Stories written by Silvia Giannelli

Migrants Between Scylla and Charybdis

Not even a month has passed since over 700 hundred migrants lost their lives in their attempt to reaching the shores of Italy and the media spotlights have already faded on the island of Sicily, Italy’s southern region and main gateway to Europe.

Migrants Between Scylla and Charybdis

Two Somali migrants who survived crossing the Mediterranean and reached the Italian island of Sicily describe their ordeal and hopes for the future, while local opinion is divided over the issue of immigration.

When Social Unrest Vents Itself on Migrants

“It’s like putting explosive, gasoline and matches all in one shed. These are things that should be stored in separated places.”

There’s CO2 Under Those Hills

“If  they go ahead and dig those wells, all my work will be destroyed, all my life, everything,” says Franca Tognarelli, looking at the hills and vineyards around her house in Certaldo, Val d’Elsa, in the heart of Tuscany.

The Time for Burning Coal Has Passed

“People have gathered here to tell their politicians that the way in which we used energy and our environment in the 19th and 20th centuries is now over,” says Radek Gawlik, one of Poland’s most experienced environmental activists. “The time for burning coal has passed and the sooner we understand this, the better it is for us.”

Time Running Out for Refugees Seeking Asylum in Italy

His journey started four years ago in Conakry, Guinea. Now that Mamoudou* has finally reached Italy, he hopes this will be his final stop.

Food – Thou Shall Not Waste

“Only two years ago, the soup kitchen was serving 50 meals a day. Today the number has almost doubled and, what is even more worrying, we have started receiving families with children,” says Donatella Turri, director of the Caritas Diocese of Lucca.

Whither Costa Concordia, Amid Environmental Concerns

Two refloating sponsons is what separates the Costa Concordia cruise ship from leaving the shores of Giglio Island, Italy, where it has lain since its sinking that left 32 people dead on January 13, 2012.


To Grow Or Not To Grow GMO Crops

“I  want to grow genetically modified organisms (GMOs) because I want to feed my family with biotech products. In no way do I want to eat biological food because I think it’s not so healthy or nutritious.”

Q&A: Agriculture Needs a ‘New Revolution’

The Millennium Development Goals deadline of 2015 is fast approaching, but according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), poverty still afflicts one in seven people — and one in eight still goes to bed hungry.

Italian Doctors Abort a Law

Two out of three doctors in Italy are ‘conscientious objectors’ to abortion, according to new data. The Italian Ministry of Health reveals that in 2011, 69.3 percent of doctors refused to carry out abortions, with peaks of over 85 percent in some regions.

Italy Closes Its Eyes to Sealed Mouths

“We walk inside an area that is 128 steps long and seven-and-a-half steps wide. This is the path they made for us: two metres of bars over our heads, and upon the bars, two metres of plexiglas. We are like canaries in a cage, like birds of different races all in one cage.”

Local Action Against Climate Change a Beacon of Hope

In Maputo, a port city on the Indian Ocean in Mozambique, 44 percent of the 1.2 million inhabitants live in poverty, making them even more vulnerable to the effects of sea level rise, floods and cyclones. But despite their severe poverty, their day-to-day experience gives them practical knowledge on how to deal with climate change effects.

Cleopatra Drives in Haiyan’s Climate Change Message

Cleopatra is the name chosen for the younger sister of Haiyan, the cyclone that wreaked havoc in the Philippines last week. This latest storm caused massive floods and left 16 dead and hundreds displaced in Sardinia, Italy.

Driving Home the Link Between Gender and Climate Change

Tuesday was Gender Day at the COP19 climate summit in Warsaw, and many of the events that took place in the National Stadium focused on the topic of gender and its relation with climate change, and tried to shed a light on problems that require action from policy-makers.

Sicilian Town Opposes U.S. Transmitters

Niscemi, with its 30,000 local residents and its white houses, is a typical southern Sicilian town. But it stands out not only for its ancient cork forest, but also for the Naval Radio Transmitter Facility located within the protected forest itself.

Sicilian Town Opposes U.S. Transmitters

Niscemi, with its 30,000 local residents and its white houses, is a typical southern Sicilian town. But it stands out not only for its ancient cork forest, but also for the Naval Radio Transmitter Facility located within the protected forest itself.

Justice Over G8 Killing Delayed and Denied

“It was midnight and I was sleeping; I woke up to the noise of the police breaking down the entrance door of the school,” says Italian journalist Lorenzo Guadagnucci. “They came in running and screaming. The bashing was immediate, with no chance of mediation.”

Pray Again to St. Precarious

It didn’t take the financial crisis for hundreds of thousands of workers across Europe to protest the new plague of the labour market – precarity. But the financial crisis has only made it worse.

Bigger Dangers Lurk Behind Berlusconi Scandal

The scandal around the under-age prostitute that former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi allegedly had sex with is not about just that one girl: an estimated 10,000 under-age girls become victims of sexual exploitation every year in Italy.

Survivors of WWII Massacre in Italy Persist in Quest for Justice

Enrico Pieri was ten when German SS soldiers attacked his home village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema, Italy on Aug. 12, 1944 in a massacre that left 560 people, mostly women and children, dead.

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