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Showing posts from October, 2013

Gravity

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Robert McCall Green of Fear at 0 g. By Roberto Dal Bosco  (Translated from Italian by L. Pavese)   There is a great motion picture in the theaters: Gravity . Just for once, at the top of the box office there is a work of absolute great quality. Gravity is one of the most emotionally stirring movies of recent times. The story tells of the feats of two astronauts who, shipwrecked in orbital space, try in some way to get back to Earth. We should not reveal anything more, to avoid spoiling a movie that deserves to be seen. Although this is a motion picture with a budget of US$ 100 million, the movie --- which is a sort of cosmic chamber play --- features only two actors, George Clooney (very well cast in the role of the gung-ho self sacrificing American) and Sandra Bullock, who, these days, is a little marred by plastic surgery and too much physical exercise but is still able to move the audience as only great actresses can do. The director is Alfonso Cuarón, who is a

Poaching for Allah

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THE AFRICAN JIHAD RELIES ON POACHING by Anna Bono (Translated by Leonardo Pavese). In Africa an elephant dies every fifteen minutes. It is a slaughter without precedent. Many of the elephants killed every day are shot down in Kenya’s national parks and natural reserves. Moreover, most of the elephant tusks poached in the other East-African countries flow to the Kenyan port of Mombasa to be loaded clandestinely on ships headed to the Far East. As a result, Kenya is included in the so-called “Gang of Eight,” which comprises the countries deemed to be the main culprits of the extermination: Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya as suppliers of tusks; China and Thailand as buyers (it is estimated that China alone imports 70% of the illegally traded ivory); Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines because they are among the principal smuggling countries. Kenya already pays a dear price for not being able and determined to fight the poaching of the elephants. The price is paid in the form

Undici giorni a settembre

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Per la collana italiana di Segretissimo (che esiste dai primi anni sessanta) è finalmente uscito un libro che ho tradotto dall'inglese. Si tratta della traduzione del romanzo Morning Spy, Evening Spy  di  Colin MacKinnon . A parte la brutta copertina (finiti i bei tempi delle copertine illustrate da Ferenc Pintér ) e vagamente pornografica (che non c'entra niente con la storia) è un bel libro giallo che offre una versione "dietrologica" della mancata cattura di Osama Bin Laden, prima dell'attacco dell' 11 settembre 2001. Il libro è disponibile, in versione elettronica, sul blog di Segretissimo , sul quale potrete anche lasciare un commento. Grazie, L. Pavese.