Findings accross the Globe:

“We live in a condition of paralysis and are not able to do anything about it, to liberate ourselves from the lethargy. You might call it a coma.“Italy’s cultural system is on the brink of collapse,” Cecilia Bartoli, the soprano, told the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel just this month, repeating what the filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini and other self-flagellating Italian stars have bemoaned over the years


Or better: MIASMA.....resulting in moribund culture.

Apropos immigration anxiety:

It also provides evidence, which clearly the Italians need, that immigrants aren’t all boat people or petty criminals or farm laborers or street merchants hawking Gucci knockoffs — that they’re musicians, too, good ones at that,
willing to advertise themselves as Roman, no less. That many of the players, who until lately struggled to supplement concert fees by working as cooks and waiters, still have a hard time getting temporary work permits, is another matter.

Rare white koala found
Mick, a rare white koala, is nursed back to health after being found ill in a remote part of eastern AustraliaMeet Mick, the rare white koala


A tasteless line in battledress from Vogue
Emine Saner
Monday September 24, 2007
The Guardian

WAR- it's so glamorous and sexy, isn't it? No? Italian Vogue seems to think so.
In what must be the most nauseatingly tasteless fashion pictures ever, this month's issue features a shoot (no pun intended) by the American photographer Steven Meisel, inspired by the Iraq war. Shock and awe most certainly - it takes some talent to simultaneously glorify jaded soldiers, rape and violence while selling this season's Roberto Cavalli and Dior.http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/fashion/story/0,,2175666,00.html

Les faitsLe Monde.fr
La communauté internationale cherche une issue à la crise birmane