KEEP CALM AND GO VOLUNTEERING

KEEP CALM AND GO VOLUNTEERING

Keep Calm and Go Volunteering! 

In this case keep calm is not for the coffee but for an interesting as well as admirable volunteer project.

The general objective is to sensitize young people to the adoption of sustainable and responsible lifestyles, in contrast to the increasingly widespread “culture of waste” and disposable use.

The active promoters are four young people from different backgrounds: Edisona Xhani from Albania, Sophie Anvroin from France, Hamudi Salama Batah from Spain and Mehdi Meddeb from Tunisia who are involved in sharing information and promoting initiatives by working in the fabric of the community to combat food waste.

Keep calm and go volunteering therefore consists of a European Solidarity Corps that is funded by the National Youth Agency and promoted by the Europe Area of the Belluno Committee of Understanding. 

In fact, on Sunday a flash mob took place in Belluno to involve more people with the aim of raising awareness the population.

And speaking of the fight against food waste, I suggest you follow Paola who through her book ll gusto di non sprecare, her blog Primo non sprecare for years has been diligently and deeply involved in the fight against waste.

It was nice to discover that many of us use coffee grounds, so I trust in just as many precious suggestions for food as well.

What do you think?

TRIESTE COFFEE ASSOCIATION

TRIESTE COFFEE ASSOCIATION

Trieste Coffee Association is one of the few associations still active and is third in Europe.

Staying on the trend of coffee in Trieste it was really very interesting to learn more about the supply chain.

For this I must say THANK YOU to Fabrizio Polojaz President of AssoCaffè Trieste for the availability and courtesy with which he illustrated every single aspect that connects Trieste to coffee in a total way.

COFFEE FOR TRIESTE IS HISTORY

Trieste has always been a harbor city, as we know it is not remembered as particularly influential: we rather know the magnificence and power of Venice. But between 1710 and 1720 Trieste found “a protector:” Vienna. The Austrian Empire has become a continental empire and decides to create its own merchant port in Trieste.

At the end of 1700, with the sunset of the Serenissima the second important step: the competition was interrupted.

Third crucial point: the construction of a “southern” railway (with respect to Austria), to allow goods unloaded from ships to leave by train to arrive in Vienna within a day.

The fourth important progress takes place with the construction of the Suez Canal: the entrance into the Mediterranean no longer requires the passage through the Pillars of Hercules, and, directly from the Aegean, the way to Trieste is short, as well as favorable.

Even today Trieste is the northernmost harbor in the Mediterranean.

Here you will find an original print from the Dino Cafagna collection illustrating Triste in 1719 before the free port.

COFFEE FOR TRIESTE IS A PRODUCTION CHAIN

As we all know, coffee is not grown in Europe, but grows in the tropical belt: equatorial Africa, Asia, India, Central America and South America.

I quote the words of the President Fabrizio Polojaz:

these goods create knowledge, knowledge creates profession and profession creates supply chain.

This chain begins with the financial part: that is, banking institutions for the purchase, and insurance companies with very specific policies.

Logistics plays an essential role starting with the forwarding agents because obviously we are talking about long-distance transport, but it also includes warehouses for conservation, processing for the improvement of the raw material, and phytosanitary management.

A first transformation is carried out by the roasting companies, which are about fifteen in Trieste.

There is also an industry for decaffeination (there are only nine in all of Europe).

And also chemical laboratories, tasting, experts, training schools and various equipment sector.

COFFEE FOR TRIESTE IS A MEETING POINT

Three European language families:

Latin
Slavs
Germans

three preparations:

for Italians moka and espresso
for Nordic filter coffees
for the Balkans, Turkish and Greek coffee

again, I quote the words of President Fabrizio Polojaz verbatim

People from Trieste are spoiled consumers, and lovers of good coffee.

And again, paraphrasing Nino Manfredi’s historic and unforgettable commercial

coffee is recharging, even spiritual and if the coffee is not good … what pleasure is it?

How can we disagree?

Among other things, it must be said that Trieste consumers are not only “spoiled:” compared to a national average per capita consumption of about 5 kilos per year, the Trieste average reaches almost 10!

Not bad really.

But what’s even more fantastic is theirs… how can we call it?

Nomenclature? I would say no: it’s not exactly technical terminology.

Code? Nor, code is too “mathematical.”

Peculiarities? But it sounds not very poetic to me.

In short, they have their special habit, of asking for a NERO when they want to order an espresso at the bar, just as Nick also told us in the comments about his professor.

When I asked the President Fabrizio Polojaz if there is a particular reason for “nero” he replied simply: to fondle.

However, it is not just a question of nero, apparently the bartenders in Trieste have something more to learn than the others: are you ready?

The typical cappuccino does not exist in Trieste.

For the milk and coffee drink we are used to thinking about, we order caffellatte.

CAPO, is also shortened in size: small cup or glass.

But if it were a glass, then it would be CAPO IN B, obviously, right!?

Don’t you immediately feel like trying, even considering what Luciana told us here

Finding ourselves “at the cafe,” it is natural to ask for an opinion also regarding the increase in the price of coffee, so much criticized almost everywhere.

In this regard, the President of Assocaffè Trieste invites us to take a look behind the scenes.

The cup represents a series of very long steps: after cultivation, the coffee is stripped, processed, kept in silos, treated in parchment, bagged and shipped.

At its destination, further selections are made, it is roasted and blended, because the coffee is the result of the composition of different qualities, before reaching the barista who grinds and presses it.

All these are the items that make up the bill.

The last two years, so difficult for everyone and everything, have been problematic from the point of view of cultivation, which has suffered production drops caused by the difficulty of harvesting the coffee at the right time.

And there is not only a shortage of good quality products, there is also logistical difficulty, both in terms of traffic: after the long period of inactivity everyone wants to ship, and in terms of costs that have literally increased tenfold.

But the considerable decreases in consumption and, last but not least, the organizational and managerial burdens that the barista had to adopt to fulfill the requests of the various DPCMs were also affected.

So it is worth defending quality and work, do you agree?

COFFEE FOR TRIESTE IS ALSO TOURISM

In addition to the historical cafes already mentioned that offer a unique experience to visitors, Trieste is organizing a coffee festival: the Trieste Coffee Festival, in addition to the professional Triestespresso Expo exhibition, and in particular the Coffee Trieste Association is working with tour operators.

The goal is to ensure that the knowledge they have gained, so deeply rooted in the territory, and characterized in full, can also be enjoyed by tourists.

Among other things, it is already possible to organize visits to coffee roasters to discover this important stage in coffee processing, for example.

What do you say at this point?

They can truly say they are the capital of coffee.

Although, rightly, Minister Centinaio in response to the tweet wrote that the dossier presented to Unesco involves the symbolic cities of coffee in Italy, including Trieste.

GAIA X

GAIA X

Gaia derives from Greek mythology and represents the mother goddess of all gods, personification of the earth, but in this case she becomes the engine of digital innovation in Europe.

In September 2020, 22 companies and organizations (11 from Germany and 11 from France) have taken an important milestone and finally transferred the joint project into solid structures: The 22 founding members signed the notarial founding documents in order to establish an international non-profit association (French: association internationale sans but lucratif, in short: AISBL) under Belgian law, the GAIA-X,  European Association for Data and Cloud, AISBL.

From reading these words the first thing that emerges, for me, is the absence …

But in November our Ministry also attended the summit and on May 28 Confindustria kicked off the Italian hub by defining it as the moment of starting a shared path, aimed at aggregating and coordinating all the subjects interested in the development of projects that aim to enhance data, and an opportunity to get to know the European project and the methods of implementation in Italy.

What exactly are we talking about?
Gaia X is a federated data infrastructure for Europe.

Talking about:

Energy
Health
Smart living
Industry 4.0
Portability
Interoperability
Interconnectivity
Identity & Trust
Federated catalogue
Sovereing data exchange
Compliance

The main objectives are to develop ecosystems, to bundle national initiatives, and to provide a central point of contact to interested parties on their respective countries.

In fact, it is evident that the amount of data on a digital level is increasing day by day, and it is no coincidence that a whole series of new figures are emerging, among which the demiurge of big data particularly fascinates me.

Not to mention the parallel growth of IoT: Internet of things which involves a further exponential increase in connected devices.

But how important can a European Data Cloud be? How is the data handled now?

It is clear that this is an ongoing situation, and as it happens in a fiscal way for the giants of the web, armed with fragmentary, incomplete, if not non-existent regulations, the companies that manage the server farms act in an almost undisturbed pseudo-monopoly regime.

The need that is underlined is to achieve an autonomy that allows one to no longer have to make use of American or Chinese structures.

For example, I found huge data centers that China has built in a semi-desert area of Mongolia, previously dedicated to the breeding of the famous horses: The Mongolian National Data Center, established by a government resolution issued on June 24, 2009.

Or the Data Foundry in Texas founded in 1994 as one of the top 50 ISPs in the United States.

The aspect that in my opinion is not sufficiently taken into account is that “not everything that glitters is green” …

Servers need to be cooled, and this operation, although it is presented as a continuous search for innovation, consumes large amounts of energy.

Google presents its renewable energy project with a photo gallery, while admitting the following:

the 100% renewable energy milestone means we buy enough renewable energy over the course of a year to cover our entire annual electricity consumption, however it doesn’t mean that all of our facilities are powered by clean energy every hour of every day. To compensate for times and places where the wind does not blow or the sun does not shine, we buy a surplus of renewable energy at other times and in other places. Our ultimate goal is to achieve CO2-neutral energy supply for our operations in all locations, at all times. We are actively exploring strategies to achieve 24/7 CO2-neutral power supply to all of our data centers, closely monitoring our progress towards achieving this goal.

I conclude with the thing that scares me the most: the more we move forward, the more the main operations we carry out, from bank transactions to public certificates, from tax returns, to the signing of contracts, depend on applications and on telematic accesses, without which we would be practically paralyzed.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not calm. Am I wrong?

THE CONVENTION IS “OF ISTANBUL” BUT TURKEY ABANDONES

THE CONVENTION IS “OF ISTANBUL” BUT TURKEY ABANDONES

It was 2018 when little Amine’s face aroused general indignation.

The news reported that the anguish of her expression, which has impressed me personally, was generated when she was told that if she died a martyr she would have the honors of the flag.

Now, net of all the geopolitics, reasons and counter-maneuvers, the fact remains that this photo was a bit of a sort of prelude to many subsequent things.

The latest in chronological order is the signature on the presidential decree which sanctions the exit of the Convention which bears the name of the Turkish capital.

A paradox.

The Council of Europe adopted the Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence on 11 May 2011.

The Istanbul Convention is widely recognized as the most ambitious legal instrument aimed at preventing and combating violence against women, domestic violence and gender-based violence, such as human rights violations.

It entered into force in 2014 – just three years after its adoption, reflecting the need for member states to have a legally binding treaty to guide them in their efforts to end the violence.

UNWOMEN of which I have already spoken about Emma Watson, strongly called for the withdrawal to be reconsidered with this statement

Zehra Zumrut Selçuk, head of the ministry of family, labor and social services in Turkey, reassured by replying that women’s rights are guaranteed in national legislation, in particular in the Turkish Constitution, and in a tweet communicated the intention to continue with zero tolerance because violence against women is a crime against humanity.

Well.
What I don’t understand is: why then disavow a treaty that goes in the exact same direction?

Or rather, I understand it, in the context of internal strategies that are based on political maneuvers. Like everything else, after all.

But in the end: for Turkey, Europe yes or Europe no? This is the dilemma …

GOOGLE NEWS SHOWCASE

GOOGLE NEWS SHOWCASE

Googler: googling in French begins to have a different meaning if you enter the field of IPG certified editorial news.

Our cousins from beyond the Alps scored a further small victory against the giants of the web

In fact, an agreement has been signed between the Alliance de la Presse d’Information Générale: APIG and Google France which provides for a remuneration for the license agreements of the publishers of newspapers within a new program: News Showcase

The remuneration provided for in the license agreements between each newspaper publisher and Google is based on criteria such as, for example, the contribution to political and general information, the daily volume of publications or the monthly Internet audience.

This is also a very important step in the controversial issue of Copyright Law in Europe and sees France as the first country to adopt legal legislation.

The concept on the basis of which Google has always maintained that news does not bring advantages to the search engine, but only an indexing for the newspapers, is overturned.

It is the conclusion of a battle carried out by the French press which turned to the Competition and Market Authority and subsequently to the Paris Court of Appeal and opens the way to the other member states as well.

The Alliance de la Presse tweet speaks of the effective recognition of #droitvoisin or neighborhood law which, as the Irpa explains allows publishers to obtain fair compensation from search engines and online platforms, established through an agreement, resulting from the use of news extracts. These also include previews (snippets) widely exploited by the search engine.

Where do you follow the news?

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