THE REDIRECTION
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
sull'Iran
new yorker
Il molo della tragedia
: SINERGY, GAS CORRE ANCORA IN CONDUTTURE CENTENARIE |
(ANSA) - RIMINI, 5 NOV - Il gas corre ancora nelle condutture di ghisa di cent'anni fa. Accade a Milano, a Torino, a Roma e in altre città. "Nel sottosuolo di Milano ci sono ancora, e in perfette condizioni di utilizzo, circa 200 chilometri delle vecchie tubazioni di fine Ottocento", ha detto Silvio Bosetti, della Confservizi Lombardia e presidente della 'municipalizzata' Agam di Monza (ma già a capo del settore gas dell'Aem di Milano), in occasione del convegno sulle reti tecnologiche nel sottosuolo promosso dalla rassegna 'Sinergy' che si chiude oggi a Rimini Fiera. "Si tratta delle tubature posate quando il combustibile era prodotto dal carbon coke nell'Officina del gas e veniva conservato - ricorda Bosetti - nei gasometri alla periferia della città. Il 'gas manifatturato', detto anche 'gas citta'', serviva non tanto per la cottura dei cibi, ma soprattutto per l' illuminazione". Erano gli anni della Belle Epoque, quando la galleria Vittorio Emanuele era illuminata da centinaia di fiammelle di gas che venivano accese da un trenino su rotaie pensili che faceva il giro dei cornicioni del 'salotto' di Milano. Ancora oggi il Circolo della Stampa, a palazzo Serbelloni, ha le cosiddette 'sale gas', in cui l'impianto di illuminazione è ancora quello originale, con i tubi per portare il combustibile alle lampade sulle pareti (impianto ovviamente poi adeguato all'utilizzo dell'elettricità). A Torino - conferma il professor Evasio Lavagno del Politecnico - la rete del 'gas manifatturato' o 'gas illuminante' conta ancora 150-200 km di tubi più che secolari e può far risalire le sue origini a un'epoca ancor più remota: a quando, nel 1837, nacque l' Italgas (si chiamava 'Compagnia di illuminazione a gas per la Citta' di Torinò), la prima in Italia. Non molto diversa la questione per altre infrastrutture del sottosuolo urbano, come gli scoli delle acque sporche, per i quali i tempi di funzionamento diventano in alcuni casi anche millenari: basti ricordare il caso della Cloaca Massima di Roma, costruita ai tempi dei Sette re (l'opera è attribuita a Tarquinio Prisco, 7/o secolo avanti Cristo). I materiali usati oggi sono sicuramente più funzionali, ma non hanno una storia sufficiente per garantirne una durata simile: il polipropilene, per esempio, esiste da mezzo secolo e la sua durata nei decenni è stimata per calcolo deduttivo, ma ancora non per esperienza diretta. Non ci sarebbero problemi per continuare a usare le vecchie condotte del gas, la cui ghisa è ancora perfetta, se non fosse per i collegamenti fra gli elementi della rete originaria: gli esperti riuniti a 'Sinergy' spiegano che valvole, ghiere, tubi e gomiti sono uniti tramite giunti di piombo e canapa, e quindi è impossibile realizzare le giunzioni su questa rete quando deve essere sostituito un elemento o deve essere condotto un lavoro. E le vecchie giunture con la stoppa di canapa possono comunque rappresentare un rischio per la sicurezza. Tant'é - è stato sottolineato al convegno - che l'Autorità dell'energia ha dato alle aziende di distribuzione del gas un termine di dieci anni per completare la sostituzione delle reti più vecchie. (ANSA). |
Con le cuffie in strada (Internet) |
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Contrordine: i giornali scoppiano di salute, la loro diffusione nel mondo è in crescita e, per la prima volta nella storia, i quotidiani superano quota diecimila con oltre 450 milioni di copie vendute al giorno, segnando un incremento del 13 per cento dal 2001. A rivelarlo, nel “World Press Trends 2006”, è la World Association of Newspapers (Wan), organizzazione con sede a Parigi che rappresenta 18 mila testate. |
By Gareth Smyth in Tehran
Published: February 5 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 5 2007 02:00
Military action in response to Iran's atomic programme would be "highly dangerous" with diplomacy still an option, according to a report published today by a group of British non-governmental organisations, think-tanks and trade unions.
"It cannot be said that the potential for diplomacy has been fully explored while direct talks between Iran and the US have not taken place," says "Time to Talk: the Case for Diplomatic Solutions on Iran", from -Crisis Action.
The report warns that US or Israeli attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities could lead to civilian deaths, radioactive contamination, heightened conflict in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan, al-Qaeda attacks stemming from intensified anti-western feeling, higher oil prices and an acceleration of Tehran's nuclear programme.
Among those endorsing the report is Sir Richard -Dalton, UK ambassador to Iran from 2003 to 2006. He said the report was "wagging a finger" to remind the British government that military action should be "a last resort in self-defence or to prevent an imminent threat".
Sir Richard defended the US and European Union's refusal to negotiate with Iran while Tehran refused to implement December's United Nations Security Council resolution that it suspend almost all its nuclear activities.
However, he argued London should "not just sit back on our heels". It should work "behind the scenes" to ensure the US was ready to supplement international negotiations "when re-quired".
The report appears sceptical that the Bush administration will engage Tehran, arguing "the sidelining" of the Baker-Hamilton report, which last month advocated talks with Iran, "illustrates further the rejection of direct negotiation".
Paul Rogers, professor of peace studies at Bradford university, said "an attack designed to diminish Iran's nuclear capacity would involve trying to kill as many technicians and scientists as possible".
Mr Rogers told the Financial Times that Iran would have "a huge range of retaliatory options", including attacks on the oil facilities of the Arab countries across the Persian Gulf.
At Iran's Isfahan nuclear site on Saturday, Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, the country's representative at the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the nuclear programme was "fully transparent".
Mr Soltanieh was welcoming reporters and IAEA representatives from developing countries on a trip around the facility, which processes uranium ore into uranium hexafluoride, the feeder fuel for the enrichment plant further north at Natanz.
He refused to say whether Iran would install anti-aircraft missiles being delivered from Russia at Isfahan Tor. The site is currently ringed by less sophisticated anti-aircraft guns.
By Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 5, 2007; A01
In the nearly three weeks since Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made his unofficial debut as a presidential candidate, his senior advisers have been holed up in a temporary office on Connecticut Avenue NW, feverishly working to translate the huge excitement about his candidacy into a political strategy.
For all the buzz about his running, Obama did not enter the race with the conventional weapons of a presidential candidate -- a deep database of donors, a tactical road map for winning primaries or even a sign marking the entrance to his ad hoc campaign headquarters. Obama is only now starting to build a political infrastructure that matches his growing support.
But the challenge for Obama is not just assembling the nuts and bolts of a national campaign on the fly. He must, his advisers believe, do so in a way that reflects the distinct, next-generation message of his candidacy, or at least avoids making him look like every other politician in the race. "I would sooner lose the race than lose having him the way he is," said David Axelrod, his chief media strategist.
While acknowledging that there are "certain immutable realities of the process," Axelrod insisted that "the kind of things we do over time will be emblematic of the campaign that we're running. And if we are doing it right, they won't be identical to everyone else's."
That vague mission -- not unlike the one that faced both Howard Dean and retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark as relative outsiders who came late to the 2004 presidential race -- is in the hands of a growing group of respected, if not exactly unconventional, operatives who have had to spend an inordinate amount of time in the past few weeks simply mastering logistics. Led by David Plouffe, the campaign manager, the team spent the day of Obama's exploratory-committee announcement answering phones and taking down volunteers' phone numbers.
Now the advisers are beginning to implement a broader strategy. In contrast to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who spent the first two weeks of her official candidacy trying to project strength and inevitability, Obama will seek a more pared-down image that focuses on the substance of his message ("the audacity of hope," as his book title put it) rather than on proving his ability to win a general election.
Obama gave a glimpse of how his campaign will look and feel on Friday, when he delivered somber remarks at the Democratic National Committee meeting that left the audience hushed at points. No one passed out "Obama" posters; the candidate took the stage without any music, unlike some other Democratic contenders who bounded to the dais to the blaring sounds of rock-and-roll oldies.
"There are those who don't believe in talking about hope," Obama told the crowd. "They say, 'Well, we want specifics, we want details, and we want white papers, and we want plans.' We've had a lot of plans, Democrats. What we've had is a shortage of hope. And over the next year, over the next two years, that will be my call to you."
From Washington, Obama headed to Fairfax for an event that his advisers said illustrated his campaign strategy even more directly: a student rally organized through the online networking site Facebook.com. Thousands of students attended the Web-driven event at George Mason University -- evidence, the Obama campaign said, that the popularity of its candidate will spread virally through the electorate rather than as a result of paid television ads or campaign mailings.
"Our campaign will never be the most rigid, structured, top-down, corporate-type campaign in this nomination battle," said senior Obama adviser Robert Gibbs. "There are plenty of other people that can do 'politics as usual' far better than we can. But I hope we have a campaign whose support continues to expand even faster than you can put a fence around it."
Matt Bennett, a senior adviser to the Clark campaign in 2004, described the phenomenon as trying to "ride a tiger."
"It's the toughest thing to do in presidential politics, which is to walk the line between maintaining your genuine attractiveness to the grass roots and becoming a credible national candidate, because often those things are in direct conflict," he said. "He is the candidate that is exciting this huge mass of people, and he cannot let them down in a fundamental way. But he has also got to do the blocking and tackling that candidates do."
To that end, the Obama campaign spent the weekend moving its headquarters to Chicago (far away, they note, from the sprawling Clinton offices on K Street) and organizing Obama's official campaign debut this Saturday in Springfield, Ill.
And they are already bumping up against the realities of riding his booming grass-roots support while obeying the conventions of running for president. Logistical concerns, such as how much time to spend campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire, are at odds with the imperative for him to prove his seriousness in the Senate.
The task of raising millions of dollars to survive the primaries is competing with Obama's core image as a fresh face -- a familiar dilemma for a professed outsider, but one that his advisers and rivals alike believe he can overcome.
Perhaps most important, Obama's strategists are scrambling to manage expectations. "Given the need to build a fundraising infrastructure and the fact that we do not accept contributions from federal lobbyists and political action committees, raising $8 to $10 million in the first quarter would be great news," spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said.
"An Obama campaign clearly has tremendous fundraising potential in the long term," Pfeiffer said. "But it is absurd to assume that we should raise as much or more than others who have been building fundraising networks for years and years."
Rivals in the Democratic contest contend that he could raise as much as $40 million, potentially raking in $1 million in a single Hollywood fundraiser, and will all but fail an early test of his viability if he comes up with less than former North Carolina senator John Edwards before April. Edwards is expected to raise as much as $15 million in the first quarter, and Clinton is expected to raise as much as $30 million, though both of those campaigns, like Obama's, insist they could take in less.
"By all accounts, Obama is poised for a huge fundraising quarter," said Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson, predicting that Obama will raise $25 million or more. Wolfson played down the notion that Obama's campaign needs time to get up to speed. "You can build an operation fairly quickly if you know what you're doing, and I suspect they know what they're doing," he said.
Still, Clinton spent more than $30 million during the 2006 election cycle, much of it on building an infrastructure, including a donor database, that could be used in her presidential bid. That puts a gulf between her and her rivals, including Obama. "Nobody has ever come to the table with the built-in advantages that Hillary Clinton has," said Jim Jordan, a Democratic strategist advising Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) in the race. "She has had decades to build this organization, and clearly has been running for president more or less for six years, on top of everything else that was previously built for her husband."
Obama "started later than other people, and that's going to show for a while," Jordan said. "But ultimately that's not what's going to decide whether he wins."
Instead, he and others said, Obama will rise or fall on his ability to continue coming across as the candidate who is different, new and charismatic.
"If he tries to run a traditional campaign -- that is run, staffed, managed and operated in a traditional way -- he is playing to his opponents' strengths, both in terms of going head-to-head where they're going to be really strong, but also in terms of undermining a good chunk of his message," said Chris Lehane, a former spokesman for Al Gore who is not currently on the payroll of any presidential campaign.
It remains to be seen how the kind of nontraditional campaign Lehane envisions would work in a round-the-clock news environment. Would Obama decline to respond to attacks? Or to skewer his rivals? Or to answer activists' questionnaires? Or to give detailed answers about his views on policy? Or to play pop music and blast red-white-and-blue confetti at his events?
For now, the answer is yes.
"I think he is very focused on the fact that he doesn't want to lose his essential self in this process, and if he does -- and if what he projects and delivers is just more of the kind of politics people have become accustomed to -- it would be a disappointment to him, and to them," Axelrod said.
"It's not just how he delivers the message but how we deliver the message, and what kind of relationship we develop with our supporters," he said. "If this campaign is what it should be, this is not going to be the hoisting of an icon. It's going to be the movement of millions of people."
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«Se un’identità è importante, forse due identità sono ancora più importanti per capire noi stessi e il mondo che ci circonda. E per farne parte.» Con queste parole Abdoul, emigrato da Timbuctù a Parigi agli inizi degli anni ’70, quando «l’emigrazione africana verso l’Europa stava appena incominciando », lancia la sua sfida al mondo moderno segnato dal (presunto) conflitto di civiltà. Lo fa dopo aver scoperto di essere discendente di ebrei giunti in Mali nel 1300, e forse anche prima. Ma il timido Abdoul non è il solo ad essere colpito dalla notizia diramata da un’agenzia di stampa francese, nel marzo 1996. «Ebrei a Timbuctù? In mezzo al deserto, ancora oggi?», si domanda un viaggiatore europeo che lo aiuterà a superare il Sahara con il suo fuoristrada e tornerà ad incrociarne i destini davanti ad una bottega etnica parigina. |
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 1 — No one will vote to declare the winner of the Super Bowl on Sunday. But you might be excused for thinking it possible.
Before the game, three amateur singers selected by voters online will be named as finalists in a contest to perform with Justin Timberlake at the Grammy Awards.
During the game, aspiring advertising writers — also anointed in voter contests — will see the broadcasts of the ads they created for Chevrolet, Doritos and the National Football League itself.
Once it’s all over, fans on YouTube.com can vote for their favorite Super Bowl commercials.
Inspired by the success of Fox’s “American Idol” and the open culture of the Internet, voter-based competitions are proliferating in every corner of the entertainment world.
Fans are asked to vote on who should earn a record contract with a major label, win the chance to produce a soap opera, create a music video for a Hollywood movie studio, and star in a restaging of “Grease” on Broadway.
The trend goes beyond mere “Idol” mimicry.
The impulse for self-expression and the new outlets for it — from YouTube’s user-generated content to video chats on Stickam.com — are reshaping how consumers interact with television programs, music, film, video games and other entertainment media.
“They’re less willing to be spoon-fed,” said Simon Fuller, the entertainment impresario behind “American Idol.” There is, he added, “this need for a modern person to do more than just watch. We want to get involved. We want to post blogs. We’re more vibrant in opinion.”
Yet even as entertainment democracy proliferates, some question how well it works. While “Idol” continues to draw huge audiences, ABC’s singing competition, “The One,” last year drew record low ratings. A CBS show, “Rock Star,” raised modest interest in two seasons but is seen as a long shot to return. Winners of another recent contest, YouTube’s “Underground” music video competition, landed an appearance on “Good Morning America” but remain a long way from stardom.
And some skeptics ask whether the spread of such contests is a reflection less of rising populism than of new marketing tricks.
“What it really represents is an ever more cleverly manipulated pop culture,” said Dave Marsh, a longtime rock critic and host of a Sirius satellite radio show. “Empowerment becomes a commodity.”
Indeed, if the contests so far are any indication, entertainment executives and network officials are not prepared to turn over decisions just yet. Usually a panel of judges made up of established industry figures winnow down the candidates either before or after voters have their say.
In criticizing the contests, Mr. Marsh said the mass market spots talent well enough: “The mob chose Elvis Presley, the mob chose James Brown, the mob chose the Beatles.” With executives filtering the process, he said, the result is “disposable” performers “who are selected because they stay away from anything that’s personal or controversial.”
The voting processes themselves vary. In “Idol,” viewers vote as often as they want.
Other contests, though, are trying to restrict the number of votes a single fan can cast. In the Grammy contest, organizers have accepted only one vote per e-mail address, and say they have received more than 150,000. A similar process is in place at the Web site Music Nation, where fans this week began voting online for musicians from three genres who submit videos. The winner will receive a record contract and a chance to perform in studio for broadcast by Clear Channel, the radio giant.
And so the onslaught continues. The NBC series “Grease: You’re the One That I Want” is scouting new talent for a Broadway revival, and is even asking fans to vote on how they will vote. “When voting, what is the most important thing you are going to look for in all the performers competing?” an online poll asks.
Inviting people to offer their views “has become an expectation, and it’s a way of life,” said Neil Portnow, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which runs the Grammy Awards.
The academy learned that firsthand last year when “Idol” pummeled the Grammy telecast in the ratings. Mr. Portnow said that the academy had been looking for new ways to connect with young people. So it ran a contest in which unsigned performers sent in videos of themselves singing a cappella.
It received more than 3,000 submissions. An academy panel picked 12, and voters online are to determine who will sing with Mr. Timberlake.
Mr. Fuller, the creator of “Idol,” said that the crush of contests — whether as part of talent searches or simply of promotions — suggests that the trend “will just burn out, because people will be sick of it. I think it’s got to go to another level.”
Of the current crop of vote-driven ventures, he predicted, “80 percent of those will fail because the motivation for doing them is flawed.” Most, he said, “just think, ‘It’s people like contests and they like to vote, so let’s give them something to do.’ It’s not that simple.”
Key to the success of “Idol,” Mr. Fuller and other entertainment executives agree, is stimulating viewer interest in the narratives of contestants pursuing the spotlight — not just giving fans the power to vote.
“Voting is actually incredibly easy and therefore not that meaningful,” said Michael Hirschorn, executive vice president for original programming and production at VH-1, which plans a voting-based show of its own, “Acceptable.tv,” this spring. “I don’t think there’s a desperate hunger in the public to grab the reins of artist development.” He added: “But I do think there’s a desire for a deeper emotional connection to artists.”
It is far from clear, though, that the connections voters make with their favorite new talents are the sort that are built to last. “Idol” winners like Ruben Studdard and Fantasia Barrino have generally fared poorly with their later albums.
Even the debut album of the most recent winner, Taylor Hicks, has tumbled down the charts after selling 298,000 copies in its first week on sale in December, according to Nielsen SoundScan data.
Chris Daughtry, a fourth-place finisher on “Idol” last year, does have a best-selling CD. Unlike Mr. Hicks, though, he has benefited from a hit song, “It’s Not Over,” that radio stations put in heavy rotation.
That, analysts say, suggests that aspiring stars — even those backed by a bloc of voters — still need support from old-line media gatekeepers like radio and TV stations.
Daniel Klaus, Music Nation’s chief executive, said that the future of fan voting was most likely the creation not of superstars but of “microstars” who draw small but avid audiences. Gaining popularity through contests like his, he said, might help a new act sell only 10,000 to 20,000 copies of a song online, for example, but “there will be a few that will go on to bigger and better things.”
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Resistenza non violenta, certo. Ma anche flessibilità tattica e rifiuto di ogni dogmatismo. E un’aria meno global e più spirituale. È la versione di Gandhi secondo Ekkehart Krippendorff, uno dei maggiori politologi tedeschi, e autore di classici come L’arte di non essere governati o Shakespeare politico. E, se in giro, di eredi della grande anima, del Mahatma, se ne vedono ancora pochi, il clima generale sembra mutato, più aperto a soluzioni pacifiche già da qualche anno. A partire dall'esperienza della «costruzione democratica dell'Unione Europea », per dirla con il vicepremier Francesco Rutelli, alla conferenza sul Satyagraha, organizzata dal partito del Congresso. |