Italian culture Carolina style.

October 10th and 11th will celebrate what has become known as one of the largest and possibly the longest running annual heritage festivals in the Myrtle Beach area, the 16th Annual Sons of Italy Italian Festival.

This years’ festival again features Italian food, continuous music, Italian themed souvenirs, a free children’s activity table, Italian desserts, arts and crafts vendors, beer and wine, and more. The entertainment this year includes two fantastic headliners: classical and contemporary Italian tenor Aaron Caruso, and international performing artist Natalie Pinto. Also performing during the two day event will be keyboard and vocalists Tony Posillico and Frank Gigli, and Larry Tanelli with The Tony Torre Orchestra, just to name a few.

This year the food tent is adding raviolis to their ever popular offerings of sausage and pepper heros and Italian meatball subs. The souvenir booth has also been greatly expanded, and includes “La Cucina”, a full line of kitchen items including espresso sets, decorated oil bottles and spoon rests, aprons, Italian themed coasters and mugs, aprons and beaded wine bottle ornaments. The expanded Raggazzi Children’s Souvenirs area has added more wearables in infant, toddler and youth sizes, coloring books, stickers, temporary tattoos and paper doll book with Italian themes, as well as Italian word books for youngsters, beach balls and Italian Teddy Bears. The desserts include Italian ices, Cannollis, and Zeppolis along with many types of cookies and biscotti.

The Sons of Italy are dedicated to preserving and promoting Italian heritage and culture, and offer regular membership to Americans of Italian descent, as well as social memberships to non-Italians.

Italian Mobster comes clean on environmental damage

According to an ex Italian mobster an estimated 35 sunken ships containing large amounts of toxic waste have been illegally exposed of by the Italian mafia, claims Francesco Foti, now a criminal informant for the Italian government.

Foti confessed that the Italian Calabria Mafia has been sinking ships packed with the poisonous stuff in the Mediterranean Sea for the last 20 years. Foti says he sank three of the ships himself; the whereabouts of the other 32 are unknown.

According to CNN, Foti’s tip was confirmed when Italy’s environmental agency sailed to the alleged dump site 18 miles off the country’s southwest coast and found a ship about 1,600 feet below the ocean surface, flanked by yellow garbage drums marked “toxic.” Foti says the drums contain nuclear waste from Norway—due to increasingly strict waste disposal regulations by the European Union, it was cheaper to pay the mob to load the waste onto a ship and sink rather than dispose of legally.

Thirty-four other sunken ships are suspected to also contain nuclear waste as well as toxic medical supplies, according to World Health Organization.

So far, no one is speculating about whether the offshore toxic dumping is a significant threat to marine life–or to fish-eating humans–but let’s be realistic; nuclear waste dumping news is never good news.

Italian soccer club to get Texan owner

It didn't take long for Tim Barton to realize the impact he was making by becoming the first American to buy a top Italian soccer club.

When the Texas-based entrepreneur landed in Bari last month to sign off on the $35.8 million deal, 1,500 Italian fans surged past security and onto the tarmac to greet him, temporarily closing down the southern city's airport.

The excitement grew six days later when Bari rallied for a 1-1 draw at the home of four-time defending Serie A champion Inter Milan -- a great day for a team playing its first match back in the top Italian division in eight years.

Barton signed a preliminary deal last month to acquire Bari from the Matarrese family that has controlled the club for the past 32 years.

It's little wonder the Matarrese family is ready to finish the sale. Running Italian teams can be a risky business.

Italian Serie A clubs totaled $2 billion in cumulative operating losses over the 10-year span ending in 2007-08 -- the last season for which full records are available, according to London-based accounting firm Deloitte. English clubs gained nearly $2.87 billion over the same period.

Festival highlights Italian traditions

Three bands and traditional Italian cooking will be featured in this year's riverside festival on Sunday.

More than 300 years ago, Quakers first settled in Bristol. But now it's the Italians holding down the fort and they will be celebrating their heritage Sunday in Lions Park.

Italians made their ways into Bristol mostly for industrial work, many settling their families in the 1.7-square-mile borough and starting up Italian community groups.

The Italian Presbyterian Mission was founded in 1905. It was housed at the old Presbyterian Church on Radcliffe Street until a chapel was built in 1910 on the corner of Wood Street and Lincoln Avenue, according to the Bristol Cultural & Historical Foundation Web site.

St. Ann's Roman Catholic Church, an Italian parish, was also founded in 1905. A new church was built in 1908 on the corner of Pond and Washington streets. A new rectory was built next to it, reads the Web site.

Years later, some Italian traditions still survive in Bristol. The annual Bristol Lions Italian Festival is one of them. This year's festivities will be held in Lions Park on the Delaware River. Like every year, attendees can enjoy a day full of traditional Italian music and food.

Food booths will be set up around the park throughout the celebration. The Bristol Lions Club usually cooks up sausage and peppers, Italian hot dogs and roast pork sandwiches.

Nice.

Italian skier to miss start of World Cup season

Italian skier Peter Fill will miss the first three months of the World Cup season with a groin injury, putting his participation in the Vancouver Olympics at risk.

Fill was injured in a fall during training in Argentina last month and was evaluated by Dr. Sakari Orawa in Finland on Wednesday, the Italian Winter Sports Federation said.

Fill will undergo surgery Thursday to repair a torn tendon and the federation said it will take four months for him to return to racing, placing his comeback in either late December or early January. The World Cup season begins in Soelden, Austria, on Oct. 24-25.

The 27-year-old Italian won the silver medal in super-G at the world championships in Val d'Isere, France, last season. He also won a downhill in Lake Louise, Alta., for his first World Cup victory, and finished 10th in the overall World Cup standings.

Italian mafia boss fails to make great escape

Italian police have arrested an alleged mafia boss who lived in an underground bunker equipped with an unusual means of escape – a skateboard to propel himself down a 200 yard secret tunnel.

Italian, Giuseppe Bastone's hideout was a 10ft by 10ft space underneath a house near Naples that was accessed through a hidden trapdoor underneath a stairway.

The bunker was connected to a 200 yard long tunnel which was only waist high – hence the need for the skateboard.

Bastone, 28, was however captured by anti-mafia investigators in a lightning raid on his subterranean hideout.

At the end of the tunnel, a shaft with a metal staircase emerged in a field. Italian police said Bastone had been hiding in the bunker, which had solid steel walls, for nearly a year. He was reportedly unarmed and did not resist arrest when he was captured on Monday.

The bunker was equipped with a fridge, a plasma screen television and a DVD player. It took firemen more than an hour to shift the steel door which led from the house to the steel-walled refuge.

Police suspected the hideout was linked to a tunnel but had no idea where the hidden exit might emerge, so deployed 50 officers and a helicopter during the raid in case Bastone tried to flee.

Bastone was among Italy's 100 most wanted fugitives and is alleged to be a leading member of the Camorra mafia. A copy of the film was among the DVDs that police found, along with "The Godfather" starring Marlon Brando.

Pirate says $4 million ransom paid for Italian tugboat

Somali pirates received a $4 million ransom to free an Italian cargo ship that was seized four months ago with a crew of 16, a member of the gang that held it captive said on Monday.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said on Sunday the Buccaneer was freed after "exceptional work" on the part of Somali authorities and the Italian intelligence service.

The owners of the Buccaneer, Ravenna-based Micoperi Marine Contractors, said on Sunday the ship was not freed as a result of military action or ransom payment.

The pirates however claim to be already in posession of the $4 million ransom and freed the Italian tugboat.

The Buccaneer was hijacked on April 11 in the Gulf of Aden along with two barges. It is now on its way to the port of Djibouti escorted by naval vessels. It was crewed by 10 Italians, five Romanians and a Croatian.

A flotilla of foreign naval vessels off Somalia has failed to quell the rampant piracy, which has affected one of the world's busiest shipping lanes that links Europe to Asia.

Ancient Roman shipwrecks found

Underwater archaeologists in Italy have discovered the wrecks of five ancient Roman ships in the Mediterranean, with their cargo still largely intact.

The ships are lying in up to 150 metres (500 feet) of water off the tiny island of Ventotene, between Rome and Naples. They are between 1,600 and 1,900 years old, and were laden with - among other things - jars for carrying wine, olive oil and fish sauce.

Also on board were kitchen tools, and certain metal and glass objects which have not yet been identified. The discovery of wrecked ships is not unusual - there are said to be thousands dotted around the Mediterranean.

But Annalisa Zarattini, from the Italian Culture Ministry, said the latest to be found are much better preserved than usual because they sank in deeper water, which protected them from destructive currents.

The ships also sank without capsizing, she said, allowing examination of the cargo in almost the form it had been loaded.

Officials say the latest finds are the result of a new drive by archaeologists to scan deeper waters, organised by the Italian culture ministry and the Aurora Trust, a maritime research group.

Italy blocks sale of luxury yachts to NKorea

Italy has blocked the sale of two luxury yachts to impoverished North Korea because it suspects they were destined for reclusive leader Kim Jong-Il, the Financial Times said Thursday.

A contract for the sale of the two yachts, worth 12.5 million euros (10.8 million pounds, 17.8 million dollars) was terminated this month after a probe by the Italian government and anti-fraud police.

The two boats were confiscated by the ministry of economic development amid concerns that allowing the sale would breach international sanctions against Pyongyang. “Seeing the type of goods that were involved and the condition that the country (North Korea) is in, we were very suspicious that the yachts were for the leader (Kim), though we have no evidence of this,” the ministry said.

A deposit was paid for work on the boats, although it was unclear by whom. The boats have since been returned to Azimut-Benetti, one of Italy’s leading luxury yacht makers.

Kim has been portrayed by visitors and North Korean defectors as a leader who enjoys fine dining, cognac and other luxuries. The communist state however suffers food shortages, and relies on overseas aid to feed millions of its people.

Soccer-Italian Super Cup to feather Olympic Bird’s Nest

The Italian Super Cup between Inter Milan and Lazio is set to attract a full house of 80,000 to the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing next month after a flurry of early ticket sales.
Over half the seats for the first sporting event at the iconic arena since the close of Beijing’s Olympic summer last year have already been booked less than a week after they went on sale, the Beijing Youth Daily reported on Wednesday.

“There’s no question the Bird’s Nest will be full,” an organising official told the paper, adding that predicted revenue from the game would be around 70 million yuan ($10.25 million).

The pre-season curtain raiser between Serie A champions Inter and Italian Cup winners Lazio will kick off at 8 p.m. local time on Aug. 8 — a year after the Olympic opening ceremony at the same venue.

The other major event in the Beijing International Football Festival, the English Premier League’s Asia Trophy, has not done as well at the box office so far, the organiser said.

A total of 20,000 tickets had been sold for the biennial tournament involving English clubs Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United and Hull City as well as hosts Beijing Guoan.

The tournament takes place on July 29 and 31 at the spiritual home of Chinese football in the capital, the Workers’ Stadium, which will have a capacity of 49,000 for the event.

Ghiberti, Brunelleschi & The Battistero

Of all the buildings in Florence that have a connection with the Renaissance period, by far the most prominent is the Battistero to the west of the Duomo (Florence cathedral).

The little octagonal Battistero dates to the 6th Century, though the interior was redesigned and given it’s ceiling mosaics of the Creation and Last Judgement in 1300. The Baptistry has three sets of bronze doors and those to the north have an important place in art history. If it is possible to pin down the start of the Renaissance to a particular event then it was the competition held in the winter 1401 to choose an artist to design these doors.

Of the six artists who entered the competition, Ghiberti and Brunelleschi were adjudged joint winners. Unfortunately Brunelleschi could not accept anything less than victory and went off to Rome in somewhat of a huff.

Ghiberti, left with sole responsibility for the completion of the doors did not finish the task until 1424, demonstrating that ‘taking your time to get it right’ really meant something in those days. Nonetheless, the resulting work shows many of the key features that define Renaissance art including realistic depiction of people, fully worked out perspective, and narrative clarity combined with dramatic tension.

Ghiberti was immediately commissioned to make another set of doors, this time for the east portal to the Baptistry which were unveiled in 1452 when Michelangelo hailed them as fit to serve as the ‘Gates of Paradise’. Indeed the doors are know to this day as the ‘Paradise Doors’.

Ties between German and Italian Culture.

The limestone peaks of the Dolomites frame an area of castles, lakes and ancient spas, with its own distinctive mix of Italian and German culture.

This mountainous region wich stretches North to the Italian-Austrian border first came to the attention of tourists in the English speaking world in 1837 when John Murray the London publisher brought out a handbook for travellers. The books description of the Dolomites sparked interest particularly among mountaineers who had conquered the Swiss Alps and were looking for new challenges.

Today, Trentino-Alto Adige ( also know as the South Tyrol) is a popular holiday retreat for hikers, skiers and water sports enthusiasts and is marked by contrasts in the landscape as well as in the culture.

Trentino-Alto Adige actually consists of two different provinces. Trentino, historically a part of Italy except for a period during the 19th and early 20th Centuries when it was ruled by Austria, has a definite Italian flair. Alto Adige, on the other hand was a part of the Austrian Tyrol for six centuries, first becoming an Italian domain in 1919 when the Austro-Hungarian empire was carved up and the European borders were redrawn.