ROUND TABLE
EUROMEDITERRANEAN DIALOGUE AND PROCESS OF REFORM:
The importance of the role of the woman in the media and in communications

Ragusa – Palazzo Donnafugata

Friday 24 June 2005 – 15:00

2005 has been declared by the European Commission the Year of the Mediterranean, in which the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the EuroMediterranean (Euromed) partnership is being celebrated, which began with the Barcelona conference of November 1995 (Process of Barcelona).
Considering that the participants in the Barcelona Conference had drawn attention to the key role of the woman in the development of the Mediterranean region, committing itself to promoting the active and equal participation in economic and social life, and after the conclusions of the World Conference of the UNO on women held in 2005 at New York, the European Commission in Italy, with the participation of the Foreign Affairs Ministry and of the Observatory of the Mediterranean (Foundation presided over by the Vice President of the European Commission, the Rt. Hon. Franco Frattini), on Friday 24 June, in Ragusa, have organized a debate on the role of women in the EuroMediterranean area, with specific reference to the media and to communication. Correspondents and war correspondents, TV presenters, experts and intellectuals will relate their experiences and insights from on the ground the importance of the role of the women in the media and in communication and the process of reform on information and communication in the Mediterranean area.
The round table, ten years on from its launch on the two banks, will be inserted in the inaugural day of the “Festival of the culture of the Mediterranean”, Sabir, which will be held from 24 to 26 June in the towns of Ragusa, Modica and Scicli.Presenting the round table will be the Rt. Hon. Giuseppe Drago, Undersecretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Pier Virgilio Dastoli, director of the EU Delegation in Rome. The opening of the debate is entrusted to Aisha Gheddafi, well-known Libyan lawyer, and secretary general of the Libyan Association “Waatasimu”.
Among the contributors, outstanding are Rula Jebreal - La7, Nacera Benali - Al Watan, Lucia Baresi - Sky, Mimosa Martini –Mediaset, Alessandra Paradisi – COPEAM, Antoinette Nikolova – Balkan News Corporation, Maria Pia Farinella, Chief Editor TGR Mediterranean, and Chiara Di Pietro, Tiscali.
The conclusions are entrusted to the Rt. Hon. Stefania Prestigiacomo, Minister for Equal Opportunities, and to Mohamed Aziza, Director general of the Observatory of the Mediterranean.
Contemporary Arab Literature from the nahdah to today, Rome, Carocci, 1998 (IV ed. 2004).

Aisha Gheddafi
Lawyer and Secretary General of the Association “Waatasimu” of voluntary work. She graduated in law at the Law Faculty of the university of Al Fateh in 1998 and in 2000 took a masters degree in International Law at the Department of Advanced Studies. She began a PhD in International Law at the Sorbonne, but had to interrupt her studies because of the violations of international law taking place in the world. The Law Faculty of the Al Marqab University awarded her a degree honoris causa in 2003. At present she is preparing a new PhD thesis in Penal Psychology. For her humanitarian and voluntary commitments, she has obtained great acclaim and awards: from the Ministry of Health of the Republic of the Niger for commitment in helping to eradicate chronic diseases in the country; from the High Commission of the United Nations for Refugees; from the World Fund for the child victims of Chernobyl; from the General Union of Jurists of the Sahel and Sahara group; from the Ukrainian Women’s Union; from the Association of Thai Muslim Women; from the General Secretariat of Women in the Jamahiria; from the Forum of Private African Organization; from the Law Faculty of the University of Cairo. She has also obtained from the General Union of Associations supporting the disabled a medal for valour and generosity.

Alessandra Paradisi
she has been working for thirteen years in the field of communications, in the sector of International Relations. She has worked for Italian governmental institutions, covering important positions. Head of International Relations with countries of the Mediterranean area; Secretary General of the Permanent Mediterranean Audiovisual Conference (Co.Pe.A.M.); President of CDMM (Directive Committee on Means of Mass Communication) of the Council of Europe (until December 2004); Secretary General of the Comunità Italofona Radiotelevisiva RAI Sherpa; Coordinator for the international part of the project of the Mediterranean Television Channel (2000); Representative of the RAI at the OCSE Conference (Ottawa, USA, 1998), at the Business Forum on the Information Society (1997), at the G7 on the Information Society (Midrand, South Africa, 1996).

Antoinette Nikolova
Born in Bulgaria, has been correspondent from Rome for ten years for international services, in particular, for Eastern Europe of the German radio and television DEUTSCHE  WELLE. Still in Italy, she is also correspondent of the BTV Balkan News Co., television leader in the Balkans. She reported on the war in Kosovo for these broadcasters, the processes of enlargement of the Euro-Atlantic structures and the dramatic events of 11 September in the United States.

Chiara Di Pietro
Chief editor of the Web of Walueurope Ltd, multilingual press agency specialized on European themes and editor in charge of the production of the contents for the European Tiscali channel and for the site of the European Commission delegation in Italy. Consultant for EU e-Content and communication projects on the Net. In 2001 she worked in London for the Lebanese provider Arachnea specialized in Web solutions on the globalisation of portals and multilingual sites. From 1999-2000 she was consultant for AdnKronos Communications supervising the audiovisual productions. From 1997 to 1999 she collaborated with the press office of Ferrara Arte Spa, dealing with the planning of events and the development of multimedia products.

Lucia Baresi
Since April 2004 Lucia Baresi has been in charge of European Affairs and the Authority for the independence of Sky Italia. She conducted and has been a guest of the “Aldebaran” show, on European Affairs, produced by Retebrescia and Rtb International. She has held various positions within the European Parliament: until 2004 as personal assistant of the Vice President of the group Partito Popolare Europeo (EPP –ED), until 2002 as collaborator of the Head of the EPP – ED for Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, and finally, collaborator of the Head of the EPP-ED for the Commission of Legal Affairs and Internal Market. From 1998 to 1999 she was legal consultant for the realization of a company in Buenos Aires, in Argentina.

Maria Pia Farinella
National Councillor of the Order of Journalists elected in Sicily, component of the Cultural Commission of the Order and of the Commission for Equal Opportunities of the National Press Federation. Graduated in Italy, she continued her studies in Spain, taking her Masters in Hispanic Philology at the University of Salamanca, where she collaborated with Prof. Enrique Tierno Galván, first mayor of Madrid, freely elected in 1979. Professional journalist, she worked on the Giornale di Sicilia and then with the RAI, where she has been chief editor since 1992. At present she edits the Mediterranean, a weekly regional journal and the satellite channel in Italian and Arabic of Rai Med. She has realized reportage and investigations in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Sub-Saharan and Maghrebi Africa. Author for the Rai of numerous documentaries, including: Il sogno della ragione: appunti per un viaggio intorno a Sciascia (1992); Sicilia: il traguardo infinito (1994); Bufalino: dicerie intorno a uno scrittore (1997).

Mimosa Martini
Mimosa Martini, journalist of Tg5, she has covered the main international events of the last thirteen years as a special correspondent, including the birth of the EU with the Treaty of Maastricht the great international summits, American presidential elections and the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York, the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq.  She drew on these experiences for “Kashmir Palace” published in 2004 by Nutrimenti. As a war correspondent she was awarded the Cavaliere al Merito by the President of the Republic, Ciampi.

Mohamed Aziza
Prof. Aziza for many years has directed the Department of Arab Culture and intercultural studies at UNESCO, at Paris. He founded the Itinerant Euro-Arab University, of which he was Rector from 1986 to 1996. Secretary General of the Mediterranean Academy founded in Naples in 1997, Director General of the Mediterranean Observatory, Foundation created in 2004 by Franco Frattini, ex Minister of Foreign Affairs and currently Vice President of the European Commission. Author of many articles and works on Arab culture and on Euro- Mediterranean relations.

Nacera Benali
Member at the Foreign Press of Rome from 1996. She was councillor in the Directive Council in 2000.
Correspondent of El Watan (independent Algerian daily paper) since 1994. She has collaborated with La Repubblica, L’Unità, Diario, Il Manifesto, Noi Donne, Sette, Internazionale, Nigrizia e Linus and other Italian newspapers. She has worked in the editorial department of the French ANSA; for the Arab channels Orbit and RAIMED. She edited the part on the Arab World in two editions of ‘’La Città Invisibile’’,a mapping of the cultural activities of immigrants in Rome. She has collaborated with the Diocesan Caritas of Rome in the Forum for Interculture. She has also worked as correspondent for the sports services of Al Jazeera. She has conducted the programme about foreign politics of Planet 430 on the satellite channel Sky Planet. She regularly writes for Il Messaggero on themes concerning the Arab-Muslim world. She is a member of the Jury of the Mostefa Souhir Journalistic Prize for a multi-cultural approach in the media.

Rula Jebreal

Journalist of the LA7 News and conductress of “Pianeta 7”.
Israeli citizen of Palestinian origin, born in Hajfa in 1973, studied in Jerusalem where she attended the degree course in Foreign Languages and English Literature. In 1993 she moved to Italy, to Bologna, with a Grant. She began to collaborate with the Resto del Carlino in 1997, where she dealt with events in the city and with the same newspaper, since 1999, she moved on to foreign politics with special attention to Middle Eastern affairs.in that period she also collaborated with the Roman newspaper, Il Messaggero , as analyst of the conflicts between the Arab world and the West. In 2002 she arrived at LA7: first as a guest of documentary programmes and then as a journalist for the press conferences of the dailies and internet sites in Arabic. Since 2003 she had conducted the night edition of the LA7 news and in December, the programme "Other Worlds". Frequently a guest in all political documentaries, Ms Jebreal debuted in editing in 2004 with Rizzoli with "La strada dei fiori di Miral". In 2005 she conducted "Pianeta 7" on La7 the documentary programme dealing with those countries undergoing great changes and which are protagonists of an important phase in their own history.