Rafaela Prifti – Page 25 – Dielli

President Biden and World Leaders Affirm Unity at the G7 Summit in Europe

June 28, 2022 by s p

by Rafaela Prifti

The Group of Seven (G7) opened a three-day summit n the Bavarian Alps last Sunday to protect the economies of the global coalition while further isolating Russia, now in its fourth month of the invasion of Ukraine. The discussions centered on introducing price caps in the energy sector. The revenues from Russian oil and gas directly fuel Moscow’s war efforts. Prior to the gathering, Russian missile strikes were launched at two residential buildings in Kiev, where there had been no military assault in three weeks.

President Biden formally announced a global infrastructure partnership, a $600 billion initiative that aims to counter China’s influence and investment in the developing world. The leaders acknowledged the importance of their resolve as the economic reverberations from the war take a toll around the globe in inflation, food shortages and other issues. Meeting with President Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who holds the G-7′s rotating presidency and is hosting the gathering said “Germany and the U.S. will always act together when it comes to questions of Ukraine’s security.” .

British PM Boris Johnson urged fellow leaders not to give in to “fatigue”. He praised the “huge strides” made by Germany to arm Ukraine and cut imports of Russian gas. Leaders echoed praises of coalition unity.

The Head of the European Union’s Council of Governments Charles Michel said the 27-member bloc maintains “unwavering unity” in backing Ukraine against Russia’s invasion with money and political support, but that “Ukraine needs more and we are committed to providing more.”

European Council President said EU governments were ready to supply “more military support, more financial means, and more political support” to enable Ukraine to defend itself and “curb Russia’s ability to wage war.”

Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU has imposed six rounds of sanctions against Russia. The latest is a ban on 90% of Russian crude oil imports by the end of the year.

The G-7 nations will ban imports of gold from Russia. According to news reports, a formal announcement is expected Tuesday as the annual summit wraps up.

PM Johnson said the ban will “directly hit Russian oligarchs and strike at the heart of Putin’s war machine….”starving the Putin regime of its funding.”

According to the White House, gold has been the top Russian export after energy — reaching almost $19 billion or about 5% of global gold exports, in recent years.

90% of Russian gold exports was consigned to G-7 countries. More than 90% of those exports, or nearly $17 billion, was exported to the U.K. The United States imported less than $200 million in gold from Russia in 2019, and under $1 million in 2020 and 2021.

The G7 is an informal grouping of advanced democracies that meets annually to coordinate global economic policy and address transnational issues.

Russia’s membership was suspended in 2014 over the annexation of Crimea.

Source: AP News

The Albanian Cardiovascular Clinic At Jacobi Center To Open in September

June 8, 2022 by s p

Rafaela Prifti/

Jacobi Medical Center will open a Cardiovascular Clinic to specifically cater to the Albanian residents in the Norwood, Belmont and Pelham Parkway sections of the Bronx in September. Dr. Eleonora Gashi-Baraliu will lead the Albanian Cardiovascular Clinic. Currently she is the director of Cardiovascular Consultative Services and Quality for Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Jacobi. The Albanian Cardiovascular Clinic will look after the heart health of the patients while also focusing on educating them on the benefits of proactive behavior or self-care regimen.
Dr. Gashi-Baraliu’s ethnic background renders her a natural ‘insider” into the culture and importantly into the attitude toward health issues. Studies show that heart disease is one of the leading killers in the Albanian community, that largely resides in the Bronx borough of New York. Within its neighborhoods, the most Albanian residents are in Pelham Parkway with 4,766, Bedford Park 1,387, Riverdale 998, Co-op City 844, Belmont 538, Wakefield 467, and Castle Hill 238, and many other areas with smaller amounts, according to the 2016 American Community Survey (ACS).

“As an immigrant who trained in Manhattan for general and interventional cardiology, my eye was always towards the Albanian community in the Bronx,” she said for the Bronx Times.

Aside from cardiology services, ACC will offer cardiovascular consultations, echocardiograms, holter monitoring, treadmill exercise stress tests, nuclear stress tests, stress echo, coronary CT angiography, cardiac MRIs, diagnostic angiograms and percutaneous coronary interventions.

Most of the patients will be referrals from Illyria Clinic. Reports say that on a weekly average 20-30 of its patients are in need of cardiology services. Dr. Gashi-Baraliu, who has been with Jacobi since 2018, is confident Albanian residents will come to the clinic as an easy transfer from the general cardiology clinics at the hospital.

According to the doctor, the ACC allows for “patients to have the cultural comfort and eliminates communication as a barrier to health care disparity,” which in turn helps to facilitate their attending to their health issues.

Aiming to promote healthier lifestyle habits, the facility will conduct educational sessions for the whole community. In the last two decades, Illyria Medical Practive at Jacobi Medical Center has been serving the health needs of the Albanian population of the borough which saw an increase in demographics after the Kosovo war.

Memorial Day Tradition and Events

May 31, 2022 by s p

Rafaela Prifti/

The tradition began on May 30th, 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers in the cemetery. Back then it was called Decoration Day. After the end of WWII, soldiers and communities of many American towns placed small flags by every headstone in the cemetery to honor those who served in America’s wars. Putting aside disputes and arguments about its origins, in 1966, Congress and President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, New York, the “birthplace” of Memorial Day. In Waterloo, a ceremony on May 5, 1866, honored veterans who had fought in the Civil War. The federal government adopted the Memorial Day name in 1967 and a year later Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. It established Memorial Day as a national holiday observed in the United States on the last Monday of MayIn the nation’s capital, the observance takes place at Arlington National Cemetery. Before the pandemic, more than 4 million people visited the cemetery every year. However, the best-known memorial in the nation’s capital, is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which opened in 1982. Two years earlier, a group of former soldiers announced a competition to design a memorial. The winner was a 21-year-old student at Yale University. The design is formed by two walls of black stone about 76 meters long that meet to form the letter V. The names of more than 58,000 Americans killed or declared missing-in-action are cut into the stone.After the success of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Congress approved a memorial to the Korean War veterans, which opened in July of 1995. On the National Mall, the World War II Memorial is dedicated to those who answered the call of their country when U.S. entered the war on December 7th, 1941. Sixteen million men and women served in the American military between 1941 and 1945. More than 400,000 died. The fifty-six stone pillars that rise around the Memorial pool represent each of the American states and territories at the time of the war. There are no memorials yet for soldiers who died in America’s most recent wars – in Iraq and Afghanistan. As part of today’s observance, the Albanian-American communities across the country take part in parades and local memorial services in honor of its lost members and those who survived. It is a great way to remember history and pay homage to the “honor roll” among us. Sadly, a few of them departed during the lock-down time of the pandemic. Indeed, Dielli paid tribute to the passing of one such exceptional figure like William Johns (Vasil Kamenica in 2020. His name and picture next to those of his fellow countrymen are on display at St. Mary’s Albanian Orthodox Church in Worcester, MA, shown in the photo below.On Memorial Day, Americans will stop for one minute at three o’clock local time for the National Moment of Remembrance to honor the soldiers who have died in service to the country, no matter what wars they served in.

VOLPONE – A CON MAN STORY THAT’S ABOUT US

May 29, 2022 by s p

By Rafaela Prifti

A scheme, a conman and a servant. What could go wrong? Is greed only the beginning?

If you happen to read or see Volpone in a theater, you will be forgiven for being overwhelmed by the brutal timeliness of the play. The bottomless greed and self-serving trickery that are portrayed in it feel as current today as perhaps at the time of its production in the 17th century. The fable element of the play conveys a universal moral message that Ben Jonson believed to be the theater’s task. Timelessness is a feature associated with all great works of art and artists, yet Volpone’s timeliness stands out nowadays for the portrayal of schemes generated by a conman and enablers unbound by morals or a sense of justice. In its original form as well as countless theater adaptations worldwide, Volpone is Ben Jonson’s most performed play. The adopted son of a bricklayer, Jonson became one of the most important cultural figures in early 17^th century Britain, and England’s first (unofficial) poet laureate. Critics agree that although younger than his contemporary William Shakespeare, as a playwright, Ben Jonson stands comparison with the world’s greatest dramatist.

The play draws on elements of city comedy and beast fable. It is set in Venice where the devious, childless and gold-obsessed trickster Volpone, or ‘fox’, dupes a range of foolish Venetians and foreigners with the help of his clever servant Mosca (‘fly’ or ‘parasite’). Together they stage an elaborate scheme. Volpone pretends to be a wealthy old man who is deathly ill. With the help of his servant, the old man courts three eager gold-diggers, the merchant Corvino (‘Crow’), the lawyer Voltore (‘Vulture’) and the elderly gentleman Corbaccio (‘Raven’), by leading them to believe that they will be named heir to his immense fortune. In exchange for the promise of the inheritance, Volpone collects lavish gifts from Corvino and Voltore. Unstoppable in his greed and lust, he persuades Corbaccio to disinherit his own son, Bonario, in favor of Volpone, and convinces Corbaccio to allow him to seduce his wife, Celia. Mosca plays his part in assuring them that he is helping each one exclusively to get ahead in the three-way race as they eagerly shower Volpone with gifts in order to gain his favor.

As with any scheme, more people need to take part in it in order for the plan to work. No one understands this better than Volpone himself. Disguised as assistants to an Italian swindler, Mosca and Nano, Volpone’s dwarf, swindle the English Knight named Sir Politic-Would-be and a fellow traveler, Peregrine. Volpone, dressed as a famous mountebank, makes an elaborate sales pitch for a cure-all elixir. While some characters begin to catch on to the scheme, Mosca and Volpone prepare an even more elaborate lie to get out of trouble. A recognizable pattern starts to emerge in which a new scheme is designed to cover or at least distract from the old one and a lie is layered on top of a previous lie and so on. Jonson’s merciless satire of deceit and greed without the follies of the judicial system. In court, Voltore, Corvino, Corbaccio, and Mosca present a calculated lie framing the targets of the scheme as culprits. They testify that Bonario and Celia are out to defame Volpone through elaborate plots and false accusations. Mosca’s plan worked. Although Volpone is forced to appear in court, he convincingly acts diseased and is freed. The sly fox, Master of deceit, Voplone is not satisfied with the outcome. It’s not enough for him to have joyfully fooled his victims into believing that each one will be the sole heir to his fortune while becoming wealthier through them. There is no lost irony in Volpone’s criticism of other people’s greed. Determined to humiliate his victims, the trickster fakes his own death. The plan backfires. His enabler, Mosca sees this as an opportunity to swindle the swindler by driving a hard bargain for Volpone’s fortune in court. To prevent Mosca from getting away with all of his money, Volpone reveals himself and his entire plan. The Venetian court sentences Mosca and Volpone handily.

Volpne is a merciless satire of greed and lust. It remains Jonson’s most-performed play outlining his belief that theater is as much entertaining as it is morally relevant. The play’s central figure, fittingly named Volpone is an old, rich, childless Italian gentleman with no heir his fortune, who schemes several people by pretending to be sick and offering to name them as inheritors of his wealth by making them complete for the title. Volpone cheats the entire play to line his pockets. His greed is secondary only to the satisfaction he drives from fooling others. His tricks would not have worked so well without his parasite, Mosca, his servant who fools the people hoping to inherit Volpone’s wealth, and weaves cross-plots which are all eventually exposed.

New tricks keep being generated by the characters as they try to take advantage of each other and then try to save themselves. It is a very recognizable pattern of the present time-space we live in. Naturally, for the schemes to be successful or last longer, controlling the narrative and spinning is crucially important. For the Sly Fox, Volpone, to keep deceiving people, his parasite Mosca needs to be alongside and follow through. To be sure these are characters in a play that has been performed for four centuries on stages around the globe telling the story of the con man’s of the society and the enablers that play along as long as it is profitable for them to do so. These themes reverberate with today’s audiences with an appreciation for entertainment as well as the messaging conveyed through art, as playwright Ben Jonson intended. In it, greed is only the beginning. For the scheme to work, manipulation and misrepresentation are key elements to help the self-serving interest of the puppet master, the Sly Fox.

As recently as 2018, a production of Volpone, adapted by Stefan Zweig (Cvajg), translated in Albanian by Artur Lena, was performed by the Tetova Theater. Director and costume designer Sulejman Rushiti, renowned Albanian director and producer, said that the play was a contender at the Tetova International Theater Festival. Enjoying great reviews, later in the year, the play went on a tour to Gostivar, where theatergoers packed the hall.

The fable element of the production displayed in the characters Voltore (Vulture), Corvino (Crow) Corbaccio (Raven), and Mosca (Fly, Parasite) lends it the universal component. Yet, it speaks to today’s audience with a particular contemporary voice as a story about us.

SUPREME COURT LEAK LEADS THE HEADLINES

May 14, 2022 by s p

by Rafaela Prifti/

Since the first days of May, US headlines are heavily concerned with a draft opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court that was leaked to the press.

Here is a brief summary of what you need to know:

The opinion presents the legal argument for striking down the 1973 landmark decision that legalized abortion in the United States. Immediately, the media focused on the content of the opinion as well as the leak itself. An intense national debate has ensued over the identity of the leaker and whether it is illegal to leak such a document. The short answer is drafts of Supreme Court opinions are not classifies documents like national security and as such their disclosure does not automatically prompt a criminal investigation.

The other important element in considering prosecution is the question of how the document was obtained in other words whether any crimes were committed in obtaining it such as hacking into an unauthorized computer. Chief Justice John Roberts, who said the draft decision was authentic, has directed the court’s marshal to investigate the leak, calling it an “egregious breach.” It is important to note that the Supreme Court marshal is not part of the U.S. Marshals Service or the Justice Department, yet the office can make arrests and the findings of the probe can be referred to federal prosecutors.

In case the leaker is a law clerk, the range of potential sanctions include job termination and ethics violations measures. There have been a series of leaks in the 1970s which prompted the federal courts to adopt a law clerk code of conduct. The code prohibits clerks from disclosing “confidential information received in the course of official duties. It is unclear whether a law clerk had any involvement. Although leaking a draft opinion would be a violation of court confidentiality rules and could be grounds for disbarment, not every federal law clerk is a member of a bar.

If the leaker is identified as an attorney, it would fall to the bar to investigate, experts say. Washington’s Bar Association and others have rules that forbid lawyers to “engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.” Attorney disciplinary officials can investigate matters on their own or respond to complaints. For the attorney conduct provisions to apply, the leak would need to involve a licensed member of a state bar. So, whether we shall see a prosecution or sanctions resulting from a probe into the Supreme Court leak, depends on who did it.

By all accounts, the leak of a draft Supreme Court ruling is unprecedented. Although there have been instances of shared information regarding internal court dynamics or justice’s deliberations after opinions were issued such as the Bush v. Gore case or a tell-all book by a former clerk, experts do not recall any high court leak resulting in prosecution or disciplinary action.

The code prohibits clerks from disclosing “confidential information received in the course of official duties” yet it does not go as far as to make it illegal.