Theresa Maggio

Italy’s far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, is suing the country’s celebrated anti-mafia author Roberto Saviano for defamation over a tweet that described him as “minister of the underworld”.

Marc Gasol will never forget the terrified look on the face of Josefa, the Cameroonian woman left clinging to a piece of wood for 48 hours in the Mediterranean. Josefa was the survivor of a shipwreck about 90 miles off the Libyan coast last Sunday. Rescuers recovered two bodies in the water alongside her, including that of a toddler. Read More 

Click on the caption to see some hidden Sicilian treasure in the Eolian isles.

I’m a doctor in Lampedusa. We can’t let these migrant deaths go on.
by Pietro Bartolo in The Guardian.
"In the Mediterranean we’re witnessing a slaughter of innocents. I have seen the suffering, and I am ashamed of the Italian government’s response."

From The Guardian:
More than 200 migrants have drowned at sea in the Mediterranean in the past three days, taking the death toll for the year to more than 1,000 and prompting fears that human traffickers are taking greater risks because of a crackdown imposed by the Italian government and the Libyan coastguard.
It's 34,361 and rising: how the List tallies Europe's migrant bodycount
Read more

The UN refugee agency in Tripoli reported on Monday that 276 refugees and migrants were disembarked in the Libyan capital on Monday, including 16 survivors of a boat carrying 130 people, of whom 114 were still missing at sea. Further shipwrecks were found at the weekend.  Read More 

A Danish cargo ship carrying a hundred rescued African migrants waits five miles off shore near Pozzallo for orders as to what to do. The migrants were rescued off the Libyan shore by a non-profit rescue boat and transferred to the Danish cargo ship.
 Read More 

From the NY Times:

By Kimberly Bradley

June 22, 2018

PALERMO, Sicily — Political art and world politics seldom dovetail in real time, but as the twelfth edition of the Manifesta contemporary art biennial approached, its host city of Palermo found itself walking its talk.

Titled “A Planetary Garden: Cultivating Coexistence,” the exhibition, which opened June 16, takes migration as one of its themes. And days before the international art crowd descended on the Sicilian capital, Italy’s new interior minister, Matteo Salvini, closed the country’s ports to rescue boats — including the Aquarius, a ship looking to dock in Italy with 629 migrants aboard. Read More 

I am taking a break from blogging. Will be back with some new idea.

This is a masterpiece of editing, a labor of love and a happiness maker. Four minutes of perfect joy and timing.

Click on the photo caption to see a 360-degree view of the interior.