Monday, February 23, 2009

Italy as head of the G8

As of January, Italy has been the new head of the Group of Eight ministerial conference. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini says that the main goal of the G8 this term will be to make moves towards a new "global governance" for economic and security issues.
Italy has included additional countries in the meetings regarding the approach to Afghanistan security. They plan to include Iran as a crucial regional addition to the discussion as well as China, India, Russia, central Asia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
The main issue on the agenda is to defuse the Islamist terrorist threat ''which has its roots and bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan.''
(I read this account in an article found at ANSA.com)

Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata is based and distributed in Italy and it's main auidence are Italians. I took note of today's headlines on ANSA.com and they were for the most part regarding international news. This media outlet focuses more on Italy's involvement in world affairs rather than local politics, government and issues. It is Italian news on a larger scale.

Also ranked among the "top news" category were headlines about soccer, France, Sarah Palin's visit to Rome and additional stories of what to expect from Italy as the new head of the G8.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Internet Censorship in Italy

This is an article that I found on OnlyinItaly.com.
Although this site compiles humerous articles, this topic is pretty serious.
How much freedom on the internet are Italians permitted if this law gets passed?
Would this type of vague restriction on freedom of expression ever be allowed to pass in America?
How will international internet service providers respond; particularly American providers?

Internet Censorship Crash Lands in Italy

Rome - February 11, 2009 - Italy may be able to force Internet providers to block access to Web sites including Facebook, the world's largest social-networking site, if they incite or justify criminal behavior, according to an amendment to a bill passed by the Senate.

Italian prosecutors began looking into Facebook groups dedicated to convicted Sicilian Mafia bosses Bernardo Provenzano and Salvatore Riina last month to verify whether they were used to send coded messages to mobsters. No official investigation was opened, according to Palermo prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia.

"The Internet must be free, but it can't be a jungle where good people and murderers are indistinguishable," Senator Gianpiero D'Alia, the lawmaker in Rome who introduced the amendment, said referring to Facebook fan clubs dedicated to the convicted mafia bosses.
"It's indecent that Facebook said that it won't allow pictures of mothers breastfeeding while there are no rules about removing groups of delinquents," D'Alia said in an interview today.
The aim isn't to block sites like Facebook or YouTube totally if they contain criminal content. Instead, the law is intended to force them to remove pages dedicated to groups inciting or justifying crimes, D'Alia said. The language of the bill doesn't distinguish between blacking out pages or entire Web sites.

The bill says the Interior Ministry will be able to order the blocking of Web sites if prosecutors first verify the criminal content of the sites. The bill would also make it illegal to incite others to commit crimes on the Internet, D'Alia said. It would be a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, he said. It's already illegal to do so in the printed press in Italy.

Should Internet providers including Fastweb SpA, Telecom Italia SpA or Tiscali SpA fail to follow the ministry's order to black out the pages or sites, they may face a fine of as much as 250,000 euros ($322,338), the proposed law says.

"This creates a precedent for the preventive censure of unwanted opinions," Marco Pancini, YouTube's European policy consultant, said in an interview. "Because it's aimed at service providers, this law won't allow the filtering of single content pages, but will lead to entire platforms being blacked out."

Internet providers aren't able to eliminate single elements from Web sites, Pancini said. YouTube has the ability to eliminate potentially criminal or offensive material in collaboration with the Italian postal police, Pancini said, adding that laws regulating criminal content already exist. D'Alia said that current laws cover only pedophilia. An April 2003 law says that once a Web site is informed of illicit material in its domain, then that material must be removed immediately.

One of the Facebook groups that first sparked controversy last month with 481 fans proposes making Provenzano, who has been convicted of ordering more than a dozen murders, a saint. A group for Riina, who was known as "the Beast" for his penchant for violence and murder, has 945 members whose comments include, "You're my idol," and, "You're the best."

While there are groups for mobsters and even for accused Italian rapists, Facebook also has a group hailing as heroes Palermo prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, who were assassinated on the orders of Riina after successfully prosecuting hundreds of mobsters. That group has 369,463 fans.

The measure was inserted as an amendment to a bill aimed at cracking down on crime that the Senate passed on Feb. 5. The measure must pass in the Chamber of Deputies without being changed to become law.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Here is a list of the Italian news outlets that I will be focusing on for this project. I picked out a few that cover a variety of issues from different perspectives. I plan to use these media outlets as my main source for analysis and comparison about current events in Italy and around the world.

-Andkronos International (AKI) is an independent news agency that is focused on information exchange, research and dialogue between Italy, Europe and the emerging areas of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America.
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/hp/

-Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA) is a national news agency that is made up of 36 members who are editors of major Italian newspapers who share the common goal to publish and distribute the news.
http://www.ansa.it/site/index.html

-LaSpecula.com is a multilingual online newspaper that provides news from all over the world. The website is divided up by region, covering events in Africa, America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
http://www.laspecula.com/

-Football Italia is an offifial website for English-speaking fans of Italian football. It includes coverage of the players and the games as well as statistics and programming information.
http://www.channel4.com/sport/football_italia/index.html

-Only in Italy.com is a compilement of news stories from Italian publications that are funny and/or ironic. The makers of this website do not exploit outrageous stories from tabloids or sensational broadcasts. They cite that they only translate stories from mainstream daily newspapers.
http://www.onlyinitaly.com/index.html

-ZENIT News Agnecy is an outlet that attemps to view current events through the messages of the pope and the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. Their purpose is to inform the public about the topics, debates and events that are especially interesting to Christians worldwide.
http://www.zenit.org/index.php?l=english

As you can see, some of the sites I picked are just for fun. I have an interest in soccer and it will be fun for me to follow an Italian football news outlet. Also, I like seeing some humor in everything I do, and I think that reading some ridicuous real published articles will be fun.

The other news services I listed are for comparison purposes. I will utilize them to see how different view points determine what story is the lead, or what adjectives are used or if there is any obvious bias among the outlets. It will be interesting to see which outlets decide what events to include and focus on or to leave out of their publication entirely.