Italy: Human Trafficking gang busted

Italian police in the northeastern city of Udine carried out a successful operation titled "Goldfish-2" dismantling a major human trafficking gang in the area.This criminal gang has allegedly trafficked hundreds of illegal immigrants from India and Pakistan into Europe. A majority of the illegal immigrants end up in Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, via countries such as the Ukraine and Russia.

For another assignment in this class, I am looking into human trafficking issues in the United States and abroad. I found an article today on AKI website about the gang bust and after reading it I can see how big of a problem human trafficking is. There is the obvious problem of illegal immigrants entering countries and the effects on the security of their borders. But an additional issue is the standard of living of the immigrants during and after they are illegally transported. This article discussed immigrants entering the European Union coming particularly from Pakistan and India. This issue seems to be on a larger scale than most people realize.

Could their living situation really be so horrible in their homeland that they subject themselves to these dangerous gang members?
Where would the international community even begin to minimize this problem?

In this article, it was mentioned that this gang had headquarters in Moscow, Italy and Slovakia and people working together between the three locations. This is scary to me because this issue is on an international scale. Criminals in different regions, with different laws and different governments, are collaborating to move these people illegally in and out of countries. When I look further into this issue for my project I'm sure I will discover that human trafficking is even worse and bigger than what I can see now.

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ZENIT- The World seen from Perspective of Rome

This outlet provides information on the activities of the Pope, interviews with men and women from the Catholic Church, international news and current social, political and religious topics that are under debate. Many professionals and volunteers that work for ZENIT also work for the church or their work is closely related to the church.
The article that I read today was essentially a summary of the U.S. State Department 2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practice published on February 25th. It highlighted different countries and areas of concern that were mentioned in the report. The article opened with the news that the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. The leader of Sudan is accused of being responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of people in the Dafur region during the recent conflicts.
This article contained a separate section at the end that discussed religious rights in the world, or lack there of. This section, along with the fact that the writer of this article is Father John Flynn, could be considered the distinguishing characteristics of news distributed from ZENIT. Choosing to include religious discrimination, and the persecution of Christians may not have been the same choice made by other news outlets.
ZENIT has a defined intended audience and while the news seems varied, current, and valuable, it certainly has a focus- the social and political issues in relation to the Catholic Church.

A look at Adnkronos International

Adnkronos 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.

Today I looked over the headlines to discover exactly what this statement means...

The first feature I noticed was the fact that the site is available is three languages- Italian, English and Arabic. This shows a focus on a European target auidence more so than Asian or Spanish speaking countries.

The previously noted fact is related to the second thing I noticed upon opening the web page- the headlines!
-Mideast: Donors pledge new aid for Gaza recovery
-Mideast: Italian premier pledges $100 mln for Gaza reconstruction
-US: Italian bank may face charges over illegal Iranian payments
-Indonesia: Men may be jailed for multiple marriages
-Iraq: Saddam's cousin sentenced to death for third time
I couldn't find the photographer's name for this photo of
Ali Hassan al-Majid but here is the link back to where I found this picture included with the article from AKI...http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=3.0.3063449209

The headlines I just listed were in that same order down the home web page of the English version of Adnkronos International. I think that the languages included in addition to the Italian option says a lot about this news service. There is English, which statistically makes sense because English is the most commonly read language on the world wide web, and then the third option is Arabic. I have been hearing now for about the past four years of my education that learning Arabic would be extremely valuable to my career in media.

As a journalism student, I am in fact studying a second language, Spanish. Currently, Spanish-speakers are nearing the same number of English speakers in America and therefore it the most valuable second language for me.

It is interesting that this particular Italian media outlet offers Arabic over any other Asian, European or Latin American languages. This fact must be based on what news they cover, what issues, and who they believe will be consuming their reports.

Then, the first two headlines began "Mideast:..." So I believe that there is probably a high number of Italian reporters in the Middle Eastern countries, reporting on the issues that maybe not all media outlets cover.

Also, I really liked browsing this web site for my news. In addition to the initial scroll down of headlines, the page is divided into a number of sub menus that covered more international and cultural topics than most sites I am used to. There is very sophisticated media available as well, including audio, videos and pictures. All of these elements reflects a certain credibility that I look for when I put my trust in a website to provide me without unbias, important, timely information.

I will probably write more about AKI in the future.