’Aquila and leaving tens of thousands of people homeless. The Italian government’s decision to hold the G8 summit there last July was meant to keep public attention on their plight. Reconstruction…
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Kenyan Farmers Come to Italy
Dairy farmers from western Kenya last week gave Italians a taste of their traditional yogurt in exchange for lessons in the art of cheese-making.Swapping the arid planes of West Pokot for the rolling green hills of Piedmont, four goat and cow herders from the Terzoi tribe were among the special guests at Cheese, Slow Food’s…
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“Slow Food” Rekindles Local Culinary Traditions
Carlo Petrini started Slow Food out of protest against the world’s largest “fast food” chain. Two decades later, the movement is an international phenomenon. Last month, Carlo Petrini was awarded the prestigious French Traditions et Qualité – Les Grandes Tables du Monde culinary prize from France’s top gastronomes and 3-star Michelin chefs in recognition of…
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New law raises fears of vigilantes ruling Italy’s streets
The world’s leaders gathered in Italy this week to tackle global problems at the G8 summit. And the host nation has been taking the lead addressing its domestic concerns. Last week, the Italian parliament approved a controversial set of new laws contained in their so-called “security package”. One of the most contentious points was the…
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Leading Mali music duo take Europe by storm
Today based in Paris, Amadou et Mariam’s latest album, “Welcome to Mali”, has received international critical acclaim and their band is touring this summer with Coldplay. Malian musicians, Amadou et Mariam, used to be billed as “The Blind Couple of Mali”. They began performing together when they met at the Institute for the Young Blind…
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Volterra’s Vampires
The Twilight series of vampire romance novels by the American, Stephenie Meyer, has been described as “Romeo and Juliet with bite”; and the stories of handsome vampire, Edward, and his human girlfriend, Bella, have proved massively popular, especially with teenage girls. Following the international success of the film adaptation of book 1 in the series,…
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Bologna’s Magic Word
While the rest of us tend to think of Italy as a country with a strong national identity, the Italians themselves are far more attached to their regional and local culture and traditions. One Italian city with a particularly strong local identity is Bologna. Its proliferation of nicknames is testimony to this: “Bologna the Fat”…