Complete Lest || of events

One of the great merits of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, like Altiero Spinelli, was that of not surrendering and of combining vision with action, the impossible with the possible.
His courage was to always consider Italy united and to firmly believe in national harmony.
We will always remember him with great affection: with his physical and written presence, he has never missed in 25 years to any of the important events of our Foundation: for peace, for the Mediterranean, for Italy.
Thank you President!

Read more: ...

Deep condolences that of the members of the International Scientific Committee of the Fondazione Mediterraneo for the death of Ermanno Rea, its component since the birth of the Foundation in 1991.
The memory of president Michele Capasso:
"A friendship born many years ago, accomplice sister Liliana-in whose shop at the Piazza Mercato often wandered between paints, brushes and parades of new design. And then in his home in Via Dei Greci in Rome, in the countryside, in the restaurant Cesaretto and in the bars of the capital. Many speeches, many hopes, many reflections on our world poised between modernity and past, between disappointment and homologation.
You will always be in my heart, dear Ermanno, and I will never forget the last hug "among our beards".

Read more: ...

In order to emerge from the deep crisis in the Mediterranean, regional diplomacy must move quickly: we need a rethinking of intercultural and inter-religious dialogue in the region, new instruments and a new common identity. This, in summary, is the message launched during the seminar organised at the Farnesina by the Institute for International Affairs (IAI) in collaboration with the Italian Network for the Euro-Mediterranean Dialogue (RIDE), a reference point for the Anna Lindh Foundation network (ALF) in Italy. Redefining intercultural dialogue in the Mediterranean is the only way out of the situation in the region. We need to "build together a new common cultural identity", he said opening the works Pasquale Ferrara, ambassador of Italy designated in Algiers, reminding us how to do this we need to do it "involving all the actors of the region: civil society, non-governmental organizations, cultural operators of the southern shore", not only those of the northern shore. Therefore, not a Euro-centric vision but a Euro-Mediterranean vision. What must be clear "is that we are united by the same destiny and the challenges are the same for the whole Mediterranean: security, development, the fight against terrorism and extremist ideologies - not only Isis - mobility, young people,"said Anna Lindh Foundation President Elisabeth Guigou. To have a true intercultural dialogue we need to know each other and to do so,"it is necessary to use every means, every instrument", even technology. Extremism, Guigou recalled, flows along the net, "but the internet can be used to counteract the spread of this deviant ideology". "I hope - concluded the President of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the French National Assembly - that Europe will not only think about solving its problems, but that it will also look beyond its borders, that is to say the southern shore". The approach, the seminar's promoters repeat, must be multi-sectoral: economic, social and cultural, because the most affected by the crisis are young people, all too often driven by unemployment and social exclusion towards violence and extremism. And on the need to have a Mediterranean identity and a clear message, based on a cultural dialogue in order to be able to restart, insisted Enzo Amendola, undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, concluding the work. "Looking at past mistakes - he said - we must learn to find meeting points, but also to disagree. The mission, Amendola repeats, is that of "protecting our common cultural heritage", past and present, and defending it from that "totalitarian idea of wanting to erase it". Finally, we need "a positive planner for the Mediterranean, a partnership capable of defining a new geopolitical vision", in short,"a common future vision that focuses above all on young people in the area to solve the challenges facing the Mediterranean".

Read more: ...

Today the journey from the prayer house of St. Blaise of Subiaco to Amatrice was long and short at the same time.
The Mayor's embrace with the Bishop, the Christ without the Cross suspended between the rubble and the highest offices of the State confused among people to share in crying pain and hope are the proof that all United can succeed. FOREVER.
I cried of sorrow for the destruction and victims and joy for this new momentum towards the Common Good.
Great appreciation for the solidarity between the different faiths and religious denominations: the best antidote to fight terrorism but that should be expressed not only in emergencies but daily.

Michele Capasso

Read more: ...

With the images of joy and affection of my dear friend Jean-Paul Seytre - General Consul  of France in Naples - still in my eyes and heart - on the occasion of the French National Day (look at his post on this page) I am reached by a friend of Nice who, crying, tells me about this umpteenth massacre: children, men and women who have been cut off as if they were at war on the promenade in celebration by the shiny madness and anger of angry rage.
We embrace our brothers and sisters in France and around the world saying again NO TO TERROR and YES TO DIALOGUE AND THE MUTUAL RESPECT.

Read more: ...