Sicily
and Vermont
Volunteers to fix apt confiscated from Mafia
April 6, 2016
The city has given two apartments confiscated from the Mafia to needy, homeless families. But the apartments needed lot of work. So volunteers from the anti-Mafia association Addio Pizzo ( Goodbye, Protection money) and the mission of Santa Chiara put on a fund-raising dinner that brought together unemployed construction workers, architects, tradesmen and donors. A woman immigrant who had been helped by the mission volunteered to cook a dinner from her own country. Together they will fix up the apartments in a hurry before squatters can move in. Read More
Arabian horse beauty contest in La Favorita Park
April 3, 2016
Mayor Leoluca Orlando had closed the La Favorita park to traffic for a few weeks of intensive cleaning before Easter. When the normally messy and littering Palermo public left it absolutely clean after Easter Monday's traditional Pasquetta picnic and barbecues, the newspapers reported the fact giddily. Now here's a scene from an Arabian horse beauty competition in the Favorita, Palermo style.
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Fra Biagio says he's leaving Palermo and Sicily
April 1, 2016
Fra Biagio Conte, lay founder of the Catholic church's youngest order, the Missionaries of Charity and Hope, says he is leaving Palermo hurt and disappointed because of what he calls the city's obstruction of his plan to help unfortunate people. Biagio Conte and his colleagues, guest "brothers and sisters,"an army of volunteers and Read More
2800 immigrants rescued at sea and brought to Sicily
March 30, 2016
2800 people were plucked from the sea and brought to safety in Sicily in six different rescue operations in the last three days. Most were from sub-Saharan African nations.
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Revolt in overcrowded immigrant center; more coming
March 28, 2016
Inhumane conditions caused inmates to protest at an immigration holding center in Palermo this morning where 250 people are being held in a center designed to hold no more than 180 people, according to a report in La Repubblica. More immigrants are on the way. By tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. the Norwegian ship "Siem Pilot" Read More
I hope they threw him a party
March 25, 2016
This little boy from the Democratic Republic of the Congo made the entire sea crossing from Libya to Sicily dressed in a suit jacket and bow tie. His mother had told him that it would be the most important voyage of his life and that he was going to a country where the people Read More
Palermo's traffic worst in Italy
March 22, 2016
In a year every Palermo commuter spends 147 hours blocked in traffic, according to the TomTom Traffic Index and La Repubblica, which measures traffic flow in 295 cities in 38 countries for all of 2015. Palermo, where buses get stuck behind carriage horses, had the worst traffic snarls in Italy. Second worst traffic city in Italy is Rome. Read More
470 new immigrants, one dead of suffocation on overcrowded raft
March 21, 2016
Yesterday brought 470 new immigrants to the Sicilian coast town of Pozzallo, from four different rescue operations in the Mediterranean. One trafficker was arrested not only for promoting clandestine entry into Europe but also for the death of one immigrant who died suffocated under the weight of too many people in one rubber raft. Can you imagine? Read More
Car sex in Addaura a big problem
March 18, 2016
New trend! Local residents at Addaura on the rocky coast between downtown Palermo and Mondello complain about the phenomenon of sex partner swappers and flashers parking on private property along the coast around 11 p.m. and exchanging sex all night. The campers arrive first followed closely by cars full of singles. The couples knock on the windows of the singles, Read More