Word: milan
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...This attitude is reminiscent of Czech writer Milan Kundera’s character Sabina in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, whose lover wants her to visit Palermo. He asks how she can possibly live without seeing it, to which Sabina responds, “I have seen Palermo. A friend of mine once sent me a postcard from there. It's taped up over the toilet...
...this year's anniversary, a most unlikely voice spoke out. Salvatore (Toto) Riina, the Mafia's notorious former boss of bosses, has broken his silence from his prison cell near Milan, where he is serving a life sentence for dozens of homicides, including the masterminding of the Borsellino hit and one three months earlier of another crusading Sicilian prosecutor, Giovanni Falcone. (See pictures of life in Italy...
...perhaps the most telling statements come from the family of the victim. Since his brother's murder, Salvatore Borsellino has kept his own poignant vow of silence. But the Milan-based engineer has now spoken out in a July 17 video interview on the website of Corriere della Sera, a Milan-based daily. Displaying a striking resemblance to his martyred kin, Borsellino says he is convinced the Mafia did not act alone. "My brother knew about the negotiations between the Mafia and the state, and this is why he was killed," Borsellino says. "There were government authorities who worked...
...late 1980s and early 1990s were a tumultuous period in Italy. Bribery scandals eventually brought down much of the postwar political class. In Sicily, political corruption mixed with murder, as the Falcone and Borsellino assassinations were followed by Cosa Nostra's deadly bombings in Rome, Florence and Milan. Some Mafia experts believe the Mob's decision to take its battle to the mainland was a response to the breakdown in longstanding attempts by certain government authorities to negotiate a truce with mob leaders. Indeed, after Riina's years on the lam, his arrest, in broad daylight in central Palermo...
...surprisingly, there are already signs of a mini cultural counterrevolution - not from the youth ranks but rather from an old face of Italian public life. Vittorio Sgarbi - an art-critic provocateur and lifelong political carpetbagger, having held key posts in the Italian Cultural Ministry and Milan city council - is now mayor of the small Sicilian town of Salemi, which is trying to make its mark on the map as a major wine-producing region. "We have to teach young people to drink Italian wine," Sgarbi declared to the AGI news agency last week. "If there's something...