Claudia Cardinale, born in Tunisia, in Goha (1958), starring Omar Sharif

Claudia Cardinale, born in La Goulette, Tunisia, had her first film role at the age of 20 in Guha (1958), starring Omar Sharif. The film was made in Tunisia, directed by Jacques Baratier. Claudia had a minor role as Amina. Cardinale was raised speaking Arabic, French and Sicilian, and she only learned Italian later, when she started appearing in Italian films. When I first learned about this film, I had hoped that it would show Claudia speaking Arabic, but alas, the film is in French.

Claudia Cardinale (middle) in Goha

Like many people of my age, I had seen Cardinale in several films (among them, The Pink Panther, Once Upon a Time in the West, and Fitzcarraldo), but never knew she was born in Tunisia. Until I saw Tunisian director Férid Boughedir's 1996 film, Summer in La Goulette, where Cardinale makes an appearance, as herself. The best treatment I know of the various European populations of Tunisia is Julia Clancy-Smith's magisterial Mediterraneans: North Africa and Europe in an Age of Migration, C. 1800-1900 (2010). Highly recommended.

Mediterranean: sea of death (2014-2016)

From the International Organization for Migration's Missing Migrants project. Check it out here.

Pew Center report on illegal immigration by boat to Europe; one-quarter of them now from Syria, 18% from Eritrea

Here's the report, from April 30, 2014.

Some interesting data.

'Nearly 300 migrants drowned last year just half a mile off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, and in the last week the Italian navy has rescued thousands from the rough seas off the Sicilian coast.'

'Boat migrants comprise less than 10% of the more than 1 million new immigrants entering the European Union from non-EU countries by air, land or sea each year. But among those known to have arrived illegally in 2013, over half came by sea – the highest percentage in recent years, according to Frontex.' 

'Today, roughly a quarter originate from Syria, often crossing through several countries before taking the final voyage from ports in Egypt or Libya.'

'A large number of migrants by sea come to Europe from countries in sub-Saharan Africa; Eritrea has surpassed Somalia as the leading country of origin in that region.'

And a very useful map:

 And a chart, showing that Eritrea is now the source of 18% of illegal boat immigrants to Europe.

Two inventions that have transformed relations between the Mediterranean and northern Europe...

"two inventions, as far apart in technology as could be imagined, have transformed the relationship between the Mediterranean and the north of Europe in the second half of the twentieth century: the aeroplance and the bikini." David Abulafia, "A globalized Mediterranean: 1900-2000," in David Abulafia, ed., The Mediterranean in History (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003), p. 312.

Micheline Bernardini models the first modern bikini, 1946