L'Indipendente

What's happening in Europe? Are we experimenting the same pain of the USA financial markets? I don't think so. The European and the American credit systems are different. There is no reason why European Stock Exchange yesterday suffered their biggest one-day fall in the last 20 years. Unless...

Well, let us suppose that you are a European bank. Your situation is not so bad, even if the worldwide crisis is worrying. You manage funds, you can move significant amounts of money on stock exchange, so you unload shares. The result? Stock exchanges slump, of course. In my opinion, the fall we experienced in Europe yesterday has not to be ascribed to the small savers, frightened by the USA crisis: they cannot move so much money. But banks can, they do.

Why? Because some European government might be pushed to propose a bailout plan similar to the one proposed by President Bush in USA. Even if our banks are not really in trouble, it would be such an attractive opportunity for them. So, was it really the yesterday European Stock Exchange slump the signal of a financial crisis in the Old Continent, or rather a planned action to obtain funds from European Union? I cannot say for sure, but I have my doubts.

On November 1st, 2004, I sent a proposal to all Olympic Committees of European Union. The proposal was very simple: to select, before the beginning of the games, no more than three athletes for each competition out of those ones participating for the various countries of European Union. Therefore, those athletes would compete for two flags: the one of their own nation and the European Union's one. Of course, it was ignored.

The purpose of this idea was to draw together all citizens of European Union around a common sense of sporting spirit. Political union is a must by now, but it requires a social and cultural union first. The fact that we speak different languages is an obstacle, so we have to find other elements to really feel a single nation. Sport could be one of those elements. So, now we are in 2008 and I wish to propose again that idea for the Olympic Games of 2012 in London, UK (EU).

In fact, from a sporting perspective, we are used to think that the giants are United States, Russia, and China, but if we consider all the medals won in the last Olympic Games by the countries belonging to European Union, the situation is quite different. Of course, just adding up all medals and comparing the results with those ones corresponding to the three current giants of sport is not a correct approach, since if European Union would be a federation like USA, it should send to the Games much less athletes that those partecipating for each single EU country. In any case, it is interesting to give a look at the resulting table:

Nation     European Union United States Russia China

XXVI 1996 Atlanta USA ALL 75 68 86 229 44 32 25 101 26 21 16 63 16 22 12 50

XXVII 2000 Sidney Australia ALL 79 80 79 238 40 24 33 97 32 28 28 88 28 16 16 59

XXVIII 2004 Athene Greece ALL 80 101 105 286 36 39 27 102 27 27 38 92 32 17 14 63

Updated on August 26th, 2008.

Nation     European Union United States Russia China

XXIX 2008 Beijing China ALL 85 100 89 274 36 37 36 109 23 21 28 72 51 21 28 100

Yesterday I watched two documentaries, one on Discovery Civilization and another one on History Channel. Both channels are included in one of the bouquets of SKY Italia, the main pay-tv we have in Italy, resulting from the merge of Stream and Telepiù televisions. Just consider that in Italy we practically have no cable TV, since we have a good free broadcasting offering, so all pay-tv are based on satellites. By the way, all channels are dubbed, since most Italians do not like to watch movies with original audio and subtitles.

Most of documentaries of SKY channels are quite good, but when they deal with subjects I know, especially if they refer to Italy or Europe in general, I noticed that they often couch the point of view of Anglo-Saxon culture, mostly the American one. Well, most of those documentaries have been produced in USA or UK, so it is not a surprise and not necessarily a fault, but there is a worrying side effect.

National Geographic, Discovery Channel, History Channel, and most of such specialized channels are broadcasted in many different countries and usually dubbed in many different languages. So millions people in the world watch their documentaries. The result is that such a biased point of view is going to become global culture. All the other points of view are mostly ignored, especially from the new generations who have not the knowledge to verify if such an information is true or false, partial or impartial, complete or incomplete.

I do not want to debate here if the information televised through those documentaries is correct or not. Everybody may have his/her own opinion about. Quality is usually high, but culture is often a matter of opinion, and opinions may differ. In any case, it is a fact that most of documentaries made by Italian, French, German, and many other non-English producers are not distributed in English countries, especially USA. So, there is an asymmetrical situation.

This problem exists for movies too. In fact, cinema is another channel to spread concepts and culture in general. Most of non-English movies is not dubbed and a movie with subtitles cannot compete with an English movie. Furthermore, distributing a non-English movie in USA is a challenge. In fact, there is practically a trust that prevents foreign distributors to operate in the USA marketplace. On the other hand, more than 50% of movies distributed in Europe have been produced in USA, and of course, since they are dubbed, they can easily compete with local productions.

So, the result is that the English point of view is becoming more and more the dominant culture. This is true for movies, songs, books, and many other cultural assets. For example, a significant percentage of English writers are translated in other languages, whereas is extremely difficult that a novel author, who does not write in English language, is published in USA. Very few literary agencies take in consideration non-English writers, and only very famous published writers are translated to English.

Same for songs. Most of European radios broadcast American and British music, but very few songs in languages different from English are broadcasted in USA. Usually Spanish ones, because there are large Spanish communities in USA, but it is extremely rare that you can hear French, Italian, or German songs in USA or UK. Nowadays, more and more Italian singers are singing in English to be able to be distributed on the rich American marketplace.

This situation is affecting the web too. Most of the English blogsphere totally ignores the non-English ones. The opposite is not the same, since many non-English bloggers can read and comment English articles. In the Italian, French, German Wikipedia there are many articles about minor American personalities too, whereas unless a non-USA personality is very famous, it is very difficult he/she is mentioned in the English Wikipedia.

Several web 2.0 cultural related sites simply ignore everything that is not in English language. You cannot add Italian books to Shelfari, for example, and you cannot search images on Google by specifying in which language you are providing your search criteria. Google is not bad: it tries to identify the language according to your setting or the place where you are, but in Europe we are used to switch from a a language to another, so it should be possible to explicitly specify the language.

A similar problem exists in Microsoft Office: language is coupled to the keyboard. This is absolutely crazy. First of all because it make no sense to change the keyboard layout just to write in another language, even because in any case the physical layout of your keyboard cannot change, of course. Second, because it may happen in Europe that a Spanish individual working in Italy, would write in French by using an Italian keyboard and the English version of Word. A lot of European people knows two or more languages, but of course they have a single keyboard layout.

So, English is becoming the dominant culture, and all the other points of view are becoming extinct. Someone said that the history is written by the winners. If that is true, English language is going to be the winner, but... the winner of what? If there is a winner, there is a battle. Are we in war? Are we fighting a cultural war? No, we are not. We are loosing because we are not fighting. Trying to preserve non-English culture, spreading non-English point of view in USA or UK is not only a must for every non-English culture, but a value for English-speaking people too. Cultural diversity is a richness for Humanity, as well as biodiversity is a richness for Nature.

So, spread the word. Not only the English one, but all the words by all languages from Europe, Asia, Africa, Americas, and Oceania. And let us begin from the web!

In Europa ci sono attualmente 197 centrali nucleari che producono circa il 35% dell'energia elettrica complessiva utilizzata, ovvero quasi 170 gigawatt. Altre 13 sono in costruzione con un apporto previsto di circa 12 gigawatt. In Francia quasi l'80% dell'energia elettrica è prodotta da centrali nucleari; segue la Lituania con il 70%, il Belgio e la Slovacchia con il 56%, la Svezia con il 46%.

Mappa delle centrali nucleari in Europa (ogni simbolo può corrispondere a più di un reattore).
In verde i Paesi senza alcuna centrale in produzione. In rosa quelli con almeno una centrale in produzione.

Durante il mese di febbraio l'Agenzia Europea di Valutazione dei Farmaci (EMEA) dovrà valutare se dare il via libera a una proteina anticoagulante, denominata antitrombina umana, in grado di curare una forma ereditaria di trombosi che provoca l'occlusione di una vena profonda.

Detto così non sembra una notizia alla quale dare più rilievo di altre, dato che ogni anno di nuovi farmaci se ne sviluppano e immettono sul mercato parecchi. Il fatto, tuttavia, è che questo sarebbe il primo farmaco a essere autorizzato in Europa prodotto da un animale transgenico.

L'ATryn, così si chiama il farmaco, è infatti prodotto dalla GTC Biotherapeutics utilizzando il latte secreto da una capra geneticamente modificata. Ci sono voluti 15 anni per sviluppare la tecnologia più adatta ed economicamente conveniente e superare tutta una serie di ostacoli burocratici. La richiesta di approvazione in Europa nasce dal fatto che l'Unione Europea ha definito una serie di linee guida molto precise e dettagliate che determinano i requisiti necessari per ottenere l'approvazione di animali transgenici, mentre al contrario gli Stati Uniti tali linee guida non ce l'hanno. Così, quasi per assurdo, è più facile per un'azienda che produce OGM trovare finanziatori per tentare di passare i rigorosi controlli europei, piuttosto che ottenere l'approvazione negli Stati Uniti, dove la Food and Drug Administration non ha mai chiarito quali siano i protocolli clinici per l'approvazione di un farmaco transgenico.

Sebbene infatti la produzione di farmaci da animali transgenici possa abbattere significativamente i costi di produzione di determinate molecole, oltre che produrre molecole non ottenibili altrimenti, i costi della ricerca e soprattutto quelli iniziali per gli impianti di produzione si attestano su ordini di grandezza di svariate centinaia di milioni di euro.

Sugli OGM, anche quelli ammessi in linea di principio dall'Unione Europea, come appunto quelli per la produzione di farmaci, c'è ancora in atto un furioso dibattito. A tal proposito segnalo due articoli, uno PRO e uno CONTRO.

Personalmente ritengo che la produzione di farmaci tramite OGM sia una tecnologia importante, da sviluppare e sostenere, purché venga sottoposta agli stessi rigorosi protocolli di approvazione ai quali vanno sottoposti tutti i farmaci. L'eventuale presenza di effetti collaterali, purché inerenti alla molecola e non al processo di produzione, non dovrebbero rappresentare un elemento deterrente, dato che è risaputo che tutti i farmaci presentano effetti collaterali. Ognuno di noi reagisce in modo diverso a qualsiasi sostanza, che sia naturale, sintetica o transgenica. Basti pensare alle allergie e alle intolleranze alimentari.

Credo sia importante liberarsi della sindrome da OGM per affrontare l'argomento in modo serio, con il giusto livello di attenzione, ma anche evitando determinati miti come quello che vuole a priori gli organismi geneticamente modificati in laboratorio totalmente differenti da quelli geneticamente modificati attraverso incroci e selezione. La posta in gioco è troppo alta per permetterci il lusso di portare avanti questo dibattito con toni da tifo calcistico tra chi è a favore o contro per ragioni fideistiche piuttosto che per reale conoscenza dei fatti.