Italian Conductor Muti to Visit Syrian Refugee Camp in Jordan

FILE - Italian conductor Riccardo Muti rehearses Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera (A masked Ball)" with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Chicago on Wednesday, June 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
FILE - Italian conductor Riccardo Muti rehearses Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera (A masked Ball)" with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Chicago on Wednesday, June 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
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Italian Conductor Muti to Visit Syrian Refugee Camp in Jordan

FILE - Italian conductor Riccardo Muti rehearses Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera (A masked Ball)" with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Chicago on Wednesday, June 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
FILE - Italian conductor Riccardo Muti rehearses Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera (A masked Ball)" with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Chicago on Wednesday, June 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

Italian conductor Riccardo Muti plans to visit Syrian musicians living in the vast Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan on the sidelines of his annual Roads of Friendship concert series that aims to use music to build bridges and help those affected by war.

Muti will conduct Italian and Jordanian musicians in concerts set in ancient Roman amphitheaters in Jerash, Jordan, on July 9 and the Pompeii archaeological site on July 11, for the 27th Roads of Friendship concert series, The Associated Press reported.

The concerts will pay homage to the “generosity of the Jordanian people” for taking in millions of Syrian refugees fleeing civil war in the neighboring country, the Ravenna festival announced Thursday.

While in Jordan, Muti plans to visit the Zaatari camp, a symbol of the long-running Syrian refugee situation and home to about 80,000 refugees nearly 11 years after it was set up near the Syrian border.

He and a delegation from the Ravenna Festival will meet with musicians among the Syrian diaspora, bringing with them musical instruments as gifts.

This year’s Roads of Friendship concert series will launch on July 7 in Ravenna, and feature the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra founded by Muti, the Cremona Ancient Choir as well as Jordanian musicians.

The series was launched in 1997 in Sarajevo, just two years after the Bosnian civil war ended.



Australian Senator Wields Dead Salmon in Parliament to Protest Farming Laws 

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young speaks on the Government’s salmon farming legislation in the Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia, 25 March 2025. (EPA) 
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young speaks on the Government’s salmon farming legislation in the Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia, 25 March 2025. (EPA) 
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Australian Senator Wields Dead Salmon in Parliament to Protest Farming Laws 

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young speaks on the Government’s salmon farming legislation in the Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia, 25 March 2025. (EPA) 
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young speaks on the Government’s salmon farming legislation in the Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia, 25 March 2025. (EPA) 

An Australian senator pulled out a large, dead fish in Parliament on Wednesday to protest the government's proposed laws that would safeguard controversial salmon farms in a heritage-listed inlet in the state of Tasmania.

The bill is being debated by the Senate, where it is expected to pass in the final days of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's government ahead of a general election due by May.

Criticizing the bill during parliamentary question time on Wednesday, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young accused the government of "gutting" environmental protections to support a "toxic, polluting salmon industry".

She produced a whole dead salmon in a plastic bag while asking Labor senator Jenny McAllister, representing the Environment Minister, "On the eve of the election, have you sold out your environmental credentials for a rotten, stinking extinction salmon?"

After some commotion and Senate president Sue Lines asking Hanson-Young to remove "the prop", McAllister replied: "My view is Australians deserve better from their public representative than stunts".

The proposed laws would guarantee salmon farming in the world-heritage-listed Macquarie Harbor on Tasmania's west coast and reduce the ability of the public to challenge approvals.

Albanese's Labor party has maintained the bill is necessary to protect jobs in Tasmania's salmon farming industry.

But environmental groups and the Green party are concerned about the nutrient and chemical pollution caused by the industry, and its effects on marine wildlife including the rare Maugean skate, only found in the Macquarie and Bathurst Harbors in Tasmania.