Milan to Host International Festival of Arabic Language and Culture

People pass by the Duomo Cathedral, in Milan, Italy, April 13, 2021. REUTERS/Flavio Lo Scalzo/File Photo
People pass by the Duomo Cathedral, in Milan, Italy, April 13, 2021. REUTERS/Flavio Lo Scalzo/File Photo
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Milan to Host International Festival of Arabic Language and Culture

People pass by the Duomo Cathedral, in Milan, Italy, April 13, 2021. REUTERS/Flavio Lo Scalzo/File Photo
People pass by the Duomo Cathedral, in Milan, Italy, April 13, 2021. REUTERS/Flavio Lo Scalzo/File Photo

The 5th edition of the International Festival of Arabic Language and Culture is set to kick off on March 17, in Milan. The festival is organized by the Catholic University of Milan’s Arabic Language Research Institute (CARA) and the Language Service Center (SeLdA), as well as the Sharjah Book Authority.

The three-day festival features several lectures discussing the ‘Historic Dictionary of the Arabic Language’.

Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad Al-Qasimi, ruler of Sharjah, who is set to address the festival’s opening lecture, announced the completion of the first volumes of this historic dictionary during the Sharjah Book Fair two years ago. It is the first-of-its-kind reference that dates Arabic terms and their different uses over the past 17 centuries.

Attempts to form this dictionary started in 1932 under the rule of King Farouk of Egypt, who issued a decree to establish the Complex of Arabic Language in Cairo. However, the project was halted because of the grandness of the Arabic heritage, the high cost, and the size of the project (it covers the pre-Islamic era, heritage and poetry from the age of ignorance, and the successive Islamic periods including the modern Islamic era), in addition to other contemporary obstacles including the war of 1948, scarcity of resources, and the lack of will to proceed such a huge project.

The opening day will include keynotes by Head of the Catholic University of Milan Franco Anelli, Dean of the faculty of linguistic sciences and foreign literatures Giovanni Gobber, and Chairman of the Sharjah Book Authority (SBA) Ahmed bin Rakkad Al Ameri.

The second day of the festival includes three lectures: ‘The Historic Dictionary: Intersection of Languages and Cultures,’ will be moderated by Dr. Isabella Camera d'Afflitto from La Sapienza University in Rome.
Participants are Dr. Giovanni Gobber from The Catholic University of Milan, Head of Cairo’s Arab Language Complex Salah Fadl, Bernard Cerquiglini from the Francophone University Agency (AUF), and Dr. Mohamed Safi Al Mosteghanemi, secretary-general of Arabic Language Academy (ALA) in Sharjah.

The second lecture ‘The Historic Dictionary: Samples and Curricula,” will be moderated by Dr. Maria Cristina Gatti, head of CARA at the Catholic University of Milan. Participants are Dr. Elton Prifti from the University of Munich and Accademia della Crusca, Head of Al Khartoum International Institute of Arabic Language Bakri Mohammed al-Haj, Maamoun al-Wajih from Fayoum University and scientific director of the Historic Dictionary of Arabic Language, and Martino Diaz from the department of literature and foreign languages at the Catholic University of Milan.

The third lecture ‘The Origins of Words and Terminology Studies” will be moderated by Dr. Maria Teresa Zanola, head of the European Language Council (CEL/ELC) and professor at the department of literature and foreign languages at the Catholic University of Milan. Participants are Manuel Célio Conceição (University of the Algarve), Abdul Fatah al-Hamjari from the Hassan II University of Casablanca, and Head of Mauritania’s Arabic Tongue Council Dr. Khalil Al-Nahawi.

The third day features a fourth lecture entitled ‘Literature and History of Language’ that will be moderated by Dr. Wael Farouq from the department of literature and foreign languages at the Catholic University. Participants are Sobhi Hadidi, literary critic and translator (Syria/France); historian, writer, and journalist Dr. Fawwaz Traboulsi from the American University of Beirut (AUB); Dr. Saad al-Bazei, professor of comparative literature at King Saud University; and Dr. Paolo D'Achille from Roma Tre University and Accademia della Crusca.

A fifth lecture dubbed ‘Dictionary of Existence between Language and Poetry’ will be moderated by Dr. Francesca Corao from the LUISS Guido Carli University Rome. Participants are Abdullah Thabet, Saudi writer and poet; Ahmed Abdul Hussein, Iraqi poet and journalist; Rami Younes, Syrian poet and translator; and Kased Mohammed, Iraqi poet and translator.

The festival will also host an Arabic Book Fair in collaboration with Dar Al Mutawassit – Milan, an exhibition of Arabic calligraphy, and a screening of the movie Hepta by director Hadi al-Bagouri with Italian subtitles.



Pupy the Elephant Heads to a Vast Brazilian Sanctuary After 30 Years in an Argentine Zoo

African elephant Pupy is seen in her enclosure at the Buenos Aires Ecopark, a few days before her transfer to the Brazilian Elephant Sanctuary, in Buenos Aires, Argentina April 11, 2025. (Reuters)
African elephant Pupy is seen in her enclosure at the Buenos Aires Ecopark, a few days before her transfer to the Brazilian Elephant Sanctuary, in Buenos Aires, Argentina April 11, 2025. (Reuters)
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Pupy the Elephant Heads to a Vast Brazilian Sanctuary After 30 Years in an Argentine Zoo

African elephant Pupy is seen in her enclosure at the Buenos Aires Ecopark, a few days before her transfer to the Brazilian Elephant Sanctuary, in Buenos Aires, Argentina April 11, 2025. (Reuters)
African elephant Pupy is seen in her enclosure at the Buenos Aires Ecopark, a few days before her transfer to the Brazilian Elephant Sanctuary, in Buenos Aires, Argentina April 11, 2025. (Reuters)

An unusual convoy neared Argentina's lush border with Brazil on Tuesday, after snaking through traffic-snarled roads for hours. Inside the specialized iron crate strapped to a truck and flanked by vans full of caretakers and veterinarians was Pupy, a female African elephant.

She is heading to a better life after spending more than 30 years in captivity as the last elephant of a Buenos Aires zoo that was often criticized for its conditions before it was turned into a nature preserve nine years ago.

Pupy (pronounced POOH'-pee in Spanish) embarked on her arduous 2,700-kilometer (1,670-mile) journey on Monday, from the trendy neighborhood of Palermo in Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires to the Amazon rainforest of Mato Grosso state in Brazil.

The 3.5-ton pachyderm is expected to arrive at her new home at Elephant Sanctuary Brazil, the first refuge for elephants in Latin America, later this week — a voyage dependent on traffic, weather conditions and customs stops.

As of late Tuesday, Pupy was traversing the verdant northern Argentine province of Misiones, near the border with Brazil.

Standing upright in her crate during the rough road trip, Pupy sleeps and feeds on vegetables, fruit, grass and vitamin supplements. Brazilian park personnel and Argentine handlers monitor her condition during pre-scheduled breaks and through cameras inside the crate.

It took months to prepare Pupy for so many hours of confinement.

"She is making the journey flawlessly," said María José Catanzariti, a veterinarian and operational manager at the Buenos Aires preserve. "Sometimes in the first 24 hours these animals don’t want to eat, but Pupy keeps eating."

Pupy is just the latest in a series of over 1,000 wild animals — elephants, as well as lions, tigers, bears and apes — that the Buenos Aires "ecopark" has sent to sanctuaries abroad since its 2016 conversion from a ramshackle city zoo into a species conservation site.

Free from confinement, the animals build new lives in greener pastures. An orangutan named Sandra traded her limited, lonely existence in the Argentine preserve in 2019 for more roaming space and 22 new friends from her own species at the Center for Great Apes in Wauchula, Florida.

Already enjoying the Brazil Elephant Sanctuary are five Asian elephants — including Mara, a former circus elephant that also ended up in the Argentine preserve's enclosure and five years ago made the same highway trip to the refuge, where she now trudges at least 10 kilometers (6 miles) a day.

The Brazilian elephant sanctuary offers newcomers space to adjust to life in the wild, regain behaviors intrinsic to their species and socialize with others after so many years often spent isolated and alone.

Because Pupy can only fraternize with other African elephants, she will be alone adapting to her new habitat before the expected arrival of a fellow African elephant named Kenia.

From a zoo in the city of Mendoza, western Argentina, with a history of similarly poor conditions, Kenia is now undergoing training before making the trip to the sprawling multi-acre refuge, which evokes an elephant’s natural home.