Category Archives: Italy

Giorgia Meloni has emerged as a kingmaker for the EU – but will she turn to centre right or far right? | Jon Henley

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Even her toughest opponents admit she’s played it cleverly. Yet the long-term aims of Italy’s prime minister remain unclear

When she became Italy’s prime minister in October 2022, Giorgia Meloni looked like Brussels’ worst nightmare. Until then, the fiery leader of the Brothers of Italy – a party with neofascist roots – had seemed anything but EU-friendly.

For years, railing against the bloc had been Meloni’s stock in trade: the euro amounted to enslavement, the European Commission was effectively a loan shark. “Bring down this EU!” she urged the 2019 conservative CPAC conference in the US.

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‘She just says blah blah’: why Italy’s downtrodden believe Meloni is doing nothing for them

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The PM is talking up her underdog credentials ahead of this week’s European elections. But many in an impoverished Rome neighbourhood are sceptical

Sitting in the dark, cramped dining room of her home in Tor Bella Monaca, a densely populated council estate on the outskirts of Rome, Giovanna has just returned from one of several cleaning jobs the 70-year-old does to keep her family afloat. Her husband works on construction sites intermittently. The couple, whose youngest son, Cristian, 26, lives at home, might be depicted as borgatara, a slur in Roman dialect that, loosely translated, means a poor person living on the socially deprived fringes of the Italian capital.

Referring to her own upbringing in Garbatella, a traditionally working-class district within easy reach of Rome’s famed monuments, the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni said earlier this month she was “a proud borgatara”.

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Drawings depicting gladiators among latest discoveries at Pompeii

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Charcoal graffiti believed to have been sketched by children uncovered at ancient Roman city

Drawings of gladiators believed to have been made by children inspired by watching battles at Pompeii’s amphitheatre are among the latest discoveries in the ruins of the ancient Roman city.

The charcoal drawings were found during excavations at I’Insula dei Casti Amanti, a cluster of homes in Pompeii’s archaeological park that opened to the public for the first time on Tuesday.

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Le Pen invites Meloni to form ‘super-group’ in European parliament

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French far right leader suggests alliance of ID and ECR groups, including Italian PM’s Brothers of Italy

The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has suggested the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, join forces with her in a new alliance, as the EU’s resurgent but divided nationalist parties gear up for European parliamentary elections next month.

The move came as European centre-left parties reiterated a warning to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, that they would not support her bid for a second term if it entailed the backing of hard-right parties – including Meloni’s.

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Hopes grow of G7 deal to support Ukraine with $300bn in frozen Russian assets

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Foreign ministers confident of agreement to use bank assets as security for Ukraine reconstruction loan

Hopes of a multi-country deal to use $300bn of Russian state assets frozen in the European banking system to support Ukraine have grown after it emerged that G7 ministers were confident of overcoming technical and political obstacles at a meeting in northern Italy on Saturday.

The Canadian finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, said she was optimistic that G7 leaders would reach an agreement, as support coalesced around a plan to use frozen Russian central bank assets as security for a $50bn (£39bn) loan.

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Italian anti-fascist goes on trial in Hungary accused of attacking neo-Nazis

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Ilaria Salis, 39, says she is being persecuted for her beliefs in case that has led to tensions between two countries

An Italian anti-fascist activist has gone on trial in Hungary for allegedly attacking neo-Nazis, in a case that has sparked tensions between the two EU allies.

Ilaria Salis, 39, arrived at the Budapest court accompanied by her father, with Italy’s ambassador and a throng of Italian journalists also in attendance. She left to applause after the court heard testimony from one of the victims and two witnesses. None of the three could personally identify Salis, as their attackers were masked.

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London-born boy who died aged 15 to become first millennial saint

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Second posthumous miracle attributed to leukaemia victim Carlo Acutis, qualifying him for canonisation

A London-born teenager who died of leukaemia aged 15 is to become the Catholic church’s first millennial saint.

Carlo Acutis was a computer prodigy who helped to spread Roman Catholic teaching online before his death in 2006. On Thursday, Pope Francis decreed that a second posthumous miracle has been attributed to Acutis, qualifying the teenager for canonisation.

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Von der Leyen quizzed on whether she would work with far-right in EU election debate – as it happened

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Frontrunner to be European Commission president was questioned over alliances with Meloni and others in face-off with rival candidates

Sandro Gozi, representing Renew Europe Now, has walked on stage.

Walter Baier, representing the Party of the European Left, has entered the stage.

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Homes evacuated in Italy after strongest quake in 40 years near supervolcano

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Cracks form in buildings after 150 quakes follow 4.4-magnitude tremor around Campi Flegrei near Naples

Homes were evacuated and many people slept in their cars or on the street after the strongest earthquake in 40 years shook the area around the sprawling Campi Flegrei supervolcano close to Naples.

The 4.4-magnitude tremor in Pozzuoli, a densely populated port city, was followed by 150 quakes that were also strongly felt in Naples.

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Vatican tightens rules on supernatural phenomena in crackdown on hoaxes

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Updated guidelines strip bishops of power to recognise ‘supernatural’ nature of purportedly divine events

Apparitions of the Virgin Mary and weeping statues have been part of Catholicism for centuries, but the age of social media has prompted the Vatican to issue a crackdown against potential scams and hoaxes.

New rules issued on Friday say that only a pope, rather than local bishops, can declare apparitions and revelations to be “supernatural”. The document, Norms for Proceeding in the Discernment of Alleged Supernatural Phenomena, updates previous guidance issued in 1978 that is now considered “inadequate”.

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Former British MEP running for election to European parliament in Italy

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Sir Graham Watson says rise of far right has led him to stand in North-East Italy

A former British MEP is hoping to stage a return to the European parliament in June after being invited to run in Italy by an alliance backed by the country’s former prime minister Matteo Renzi.

Sir Graham Watson, a Liberal Democrat, used to represent South West England between 1994 and 2014 and is running with the pro-European coalition Stati Uniti d’Europa (United States of Europe).

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Vatican Museums faces unprecedented legal dispute over job conditions

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Petition by 49 employees could lead to Holy See being taken to court for ‘undermining dignity and health’

Forty-nine employees at the Vatican Museums have started an unprecedented legal dispute over job conditions and workplace safety, which could lead to the Holy See being taken to court.

The staff, mostly custodians who have worked at the museums for years, claim they are treated as “commodities” by Pope Francis’s administration, according to a report in Corriere della Sera.

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Briton with cancer living in Italy unable to get care he is entitled to after Brexit

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Withdrawal agreement means Graham Beresford is eligible for free treatment but Italian authorities have said he must pay

A British man settled in Italy who has a rare cancer has been unable to receive the free healthcare he is entitled to because local officials do not understand the Brexit withdrawal agreement, he has said.

Graham Beresford, 61, has spoken out days before the foreign secretary, David Cameron, who triggered the Brexit referendum, has his first major meeting with the European commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič in Brussels about post-Brexit relations.

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Mystery of where Mona Lisa was painted has been solved, geologist claims

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Ann Pizzorusso says she has tracked down the background landscape of the world’s most famous painting

The landscape behind Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa has sparked endless debate, with some art historians suggesting the view was imaginary and idealised, and others claiming various links to specific Italian locations.

Now a geologist and Renaissance art historian believes she has finally solved the mystery in one of the world’s most famous paintings. Ann Pizzorusso has combined her two fields of expertise to suggest that Leonardo painted several recognisable features of Lecco, on the shores of Lake Como in the Lombardy region of northern Italy.

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Great goat giveaway: Italian island inundated with adoption offers

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Mayor of Alicudi appealed for homes for 600 feral goats which will be removed from tiny volcanic island

When the mayor of a remote Italian island grappling with an overpopulation of feral goats offered to give the animals away, he anticipated a smattering of interest from farmers on neighbouring isles who were perhaps keen to boost their production of ricotta cheese.

But as news of his “adopt a goat” initiative spread beyond Alicudi, he received a flurry of offers from around the world – not just from Europe, but also the US, and even from an animal-lover in Nigeria.

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Model seeks legal advice after Salvini’s party uses image for anti-Islam poster

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Anna Haholkina tells of shock and says no one from deputy Italian PM’s League sought her permission

A woman whose photograph was used in a poster campaign by Italy’s far-right League, a member of Giorgia Meloni’s ruling coalition, has said she will consult lawyers, describing the images as “racist”.

Anna Haholkina, a Ukrainian-Italian model who lives in Rimini, said she was shocked to see her face on the posters that have sprung up in Milan in recent weeks as the League, which is led by the deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, intensifies its anti-Islam stance in the run-up to next month’s European elections.

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Extra virgin olive oil prices tipped to top £16 a litre next month

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Price rise for mass-market types expected as global production falls to lowest level in more than 10 years

Olive oil prices are set to climb further this year – heading to more than £16 a litre for a bottle of extra virgin – amid a drop in global production to the lowest level in more than a decade.

Lower production in Greece, Morocco and Turkey as part of the natural cycle of olive growth is expected to offset an improving situation in Spain and Italy, where trees have suffered from extreme heat and drought in recent years as the climate crisis wreaks havoc on harvests.

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Italian government accused of using defamation law to silence intellectuals

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Philosopher being sued by Giorgia Meloni’s brother-in-law says such trials are part of a political strategy

The government of Giorgia Meloni is making strategic use of defamation suits to silence public intellectuals, a philosopher who is being sued by the Italian prime minister’s brother-in-law has claimed.

In the latest of a series of lawsuits drawing on Italy’s comparatively harsh defamation laws, Donatella Di Cesare of Sapienza University in Rome will appear at a criminal court in the Italian capital on 15 May, after a complaint by the agriculture minister, Francesco Lollobrigida, over comments she made comparing one of his speeches to Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

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Dog gone: Italy bans ‘puppy yoga’ after reports of alleged mistreatment

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Health ministry rules that only adult dogs can be used for ‘animal assisted’ wellbeing activities

Passionate yogis in Italy have been taking their downward dog to the next level in studios offering “puppy yoga” classes.

But the health ministry has curtailed the growing trend after banning the use of pups to protect the animals’ health and welfare.

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Herculaneum scroll appears to shed light on Plato’s final hours

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Newly deciphered passages describe Greek philosopher critiquing slave musician for her lack of rhythm

Newly deciphered passages from a papyrus scroll that was buried beneath layers of volcanic ash after the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius may have shed light on the final hours of Plato, a key figure in the history of western philosophy.

In a groundbreaking discovery, the ancient scroll was found to contain a previously unknown narrative detailing how the Greek philosopher spent his last evening, describing how he listened to music played on a flute by a Thracian slave girl.

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