Alfano
—  Comune  —
Comune di Alfano
Alfano within the Province of Salerno
Alfano Location of Alfano in Italy
Coordinates: 40°11′N 15°25′E / 40.183°N 15.417°E / 40.183; 15.417Coordinates: 40°11′N 15°25′E / 40.183°N 15.417°E / 40.183; 15.417
Country	Italy
Region	Campania
Province	Salerno (SA)
Government
• Mayor	Angelo Grosso
Area
• Total	4 km2 (2 sq mi)
Elevation	250 m (820 ft)
Population (1 March 2009)
• Total	1,128
• Density	280/km2 (730/sq mi)
Demonym	Alfanesi
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code	84040
Dialing code	0974
Patron saint	Sophia of Rome and Matthew the Evangelist
Saint day	December 6 (Saint Nicholas)
Website	Official website

Alfano is a village and small comune in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy. As of March 1, 2009 the comune had a population of 1128.^[1]

History[link]

There is little reliable evidence on the ancient history of Alfano. However, according to tradition a large city existed on the slopes of Mount Centaurino, near the present frazione of Roccagloriosa, but this would have been destroyed in a catastrophic earthquake.^[2]

In 1496 the town was given to the Neapolitan noble Giovanni Carafa, Duke of Paliano.

Geography[link]

Alfano borders with the municipalities of Laurito, Roccagloriosa and Rofrano.

Main sights[link]

The main church in Alfano is the Church of Saint Nicholas. The Baronal Novelli Palace dates back to the 18th century. It has a grand entrance of stone, leading to a hall, and for some time served as the Town Hall of Alfano.

Palazzo dei Baroni Speranza, another palace, belonged to the Baron Speranza di Laurito. The palace, a large complex building complex elevated above the town,^[3] contains a central courtyard.

Economy[link]

The comune is a renowned producer of wine. Although the soils are amongst the poorest in of the country, given the harshness of the territory and the dryness of soils, local grape varieties were introduced to Elea and Paestum by ancient Greek colonists and adapted to grow in clay-calcareous soils and climate of the area.

The Cilento brand of wine was established on May 3, 1989 and is produced in three varieties.^[4] Paying homage the Ancient Greek colonists in Paestum and the viniculture experienced there, on November 22, 1995, the brand of wine Paestum went into production.

References[link]

External links[link]

Media related to Alfano at Wikimedia Commons

• Official site

Angelino Alfano
Alfano with Giorgio Napolitano, 2009
Minister of Justice
In office 8 May 2008 – 27 July 2011
Prime Minister	Silvio Berlusconi
Preceded by	Luigi Scotti
Succeeded by	Nitto Francesco Palma
Personal details
Born	(1970-10-31) 31 October 1970 (age 41) Agrigento, Italy
Political party	The People of Freedom
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Angelino Alfano (born October 31, 1970^[1]) is an Italian politician who served as Italy's Minister of Justice from 2008 to 2011, as part of the Berlusconi IV Cabinet. Since July 2011 he has been the Secretary of the centre-right party The People of Freedom.

Family background[link]

Angelino Alfano was born in Agrigento, Sicily; his father, Angelo Alfano, was a lawyer and former local politician who also held the position of deputy mayor of Agrigento. After receiving a Law degree from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan and a doctorate in Corporate law from the University of Palermo, Alfano started his political experience with Christian Democracy.

Political career[link]

In 1994 he joined Forza Italia, the new centre-right party founded by Silvio Berlusconi, and was elected to the Agrigento Province Council. In 1996, Alfano was the youngest member elected to the Sicilian Regional Assembly. In 2001, he became member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, after the victory of the centre-right House of Freedoms coalition led by Berlusconi in the 2001 general election. From 2005 to 2008 he also held the position of regional coordinator in Sicily of the Forza Italia party.

Minister of Justice[link]

Alfano to the EPP Congress in Marseille.

After the 2008 elections victory by the Berlusconi-led centre-right coalition, Alfano was again elected to Parliament. In May 2008, aged 37, he became the youngest Minister of Justice in the history of the Italian Republic.

The Lodo Alfano, named after him, was a law, valid between 2008 and 2009, granting immunity from prosecution to the four highest political offices in Italy (President of the Republic, Presidents of the two Houses of Parliament, and Prime Minister). It was widely criticised as a copy of the Lodo Schifani, declared unconstitutional in 2004, and was seen by critics as an ad personam law aimed primarily at stopping trials involving Berlusconi. The Lodo Alfano was declared unconstitutional by the Italian Constitutional Court in October 2009.^[2]

Secretary of the People of Freedom party[link]

After the People of Freedom party lost both local elections in Milan and Naples, and also suffered a defeat at the 2011 referendums, on June 1, 2011 Angelino Alfano was proclaimed National Political Secretary of the People of Freedom by party President Silvio Berlusconi in order to reorganise and lead it in the next election. He was later elected to that post by the July 1 meeting of the party's National Council.^[3]

Controversy[link]

In 2002 La Repubblica reported the presence of Alfano's at the 1996 wedding of the daughter of Croce Napoli (d. 2001), believed by investigators to be the Mafia boss of Palma di Montechiaro, as shown on an amateur video of the party. Alfano, then a deputy of the Sicilian Regional Assembly, was greeted with affection by Croce Napoli. Alfano at first told La Repubblica he had "no memory or recollection of this wedding" and that "I never participated in a wedding of Mafia or of their children, I do not know his wife, Gabriella, and I've never heard of Mr. Croce Napoli who was said to be boss of Palma di Montechiaro. " ^[4] Later he said that he remembered that he was actually at the wedding but had been invited by the groom and did not know the bride and her family.^[5]

References[link]

This article about an Italian politician is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Governor Nichi Vendola
President of Apulia
Incumbent
Assumed office 2005
Member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies
In office 1992–2006
Personal details
Born	(1958-08-26) 26 August 1958 (age 53) Bari, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Political party	Left Ecology Freedom
Profession	journalist

Nicola "Nichi" Vendola (born 26 August 1958) is an Italian left-wing politician and currently the President of Apulia.

Life[link]

Born in Terlizzi, province of Bari (Puglia), Vendola had been a member of the Italian Communist Youth Federation since the age of 14; he studied literature in university, presenting a dissertation about the controversial poet and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini. Vendola then went on to become a journalist for l'Unità, and a leading member of the Italian gay organisation Arcigay.

A member of the National Secretariat of the Italian Communist Party, he fiercely opposed the dissolution of the party proposed by Achille Occhetto in 1991, which lead to the formation of the Democratic Party of the Left. Vendola instead joined the Communist Refoundation Party.

In 1992 Vendola was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, to a seat which he held until 2005. As a member of the Antimafia Commission, he came to prominence as a strong opponent of the Mafia and organised crime presence in the economy and society.

In 2005, Vendola ran for the first primary election ever held in Italy, held by the centre-left coalition The Union to choose their candidate for the presidency of the Apulia region. He won the primary over the rival Francesco Boccia. Many moderates in the alliance criticised the choice, since it appeared impossible that a communist and homosexual could be elected president of a southern Italian region such as Apulia, generally considered to be conservative and strongly Catholic.^[1] Vendola, though, declares himself as "believer" (in the line of Pax Christi): he once said that "the most important book for a communist like me is the Bible".

Vendola during a SEL meeting.

In the regional election in Apulia, held in April 2005, he narrowly defeated the outgoing president Raffaele Fitto, candidate for the centre-right coalition the House of Freedoms, thus becoming the first member of the Communist Refoundation Party to be elected as president of any Italian region.

Vendola is also a poet: some of his poems have been collected in a book, named L'ultimo mare ("The last sea"). His figure has inspired a biographical film, Nichi.

Vendola was one of the two major candidates running for the place of Chairman of the Communist Refoundation party in the July 2008 congress, but lost to an alliance led by the other major candidate, Paolo Ferrero, formerly Minister for Social Solidarity in the Prodi II Cabinet. Following the defeat, Vendola's supporters have renounced to all positions as party executives. On 24 January 2009, at Chianciano Terme, Vendola split from Communist Refoundation and founded the Movement for the Left. In December 2009, Vendola became the first leader of the newly-founded party Left Ecology Freedom, which the Movement for the Left had fully merged into.

In late 2009 his candidacy for re-election was put under question by his centre-left allies from the Democratic Party, who asked him to step down in order to allow the choice of a candidate able to achieve wider support from other political parties, namely the Christian-democratic Union of the Centre. After Vendola refused to step down, chances of having a new primary election quickly increased, and, after some weeks of heated debate, they were ultimately called for 24 January 2010, with Francesco Boccia once again running as Vendola's challenger, supported by the Democratic Party. Vendola easily won the election with more than 67% of the votes, being therefore picked again as leader of the centre-left coalition, and went on to defeat centre-right candidate Rocco Palese by a wide margin.

In July 2010, during a general congress of the so-called "Factories of Nichi", Mr. Vendola announced his candidacy for the Primary Elections of the Italian centre-left, which should anticipate the 2013 Italian general elections. Following his candidacy, the Democratic Party judged sharply his candidacy, while nationwide polls show Vendola winning either over Democratic Party Secretary Pier Luigi Bersani, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy at the time.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Horowitz, Jason (January 19, 2011). "Nichi Vendola, a gay, ex-communist governor, becomes the unlikely rival to Italy's Berlusconi". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/19/AR2011011906191.html. Retrieved 2011-01-23. 
• Ireland, Doug (November 11, 2010). "A gay prime minister for Italy?". Gay City News. http://www.gaycitynews.com/articles/2010/11/10/gay_city_news/news/doc4cdaf136ac067380423658.txt. Retrieved 2010-11-13. 
• Madar, Chase (January 2011). "Nichi Vendola, the Italian Obama". Le Monde diplomatique. http://mondediplo.com/2011/01/15italianobama. Retrieved 2010-12-31. 
• Mane, Saviona (October 20, 2010). "Catholic, communist and gay". Haaretz. http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/catholic-communist-and-gay-1.309190. Retrieved 2010-11-13. 
• Willan, Philip (December 12, 2010). "Gay left-winger gives electorate a real alternative to Berslusconi era". Herald Scotland. http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/world-news/gay-left-winger-gives-electorate-a-real-alternative-to-berslusconi-era-1.1073869. Retrieved 2010-12-12. 

External links[link]

• (Italian) Official homepage
• (Italian) La fabbrica di nichi
• "i-Italy Meets Nichi Vendola" (video). i-Italy. November 2010. http://www.i-italy.org/16114/i-italy-meets-nichi-vendola. Retrieved 2010-12-04. 

v t e Presidents of Regions of Italy     Abruzzo: Gianni Chiodi (PdL) Aosta Valley: Augusto Rollandin (UV) Apulia: Nichi Vendola (SEL) Basilicata: Vito De Filippo (PD) Calabria: Giuseppe Scopelliti (PdL) Campania: Stefano Caldoro (PdL) Emilia–Romagna: Vasco Errani (PD) Friuli–Venezia Giulia: Renzo Tondo (PdL) Lazio: Renata Polverini (PdL) Liguria: Claudio Burlando (PD) Lombardy: Roberto Formigoni (PdL) Marche: Gian Mario Spacca (PD) Molise: Michele Iorio (PdL) Piedmont: Roberto Cota (Lega Nord) Sardinia: Ugo Cappellacci (PdL) Sicily: Raffaele Lombardo (MpA) Trentino–Alto Adige/Südtirol: Lorenzo Dellai (UpT) Tuscany: Enrico Rossi (PD) Umbria: Catiuscia Marini (PD) Veneto: Luca Zaia (Lega Nord)

Graciela Alfano
In 1971
Born	(1952-12-14) December 14, 1952 (age 59) Buenos Aires, Argentina
Ethnicity	Latino American

Graciela Alfano (born December 14, 1952^[1]) is an Argentine model, actress and vedette. She is best known for her appearances in comedies between late 1970s and early 1980s. She's currently working as a judge on Dancing With The Stars in Argentina.

Filmography[link]

• La gran aventura (1974)
• Los irrompibles (1975)
• El gordo catástrofe (1977)
• El divorcio está de moda (de común acuerdo) (1978)
• Fotógrafo de señoras (1978)
• Los éxitos del amor (1979)
• Custodio de señoras (1979)
• ...Y mañana serán hombres (1979)
• La nona (1979)
• La aventura de los paraguas asesinos (1979)
• Los drogadictos (1979)
• Locos por la música (1980)
• Departamento compartido (1980)
• Tiro al aire (1980)
• Gran valor (1980)
• Las vacaciones del amor (1981)
• La invitación (1982)
• Los superagentes contra los fantasmas (1986)
• Los taxistas del humor (1987)
• Nada por perder (2001)

TV appearances[link]

In 1972

• De pe a pa (1977)
• Renato (1978)
• El periscopio
• Las gatitas y ratones de Porcel (1987)
• Gasoleros (1998)
• Totalmente (1999)
• Biografías no autorizadas (2000)
• Patito feo (2007)
• Showmatch (2007-2009-2010)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Graciela Alfano at the Internet Movie Database

v t e Bailando por un Sueño  Argentina Seasons 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 Host Marcelo Tinelli Judges Current Carmen Barbieri • Antonio Gasalla • Moria Casán • Aníbal Pachano • Marcelo Polino Former Zulma Faiad • Laura Fidalgo • Jorge Lafauci • Gerardo Sofovich • Ricardo Fort • Reina Reech • Graciela Alfano • Flavio Mendoza Champions Celebrities Carmen Barbieri • Florencia de la V • Carla Conte • Celina Rucci • Carolina "Pampita" Ardohain • Fabio Moli • Noelia Pompa Professionals Christian Ponce • Manuel Rodríguez • Guillermo Conforte • Matías Sayago • Nicolás Armengol • Mariana Conci • Hernán Piquín Alternate versions Bailando Kids • El Musical de tus Sueños • Soñando por Bailar (1, 2)

La Mafia is a four-time Grammy Award-winning musical group. It has its roots in the Northside neighborhood of Houston, Texas and has charted a course as a Latin music band.

History[link]

La Mafia was founded in 1980 in Houston, TX. Vocalist Oscar De La Rosa & producer/keyboardist/accordionist Armando Lichtenberger Jr. created an original style that survived various changes in the music industry. The band consists of Tim Ruiz on bass, David de la Garza on keyboards and background vocals, Joe Gonzales on drums and Viktor Pacheco on Guitar in 2007. The band has won 2 Grammys & 2 Latin Grammys was nominated in 2009 for a Latin Grammy for the album Eternamente Romanticos.

La Mafia, seeking to expand their musical horizons, began touring extensively in Mexico and Latin America beginning in the late 1980s. The practice of Mexican-American artists performing in Mexico on a large scale was unheard of before La Mafia. Back home, La Mafia has performed in front of three record-setting crowds at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo at the Houston Astrodome.

Discography[link]

Since 1993, La Mafia has recorded each of its hits at its own Urbana Recording Studios, including the million-selling Estas Tocando Fuego and Ahora y Siempre. The band has recorded 35 albums and CDs, not including dozens of compilation and greatest hits releases.

Awards and recognitions[link]

La Mafia received Grammy Awards for its CDs Un Millón de Rosas and En Tus Manos and Latin Grammy Awards for its CDs Para El Pueblo and Nuevamente. It also has received eight Premio Lo Nuestro Awards and 12 Tejano Music Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the latter, numerous Billboard awards and was listed in the top 10 Billboard Latin Artists for the entire decade of the 1990s, ranking La Mafia as the most successful Latin artist Houston has ever produced.

La Mafia vs Kumbia All Starz[link]

In the summer of 2008 Oscar De La Rosa, leader of La Mafia challenged A.B. Quintanilla and his group Los Kumbia All Starz to a battle of the bands. A.B. Quintanilla responded by making a video saying that he accepted and that the battle would be held at Robstown, Texas on August 2, 2008. A press conference was held in San Antonio, Texas on July 30, 2008 where both groups answered questions to the fans. The two stages were set side to side and the rules were each group had to sing 3 songs in a row. The battle began as they tossed a coin to see who would sing first. Oscar called heads and heads it was, so he elected A.B. Quintanilla to go first. For his first 3 songs he chose 3 Tejano songs he wrote and he got his two special guest singers Elida Reyna to sing the first two and Jesse Turner of Siggno to sing the third one. Then La Mafia sang "Estás Tocando Fuego" and two more 1990s Billboard hits. For Kumbia All Starz's second turn, their lead singer DJ Kane and Ricky Rick performed the hit single "Shhh!" and two other songs with the dancers from DJ Kane's group when he was a solo singer, John and JD. La Mafia then performed with 3 more songs. Kumbia All Starz sang 3 more songs, then A.B. Quintanilla asked Oscar De La Rosa if they could sing one more song, and Oscar agreed, and so Ricky Rick and Melissa Jiménez got on stage and performed the hit song "Rica Y Apretadita". La Mafia then sang 3 of their biggest hits, including the classic "Me Estoy Enamorando", and after that the crowd was screaming for more, so they sang one more song. At the end of the night La Mafia was declared the winner.^[1]

Members[link]

• Oscar De La Rosa - vocalist
• Armando Lichtenberger Jr. - accordion & keyboards
• Tim Ruiz - bass
• Joe Gonzales - drums
• Viktor Pacheco - guitar
• David De La Garza - keyboards & background vocals

Former members[link]

Leonard Gonzales (brother of Oscar De La Rosa [Gonzales]) -guitar Robert Gonzales - guitar & bass guitar Marion Aquilina - guitar Israel (Speedy) Villanueva - bass guitar Adolf Alonso - bass guitar Rudy Martinez - bass guitar Tony Rodriguez - drums Mario Gonzalez - drums Adam Mosqueda - drums Michael Aguilar - drums Jesse Moreno - Sax Jesse Peralez - Sax Rick Patino - Sax-Trumpet

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• La Mafia at Allmusic