Italy

AFRICA: La speranza africana is based on interviews with African friends and travels in Egypt, Ethiopia and South Africa. Federico Rampini tells about violence and uncertainty, about murder and injustice, about corruption, inequality and poverty.

SICILY: The poet Joachim Sartorius has written a feather-light book about the magic in the Sicilian city of Syracuse.

PASOLINI: MODERN TIMES prints here the translator's foreword, in connection with our review of Pier Paolo Pasolin's Sao Paolo (Paulus).

FRED: 300 activists, politicians and experts from 32 countries gathered this summer in Vienna to discuss the need and methods to restore peace in Ukraine. The Italian peace movement was a model here: in addition to huge demonstrations against militarization in Ukraine, they have carried out five major peace caravans to the country with a total of over 80 vehicles filled with medical equipment, generators, water purification equipment and other essential items.

THE MODERN TIMES INTERVIEW: Elisabeth Hoff, WHO's representative in Libya today, wondered why Norway got involved and dropped 700 bombs on Libya in 2011: "It makes no sense at all." For 30 years, Hoff has tried to save lives in war zones such as Afghanistan, Syria and Libya. How can a human endure so much suffering?

ENERGY: When it comes to the energy shortage we are facing, could a possible answer be to let the state rule with a harder hand? And as for the war, are sanctions even an effective weapon? Federico Rampini's answer is no.

FASCISM:Benito Mussolini is back to show us how to build a fascist regime of terror. Antonio Scurati, the author of M – son of the century, says in this interview with MODERN TIMES that "Benito Mussolini was like an empty shell, a man without opinions, but with an excess of the courage of opinions".

AFRICA: In Norway, interest in the Sahel is growing: With the fall of Gaddafi in 2011, both the strength and the number of rebel groups in the Sahel increased. After the start of the global war on terror in 2001, more and more countries have taken an interest in this large area. But aren't the Islamists fighting here primarily against the West?

NEO-FASCISM: Do many still have fascist longings today, or can one always blame seductive leaders? A closer dive into the 100-year-old Italian fascism and its descendants says something about the dangers we are now likely to face.

Herat: What does Afghanistan's Herat look like one year after the Taliban took over? Herat is the example of what Afghanistan could look like – as the city has 780 places on the UNESCO World Heritage List. This report gives a look from both the 1970s and today.

PHOTO: It would be almost fifty years before Paolo di Paolo's daughter found the pictures his father had taken, and confronted him with his hitherto unknown past as a (Italian) celebrity photographer.

ITALY: "I'm a woman, I'm a Christian, I'm a mother, I'm Italian, I'm on the right, I'm Giorgia." A book devoid of political analysis?

PASOLINI: 100 years: On the occasion of the anniversary of the birth of Pier Paolo Pasolini (March 5, 1922), MODERN TIMES has chosen to print an essay on a theme between power and the oppressed – as it is throughout his large film production.

PHOTO: Is Italy Europe's most extraordinary and ordinary country? Maria Vittora Trovato takes pictures of its shadow pages.

INTERVIEW: The Italian activist philosopher Franco "Bifo" Berardi talks to MODERN TIMES about America's arrogance, loneliness, rebellion, mortality, and Buddhism as role models.

There will be no Nobel banquet in Stockholm on December 10!