Eurovision: Destination - Copenhagen 2014 (II)

Here we are in a very busy month for the Eurovision path to Copenhagen. Many countries will reveal their artists and songs this month.
Here I analyze more two countries, curiously both will be represented in Denmark with a band.

Finland and Softengine

Despite the winning in 2006 with the 3rd most voted song ever in the contest, Finland is among the lest
successful in the scandinavian "block". Even missing only 2 times the grand final after 2006, Finland never was in the TOP10 or closer to that.
Last year, this scandinavian country brought a very funny song and a very controversial performance. But, despite all the controversy the song came in 24th position.
This year Finland brings a different song from last years. In the national final there were some very good songs, especially the songs that finished in the TOP3. All these three songs could be a very good choice for the contest but, despite many people prefere the second ranked Mikko Pohjola, I prefere the winning song.
Let's start to analyze the 2nd and 3rd ranked. The band MIAU is probably the most original from all three, but I think it's not the most adequate for this kind of contest and could be very misunderstood, especially by the juries.
As for the 2nd ranked, he has probably the best voice in the TOP3 (and maybe among all the candidates), but the sing is not so memorable , and this could be a disadvantage in the time to vote.
And finally, my comment to the winner. I like this kind of performances on the Eurovision: a band singing pop-rock songs. The song probably doesn't bring us anything new, could be similar to many others, but at least it's a style that the most part of the people like to listen, and if they keep the same performance in the national final, I can't find (so far, it will depend on all the competition of course) reasons for Finland miss the grand final this year. The group has the passion to give a great performance to the audience and the singer is vocaly very secure.
This year Finland will perform in the 2nd semi-final and unfortunately Finland cannot count with the countries that tend to give it more points. None of the scandinavian neighbors will vote in this semi-final and, according to the statistics the only country that tends to give more points to Finland that will vote in this semifinal will be Israel, which in the last years is not among the countris that gives more points to this Nordic country.
So, at least thank God Finland will bring a good song, able to attract votes from the countries that doesn't give points to Finland due to the neighbor block system.

Switzerland and Sebalter

Switzerland is among the countries more damaged by the current block voting system, and in the last years has had some very unfair results. However I agree with the last year result, and honestly, I hope this year Switzerland has the same destiny. The group is interesting, transmits good feeling but the song is a little far away from what could be. It's not only because of the whistles, although is the biggest reason. I think that something is missing in this song, to give it more power and to transmit all the message and emotions the song has. And the vocalist needs to pay more attention to some vocal failures during the performance. But at least was the best choice from all the finalists. Only the 2nd ranked could also have been a good choice, although the song was too average.
Switzerland doesn't have a easy life in this competition and of course this country cannot count to benefit from the political vote this year as usual. The countries that according to the statistics give more points to Switzerland and that will vote in the same semifinal are the United Kingdom, Austria and in a lower level Finland and Germany.
Well... if the artists maintain the good mood (that is probably, together with the diversity of instruments used, the best aspect of all the song and performance) in the semifinal, they could not pass to the grand final but at least will not be among the crappy swiss participations.

The emerging economies and their role in the current crisis

The emerging economies are those who are cuurently in the path between the underdevelopment and the development situation. Of course they usually have an important role in the world economy. According to the flying geese model, these economies started to receive the labour intensive industries, and are now changing to the capital intensive industries and having an important role in some sectors.
However, maybe more than never, these economies are having an important role, especially in the current crisis.
Could the current economic situation be worse without the role of these economies? Could the solution for the current crisis be in the emergent economies?
That's what we are trying to see now.

Could the exit for the current crisis be in the BRIC's economic performance?

The great performance
One of the biggest facts of the last decades is the development and the economic growth of the so called "emerging economies", especially the BRIC's: Brazil, Russia, India and China, that are now among the biggest contributors to the world economy. And their weight will increase in the next decades. And in the recent years, one factor appears: the intra-emerging economies trade. In 2005, already 50% of the trade of these countries were among them. This is the result of the improvement in the consumptions patterns and the increase in the domestic demand.
But there are other groups inside the big group of the emerging economies. And, if some of them have already an important role in the regional trade and are achieving the high-income, others are still in the beggining of their path. We can divide the emergent economies into three groups:

> the developed emergents, which includes countries with high economic growth rates, like the BRIC's, but have a long way to achieve the political and isntitucional development, and others like Portugal or South Korea which achieved a good level of industrialization but are facing some economic problems especially the middle-income trap, and in gaining a important position in the global market;
> the mono.economies, which have the productive activity extremly concentrated in one product. They can face the risk if they don't diversify their productive activity, neither take advantage of the good seasons of their mono-product;
> insufficient emergent economies, the countries which development path is still in the beggining phase. They were the countries who suffered the most with the crisis by the reasons we will se later.

So, in the beggining of the current crisis it seemed that the emergent economies will not be affected by it, or at least will suffer just a litlle bit. This idea that the economic performance of the emergent economies would be independent of the economic performance of the most developed economies, especially the USA, received many supporters, including the political leaders of the emergent economies.
So, when the current crisis started, the reactions from the emergent economies were almost nonexistent. And in  fact they had good reasons to react like that. The most developed economies could renovate their debts thanks to the credibility they had in the international markets. And of course, the emergent economies didn't have the credibility to do that. So, the only way they had to constantly renew their debts was thanks to the currency reserves accumulated by the countries in the 90's. This accumulation was the result of years of comercial surplus with the outside, which led to a reduction in the debt and in the risk of financial crisis.
However, even with these good aspects, the trade between these economies and the western economies was still about 50% in the biggenning of the current crisis. With the progress of the economic crisis, it became obvious that emerging economies would be directly affected by the crisis started in the USA.

GDP growth in the BRIC's

Source: World Bank statistics 2014

Exports growth in the BRIC's
Source: data obtained by the information available on the World Bank Statistics 2014

By these graphics is possible to see that the recession arrived to the emergent economies later, but had negative effects especially in the mono-economies, whose industrial specialization made ​​them more vulnerable to terms of trade deterioration. And even with the high cuurent accumulation, the markets were awared about what happened in the 90's, and the access to the credit became more difficult.
The second problems faced by the emergent economies, is the contraction of the international demand of the commodities (that still has an important weight in the total exportation in most of these economies). And the third is the decrease in the commodities and raw-materials prices, having especial effects in the insufficient emerging economies.
So, it seems a bad scenario for the emerging economies. However, these economies had two advantages comparing to the most developed countries. First, since they took place in the industrizliation process later, the creation and investment in financial securities which were the responsibles for the crisis, weren't so disseminated. And, since their were in the middle of the development process, the domestic market wasn't full explored like in the developed countries. So, the domestic demand was in the ascending process, and these countries could cover the decrease in the international demand, by the increase in the domestic demand. And since the big part of the population are now emerging from the poverty, they have enough income to consume the intensive labour, or low technologic products that the big part of these countries still produce.
And in three of the emerging economies, Brazil, India and especially China, they have an advantage, that can also give the opportunity to export to the most developed countries where the crisis is bigger: the so called "social dumping".
The techological assimilation, associated to the extremly low labour costs and bad work conditions, gives to China the possibility to produce and export products more sofisticated than before, at a more competitive prices than the companies in the developed economies. So, even with lower productivity, these economies can compete with the similar products produced in the developed economies, thanks to the lower prices.
Bur of course, even with the possibility to export to the developed economies with a competitive price, the emerging economies will recover faster than the others, thanks to the domestic demand. And of course the level of recovering will also depend on the government's role in these areas:
> fiscal and incentive policies;
> social programs to stimulate the domestic demand (give the opportunity to the people increase their consumption, especially for the goods that the country can't put in the external market);

The recovering of the emerging economies can in fact help the recovering of the most developed economies. But to achieve that it will be necessary the coordination of policies and procedures at the international level. The basic areas of intervention are the creation of a new finantial regulation system, the reform of the international financial system and the extension of the regulation and the penalization to the fiscal paradises.

So, as we can see in this article, the reason why the people speak more now about the emerging economies, is because the exit for the current crisis could depend a lot of their performance.

The Holocaust: a memory of the past and a lesson for the future

"If the international Jewish financiers outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the bolshevisation of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe"
(Adolf Hitler addressing the German Reichstag, 30 January 1939)

A child dying on the street in the Varsaw Gheto, during the Nazi regim

Today, 27th of January we celebrate the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, th day when the largest Nazi death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, was released by Soviet troops and the Holocaust period became officially to an end.
It was created in 1st of November of 2005 during the United Nations General Assembly resolution, in the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the end of the World War II. However, only this year I will leave a post about it, not because only this year I remember this big crime against the Human-Kind and the Human Civilization, but because last year in August I visited for the first time a concentration camp, the kz gedenkstaette Dachau, near to Munich, the first concentration camp.
And I need to say that, even with all the pictures, all the movies and all the stories, we can only realize what really was a concentration camp, when we visit one with our eyes, and we still feel the sadness, the despair and the hopeless that remains in these camps.
But, before talking about my experience, I will explain some things about the Holocaust.

Despite the years, the European continent has fresh the memory of this crime. Even the youngest generations (like myself) that were born many years after the end of the World War II know what the Holocaust was and have (at least) a vague idea of what it worked. And despite the non-involvement, it's known in all the continents, not being of course, a present memory like here in Europe.
But sometimes the people don't realize the extension of this phenomenon. The Holocaust wasn't only the building of some camps where the people were put to die or to kill instantly. There was a big structure behind, many people working just for it, a great long-term preparation and execution, and a whole system working.
In fact, it reflects the real idealism of the nazi regim. Because more than the Economic or Political Changes, the basic principle of the nazist regime was the the segregation and the xenophobia.

So, how did it started? The tortures against the jewish started far before the opening of the concentration camps, when the Nazi party and its leader, Adolf Hitler, came to the power in 1933. In that time, Germany was facing a extremly bad economic, social and political situation, and a huge humiliation caused by the World War I. So, for Hitler the big responsibles for that were the jews, knowing by a people that can become rich very fast, that were taking away the opportunities for the Germans. The jewish turned into the Germany's main enemies. Before the massive deaths in the Holocaust, a long process was made. First all the jews were registrated and forced to use a specific symbol. They were humiliated and let to die in the most miserable conditions. And no one was saved: even the old, the women and the small kids.

Pictures from Dachau, The first concentration camp opened in 1993

The Nazi regime started to create the concentration camps: but initially they were just a few and weren't the most important element of the regime's xenophobia.
The big part of the jewish population started to be concentrated in the big cities, in Germany and in the occupied territories (especially Poland, Austria and Czechoslovakia). Many jews from the countries came to the cities and were put in the ghettos: urban districts separated from the rest of the cities, where only the jews could live. They were deprived of all their rights and became employees of the German industry.

Evacuation of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943

However the big intention of Hitler wasn't leave the jews in these ghettos. He intended to invade the Soviet Union and put them - the jews and the other discriminated groups - in Siberia. But, when Hitler failed to invade the Soviet Union, Hitler turned to the massive creation of concentration and extermination camps. The ghettos were evacuated until 1943, and the jews were taken to these concentration camps.
But now, not only the jews are being arrested, but also members of other groups: gypsies, homosexuals, politicians (especially Hitler opponents), priests and other members of the Catholic church, black people,

Soviets massively murdered in Belarus

people from the occupied territories who were considered inferiors, and physical and mental disabled.
Many concentration camps were opened in Germany and the occupied territories. The living conditions in the forced labour or concentration camps was extremely bad. The physical and psychological terror were a constant by day and by night. The prisioners were constantly fearing by their lifes. And of course, all the work was completly unecessary and had only one purpose: to humiliate and to weaken the prisioners until the death, usually some weeks after they arrived to the camps. Of course, many other prisioners were killed by massive shootings, physical and psychological tortures and starvation.

Entrance to Aushcwitz-Birkeneau camp

In 1942 started the construction of the first extermination camps, like Treblinka, Berzec and Sobibor. Big ovens were built, as the destination of the people that arrived by trains in terrible conditions - many of them dying before the end of the travel -, and were killed in a couple of hours. The most common way to the quick death was the use of toxic gases.
Later, also the forced labour camps become extermination camps, as a consequence of the so called Final Solution decided in the Wannsee Conference (1942). In this conference it was decided that there was only one "good solution" (in the nazi way) for the jewish problem: take all the jews present in the nazi territory and bring them to the extermination camps to be killed quickly (some of them could work under extreme conditions until their death). The objective was to kill all the jewish population, in the so called genocide.

But of course not all of the prisioners had this treatment: some of them were considered "special" prisioners and didn't pass by this slow death process. Prisioners like politicians, militaries, special members of the church, high-educated people and others that didn't belong to the groups to be exterminated. In fact, many germans that weren't jews, gypsies, homossexuals, etc, were arrested - usually by the opposition to Hitler's government - and were sent to these camps, not having to work on them or die in the gas chambers.

Victims of starvation

Victim of the nazi medical experiments

The nazis abused of the prisioners in other way. Many doctors and scientists used the prisioners as guinea pigs for medical experiments. For example the homossexuals were tested to see why did they have a
different sexual orientation, and many mental disables to study they diseases. The medical experiments brought some considerable results to the scientific community. However, they were obtained by the less human way: abusing, torturing and making the tests without the person's agreement.

During the World War II, when the Nazis realized that the things could not be going as they wished, and the possibility of loosing the war started to be a reality, the death of prisoners increased a lot. The activity of the gas chambers was continuous. In Auschwitz about 8000 people were killed by day, during the final solution, and arrived to 15000 in the last year the camp was used.

The persons that survived from the concentration camps were never looking like before

When the soviet troops released these camps, they were shocked about what they saw. And very quickly the world was in shock too. It's true that the population wasn't allowed to visit the camps, and they were very far away from the cities. And obviously in the occupied countries, especially in Poland, the population was against them. And what about the german population? Even not being authorised to visit the camps, it was obvious for everyone that the things that were happening inside these camps weren't good. Despite the fact that the people were in shocked when they discovered the extreme barbaric conditions of the camps, the true is that the german population was indifferent about was going on in the camps. The anti-Semitism wasn't only a crazy idea of the members of the Nazist party. The German population was in general extremly anti-semitic. They just didn't care about the destination given to the jews or to the other groups of prisioners. For them, the killing of these people was a benefit for the society. They were more worried about the war.

Gas chambers.

So, what happened after the release of these camps? Did the deaths stop immediatly? No. The soviet troops were busy in fighting the nazis and to arrive to Berlin. The most near cities to the camps, were devastated. And the prisioners didn't have anything - just the clothes they were wearing. So in many cases, after the release, the prisioners came back to the camps. Of course it was a bad idea, because many of them commited suicide. The nazis were cruel, but they didn't know anything about the soviets. Without knowing what could happen to them, many of the prisioners killed themselves.

The world is still in shock everytime the theme of the Holocaust is discussed. And it should be. In Dachau, even decades after its close, I could feel that there wasn't no hope inside the walls. The happiness, the joy, the fun... remained beyond the walls. In total, about 15000 camps were created by the nazists, among big camps, supporting camps, forced labour camps and extermination camps.
No one can imagine the horror lived in these camps. The prisioners weren't human beings anymore. They became less than a living creature.
Should these concentration camps be preserved as a memory of what the human being can do to himself, even in the center of the Western civilization.
There's no words to describe this atrocity and unfortunately there have been similar cases like this after the end of the World War II in many countries around the world.
I just hope that this could come to an end, in honour of these innocent people. These kind of cruelties only destroy the Human kind and the best we have: the respect for the others, and the richness of being different.

"There our troops found sights, sounds, and stenches horrible beyond belief, cruelties so enormous as to be incomprehensible to the normal mind."
Words of the Colonel William W. Quinn of the US 7th Army about what he discovered in the Dachau concentration camp.

Eurovision: Destination - Copenhagen 2014 (I)

Last year was impossible to me to put my comments about all the countries that participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013. Now, here I am trying to comment the songs for this year.
Let's see if this year I will present all my comments.
Let's start with the countries that have selected their songs and artists last year.

Ukraine and Maria Yaremchuk

Font: eurovisiontimes.wordpress.com

Last year Ukraine came back to the TOP3, finishing in 3rd place, with a beautiful song, and it best result since 2008.
However, last year's song was quite different from the style that Ukraine usually sends to Eurovision. But this year the old Ukraine is back. Unfortunately for me, it left some of the quality away. Of course it's too early to say if this song will be well-succeed in the Eurovision, since only 3 countries have selected, so far, their artists and songs. But I can assure than it will be almost impossible to Ukraine to obtain the same 3rd place as last year.
As for the direct competition, the 2nd ranked, Victoria Petrik with the song "Love is Lord", could be a good bet to the Eurovision. I can't say the same about the 3rd ranked, Viktor Romanchenko.
But at least the winning song, is a song that the people can remember best when will be the time to vote. And of course Maria is very carismatic on stage, and has a tuned vocal tract. We can wait a good show from Ukraine. Because as usual, even with lower quality songs, Ukraine always brings great shows to the Eurovision stage.
Ukraine will be in the grand final again, because of the song and of course because Ukraine will have voting on the same semi-final, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Moldova, Portugal and Spain.

Albania and Herciana Matmuja

For me Albania is a very particular country in the Eurovision. It started by sending good songs (or at least at an average-quality level), and since 2011 they are sending a crap song followed by a good song. The big surprise of me was on 2012. Rona Nishliu had a great voice indeed, but only a few people could think on giving her the 5th place, which shows that the song was appreciate not only buy the juries, but also by the public.
After the bad song selected by Albania, it seems that this year, this balcanic country made a better choice. At least, is far better than the last year.
It's an interisting sing, with some unexpected changes especially in the beginnig, and with an interesting mix of instruments and styles. However, this makes more difficult to understand the song. Many people could not understand the meaning of the song. This doesn't mean that the song doesn't have a strong message. The problem is that the song's structure doesn't allow the singer to show that.
Despite the fact that will be a little difficult for the people to remember and to identify themselves with the music, when will be the time to vote, at least it's originality is an extra factor that the 2nd and 3rd ranked didn't have.
Herciana has a good voice, but anything special. A place in the grand final will be more thanks to the juries than thanks to the public. And if Albania wants a place in the grand final, needs to invest a lot on the stage presentation, since the orchestra present in the national final is not allowed, and only Montenegro is the only country that usuallt gives some points to Albania, and will vote in the first semi-final. The countries that usually give many points to Albania will not participate (like Croatia and Turkey) or will be in the other semi-final (like Greece, Macedonia, Switzerland and Austria).
Unlike Ukraine, I need to see more songs to see if Albania will have good chances to go to the final. But in a semifinal where will be the gigants of the Eastern block, it will be a very hard work.



Good luck for both countries.
At least we are starting better than last year.

O que diria Jesus Hoje?

 

Apesar de há muito tempo (mesmo muito) não ter feito aqui mais nenhuma crítica a nenhum livro que tenha lido, ou do qual tenha tido conhecimento, achei por bem fazer uma referência a este, a começar pelo título.
De facto, para crentes ou não crentes, que conheçam a História (pelo menos a quem é oficialmente apresentada pelas Igrejas Cristãs) e a pessoa de Jesus, ficariam certamente intrigados por saber quala  opinião que Jesus teria sobre o nosso mundo actual.
Bem, partindo daquilo que a Igreja ensina de que Jesus é Omnipotente, certamente que já estaria à espera de que a Humanidade no século XXI estivesse a viver neste planeta de uma maneira pelo menos parecida a esta. Mas, acreditando que o Homem tem capacidade para escolher o seu destino e de usar da melhor maneira que as suas capacidades o entendam, aquilo de que tem ao seu dispor, certamente que muitas coisas devem deixar Jesus estupefacto.
O livro, ao contrário do que se poderia pensar, não se baseia em conjecturas infundamentadas, mas parte antes daquilo que se encontra na Bíblia, por vezes baseado em relados de Historiadores da época, para argumentar sobre qual seria a opinião de Jesus sobre inúmeros assuntos, dando exemplos de como o Homem tem procedido erradamente ao ter interpretado mal o que de facto Jesus queria dizer com os seus gestos, as suas palavaras e os seus comportamentos.
Desde o eterno dualismo riqueza/pobreza, passando pela política e pela forma como as nossas sociedades vivem actualmente, os progressos feitos nos campos das ciências e a forma como eles são usados, incluindo assuntos mais internos à Igreja (aqui o autor tem como ponto de referência a Igreja Católica) como o casamento dos padres, o divórcio, o papel das mulheres dentro da instituição bem como o respeito pelas minorias e pelos perseguidos/refugiados.
A ideia com que eu fiquei, foi de que de facto a mensagem que Jesus queria transmitir não era tão conservadora, nem tão injusta, nem tão afastada do dia-a-dia das pessoas e sobretudo nem era uma justificação para todos os crimes e atrocidades que se têm cometido ao longo dos séculos em seu nome, e que ainda hoje se cometem.
O autor alerta para o facto de que muitos cristãos têm actuado ao longo dos séculos como os fariseus que Jesus tanto criticava: têm dado importância à letra e não ao seu conteúdo nem aplicabilidade na prática. O que muitas vezes era apresentado como regras e normas são apenas sinais daquilo que se deve fazer na prática. A purificação do corpo que os judeus faziam com inúmeros rituais de higiene e de abstinência de certos alimentos, na verdade deveria ser entendida no ponto de vista de Jesus, como a purificação da alma de maus pensamentos e de más obras.
Segundo o autor, a base do ensinamento de Jesus é a de colocar o ser humano como centro e ponto culminante do funcionamento da nossa sociedade, da nossa economia e da nossa política, e não utilizá-lo como mero meio para satisfazer as necessidades destas áeras. E entenda-se aqui o ser humano, como todas as pessoas do mundo, sem qualquer excepção, porque todas elas são importantes para o funcionamento e existência da civilização humana.
De facto Jesus teria muito a dizer hoje sobre a actual sociedade humana. Mas seria apenas dizer mal do que fizémos até hoje? Não devemos também pensar em todos os esforços que têm sido feitos para um desenvolvimento mais harmonioso de todos os países e na oferta de oportunidades a todas as pessoas independemente da raça, cor, sexo ou crença religiosa? No entanto, há ainda um longo caminho a percorrer, e os dados que o autor apresenta ao longo do livro, sobretudo das provações que as crianças e mulheres apresentam hoje em muitos países do mundo, são exemplo do enorme trabalho que ainda falta fazer, e de que talvez Jesus Hoje nos diria que ainda falta muito para o nosso mundo viver na sociedade justa e equílibrada que ele tantas vezes defendeu. Sejamos crentes ou não, os planos e a mensagem de Jesus para este mundo, ainda está muito além do que nós vivemos hoje. Será que lá chegaremos de facto um dia?

Italy: one country, many homelands?

Now we are used to see Italy as a single unified nation, the true is that this reality is very recent. This south-European country has actually many differences among its territory. And these differences are so strong and deep that is impossible to talk and see Italy as a single reality.

Usually it’s normal to divide Italy in two different realities: The North rich as more developed, and the South less rich and less developed. However, with a more thorough economic analysis is possible to divide Italy into 3 different realities.

As I said before, the reasons for this division are very strong and some of them older than we can imagine. Basically we can find historical, political, economic and social differences.

Historical Differences:

Until de 1860’s Italy wasn’t an unified country, but divided into several states that have been changed over the centuries. Since the Roman Empire to the Risorgimento in the 1860’s many independent States were created and eliminated in this peninsula. The political unity was lost by the invasions of the Barbarian people in the end of the Roman Empire (476 a. C.). Since them Italy was the place of many small states, principalities and kingdoms where the political and religious (the Pope) powers fought to obtain a bigger part of territory. In the end of the Middle-Age some cities in the Italian peninsula started to prosper and were the birth place of a big cultural movement: The renaissance. However this prosperity was concentrated almost only in the Center and North of the Peninsula. This has consequences in the tourism. The North has much more historical attractions than in the South. It's possible to see in the North monuments that attest the historical richness of this region: the Renaissance, the influences from the Austrian Empire, the richness of Vatican and other catholic monuments.
The historians have found in the Renaissance movement an attempt to unify the country.

Map of the Italian peninsula in 1860

Before the unification, the Italian peninsula was composed by:
-        The Kingdom of Sardinia;
-        The kingdom of two Sicilies;
-        The Papal States;
-        One part of the Austrian Empire;
-        Habsburg sicons;

These independent states had their own laws, culture and social habits. So, before the unification, the divisions remained. Many people refer to the Italy unification more to a colonial level than to a really unification.

Economic differences:

In this field we can see not two but three different regions in Italy.

The economic differences are a consequence of the economic past. First, it’s a consequence of the entrance of the northern regions in the two Industrial Revolutions. In the North we can find the Industrial Triangle (Turin, Milan and Genoa) that focused their industrialization on specialization and small products, taking advantage of the geographical proximity to the most developed European countries (Switzerland, Austria, Germany and France), which benefits from a lower distance costs. Also since the population density is bigger in the North, is has been also a benefit for the domestic and foreign companies to install their affiliates in the North, where the workforce is more abundant, than in the South.
Since the more technologically advanced industries are almost all in the North, this also means that the North contributed more for the economic italian performance.
On the other side... the South - the so called Mezzogiorno, economically charecterized by an retarded agriculture and a big absense of manufacturing industries.
There have been many attempts to develope the south and to reduce the lack between the North and South, but the results are very far away from the intended.
And here it comes the "Third Italy" a purely economic concept. Between the very industrialized North based on leading industries and the South with many problems on its industrialization, there's the so called "Middle Italy" - a region that experienced a rapid growth in the lighter industries, caractherized by a small and medium sized family firms - . This region is also caratherized by an active role of the women, that started to replace the men in the agricultural work and next in the industries. These small firms are the cuore of suche division, and are assuming an important role in the importance of the "Third Italy" in the national and international context, because these firms are benefiting for the labour specialization, the production decentralization from the biggest industries in the North for these smaller.

Besides the industry, there's another economic sector that has an huge importance on the Italian economy: the tourism. And even here we can see many differences between the North and the South.
As I said before, the Historical Background of the North, made of it one of the best tourist destinations in the World: cities as Rome, Florence and Venice atracts every year many tourists all over the world. And also the natural resources in the north contrubute for it.
From the Cathedrals, to the museums, the Palaces, the Opera's Theaters, the cosmopolitan cities to the beauty of the nature, everything makes of the North, a important tourist destination.
However, in the recent years the South has focused on the specifics of its region, in order to attract tourists, by the agritourism and inside it, the Wine-tourism.
Using the small size of the big part of the cities in the South, the region has focused on presenting the relation between tourism and rural life as an attraction. The recent importance given to the environment and the biological food (the so called green-environment) is helping the south to attract many tourists. Many tourist units and hotels have been oppened in the recent years to give the possibility to the foreigners to feel the particularities of this unknow side of Italy, together to the possibility to live in a more rural environment.
The wine is maybe the most famous product that attracts many tourists to this region, to see where it is produced, attracting many wine producers to the region and increasing the procution of those that are already installed.
surprisingly, the tourist actitvity and profits are increasing in the South, while in the North are facing a problem of decreasing.
However, the South stills attracting tourists almost only from the rest of Italy.

Social differences:

There are some big social differences between the South and the North that have been increasing in the recent years because the South is still following the old traditions meanwhile the North have been broke them and is moving toward the modernity.
The socio-economic backwardness together with the weight of corruption, caractherized nowadays the South of Italy that persistes in not following the modernization of the North and the rest of the Western Europe. The south still follows the same traditions of a patriarchal society based on the family. The importance of the family as the central unit of the society has consequences in the social relations and also in the economic activity. In the South is usual to have a huge lunch time (for example) where teh big part of the economic activities stop in order to give to the people the opportunity to go home to have a big lunch and have some sleep.
The importance of family is also caractherized by the existence of a big size families living together in the same or adjacent houses. While in the North is normal the youngers leave the parent's home to go to the University or when they marry (which occurs generally in a younger age than in the North), in the South is normal to stay at parent's home, at least until the youngers have a solid career or marriage.
On the other side, the North, where the youngers leave their parent's home to study and to marriage, and despite the fact that the family has also an important role in the society, it's given much more importance to the individual and the family's size is quite different from the South. The average age for marry is also later and it's not common to stop the economic activities ao long in the lunch time (it's even more common not close at all).
The importance given to the individual development is the social cause of the development of the North.

Political differences:

As I said in the previous point, the corruption has a deep penetration in the South. But the corruption is also very common in the North as we have been seeing over the years with the discovery of many corruption scandals, some of them involving members of the local, regional and also central governments.
Relate to the corruption, is the big national inbestigation called Mani Pulite that revealed many scandals related to the vote system and others. This investigation led to the fragmentation of two major political parties: the Christian Democrats and the Communists.
One of the consequences was the ceration of the Lega Nord in 1990 that proposed the creation of Padania: an independent State, agregating some of the regions in the North, and making an independent State with them, basing their oppinion in the fact that the North is suffering of the corruption caused by the Central Government. Unlike other party forces, the Lega Nord has a big importance, specially in the North. They also joined forces with Forza Italia the Berlusconi's party. However, they became opponents quickly. After this break, Lega Nord returned to the regionalism defence, arguing that the North souldn't share its big economic sucess with the South, and shouldn't  be harmed by the bad economic and development performance of the South. So, as we can see the reason for the creation of Padania doesn't have a Historical or cultural reason, but the similar soci-economic values and background. But of course the different economic performance can use as a social difference between the North and South, in ways of level of living and access to goods and services.




As we can see in this article, there are many differences between the North and the South. And they don't tend to disappear, but to increase. North has been always richer than the South thanks to its strategic position and to the Historical Background. Currently the break with tradition in the North is aggravating the differences on both regions.
And in the political and tourist fields, the differences are more than obvious.
The Third Italy is contributing to the existence of more competition between the regions among the Italian territory.
Are all theses differences enough to a future division of Italy in two or more independent territories?

Cuba: the end of comunism?

1959, 1st of January: the revolutionary movement of Fidel Castro droped the Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship. With this event, Cuba started a new era. And it seems that Cuba is facing now a new big change.



Cuba's Revolution: when Fidel took the control of Cuba

But let's go back to understand why the current differences are changing so much the economic and political environment in Cuba. After the revolution, the new government nacionalized  the economic apparatus and stablished strategic relations with the Sovietic Union. But only in 1965 was born the Modern Comunist Party. In that year, the country held a total adherence to the Marxist-Leninist Communism: all the economic activities were under the government control and all the workers became public employees. And despite the fact that the Government - as usual in all the Comunist Regimes - couldn't supply all the basic goods and services to the population, it resisted over the years thanks to the population's support.
This was possible because the Government supplied many services like education and health cares for free.
But there are other reasons for all the support given to the government by the population. First, the propaganda, second the USA blockade to Cuba (The Government used it as an excuse for the shortage of many goods and services) and third the support and economic help by the Sovietic Union (because it was good for them to have an ally near to the USA).
With the fall of the Sovietic Union, Cuba lost it's principal buyer and supplier. The shortage became even worst. Since it was impossible to continue to buy the goods for the population in the international market with the so called "comunist prices" - prices with scount -, in the 90's the Government decided to reduce even more the standard of living. The population in general started to live with less goods, less income and the hunger became even more normal.
Second the Government started to authorized the private investments in the tourism, one of the strongest sectores for the economy. This decision truned into a good decision because with the increase in the number of tourists, more private companies invested in teh country in this sector, the country received more money and many jobs were created.
However the situation was still dramatic for the population that continued to move to the USA hoping to find a better life.

The brothers Fidel and Raul that are controling Cuba

In the 31st of July of 2006 due to a big disease, Raul Castro - Fidel's brother - took the control of the government and the people though that everything will still the same. They were totally wrong. Obviously the Communist Party was still the only party, and continue to rule by its own decisions without accepting any kind of opposition. But the economic activity changed a lot. Raul introduced huge economic changes, like the liberalization of the big part of the economic activity and the extinction of more than half a million jobs in the public sector with the objective of having at least 40% of workers working in the private sector by 2015. And in 2011 the population was authorized for the first time in decades to sell and buy their own properties.
Of course these big and fast changes are bringing other consequences specially for the economic agents, like the inflation, but it seems that the Government will not turn back.
The Cuban Government is making the same changes that China made some years ago: both Governments understood that it's necessary to provide a good way of living to the population to them accept the absence of liberty. With no economic development there's no future for the cuban comunist regime.
Now, we only need to wait and see when (and if) the population will realize the differences between the liberty to make their own money and have their own activity and the liberty to say what they want and to choose their own government, and the fact that both are important and essential for a good way of living.