On the gypsy trail...

Hema Vijay talks to young researcher Siva Chithirai who is researching the lives 'narikuravars' of Tamil Nadu, and is impressed by his fascination with the gypsies.

Millions of years ago, agriculture took anchor on earth. It brought with it civilisation and a settled life. Not for all of humanity, though. Gypsies have continued to escape the snare of having to settle at one place. Unlike other groups, tribal or otherwise, most gypsies have not let go of their freedom. Very little is known about them, and to this day, the fragile status quo of Indian gypsies remains a mystery.

“I have always been drawn to gypsies, right from childhood", says young Siva Chithirai, who is now researching the lives of the Narikuravars (Tamil for ‘fox hunters’) of Tamil Nadu, a counterpart to the European gypsies.

“Children of my village would invariably in awe of the gypsies who would periodically visit my village,” Siva says. Siva and his friends would follow them around and envy them for their school-free lives. The gypsies, however, didn’t really like this attention and pelted stones to drive the kids away. Most children generally outgrow this fascination for gypsies. But Siva remained enamoured of their way of life, though he moved on with his life, got an education and eventually a respectable job. This young man is studying the gypsy phenomenon and has come out with interesting bits of information and a colourful photo essay on the narikuravars. And why not, they are an interesting people.

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Right Turn

From The Times
September 27, 2008

Hostility to immigration is bolstering the far Right across much of Europe.

In Austria, they raise their arms in stiff salutes and roar approval of calls to kick out the foreigners. In Italy, they don black shirts, crop their hair and chant the name of their former dictator at football matches. In Germany, they rally outside mosques or foreigners' hostels to protest against what they describe as the “immigrant invasion” of Europe. More than 60 years after their grisly deaths, the names and symbols of Hitler and Mussolini are still being paraded on the streets. Is fascism making a return?

The test will come tomorrow when Austria goes to the polls. Heinz-Christian Strache, a protégé of Jörg Haider who overthrew him as leader of the far-right Freedom Party with even more hardline policies against foreigners and the European Union, is poised to win at least 20 per cent of the vote. Playing to the extremist sentiment still pervading a large proportion of the population, Mr Strache has replaced the demonisation of Jews last heard in Austria two generations ago with denunciations of a new threat: Muslims. “Homeland instead of Islam”, the slogans say. “Vienna must not become Istanbul”.

Islam and its symbols have also become the focus for the far Right in Germany and the Netherlands. Hundreds gathered in Cologne on Saturday in a rally to halt construction of one of Europe's biggest mosques. Far-right leaders from Belgium, Italy and Austria arrived to join calls to protect Western values and Christian traditions - calls that are being echoed by more and more mainstream politicians to curry popular support.

It is in Italy, however, that nostalgia for fascism has been most overt and where the echoes of the past have been most ominous. Mussolini's tomb has become a shrine for neo-Fascists, who chant his name at rallies and campaign to rehabilitate his ideology and architectural legacy. The Duce's granddaughter, Alessandra Mussolini, is a politician on the Right who makes much of her name and her determination to halt attempts by Alleanza Nationale, the post-fascist party now forming part of Silvio Berlusconi's coalition, to distance itself from its undemocratic past.

And like their forebears, today's young blackshirts are out on the streets, brawling. They have been in the thick of violent clashes at Gypsy encampments and attacks on Romanians and other migrants. Like the new right-wing mayor of Rome, they have led calls for the expulsion of all illegal migrants and even proposed the fingerprinting of all Gypsy children.

It is not only in the former Axis countries that right-wing sentiment is growing. Switzerland, France and Belgium have seen the emergence of populist parties that denounce liberalism and tolerance and are not averse to violent tactics to intimidate their opponents. What unites them is not so much anti-Semitism - though that revolting sentiment is nowadays growing in most European countries - but opposition to immigration, especially from Africa and the Muslim world.

Blaming minorities is the symptom of a society under stress. In Britain, so far, the far Right has made few political gains. And at a time when economic turmoil is almost certain to exacerbate social tensions, politicians of all groups are being forced to focus on the ugly agenda of the extremists. History teaches lessons. And those of the 1930s are still crucial.

Warning: New Pet Foods Recalled

ASPCA Responds to Nationwide Pet Food Recall Affecting Several Pet Food Brands Manufactured by Mars Petcare US

Advises Pet Parents to Discontinue Use of Affected Products Immediately

NEW YORK, September 13, 2008 - The ASPCA® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®) today advised pet owners to discontinue using certain dog and cat foods manufactured by Mars Petcare US, which has voluntarily issued a nationwide recall because of potential contamination with Salmonella serotype Schwarzengrund. This voluntary recall only affects several brands of dry pet foods in the United States including Pedigree, Special Kitty, Paws & Claws, Natural Dog Food, Red Flannel, Country Acres, Buju & Ziggie, Member's Mark, Natural Cat Food, Retriever, Bruiser, Doggy Bag, PMI Nutrition, and Pet Pride. For a complete list of affected brands and more information on the recall, please visit http://www.petcare.mars.com/.


“The ASPCA recommends that pet parents discontinue the use of all affected products immediately until further information has been received,” said Dr. Steven Hansen, the ASPCA’s Senior Vice President of Animal Health Services. “Pet parents should wash their hands after handling any potentially contaminated pet food and immediately consult with a veterinarian if any signs or symptoms are noticed in their pets.”

The recall may affect several brands that are widely distributed at pet specialty stores, supermarkets, mass retailers, as well as other retail and wholesale outlets.

In an emergency situation, pet owners may also call the ASPCA’s Animal Poison Control Center at (888) 426-4435.

Music note: Black knights and seductive Gypsies romp in St. Paul

By Rebecca Collins , TC Daily Planet
September 25, 2008

The turnout on Tuesday night at the Ordway for the Minnesota Opera’s staging of Verdi’s Il trovatore (The Troubadour) was impressive. A bustling lobby and long line at the box office translated into a full house. And people do dress for the occasion—rumors of Minnesotans wearing jeans to the opera proved to be mostly false. It’s good to know there is a place in the Twin Cities to don one’s Oscar de la Renta stiletto heels or, in the case of one elderly gentleman, one’s kimono.

Il Trovatore, an opera with music by Giuseppe Verdi and libretto by Leone
Emanuele Bardare and Salvatore Cammarano; directed by Kevin Newbury. Presented by the Minnesota Opera through September 28 at the Ordway Center, 345 Washington St., St. Paul. For tickets ($65-$150) and information, see mnopera.org.

There was good reason for the high attendance. More happens in Il trovatore, a romantic tragedy set in Spain during the Renaissance, than on a whole season of Flavor of Love.

First, the dramatic back story. A young boy is bewitched by a Gypsy and falls ill. The Gypsy is hunted down and burned at the stake. As she is dying, she orders her daughter, Azucena (Olga Savona), to avenge her death. Azucena kidnaps the boy and prepares to throw him into the still-smoldering ashes of the pyre. But—oops!—in her grief she accidentally incinerates her own son instead. She decides to keep the kidnapped boy and raise him as her own.

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'Droma Gypsy Festival 2008'

Date/Time: Every week Tuesday, Sunday from Sun., September 28 until Tue., September 30, 8:00pm, Every week Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday from Wed., September 24 until Fri., October 3, 9:00pm

Price: $13-$17

By Kandia Crazy Horse

This year's installment of the New York DROMA Gypsy Festival runs through October 3rd. These nine days of sonic delight span Roma culture from across the globe, from locals like Zlatne Uste Brass Band to France's Watcha Clan (pictured here). If a nation's so celebrated at the forefront that Madonna's jumping the bandwagon, you may be leery. However, run don't walk to these performances. And don't forget your tambourines and joie-de-vivre.

Gypsy predicts £4.5m lotto win

BURGER bar owners Gary and Ann Henry scooped more than £4million on the lottery – after a mystery gypsy predicted the big win.

Just days before the couple scooped almost £4.5m an old lady claiming to be a gypsy came to their roadside snack bar and told Ann of the imminent win.

Ann, 50, had never seen the gypsy before but said yesterday she wanted to thank the lady.

Ann said: “It was about two weeks ago and it was a horrible wet day.

“This little old lady, who looked as though she was aged in her 70s came into the bar.

“She was soaked right through and I felt sorry for her so I gave her a cup of tea and an egg sandwich from the house.

“She asked if she could tell me a bit about myself so I said yes.

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Nederburg Concert Series celebrates Gypsy Life

The Nederburg Concert Series on 28 September 2008 pays homage to gypsy’s love of music and song as interpreted by composers Brahms and Dvorak.

Entitled Gypsy Life, the fifth concert in the 2008 Nederburg Concert Series celebrates the life and times of these nomadic people. It features dynamic pianists Zorada Temmingh and Elna van der Merwe, as well as award-winning singers Minette du Toit-Pearce (mezzo-soprano) and Anina Wassermann (soprano).

The vast variety of gypsy music and exciting life-style of the gypsies of Eastern Europe fascinated many artists through the ages and, in the case of Brahms and Dvorak, inspired them to create some of their most acclaimed work.

Temmingh and Van der Merwe will play a selection of the Hungarian Dances for piano duet by Brahms, as well as some of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances for piano duet. They will then accompany Du Toit-Pearce and Wassermann who will sing Brahms’ Zigeunerleben and Dvorak’s Sigeunerlewe respectively.

It will be held at Nederburg Wine Estate, Sonstraal Road, Paarl - in the Manor House this Sunday. It is well signposted as it is part of the Wine Route. Tickets are R125 and include a delicious finger supper served with fine Nederburg wines. The concert starts at 17h00 and bookings can be made by calling Sonja Morkel on 021 809 8344 or Irma Albers on 021 809 8106 or e-mail: ialbers@distell.co.za

National Gypsy Authority leader waives Árpád-striped flag

Buried in the news from Saturday's demonstrations by the left and the participants of the Peppermint-striped Budapest Destruction Brigade was a small thing said by Orbán Kolompár, (left), the head of Hungary's National Gypsy Authority. Even though it only received a small mention in Index.hu's minute-by-minute update, Kolompár, indirectly referencing the poet Sándor Petőfi, said the flag "is our historical flag, and we'll remove the shame from it." (The reference is fairly obvious in Hungarian.) At first receiving whistles, once people understood what Kolompár was doing, they quieted. Indeed, what Kolompár did is something I've waited to see for a long time.

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Pupils discover the gipsy lifestyle

ROBYN GREENACRE
23 September 2008 06:20

It is a culture laced with a rich history which for hundreds of years has fought prejudice and preconceptions.

Now, in a bid to combat the stereotype and ensure future generations can face a more tolerant attitude, gypsies are opening their caravan doors to the public.

Primary school children from across the county will be visiting Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse, near Dereham, to meet travellers and explore their way of life past and present.

The initiative called Home on the Road, kicked off yesterday and was organised by the workhouse and Norfolk Traveller Education Service.

Learning manager at Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse, Jan Pitman, said: “This sort of thing is absolutely vital. We have to accept there is a very negative attitude about travellers in the region.

“So any contact where people can see the different sides to the culture is going to have a very positive effect.

“The children are engaged and it's a very good response. You're going to have to start young people so they see the reality of it, which will stay with them for the rest of their lives.”

Members of the gypsy and travelling community have set up a selection of mobile homes from the traditional Vardo to the modern caravan.

And for three days volunteer gypsy and travellers are holding a series of workshops introducing pupils to aspects of Romany life, including cooking, horse grooming, washing, and flower arranging.

Yesterday pupils from Scole primary school from Diss picked vegetables from the fields, made stew over an open fire, learnt how to plait horses' manes and tails, hand washed clothes and hung them out with gypsy pegs and on bushes, and saw how mobile homes had developed over the years.

Gypsy Mary Price said: “This is just a little taster for children. It would be nice if we could bring something out to educate everyone.

“I'm very keen on the idea of educating people. I'm from a large family and I'm aware of the problems children have when they go into mainstream schools.

“Everyday my children come home and have had something happen to them because of their heritage. Young children don't come across the words 'dirty pikey or gyppo' by themselves. They've learnt it from adults.

“Thieving, dirty, scoundrels is how we're seen. There's bad in everyone and if you look for the bad apples you'll find them. But we're not all like that, and there are bad apples in every culture.

“Years ago we were accepted because everyone was used to seeing caravans being pulled by horses along the road.

“Now because there are less and less places we can go, people don't see us.”

And at the end of the trip pupils opinions were transformed.

Scole pupil Jessica King-Fisher, nine, said: “It's interesting. I've had a fun day. I didn't know much about gypsies before and I thought they were horrible.

“But now I think they are very nice.”

Merriam native Julie Denesha photographs Gypsy life in Slovakia

By ALICE THORSON
The Kansas City Star

Within days of beginning work as a staff photographer at the Prague Post in the Czech Republic, Julie Denesha was warned by her colleagues: “You have to watch out for the Gypsies.”

“They’re criminals; they don’t want to work,” was the common refrain.

These stereotypes and the general feeling of resentment against the Roma, as many Gypsies call themselves, set off Denesha’s internal alarm.

“It was the same stuff you hear about any minority group,” the Merriam native said, surrounded by 45 photographs from her “Gypsies of Slovakia” exhibit, now at the Landon Gallery on Southwest Boulevard.

Slovakia’s half-million Roma are the country’s second largest minority after Hungarians.

Denesha’s images offer an intimate picture of Roma life.

Women prepare meals, children play, men weave baskets and chop wood in decrepit apartment buildings and dilapidated rural shacks without benefit of basic city services such as running water and garbage pickup.

“We all walk around with these ideas about other people,” Denesha (pronounced den-i-SHAY) said. “The truth is far more interesting.”

By 2003, when she began her Roma series, Denesha had covered the war in Kosovo and done extensive reporting on Central and Eastern Europe for The New York Times, The Guardian, Time, Newsweek and other publications. She also had gained some familiarity with Roma culture from freelance assignments.

Every couple of years a publication would send her to a Roma settlement for half a day to do a story on the life and conditions of these “outsiders,” who trace their origins to northwestern India and are darker skinned than ethnic Slovaks. Many were killed in Nazi concentration camps.

“I always felt I was missing something,” Denesha said.

She decided that the only way to get at the “truth” was to live among the Roma.

With a grant from the Puffin Foundation, she lived with Roma families for four months in 2003, when Slovakia was poised to join the European Union.

The goal, she said, was “to disappear into the rhythms of life and see the people rather than the poverty.”

Denesha held out hope that the requirements of EU membership would translate into better treatment and conditions for the Roma, but in 2007, when she returned for six more months with funding from a Fulbright and a Milena Jesenska Fellowship, she found little had changed.

Although her images do not ignore the hardships and squalor of the settlements, their focus is the close-knit Roma family.

“The family builds the home together,” Denesha said.

Typically a daughter-in-law moves in and learns from her husband’s mother.

What surprised her, Denesha said, was how much the woman’s role in the household is valued and respected in Roma culture.

An image of a little boy watching as his grandmother, mother and aunt prepare a meal captures a common domestic routine.

“They’re very interested in sharing recipes,” Denesha said. “They’d cook from scratch these amazing things.”

Another image shows a man chopping wood in the village of Rakusy, where wood-burning stoves are the only source of heat in the settlement’s log cabins.

In her months with the Roma, Denesha was keenly attuned to moments of joy. One striking image shows teenagers dancing on an apartment balcony strung with laundry. Another captures little boys swarming over an abandoned car that their parents would take apart and sell for metal.

One of the most captivating shots shows two little girls walking down a forest path with a bucket of kindling. The kerchiefs on their heads are actually “pants with zip-off legs that they made into cool hats,” Denesha said.

Outside the settlements, life is difficult for Roma children. They speak Roma at home but must learn to speak Slovak in the Slovak schools they attend. When the language barrier causes them to fall behind, they are placed in special schools for slow learners, where most of the children are Roma.

Denesha’s Roma images also provide a fascinating glimpse of life after communism in Eastern and Central Europe.

“I’m fascinated with the old communist empire,” she said. “I came of age in the 1980s when Russia was the Evil Empire. I’m always skeptical of what people say is bad.”

The story of Nicholas and Alexandra (Russia’s last imperial family, murdered by the Bolsheviks), fired Denesha’s imagination when she read it in junior high.

Her fascination with Russia continued at the University of Kansas, where she graduated in 1993 with degrees in journalism and Russian language and literature.

After graduation she worked as a staff photographer for The Kansas City Star for two years before moving to Prague.

With the collapse of the Communist regime and the dissolution of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the mid-’90s were a time of economic turmoil and widespread unemployment. The Roma were hit particularly hard, Denesha said.

Tough economic times heightened resentment of the Roma people. In the 1990s they frequently were targets of violence.

Denesha documented the bloody aftermath of one attack that took place in 2000 in a suburb of Zilina. A mother intervened — and subsequently died from her injuries — when two intruders broke into her home and began beating her daughters with baseball bats.

“There’s so much misunderstanding that they’re not really seeing each other,” she said of the relationship between ethnic Slovaks and the Roma. “I wanted to create a window.”

In each village Denesha would meet with the Gypsy mayor, or vajda, before she began taking photographs.

“I can do this project,” she would say.

“I can’t promise change, but this is my hope.”

ON EXHIBIT

The show: “Gypsies of Slovakia”: Documentary Photography by Julie Denesha

Where: Landon Gallery/Sabrina Staires Studio, 329 Southwest Blvd.

When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday- Friday and by appoint- ment. The exhibit has been extended through Nov. 2.

How much: Free

For more information: 816-474-4771 or www.juliedenesha.com

Italy must face legal action for anti-Gypsy measures, says Soros

TERESA KÜCHLER
17.09.2008 @ 10:21 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Billionaire philanthropist and financier George Soros has said at a top-level EU conference on the problems facing Roma people in Europe that he supports legal action against Italy over recent anti-Gypsy measures, particularly the fingerprinting of adults and children.

"Certainly, fingerprinting, racial profiling and so on is unacceptable and, I believe, illegal, and I hope that the European Court of Justice will take up the case and declare it illegal," the Hungarian-born founder of the Open Society Institute said on Tuesday (16 September) in a press conference at the first "European Roma Summit" in Brussels, an event jointly organised by the European Commission and the Soros foundation.

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EU Summit Tackles Gypsy Plight

Brussels, Sep 16 (Prensa Latina) European Union authorities discussed on Tuesday the complex situation of gypsies in the continent, amid a controversial collection of immigrants' fingerprints promoted by the Italian government.

Leaders of EU bodies, the civil society and the gypsy community attended the summit held in Brussels, Belgium.

President of EC (the European Commission), Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, said member countries of the bloc are directly responsible for the gypsies' integration policy. Therefore, the plight of this ethnic minority cannot be solved from Brussels, he added.

As the EU leader was giving his speech, representatives of the Roma ethnic community stood up to protest the census promoted by the government of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and supported by the EC.

In an effort to defend himself from these denunciations, Durao Barroso said the EU rejects racial discrimination. Each person can live his/her life free of affront, he added.

During the EU summit, the strongest defense of the gypsies came from US businessman of Hungarian origin George Soros, who termed illegal the ongoing fingerprint collection in Italy.

IT should be banned. I hope the European Court of Justice will intervene to step in, said Soros.

The controversial step is part of a decree-law promoted by Interior Minister Roberto Maroni against gypsies from East Europe, mainly Rumanian, mostly living illegally in the peninsula.

According to a report released in Brussels in July, high unemployment, extreme poverty and life expectancy below that of the rest of the European citizens characterize this nomadic community.

First EU-Roma Gypsy summit to tackle exclusion

The first EU Roma Summit is set to unfold in Brussels this Tuesday. The living conditions of Roma, social integration and representation across Europe will be at the heart of debate.

The summit comes scarcely two weeks after the biggest gypsy encampment in Europe was broken up. Outside Paris, the improvised living quarters and heaps of rubbish were cleared to make way for new flats, and most of the 600 Roma residents were displaced.

Hungarian Roma MEP Livia Jaroka is committed to improving the lives of the more than 10 million Roma in the EU, and fighting discrimination. Jaroka said: “It is such a drastic situation not only mentally and human rights-wise and economically, but also culturally. It is a huge loss for Europe.”

Unemployment rates for the continent’s largest ethnic minority are very high, since Roma encounter the most barriers, said the European Commission. Lack of formal education is part of the problem, discrimination another. Roma children are often excluded from mainstream schools in Europe. Bringing together representatives of EU institutions, governments, parliaments and civil society, the summit is also aimed at tackling exclusion in health and housing.

Preparing for a 'Gypsy Summit'

TIME.com
By Jeff Israely
Monday Sept. 15, 2008

Coming to a stop in his two decade-old Fiat, Bologna social worker Claudio cut the ignition and yanked up the emergency break. "Get ready," he said. It was January 2007, and as part of my reporting for an article on immigration I was about to meet some 15 Roma families who'd emigrated from the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Claudio's warning was partly to prepare me for the rough conditions — rusting doors and walls, leaking pipes, power cuts — that I would encounter over the next hour as the longtime city caseworker showed me around the fenced-in cluster of aluminum trailers.

But it was also designed to brace me for a human situation that is far more complicated than your typical residents' gripes over municipal services or talk-show outrage about minority rights. And different than the other immigration stories I was seeing. Get ready, Claudio seemed to be saying, to be both appalled and surprised.

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Thousands lead invisible life in Italy

By ARIEL DAVID – 2 days ago

ROME (AP) — They speak Italian, eat Italian and cheer for Italy's soccer stars, but they are not Italian. In fact, it's hard to say what they are.

Thousands of people are living in Italy without citizenship or identity documents from any country. Most were citizens of countries that no longer exist, like Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union. But they never received citizenship from the new countries that replaced their broken-up nations, and they also fail to meet the requirements to become citizens of Italy.

It's hard to know how many there are because they survive on the margins of society, but the Sant'Egidio Community, a Rome-based Catholic organization, puts the number at about 10,000 to 15,000. They are often hunted by authorities, who try to deport them as illegal immigrants even though they have nowhere to go.

Life in limbo can be particularly harsh for those who were born and went to school in Italy. Once they turn 18, they become little more than illegal immigrants under the law.

"We are not Yugoslav, we are not Italian. We are like clouds," said Toma Halilovic, who lives with his parents, wife and children in two containers in a makeshift camp on the outskirts of Rome.

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New gypsy site has no support

Published Date: 12 September 2008
By Alan Brook

VILLAGERS, councillors and travelling people themselves say they do not want the council's choice for a new gypsy site – which has been described as being "like a concentration camp".

Due to health and safety fears over possible leeching gases, East Riding of Yorkshire Council wants to use £1.4 million to replace Bridlington's Woldgate travellers' site which is on top of an old landfill area.

Their alternative is a larger area – the busy Grindale Lane country road – which is part of the council's network of scenic tourists routes.

But locals and those in neighbouring villages who use the route, and residents of Bridlington's nearby New Pasture Lane estate, say it is a nonsense to put it there.

Two local East Riding councillors, Bridlington town councillors and even the Woldgate travellers themselves are against the idea and say the council should look elsewhere for a replacement.

Bridlington Town Council's planning committee has rejected the plan as conflicting with the Wolds landscape on a designated scenic route and it would not give travellers what they need.

They said travellers themselves claim it would isolate them from shops, schools, public transport and medical and other services and there are no facilities for keeping horses.

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Classical dance bridges culture gap

Friday, Sep. 12, 2008
By Michelle Isham- For the CDT

In the hills of Kathirkama in Sri Lanka, a beautiful princess named Atmavalli falls in love with Kathirkama Kandan, the lord who resides in a temple in the forest. Atmavalli pines for Lord Kandan until a kurati, or gypsy, arrives and assures her that Lord Kandan will marry her.

So goes the dance drama “The Gypsy and The Princess,” based on a style of South Indian storytelling that is hundreds of years old.

“It’s a very typical and traditional story,” dance instructor Teja Rao said.

Rao’s dance troupe, from the Natyam School of Classical Indian Dance in Buffalo, N.Y., will perform the story at Mount Nittany Middle School this weekend. The performance will benefit the State College chapter of the Association for India Development, which funds long-term social and educational development projects in that country. The group hosts events throughout the year to raise funds to support its programs and to promote a greater understanding of Indian culture.

“We really wanted to reach to non-Indians to give them the cultural awareness and create a bridge between the east and west cultures,” said Vikas Argod, an AID member and one of the coordinators of the event.

“State College has a very enthusiastic dance culture. The missing piece of the puzzle was Indian dance,” said fellow AID member and event coordinator Amit Arora.

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Sex, drugs, gifts uncovered in government oil probe

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. government employees received improper gifts from energy industry representatives, and engaged with them in illegal drug use and inappropriate sexual relations, according to a report issued Wednesday.

The report was issued by the Interior Department's inspector general after a $5.3 million investigation "uncovered recreational marijuana and cocaine use" by "a handful" of Interior Department staff, and found two federal employees "engaged in brief sexual relationships with representatives from companies doing business" with the department.

Two Interior Department employees "received combined gifts and gratuities on at least 135 occasions from four major oil and gas companies with whom they were doing business -- a textbook example of improperly receiving gifts from prohibited sources," Inspector General Earl Devaney says in a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne accompanying the report.

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BBC seeks contacts: Eastern Europe for love of gypsy music

IF INTERESTED, PLEASE CONTACT HER DIRECTLY
(contact information the end of the post)

Hello there!

My name is Rachel Hopkin and I'm a radio producer.

I'm making a series for BBC Radio 4 (the main UK speech network) called Musical Migrants. It's about people who have moved to live in a new place because they feel a deep connection with the music of that place and I wondered if you might know of someone who'd moved to somewhere in Eastern Europe for love of gypsy music. They may or may not be musicians, that doesn't matter. I also don't care where they're from originally but they would need to speak good English. It'd be good to find women who've made such a move, as I already have a few men lined up as possibles, although really, I'm not that fussy and I'd be interested in hearing of anyone. They do need to still be living there.

Best wishes
Rachel

PS I'm pasting in below a slightly more lengthy guide as to what I'm looking for in case you wanted more information:

WANTED

I'm a radio producer and I'm making a second series of radio programmes for BBC Radio 4 (the national speech network) called Musical Migrants and I am looking for more people to take part.

I need to find people who have moved across country, or to a new country/continent, specifically for a love of a type of music in which their new home is rich. Some possible examples: to Texas for conjunto music, to Louisiana for zydeco, to Portugal for fado, to East Europe for gypsy music etc, to Vienna for Viennese classical musical, to the Andes for Andean music etc….

They could be professional musicians (famous or otherwise), semi professionals, amateurs or beginners. In fact, conceivably, they don’t have to be musicians at all.

They may have just moved or they may have been in their chosen home for years. It also doesn’t matter where they’ve come from but they do need to speak English – they don’t have to be fluent, just comfortable speaking it.

If you fit - or know anyone who fits - that bill, please let me know, or have them contact me.

What I am NOT looking for:
I am not looking for people who have moved to a new place because it has a good broad music scene in general (it has to be rich in a specific genre of music), or just to go to music college and then leave, or because whichever town is a good music business centre, or to do a short period of field work. I'm not looking for people who've moved to a place for other reasons and then fallen in love with the music.

Also, I am not looking for people who’ve moved to the following places for the these music genres – not because they wouldn’t be great, but they were covered in the last series:

To Chicago for the Blues
To Scotland for Scottish traditional music
To the Southern Appalachian mountains for Old Time fiddle music
To Buenos Aires for Tango
To Brazil for the pandeiro drum

Thanks

Rachel Hopkin
rachel.hopkin [at] talk21 [dot] com
+54 11 4861 8122 (Buenos Aires)

For more information, see:
http://www.fallingtree.co.uk/news.htm
http://www.fallingtree.co.uk/inprod.htm

Italy: Euro MPs to visit Gypsy camps in Rome

Brussels, 4 Sept. (AKI) - A delegation of MPs from the European Parliament are planning to visit several Gypsy camps in the Italian capital, Rome, later this month.

Belgian MP Gerard Deprez told Adnkronos International (AKI) he will lead the group of seven European members of Parliament who will visit Rome from 18-20 September.

The fact-finding mission is taking place as the Italian government is carrying out a controversial census of Roma Gypsy camps in major cities, which includes fingerprinting.

Deprez said "practical difficulties" had forced the European Parliament delegation to scale back its visit, which was originally due to include Gypsy camps in the southern city of Naples and the northern industrial capital, Milan.

The visit is taking place in consultation with Italy's Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, and will include meetings with members of the Italian government, Rome's Mayor, Gianni Alemanno, and the government's top public order representative, the Prefect of Rome, Carlo Mosca.

Italy's conservative government said on Thursday that it had been "fully vindicated" after the European Commission said the fingerprinting of Roma Gypsies in Italian camps did not amount to ethnic discrimination and was in line with EU law.

European Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot's spokesman Michele Cercone said earlier on Thursday the Italian census did not seek ''data based on ethnic origin or religion."

The Italian government's fingerprinting of Gypsies has the sole aim of ''identifying persons who cannot be identified in any other way,'' he said.

The fingerprinting of children was only being carried out ''in strictly necessary cases and as the ultimate possibility of identification,'' Cercone said.

However, the Commission would continue to monitor the way the survey was being carried out, Cercone said.

The fingerprinting campaign has been criticised by human rights organisations, the UN children's charity UNICEF, the European Parliament and the Romanian Government, on the grounds that it had inflamed anti-immigrant feeling in Italy and encouraged vigilante attacks.

In June Gypsy camps in Naples were set on fire in arson attacks after a Roma Gypsy girl was accused of trying to steal a baby.

The Roma census was compared by both Jewish and Catholic groups in Italy to Nazi racial discrimination and persecution.

The Italian government argues that the census is intended to stop Gypsy children begging and stealing, but also to help them gain access to the Italian health and education systems.

Maroni has defended the dismantling of illegal Roma camps and other measures targeting illegal immigrants, including expulsions.

He claims the government wants to identify those who have the right to stay in Italy and make sure they can live in "decent conditions".

There are an estimated 160,000 Roma Gypsies in Italy, nearly half of whom were born in Italy and have Italian citizenship.

Govt hails EC gypsy ruling

2008-09-04 18:56

(ANSA) - Rome, September 4 - The Italian government on Thursday hailed a ruling from the European Commission that a controversial census of gypsy camps was OK.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi said he had always been certain that the census would be approved by the European Union.

''I had no doubt, I was certain about this response from the European Union, given that our measure was in line with EU law,'' Berlusconi said after the EC said the census did discriminate against gypsies.

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said he was also certain that the EU would approve the measures, which included fingerprinting norms criticised by human rights groups. ''Today's confirmation makes up for all the accusations and insults I have received,'' Maroni said.

Maroni added that he was expecting three other decrees to be approved.

The centre-left opposition said that the EU had approved a version of the census that had been revised to address human rights concerns.

The Italian Red Cross said Thursday that the first major camp census, across Rome, had so far covered 25 camps and identified more than 1,500 people.

The survey started at the beginning of August and is slated to end by October 15.

In its ruling, the EC said the census does not discriminate against the Roma community and is in line with European Union law.

An analysis of an Italian report on the census showed it did not seek ''data based on ethnic origin or religion,'' said Michele Cercone, spokesman for European Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot.

A controversial fingerprinting programme has the sole aim of ''identifying persons who cannot be identified in any other way,'' he said.

The fingerprinting of minors was only being carried out ''in strictly necessary cases and as the ultimate possibility of identification,'' Cercone said. Rome had worked with Brussels to ''correct measures that could give rise to protests,'' he said..

Barrot will continue to monitor how the survey is being implemented and what its results are, Cercone said.

Maroni launched the camp scheme this summer to clean up camps and get a picture of who was living in them by fingerprinting occupants including children.

Maroni, a leading member of the rightwing Northern League, has consistently defended himself from charges of discriminating against Roma.

He has insisted the census was not aimed against any specific ethnic group or spurred by a wave of crime-linked anti-immigrant feeling.

The fingerprinting campaign has been slammed by the European parliament, human rights groups and the Romanian government.

In the face of protests, Italy agreed with the European Union to make sure the scheme complied with human rights norms. It also announced it would require all Italian citizens to have their prints put on ID cards starting in 2010.

But the Council of Europe (CE), Europe's rights body, said last month that Italian politicians had lacked ''the moral leadership'' to face down the kind of anti-gypsy sentiment that led to incidents such as the torching of camps in Naples in June.

Berlusconi defended the scheme as a means of helping Roma integrate as well as stopping gypsies forcing their children to beg and steal.

Also Thursday, the Vatican urged the EU to carry through on public commitments they had made to safeguard ethnic minorities like gypsies.

EU states should treat gypsy communities as they would other institutions, Msgr Agostino Marchetto, head of the Vatican department that deals with migrant and traveler issues, told Vatican daily l'Osservatore Romano.

''This 'institutionalisation' brings with it the advantage of spurring (EU) states to become aware of the EU programmes that have been approved,'' Marchetto said at the end of the World Congress on the Pastoral Care of Gypsies in Freising, Germany.

Cardinal Martino addresses World Congress for Pastoral Care of Gypsies

FREISING, GERMANY - 5 September 2008

Cardinal Renato Martino called on the Church to do more to support Europe's Gypsy community. In his opening address to the Sixth World Congress for Pastoral Care of Gypsies in Freising, Germany, on Monday afternoon, he said: "In response to the discrimination and indifference suffered by many of our brothers and sisters, the Church 'cannot remain indifferent to social realities,' and calls all men, especially Christians, to assume their own responsibilities ... in order to guarantee full respect of the dignity and rights of every human being."

The Cardinal, who is President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, spoke of the "precarious living conditions and limited opportunities for work and education" of many Gypsies. This, he said, particularly made the younger generation feel marginalized, "with a loss of confidence in themselves and in their families, as well as in political, judicial, and educational institutions both on a public and private level,."

He said: "If individuals are expected to contribute to a just moral and social order in the community, with generosity and courage, all the more reason for governments and international and national organizations to protect the dignity and identity of every human being and of the entire human person."

Cardinal Martino recalled that in previous Congresses, attention had been given to "the principles of equality and working against discrimination. It became evident the need for a centralized service of the Church that would promote cooperation and dialogue with international and national organizations and with the various Christian churches, in order to eliminate any kind of discrimination and violence." The Cardinal regretted that in spite of the pleas made and the advice given, "while there is a considerable openness and interest for the Gypsy people on the part of international and national organizations, there is also a certain lack of flexibility and ambiguous attitudes on the part of governments that we find deplorable."

Concluding his speech, Cardinal Martino expressed his hope that this Congress may lead to "the commitment and will, on our part, to serve all people in charity and with love."

In his speech, Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, Secretary for the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, said: "the Church has always looked with confidence and Christian love towards the youth, accompanying them on their spiritual and earthly path, with maternal care and prudent affection." The Archbishop gave five points in his speech: formative background; modern-day challenges for Gypsy youth; factors/norms for an effective inclusion in society; international, national, and state organizations at the service of Gypsy youth; the Church and Gypsy youth.

Archbishop Marchetto presented some suggestions on themes that should be developed regarding Gypsy youth: creating more centres, offering training, study, professional preparation; promoting cultural exchange activities, so as to promote their educational progress and make them aware of the environment in which they live; form mixed committees of both Church and state authorities, in order to reflect on the problems to be faced and find plans of action; offering various activities (volunteer work, associations, sports groups, seminars, art classes) and prevention work to "pull" the youth out of the inertia of idleness, drugs, alcohol, etc.; identify and form leaders in their communities; make petitions to humanitarian organizations, Caritas, etc. for economic aid in the area of small loans for families and communities that prove to have a greater capacity in administrating the funds, for the benefit of the entire Gypsy population.

Source: Fides

© Independent Catholic News 2008

Residents learn about Romany roots

10:14am Tuesday 2nd September 2008

RESIDENTS learned all about Romany Gypsy culture and history during a special event in Redditch.

As a follow-on to Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month, the Eternal Wheels event was held at Arrow Valley Park.

The day, funded by a grant from Worcestershire County Council, allowed people to view, learn and interact with members of Romani Roots, a voluntary organisation that supports Gypsy heritage.

There were stalls at the event, various sources of information, entertainment and food.

Grappling with a Roma identity

By Steve Bradshaw
Executive Producer, Life on the Edge

It was just a passing remark, the first time I heard Arpad Bogdan talk about the Roma father who had left him in an orphanage, and wonder if he should try to find him.

We were drinking late at night in a semi-derelict house in a Budapest side street. We had skipped over bicycles and rubbish to make our way inside. I should say this was not a doss house but a trendy Urban Minimalism club.

"He doesn't have to tell you this you know," whispered our mutual friend, director Antonia Meszaros. And it was then that I realised how conflicted Arpad is - how much of a dilemma his Roma inheritance has created.

Arpad is a much-garlanded young film director, whose feature film Happy New Life has won many awards. It is about a young Roma man's unbearable childhood in an orphanage. In the end, he can't hack it - unlike Arpad who emerged from his own orphanage into the University of Pecs and a promising film career.

"My film," Arpad says, "is about the dilemmas of someone who realises that in order to face the future, he must come to terms with his past - and that's something that I still have to do in my own life."

Arpad was one of thousands of Roma - or gypsy - children who were taken into orphanages during Hungary's Communist years. The truth is cloudy here, but it seems that in some cases their parents wanted this, in many they didn't.

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EU: Bloc to hold first Roma Gypsy summit

Brussels, 29 August (AKI) - The European Union will on 16 September in Brussels hold its first summit on the Roma Gypsies, said the EU executive.

The summit will examine measures to combat the "persistent discrimination" Roma Gypsies face in Europe, the European Commission said in a statement.

"It aims to promote a firm commitment to tackling concrete problems and to creating a better understanding of the situation of Roma across Europe," the European Commission stated.

The meeting will also help identify "policies that work" in better integrating Roma Gypsies in mainsteam society and highlighting the problems their communities face.

More 400 representatives from EU institutions, national governments and parliaments and non-government organisations, including Roma groups will be at the summit.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Justice and Security Commissioner Jacques Barrot , Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Huebner, Employment, Social affairs and Equal opportunities commissioner Vladimir Spidla, Education, Training, Culture and Youth Commissioner Jan Figel are among top EU officials due to attend.

France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner will attend on behalf of the French EU Presidency as well as several ministers from EU states and candidate countries, the European Commission said.

Following the enlargement of the European Union in 2004 and 2007 to countries such as Slovakia and Romania, Roma communities now represent one of the largest ethnic minorities in the EU.

"However, the richness these communities could bring to European society is often overlooked, tainted by stereotypes and prejudices that manifest themselves in the form of economic, social and political discrimination," the European Commission stated.

The European Commission last month completed a review of existing EU resources and policies to help the Roma Gypsies integrate and and progress achieved.