Goodbye night trains: couchette in retirement

From December, Torino and Rome will no longer be linked due to the cancellation of the sleeper class wagons.

The operators

11^th December is the date which marks the end for the train services with couchette which from Sicily and Calabria passed the country and arrived to North Italy. Which marks the end of an era: that of infinite journeys which the immigrants from South undertook to arrive to Milan or Turin. Those of the vacations to the sea. Now, the passengers have to find an alternative route: maybe airplane or maybe an itinerary made of different stops, and trains called "fast", as the latest Freccia Rossa (Red Arrow), which costs much more. Palermo and Siracusa will loose a major part of their direct connections with the North. One who leaves from Piedmont, or from Lombardy, from Calabria or from Sicily, will have to reach Rome and from there proceed with another train for their final destination. With the winter time table will also be discontinued the Bolzano –Rome night and to Palatino, the Rome –Paris night, which will restart its service in June 2012. These cuts have unleashed the ire of 700 employees of the company which manages the night service. Since 430 of them run the risk of loosing the job. Thus, they have united and protested at the Termini station. Also complaining were the passengers who will be constrained to take an airplane or spend more money. But if Trenitalia has chosen to make these cuts, is due to the progressive decline of the night passengers: -25% ;, "necessary choice" saying at the State Railways. The responsibilities ? Fs says its due to the low cost flights. But the union and the commuter associations do not believe this. They accuse the policy (too much) industrial and the strategic choices of the number one of Fs, Moretti.

Psychology: The crisis frightens the italians, one in three would leave the country

Roma, 23 nov.

The economic recession and the market crisis frightens the Italians. It makes them live in a state of alarm, so much that one in three would leave the country. Before it goes to the dogs. This is the picture which emerges from a study by Eurodap, European Association of disturbances from panic attacks, carried out on a sample of 800 persons.

“The test taken- affirms Paola Vinciguerra, psychotherapist and president of the Association- asked the persons to express oneself on various situations of the daily life, work shakiness, health, social relations, relations with the partner. According to the responses obtained it can be said that today one in three Italians lives from a long time now , at least for two years in a state of alarm. He fears. Perceives Italy as a dangerous and hazardous place. Some fears are even justified rationally like those in the case of criminality or of the phenomenon of immigration, of the absence of future for oneself and one’s kids. While in other cases their own and even irrational phobias can develop”, adds the expert.

According to Vinciguerra, “ these persons live in an agonizing sense of shakiness, fear of losing immediately all that they have. In this way their life is heavily influenced by a continuous state of alarm, linked to all the aspects of daily life, including the work and the interpersonal relations. All this provokes inevitably some responses of psychophysical uneasiness- adds- which initially can show with a sharp increase of irritability, insomnia, headache, muscular pains, increase in tiredness, eating problems”.

All these discomforts, if ignored, according to Vinciguerra, can transform into real and true diseases like “ gastritis, diabetes, heart condition and at psychological level general anxiety, panic attacks, depression. It is vital – adds the expert – to become aware of the liberty that we are deprived of due to these fears and of the way we are compelled to behave.

For Vinciguerra, “the first essential step in order to reorganize this perception of constant danger is that of reinforcing the confidence in each one of us, bettering the state of anxiety and stress with which we are living”.

To help to manage better this moment of great difficulty, Eurodap has organized a day against the stress. On 6^th December is planned a course of 3 hours to teach the relaxing and anxiety management techniques.

AP Survey:Two thirds italians consider legal immigration to be an asset

Rome, 23 nov.

Two thirds of the Italians consider legal immigration to be an “asset” for the country and many are in favor of arrival of other immigrants. An Associated Press-GfK, reveals this, whose results are surprising, seen the persistent feeling in our country which links the immigrants to crime and other social problems such as unemployment and drug trafficking. The analyst suggests that the result is an indicative of the double vision of the immigration in our country: while many are hostile to the immigration due to fears for the security, many others understand that the immigrants are necessary to do those works which the Italians don’t want to do any more, to pour money in the pension system and to take care of ever elderly population.