Francesca Vidotto

One year ago today, the Israeli occupation abducted Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya.

He has been tortured and detained in Israeli prisons ever since.

Medical associations, like the AMA, must speak out.

Join us to write to them buff.ly/Beqo7nC

Merry #Caturday and a Happy New Year!

( In the pic: La Stagiaire, French Basque model - no cat was harmed to take this picture, yet she managed to harm me at our first encounter…. )

#Caturday at the Basque #CatCafè

Grazie a Valentina Santarpia e al Corriere per avermi intervistata (ma i famigerati titolisti del Corriere colpiscono ancora…) 27esimaora.corriere.it/25_novembre_...

WHAT IF? INTELLIGENZE FEMMINILI - Rivedi il Video - Eredità delle Donne

Ho avuto il piacere di essere ospite nel salotto fiorentino di Serena Dandini in occasione del festival L'Eredità Delle Donne, mi trovate al 30' minuto. ereditadelledonne.eu/2025/rivedi/...

ONDE DI SCIENZA - Rivedi il Video - Eredità delle Donne

Ho incontrato Enrica Porcari, la nuova Chief Information Officer al CERN, prima donna ma anche prima persona con una formazione umanistica a ricoprire questo ruolo. Ci trovate insieme in questo video.

ereditadelledonne.eu/2025/rivedi/onde-di-scienza/

#Caturday with Frimousse, the cat of Les Houches Physics School. He was always escorting and joining us during the outdoor blackboard discussions. Frimousse all the students of the Blaumann Summer School on Covariant Loop Quantum Gravity loved you 😻 and the teachers too!

🗞️1/ Now live: ICAN’s new report Hidden Costs: Nuclear Weapons Spending in 2024 shows global nuclear weapons spending rose to more than 100 billion dollars in 2024, an 11% increase from the year before.

Here’s what you need to know⬇️🧵
icanw.org/hidden_costs...
#NuclearBan

Israel kills nuclear scientists, strikes sites in Iran: Who did it target? Israel says attacks on nuclear sites, personnel aim to ‘roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival’.

I mourn the killing of my Iran colleagues in the current Israeli attacks, and I despise the lack of condemnation in the Western world. No killing will ever bring any lasting peace. aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/13/israel-kills-nuclear-scientists-strikes-sites-in-iran-who-did-it-target

Last week, thanks to Lee Smolin's birthday conference, we shared some good (online) time with Slavoj Žižek (listen to the end, for Lee's remarks and the witty ending) :-D pirsa.org/25060058

A short 15’ talk on the discreteness of time, in honor of Lee Smolin. pirsa.org/25060063

A beautiful talk by Carlo Rovelli to celebrate Lee Smolin's 70th birthday, for anyone interested in the origin of Loop Quantum Gravity. pirsa.org/25060030

It was a pleasure to read and review the book "The Battle of the Big Bang" by Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Harper! rdcu.be/em0U2

… e insomma, alla fine ho fatto sette brevi lezioni di fisica pure io 😅

Le trovate sul Corriere della Sera 👇

Starting now:

because in the moment in which you think that it is ok to kill thousand of people for whatever reason, you have not broken with the spiral of horror of the past. Peace asks you to find the courage to say "no more", no ifs and buts.

You may think that these events are not connected, but I think they are. I think one should learn history and look at the present with wider open eyes. And with open heart,

to avoid a possible political success of leftist movements in Italy (in fear of a possible opening to the Soviet Union). New evidences about this are on these days in the Italian newspapers.

Today we know that the series of right-wing bloody terrorist attacks of those years were enabled not just by Italian secret services, but also and fist by the US, as part of a general strategy

April 7th has also another meaning for me: in 1979, ODT, in Italy it was launched a large operation to arrest left-wing journalists and intellectuals. This was part of the story of the so-called "Years of Lead".

This is the reality of the stupidity of war. Just like today, when more bombs are dropping on Gaza and people do not even ask what they were sent for, what excuses could the Israeli at least make up for those horrible deaths.

Odd enough, one of the other places where I lived the most, Nijmegen in the Netherlands, was bombed by the Allies, all the old historical city destructed. For what? Just because the bombing airplanes had some bombs left after storming Germany and it was not convenient to bring them back with them.

My grandmother was the only survivor of the anti-bomb refuge that did not actually resist US bombs. The rest of the family and the family belongings got lost. It was April 7th, 1944.

In particular, I grew up in a city that was bombed by the Allies: they said there was some nazi general, but the presence of no general or any other military apparatus would justify the thousand killing, and the destruction of the historical patrimony of the town.

The memory of fascism and of the horror of war was well present, and children like me were taught that every war is a crime, and should be no more.

When I speak openly against war, there is always some guy that replay "what if you were..." or "you do not know, you have not experienced...". They are right, I had the privilege to grow up in peace. But...

#Caturday memories from the public talk I gave this week: there were cat in boxes, of course. Thank you to all the friends who showed up, and to all my foster cats for the inspiration! Pic credit: @yichenaluo

Thank you 🙏 Natasha!