VENICE: The immense Palace of the Old Procuraties, which borders the mythical Saint Mark's Square in Venice, overlooking elegant colonnades, will open its doors to the public on Friday for the first time in 500 years of history, after colossal works of renovation.Silent witness to the centuries crossed by the Serenissima, this former high place of Venetian power is ready to reveal its secrets to the visitor, invited to rush into a row of arcades surrounded by wooden beams and brick walls.For the first three days of opening, the visit is reserved for Venetians only, of whom 3,000 responded in 72 hours, before expanding from April 13 to tourists from all over the world.Project manager of this transformation of a surface area of ​​12,000 m2, the internationally renowned English architect David Chipperfield was commissioned by the Italian insurer Generali, owner of the palazzo, to breathe new life into this iconic building."St. the AFP.Erected in the 12th century, the Procuratie Vecchie were devastated by a fire in 1512. The Veneto-Byzantine building was replaced in 1538 by a three-storey structure, in the classic style of the Italian Renaissance.Until the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797, the procurators, high magistrates who assisted the Doge, in charge of the city's treasury but also of social affairs, worked there while occupying free accommodation there.Under the roof of the building now extend the spacious premises of The Human Safety Net, a foundation launched by Generali to help the most vulnerable people, including refugees, as well as exhibition rooms and an auditorium."The procurators looked after widows, orphans and the poor. For us, it is a great tribute to the history and identity of this building to have The Human Safety Net, which works for social inclusion “, explained its director Emma Ursich.To the left of the main entrance, the winged lion of Saint Mark, symbol of the city but also the emblem of Generali, is encrusted in the white marble wall.A plaque commemorates the birth in 1831 in Trieste of the insurer, which took up residence in Venice the following year."The building had been abused for a very long time, decorations were removed, stairs, elevators and bathrooms added, in a very disorderly way. Our responsibility was to restore some integrity to it", comments Mr. Chipperfield.The construction site will have lasted three years, after a 24-month design phase aimed at preserving the existing structures as much as possible.On the first floor, where Generali still has some offices after transferring its Italian headquarters to the vicinity of Venice in 1990, to Mogliano Veneto, the frescoes and wall paintings have been completely restored to restore their shine."It's no secret that working with the administration in Italy is quite complicated," quips David Chipperfield.Planting the slightest nail in a historic building requires countless permits.As for the craftsmen, "you can find yourself with the best in the world", because there is a long tradition in Italy, "they have been restoring buildings for a thousand years"."It was essential to collaborate with local craftsmen and suppliers, using techniques and materials that are part of the Venetian tradition", explains Cristiano Billia, associate director of David Chipperfield Architects Milan.Thus, for the floors, walls or ceilings, pastellone, a natural product based on lime, terrazzo, made up of a mixture of colored marble fragments and cement, or even marmorino, a finishing coating have been used. satin effect.Just opposite, on the other side of the square, stand the New Procuraties, whose construction was completed in 1640 and which in the mid-19th century housed illustrious members of the Habsburg dynasty such as Empress Sissi, during Austrian rule over Venice.His home overlooked the very secret Royal Gardens along the Grand Canal, themselves reopened to the public in 2019 after five years of restoration.https://arab.news/pc2ckDUBAI: For a man who has 16 albums to his name, has sold out from Paris to New York, has performed with Sting, Juliette Gréco and Jon Batiste, among others, who is managed by the legendary American producer Quincy Jones and who became the first French virtuoso of the trumpet, the Franco-Lebanese musician Ibrahim Maalouf maintains a strange relationship with the instrument that made him internationally famous.“I grew up playing the trumpet, because my father (Nassim) was a trumpeter.But I didn't like it,” Maalouf told Arab News from his home in the Paris suburbs.“I know it's strange to say that now, given how much this instrument has given me.It might seem a bit rude to my father, but I have to be honest,” he continues.“I played classical music on the trumpet, and my dad played it really loud.He liked the trumpet.I loved the piano and played it all the time.When I had to play the trumpet, it wasn't really a pleasure.It was mostly because the sound hurt my ears.My father played high notes which show that one is strong.I wasn't like that at all – I was very shy and intimidated by it all.I did not recognize myself in his style of play.Maalouf was born in Beirut in 1980, five years after the start of the Lebanese civil war.“My mother gave birth to me in a hospital under the bombs,” he says.They emigrated “immediately” to France, intending to stay there only until the situation in Lebanon calms down.They have not lived in their native country since.“My father left Lebanon at the age of 24.He was a farmer in the Lebanese mountains.He knew nothing about French culture, but he loved the trumpet above all else.He left everything to come to France, where he didn't know anyone,” says Maalouf.“He wanted to become a trumpeter and a classical musician;I didn't want it at all."This meeting coincides just before International Jazz Day, celebrated each year on April 30.For Maalouf, who grew up listening to Arabic and Western classical music, hearing jazz for the first time as a teenager was a real turning point in his life.“I bought a Miles Davis CD, listened to it and…boom!I realized that “we have the right to play the trumpet with soft notes, something that whispers like a human voice”.“Since then, everything has changed for me,” he says.“I started listening to Chet Baker, Jon Hassell and Miles, of course.They were playing the trumpet in a way that I thought was forbidden.It was seeing people playing softly and whispering on their instruments without having to sound aggressive that I fell in love with jazz."Maalouf regards jazz as the "music of freedom" and rejects purists who refuse experimentation in this musical genre.“They love it so much they're afraid it will change over time and become something else,” he says.“But in fact, culture is made to change over time.”Ibrahim Maalouf's repertoire often incorporates elements of Arabic music, including the deep tarab and the slow, sentimental mawaal.To achieve this sound, he plays quarter tones – notes unique to Arabic music and not found in Western music – on a special trumpet that has an extra valve, invented by his father."It's my culture," he said.That's how I express myself."Maalouf is renowned for putting a surprising and unique spin on classic songs such as Oum Kalthoum's 1969 hit Alf Leila Wa Leila which he performed with a jazz quintet on his 2015 album 'Kalthoum'.“People said to me, 'You're touching a traditional melody.You will harm him.Don't change it;people are going to be mad at you.”And I thought, “Why?This melody is so beautiful and I shape it differently.During the celebrations on July 14, 2021 at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, he put his own twist on La Marseillaise – the French national anthem – by giving this traditionally loud chant a calmer and soothing rhythm.He knew his interpretation would stir up emotions."Obviously we're going to be taken down on Twitter," he said in a video on his Facebook page at the time."If that's the price to pay, I'm delighted."Maalouf is often described as a musician who “connects two worlds” with his music.Yet it is a description with which he does not agree."I don't see myself as someone who brings together Middle Eastern culture and jazz," he explains.I just see myself as an ordinary person, painting a picture of the times we live in with music.I don't even care about mixing jazz and Middle Eastern – it just mixes naturally.I'm just witnessing the natural blending that happens through human beings all over the world.Thanks to the Internet — and we are the Internet generation — it exists everywhere.“I understand that in order to market music, you have to name it,” he continues.“But when it comes to the music itself, that's where we have to be very careful.Why do we have to reduce everything that we are, everything that you are and that I am to just being “an Arab living in France”?Should we give ourselves names and give names to cultures?You name a culture and a second later it's something else.”He offers an example of the “natural blend” he talks about.“When I was at the Lincoln Jazz Center in New York, I was playing in front of jazz fans;listening to the melody of Oum Kalthoum, they exclaimed: “It's so cool!”You see?We share the same melodies, it's just a matter of how you shape them."Maalouf refutes attempts to categorize him and his music.He composes film music.He produces rap albums.He is interested in hip-hop culture.“The older I get, the younger the music I listen to,” he says.“I'm like a researcher in a lab, working with tubes and chemicals – and I get interesting colors and textures.I prefer to be defined as an experimenter.https://arab.news/v7f2zLONDON: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok failed to remove nearly 90% of anti-Muslim and Islamophobic content on their platforms, according to new research released Thursday.The study, conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), examined more than 530 posts, viewed 25 million times, containing dehumanizing content about Muslims and Islam.“Much of the hateful content we uncovered was blatant and easy to find, with even clearly Islamophobic hashtags circulating openly and hundreds of thousands of users belonging to groups that preach anti-Muslim hatred,” says Imran Ahmed, the CEO of CCDH.These posts are not limited to offensive opinions, but also include caricatures, false claims and conspiracy theories.Some Instagram posts, for example, depict Muslims as pigs and call for their expulsion from Europe.Another post found on social media compares Islam to cancer that should be “treated with radiation” and it comes with an image of an atomic explosion.Posts on Twitter suggest that Muslim migration is part of a plot to change the politics of other countries.Many posts are accompanied by offensive hashtags such as #deathtoislam, #islamiscancer and #raghead.The CCDH says most of the hate messages and Islamophobic content monitored in the study were reported by users to the platforms' community standards watchdogs.However, few of them have been removed.Facebook, for example, took down only 7 of the 125 reported posts;Instagram, 32 of 227 posts;TikTok, 18 of 50 posts;Twitter, 3 of 105 posts;and YouTube did nothing about the 23 videos for which it received complaints.The researchers also found that Facebook was used by Islamophobic groups with names such as "Islam means Terrorism", "Stop Islamization of America" ​​and "Boycott Halal Certification in Australia".Many of these groups, based primarily in the UK, US and Australia, have thousands of members.The group “Fight Against Liberalism, Socialism and Islam”, for example, has nearly 5,000 members.The group is led by South African lawyer Mark Taitz.He claims that "moderate Islam does not exist and too many people don't understand it" and he encourages Facebook users to "join our group to learn more about Islam and the atrocities it is committing in For God Sake".In response to this study, the Twitter platform said it "does not tolerate the abuse or harassment of people on the basis of religion" and it pointed to the existence of the automated system it used to report content that violates its policies.The company did not address the report's specific findings, but admitted that it "knew there was still work to be done."This is not the first time that social media platforms have come under fire for their reactions to hate speech and offensive content.In December, for example, a report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that studies online extremism, found that Facebook was failing to remove extremist content.A new tool introduced to the platform in November even tagged photos of Daesh and Taliban beheadings and hate speech as "insightful" and "engaging".VIENNA: From 19th century anti-Semitic caricatures to disinformation linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Rothschild dynasty, which contributed to Europe's golden age, remains a favorite target of conspiracy narratives.An exhibition running until June 5 at the Museum of Judaism in Vienna traces its history and tries to understand why it continues to spark so many wild rumors."It was a family originally from the Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt. It all started with a small coin dealer who sent each of his five sons to European cities, including Vienna" in 1821, explains curator Gabriele Kohlbauer-Fritz ."Their rapid success inspires cartoonists", continues his colleague Tom Juncker.They then become "the face of the emerging banking industry".After the abolition of censorship in 1848, the drawings gradually approach the theme of an "alleged world Jewish conspiracy which has in fact continued until the present day"."They have been named as the culprits, instead of attributing to the speculative mechanisms of capitalism the responsibility for certain failures of the system", relates Mr. Juncker.A 19th century lithograph depicts the founder Mayer Amschel Rothschild, for example, with a strong overweight and a hooked nose, manipulating the ruling classes like juggling balls.After 1945 and the genocide of the Jews in Europe, openly showing his anti-Semitism being sanctioned by law, the name of Rothschild then became "a code", "a generic name" to blame the omnipotence of the elites.“Especially now, in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, it is again very current: we always find Rothschild there”, underlines Tom Juncker, in front of a large screen reproducing in the exhibition conspiratorial messages broadcast on social networks.In the fall of 2020, publications shared thousands of times on Facebook, screaming "Covid scam", claimed that a certain Richard Rothschild had filed a patent for a virus screening test as early as 2015.However, this man has no connection with Rothschild & Co, as confirmed at the time by a spokesperson to AFP.In addition, if the patent, which describes techniques for analyzing biometric data, does exist, the part devoted to Covid was added during an update procedure in September 2020.Nevertheless, users around the world have seen it as proof that the family knew before ordinary mortals what throes the world would soon be thrown into.“Someone here realized very early on that there was money to be made with a disease” which would spread four years later, for example commented on a user on Facebook.In other cases, a member of the dynasty appears posing in a luxurious setting in front of one of his paintings representing a diabolical creature devouring babies.False again: the original photo does not show the same painting, according to research by an AFP digital investigation team.Far from being responsible for all Western ills, the Rothschilds have on the contrary had a decisive contribution to Europe thanks to "their very modern management", notes Ms. Kohlbauer-Fritz.The Austro-Hungarian Empire was then plagued by recurring financial difficulties and Salomon Rothschild (1774-1855) very quickly became indispensable to the monarchy, even being ennobled, without giving in to assimilation and denying his Jewishness.The Credit-Anstalt bank, a state-of-the-art hospital, a major foundation, sumptuous palaces, a train station, a garden... almost everything he and his lineage built in Vienna before the annexation of Austria by Adolf Hitler disappeared today.“The Nazis took practically everything,” laments the curator of the exhibition entitled “Rothschild in Vienna, a thriller”.The Viennese branch emigrated to the United States and its descendants never returned.“Even after the war, they were treated indecently” by forcing them to give up many of their properties, which were then demolished to make way for modern buildings, recounts Gabriele Kohlbauer-Fritz, who had to play a game track to find traces of this forgotten heritage.It was not until 2016 that a Rothschild Square was inaugurated in Vienna.The Naples line closed in 1863 following the unification of Italy, which relegated the city to the background.But the family saga continues to be written today from London, Paris and New York where hospitals, banks and investment funds make the brand exist in the public space.