I have no heart
and I am proud of it -
If I had one -
Life would be misery!

My chest is just an empty shell.
And I don't care
if my body is cold -
I am already dead -
Don't you know?

I cannot love,
rage, I have never met,
I ignore the pain.
But I do not live in vain!

I can walk
and scream
and talk,
it still works,
this forgotten soul!

I dream of living
in a world
made of ice.

Only there,
where the sun
does not shine,
my angry mind
an illusion of peace
would finally find.

(c) Eleonora Grana, 2009

Finally your body can reach your soul.
Finally you have the freedom you dreamed of.
Goodbye, Eluana.


Italian woman in right-to-die debate dies

ROME – A 38-year-old woman who ignited a fierce right-to-die debate that convulsed Italy and dragged in the Vatican died Monday just as lawmakers in Parliament rushed to pass a bill designed to keep her alive. Eluana Englaro had been in a vegetative state since she was in a car accident 17 years ago. She died Monday night at the Udine clinic where she had been for the past week, said family attorney Vittorio Angiolini.

"Yes, she has left us," the ANSA news agency quoted her father, Beppino Englaro, as saying. "But I don't want to say anything, I just want to be alone."

Englaro's doctors had said her condition was irreversible. Late last year, her father won a decade-long court battle to allow her feeding tube to be removed, saying that was her wish. In line with the high court ruling, medical workers on Friday began suspending her food and water.

But Italy's center-right government, backed by the Vatican, had pressed to keep her alive, racing against time to pass legislation prohibiting food and water from being suspended for patients who depend on them.

Senators who had just begun debating the bill observed a minute of silence Monday night when the news of her death was read out in the Senate chamber.

Government officials vowed to pass the legislation even though it was too late to save Englaro.

"I hope the Senate can proceed on the established calendar so that this sacrifice wasn't completely in vain," Health Minister Maurizio Sacconi told the Senate minutes after the death was announced.

Even if the bill had been passed in time, it wasn't clear that it would have kept Englaro alive. Alessandro Pace, constitutional law professor at Rome University, said the law couldn't have been applied to Englaro because of previous court rulings allowing her feeding tube to be removed.

Englaro's case bitterly divided Italy, with proponents on both sides of the right-to-die debate staging daily demonstrations outside the Udine clinic in northeast Italy and politicians hurling insults against each other. Pope Benedict XVI spoke out several times in the past week about the dignity of every human life.

"May the Lord welcome her and pardon those who brought her to this point," ANSA quoted Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, the Vatican's top health official, as saying. But he ruled out excommunicating those involved in suspending Englaro's food and water.

Italy does not allow euthanasia but patients have a right to refuse treatment. There is no law, however, that allows patients to give advance directions on what treatment they want if they become too incapacitated to state their wishes.

Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said he hoped that Englaro's case would become a point of reference for reflection about how to accompany "the weakest in the necessary respect for the right to life."

Citing records from the clinic, ANSA said Englaro died of cardiac arrest.

Opponents of letting Englaro die immediately called for an autopsy. "This sudden death, when just this morning the experts said her conditions were stable, is perplexing," said Dr. Gianluigi Gigli, a neurologist at the University of Udine who had supported the government's efforts to keep her alive.

Backed by the Vatican, Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government passed an emergency decree Friday to prevent Englaro from having her feeding tube disconnected. But the move led to a rare institutional crisis as the country's president, Giorgio Napolitano, rejected it on the grounds it defied court rulings.

In a statement Monday, Napolitano urged silence among all politicians, saying there was "space only for a profound participation in the pain of the family and those who were close to poor Eluana."

The Englaro case has drawn comparisons with that of Terri Schiavo, the American woman who died in 2005 after a heated right-to-die debate.

Schiavo's feeding tube was removed in March 2005. Congress passed a bill to allow a federal court to review the Florida woman's case, and then-President George W. Bush returned from his Texas ranch to sign the bill into law. A federal judge refused to order the tube reinserted, a decision upheld by a federal appeals court and the Supreme Court.

Rome's right-wing mayor, Gianni Alemanno, announced the Colosseum would be lit all night Tuesday in a sign of mourning for "a life that could have and should have been saved."

The Colosseum has become a symbol of Italy's fight against capital punishment. Since 1999, it has been lit up every time a death sentence is commuted somewhere in the world or a country abolishes capital punishment.

via Yahoo!

I am really sorry I have not been writing on my journal for so long, but I am very busy at work (and because of my "career" as an author).

I would have liked to post something regarding the Memorial Day (on January 27th), but I did not find the time.

Anyway, I guess it does not matter.
We must remember EVERY SINGLE DAY all the victims caused by World War II.

I found out that this day is celebrated only in Europe.
I think it is a shame.

I do not consider myself just as an Italian citizen. I see myself as a "citizen of the world".
I am always interested about the events happening around me, even if apparently they do not affect me in any way.

I think everyone should share my point of view.

And I believe that the human beings should learn from the past, but, judging from what I read on the newspapers, it seems that they have forgotten everything.

Surfing the 'net, I found this interesting web site:
http://www1.yadvashem.org/education/index_education.html

I copied some interesting pages:

Holocaust Commemoration in Europe

Sixty years after the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, heads of European nations and representatives from countries throughout the world declare their commitment to remember the suffering of Holocaust victims, to recall man's inhumanity to man and to honor the survivors and liberators.

I also found this article regarding the Memorial day celebration in my country.

Italy 

Day of Remembrance: 27 January, 16 October 

Historical Background:
On the morning of January 27, 1945, the Soviet Army entered Auschwitz III, followed by Birkenau and Auschwitz I later that afternoon. Only some 7650 prisoners survived to be liberated. Over the course of WWII, the Nazis murdered over one million Jews in the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camps.

On October 16, 1943, under the German occupation government, a large-scale hunt for Rome’s Jews began. 1,015 Jews were arrested that morning, and within two months an additional 7,345 Jews were found and deported from Northern Italy.

Italy and the Holocaust:
Lexicon entry from Yad Vashem's online Holocaust Resource Center: Italy  

Educational Activities:
On 20 July 2000, 27 January was enacted by Law 211 to be a memorial day for the Holocaust. High state organizations conduct various commemorative events. Students observe one minute of silence at 11:59am and then read Primo Levi's poem, “If This is a Man”.
On October 16, the day of the deportation of the Jews of Rome from the Ghetto, the President, the Mayor of Rome and the Chief Rabbis of the Community of Rome gather at the Portico d’Ottavia for a special ceremony.

The “School Autonomy” law of 2000 and the “National Guidelines” enables teachers to choose relevant topics within subjects they teach.
The Holocaust is not a mandatory subject, but it is included as part of the history curricula of the 20th century. Students first learn about the Holocaust in the third, fourth and fifth grades of the primary school. They encounter it at least twice more during history classes in the junior and senior years. The topic is often discussed in literature lessons. The most commonly read books concerning Holocaust history are: “Anne Frank’s diary”, Uhlmann’s “L’amico Ritrovato”, and novels by Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel.
September 8th, the day of the Monarchy’s surrender to the Allies, and October 16th, the day of the deportation of Rome’s Jews, were crucial turning points and are the focus of interest for historians.
The L’Associazione Figle della Shoah is active in the field of Holocaust awareness. Over the past 5 years, they have displayed numerous exhibitions on different topics in Holocaust history, such as Anne Frank, and Remembrance: from Racial Laws until Liberation. These exhibitions were in the Royal Palace in Milan.
Every year, they also have a competition amongst the different universities in Italy for the best thesis in Holocaust studies. They also offer seminars, lectures, and meetings with Holocaust survivors in the big cities in Italy.

Every year pedagogical material was prepared and distributed to teachers and students. Education kit for teachers on Holocaust education, with maps, cd rom, video have been prepared.
Currently, the Association is developing the area at the Milan Central railway station from where the deportations to Auschwitz-Birkenau took place into a memorial and educational site.

I am glad I can finally hear these words from president Bush, but... I guess it is a little too late for regrets. And for apologies.

The thought that Barack Obama is going to take his place soon makes me really happy. I do hope he will not disappoint all the people who believe in him.

In a wide-ranging TV interview, he declined to say whether he would have decided to invade Iraq if he had known it had no weapons of mass destruction.

Asked about what he regarded as his greatest achievement, Mr Bush said that his administration had fought a war against "ideological thugs".

Mr Bush will hand over to President-elect Barack Obama on 20 January.

The outgoing president told ABC television: "The biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq."

He added: "I wish the intelligence had been different."

Asked what his greatest accomplishment was, Mr Bush replied: "I keep recognising we're in a war against ideological thugs and keeping America safe."

He also defended his actions over the recent economic crises.

"When the history of this period is written, people will realise a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so," he told ABC.

Mr Bush - whose approval ratings are at an historic low - said he was happy for history to be his judge.

"I will leave the presidency with my head held high," he said.

Investigators in the Indian city of Mumbai are beginning to piece together how gunmen carried out Wednesday's series of deadly attacks.

The exact sequence of events remains unclear, but security personnel are establishing a picture of how the operation was planned and executed.

All the signs, officials say, point to a well-planned action carried out by a highly trained, determined group.

The men appeared to have surveyed their targets in advance and were well-versed in the use of weapons and explosives, a Indian commando said.

Their intention, he said, was "to create and spread terror".

Investigators believe that a large group of men arrived in Mumbai from the sea around 2100 local time.

They believe that a larger ship - possibly a hijacked vessel, possibly an accomplice ship - brought them close to the shore before they switched to smaller dinghies.

Once ashore, they split into two-, three- and four-man groups to attack pre-selected targets.

Several of the attackers were caught on CCTV. Footage showed mainly young men, carrying automatic weapons and large rucksacks.

Officials said the rucksacks contained grenades, extra ammunition, plastic explosives and food supplies.

Multiple attacks

Reports suggest the attacks happened within minutes of each other. 

One of the first targets was the Chhatrapati Shivaji railway station, where at least two men fired automatic weapons and threw grenades at crowds of people waiting in the main hall.

A second group opened fire at Café Leopold, a popular restaurant, while a third seized Nariman House, a business complex housing a Jewish outreach centre, taking several people hostage.

A fourth group - or, some reports say, the same one that attacked the station nearby - struck the Cama and Albless hospital for women and children. A number of drive-by shootings were also reported across the city.

By around 2200 local time gun fire was being reported at two of the city's luxury hotels - the Oberoi-Trident and the Taj Mahal Palace. 
 

Some guests managed to escape what they described as indiscriminate fire, while others sheltered in their rooms. Others were shot - exactly how many remains unclear.

The gunmen were looking for Americans and Britons, guests trapped at the hotels said, and hostages were taken in both locations.

Gunfire and small blasts continued to be heard at both hotels over the next several hours, as Indian troops surrounded the buildings. Fires broke out in both hotels.

'Trained somewhere'

In the early hours of Thursday, commando teams entered both hotels to try to find the gunmen.

Attackers at the Taj Mahal appeared familiar with the layout and moved continually around the building, firing their weapons. They definitely appeared to have been trained, the commando said.

"Not everybody can fire the AK series of weapons, not everybody can throw grenades like that," he said. "By using such weapons and explosives, it is obvious that they would have been trained somewhere."

The commandos went through the hotels floor by floor and room by room to flush out the attackers and free trapped guests and staff.

Reports that particular locations had been made safe were several times followed by fresh bursts of gunfire and explosions, and the crisis entered a third day.

By Friday afternoon (local time), Indian security forces said that they had control of the Oberoi. Multiple bodies had been found, they said.

Later that night, troops regained control of Nariman House. The bodies of five hostages were found inside.

In the early hours of Saturday, soldiers launched a renewed assault on the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. By mid-morning, they said that three gunmen were dead and they believed the siege was over - although room-to-room checks were necessary to confirm this. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7754456.stm
 

I am pretty excited, even if this is not the first time I write in a web journal.
Since this is my first post, I guess I should introduce myself, even if I am pretty sure nobody is really interested :-)

My name is Eleonora (but you can call me Eva), and I am a 22 year-old girl from Parma, Italy. I love my country but I also love traveling and discovering new cultures. I live in Italy now, but I studied for several months in the USA and I spent a period of time in London.

I have been working in a bank for a year now, but my dream is to become a famous writer. In July 2008 I published my first book, a collection of poems.

I decided to open this journal because I needed a place where I could collect and comment on all the articles from the Net and the press that I find interesting and that I wish to share with other people.

Since I would like to communicate not only with people from my own country, but also with web surfers from all over the world, I decided to use the English language, which almost everyone can understand.

Besides, I love the English language very much, and I would like to keep on practicing it!

Anyway, you can find all the information about me on the sidebar, or visiting my personal web site (Italian only - for now).

Thanks for visiting my journal. I hope I will not disappoint you!