Category Archives: Italy

Weather tracker: Extensive flooding in Japan after ‘unprecedented’ rainfall

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One dead and several missing as ‘life-threatening situation’ declared in earthquake-hit Ishikawa prefecture

Heavy rain caused extensive flooding in central Japan over the weekend, with at least one person reported dead and several more unaccounted for.

Officials said “unprecedented” rainfall generated floods and landslides in Ishikawa prefecture, where a powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake on New Year’s Day killed more than 200 people. The Japan meteorological agency issued its highest-level warning for Ishikawa, advising of a “life-threatening situation”.

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Sicily: fear of foreign actors prompts security request for wreck of luxury yacht

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Officials concerned about sensitive hard drives of tech mogul Mike Lynch, who died in sinking of Bayesian

Italian authorities have confirmed a request for additional security around the wreck of the luxury yacht Bayesian, which sank in August killing seven, including British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, after fears were raised that material in watertight safes onboard could be of interest to foreign governments.

Italian prosecutors fear that would-be thieves might try to reach the wreckage in order to loot expensive jewelry and other valuable objects onboard, including intelligence data, CNN reported, citing unnamed sources.

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Man arrested in Italy nearly 50 years after two Melbourne women found dead in their home

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Victoria police seeking an extradition order for the 65-year-old over the 1977 deaths known as the Easey Street murders

A man has been arrested in Italy over the 1977 murders of two women, Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett, who were found dead in their Melbourne home on Easey Street, Collingwood.

A 65-year-old man, a Greek-Australian dual citizen, was arrested at a Rome airport on Thursday evening, Australian eastern time.

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Prada and Max Mara bring strangeness and science to Milan fashion week

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Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada celebrate idiosyncrasy, while Ian Griffiths foregrounds mathematical tailoring

A Prada show is never a straightforward beauty pageant, so when the co-designers Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons go out of their way to be contrary and challenging, the result is, frankly, pretty weird.

Thick woollen tights with belt loops. A boob tube with snap pockets on the nipples. Shoes that peel back at the heels like curls of butter. In the cavernous concrete of Prada’s Milanese headquarters, the catwalk was twisted into hairpin bends, so that the audience couldn’t see what was coming next. Each outfit was crazier than the last. A strapless lemon ballgown with sunglasses the size of a gas mask was followed by black jeans tucked into dirty white cowboy boots.

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Two missing and 1,000 evacuated as Storm Boris devastates northern Italy

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Meloni government accused of lacking will to confront climate crisis as floods cause havoc in Emilia-Romagna

Two people are missing and about 1,000 people have been evacuated from their homes after devastating floods and landslides hit the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, prompting accusations that Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government lacks the will to confront the climate crisis.

The flooding was brought on by Storm Boris, which had earlier wreaked havoc in central and eastern Europe, killing at least 24 people. Several major cities in central Europe were bracing for swollen rivers to peak on Thursday but defences generally appeared to be holding.

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‘Frockgate’ and Starmer’s love-in with Meloni – Politics Weekly UK

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The row over ‘frockgate’ continues to trouble the prime minister this week, while his decision to visit his far-right Italian counterpart, Giorgia Meloni, has upset many in his party. The Guardian’s John Harris talks to the political correspondent Aletha Adu, who was travelling with Keir Starmer. Also, the Guardian’s Europe correspondent, Jon Henley, joins John Harris to look at the rise of the far-right on the continent

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Storm Boris batters northern Italy bringing severe flooding and landslides

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Homes evacuated in Emilia-Romagna region as pounding rain ‘well beyond the worst forecasts’ sweeps in

Homes are being evacuated in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna as Storm Boris, which has killed at least 24 people in central and eastern Europe since last week, swept into the country, causing severe flooding and landslides.

Pounding rain hit Emilia-Romagna late on Wednesday afternoon and the situation rapidly worsened as night fell.

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Giorgia Meloni: Starmer showed great interest in our Albania migration deal

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Britain promises to send £4m to back Italian crackdown on irregular migration

Keir Starmer has shown “great interest” in the Italy-Albania migration deal, the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has said, as the UK vowed to send £4m to support her controversial crackdown on irregular migration.

Speaking at a press conference in Rome, the prime minister agreed with Meloni, stressing the importance of the relationship betwen the UK and Italy.

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Starmer puts ‘pragmatism’ before perceptions in meeting with Meloni

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Some Labourites may see a hard-right populist but the British PM has an eye on the immigration policies of an ally

Keir Starmer will be under no illusions at the level of discomfort some in his party may have felt at the sight of their leader smiling and joking with Giorgia Meloni as they strolled through the gardens of the Villa Doria Pamphili on his trip to Rome on Monday.

The Italian prime minister’s brand of hard-right populism is far out of the comfort zone of many Labour MPs, and even though she governs, for the most part, from the centre-right, they are unable to shrug off her party’s neo-fascist roots.

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Starmer under pressure to distance UK from Italy’s hard-right immigration plans

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Backbenchers and NGOs criticise decision to explore how country has cut migrant numbers at Rome talks

Keir Starmer is under pressure from Labour backbenchers and NGOs to distance his government from Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right immigration policies on the eve of bilateral talks in Rome.

After the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, said the UK would consider copying Italy’s plans to process asylum applicants in a third country such as Albania, one backbencher questioned why a Labour administration was “seeking to learn lessons from a neo-fascist government”.

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Call for army to protect Italian hospital staff after spate of attacks

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Patients and relatives turn on doctors and nurses, with 16,000 reports of physical and verbal assaults in 2023 alone

Doctors’ and nurses’ unions in Italy have called for authorities to consider bringing the army into hospitals in response to an increase in attacks by patients and their relatives that provoked outrage across the country.

In one of the latest, captured on video and widely shared on social media, doctors and nurses were forced to barricade themselves in a room at the Policlinico hospital in Foggia, in the southern region of Puglia, on Friday after about 50 relatives and friends of a 23-year-old woman who died after an emergency operation turned on medical staff. Some healthcare workers were injured, with bloodstains visible on the emergency room floor.

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Italy’s Marmolada glacier could disappear by 2040, experts say

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Rising temperatures causing largest glacier in Dolomites to lose 7-10cm of depth a day, according to scientists

The Marmolada glacier, the largest and most symbolic of the Dolomites, could melt completely by 2040 owing to rising average temperatures, experts have said.

Italian scientists who are monitoring glaciers and the impact of climate emergency, and who took part in a campaign launched by environmentalist group Legambiente, the international commission for the protection of the Alps (Cipra), with the scientific partnership of the Italian Glacier Committee, said on Monday the Marmolada was losing between 7 and 10cm of depth a day.

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Constantine Arch in Rome damaged by lightning during violent storm

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Residents tell of ‘apocalyptic scenes’ after more than 60mm of rainfall falls on Italian capital in less than an hour

Lightning has struck the Constantine Arch near the Colosseum in Rome during a violent thunderstorm, breaking off fragments from the ancient structure, officials have said.

The fragments were immediately gathered and secured by workers at the Colosseum Archeological Park, authorities in the Italian capital said. The extent of the damage, which occurred on Tuesday, was being evaluated.

“The recovery work by technicians was timely. Our workers arrived immediately after the lightning strike. All of the fragments were recovered and secured,” the park said in a statement.

Rome was hit by a sudden and powerful storm that dumped more than 60mm of rain in less than an hour, equivalent to a month’s rainfall in autumn. The city’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, described it as a “downburst”.

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Nicole Kidman’s erotic drama Babygirl sets pulses racing at Venice film festival

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Film among host of sexually explicit features on this year’s lineup as erotica returns to screens after years of chastity

It’s been 25 years since Nicole Kidman starred in Stanley Kubrick’s erotic classic Eyes Wide Shut opposite her then husband, Tom Cruise.

Although the Oscar-winner has evaded sexually explicit roles in recent years, she is making a comeback to the genre by playing the lead in one of the most risque feature films to premiere at the Venice film festival this year.

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Former Red Brigades member arrested in Argentina after four decades on run

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Leonardo Bertulazzi, 65, wanted in Italy for kidnapping and other crimes allegedly committed as part of far-left group

Police in Argentina have arrested a former Red Brigades member who has spent more than 40 years on the run from the justice system in Italy, where he is wanted for crimes including kidnapping and criminal association that he allegedly committed as part of the far-left guerrilla group.

Leonardo Bertulazzi had been living in Argentina for years as a refugee, a status he lost under the administration of the country’s radical rightwing president, Javier Milei. He was previously sentenced in absentia to 27 years in prison, and Italian police officers were present in Buenos Aires during his capture.

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Refugee NGOs attack EU shipwreck ‘double standard’ after Bayesian effort

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Organisations who try to save lives in Mediterranean say Sicily response showed what can be done

The tremendous resources and global attention dedicated to the tragedy of the Bayesian superyacht hint at a double standard for shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, several NGOs dedicated to assisting asylum seekers have said, citing the barriers they regularly face as they attempt to save lives in the same waters.

The groups that spoke to the Guardian were swift to express their regret and extend their sympathies for the deaths of seven people after the luxury vessel was hit by violent storms off the coast of Italy.

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Two more crew members from Mike Lynch yacht under investigation

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Italian prosecutors said to be investigating engineer and sailor as well as captain over sinking in which seven died

Italian prosecutors are investigating two more crew members from the British tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s yacht, along with its captain, in connection with the vessel’s sinking more than a week ago, a judicial source has said.

Lynch and six other people were killed when the British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre (184ft) yacht, capsized and sank off the coast of Porticello, a fishing village near Palermo in Sicily, in the early hours of 19 August, within minutes of being hit by a pre-dawn storm.

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Captain of Mike Lynch’s yacht under investigation for manslaughter

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James Cutfield is asked to appoint a lawyer after prosecutors question him a second time over sinking of Bayesian

The captain of a luxury yacht which sank in a storm off the coast of Sicily last week, killing the British tech magnate Mike Lynch and six others, has been placed under investigation for charges of manslaughter and shipwreck.

The 56-metre (184ft) superyacht Bayesian, carrying 22 passengers, sank off the coast of Porticello, a fishing village near Palermo, in the early hours of 19 August. It is thought that it was struck by a downburst, a gusty wind associated with storms.

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Mike Lynch’s court-appointed guard praises tycoon’s ‘loving and caring heart’

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Protection agent says it was impossible to keep a professional distance from ‘genuine and loving’ family

The armed guard assigned to Mike Lynch while he faced fraud charges has described how close he became to the “loving” tech entrepreneur and his family.

Appointed by the court, Rolo Igno, said he was supposed to stay distant but that the professional relationship “quickly dissolved” when Lynch invited him to spend time with his family.

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Sicily yacht sinking: manslaughter investigation opened

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Public prosecutor launches inquiry into deaths of seven people in sinking off coast of Italian island

A manslaughter investigation has been opened into the deaths of seven people, including the British technology tycoon Mike Lynch and his daughter Hannah, in the sinking of a luxury yacht off the coast of Sicily, an Italian prosecutor has said.

Ambrogio Cartosio, the public prosecutor of Termini Imerese, said in a press conference at the town’s court on Saturday that his office has opened an initial investigation into manslaughter, according to a translation.

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