Category Archives: Italy

Geert Wilders’ victory confirms upward trajectory of far right in Europe

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Dutch general election results show how populist and far-right parties are advancing into political mainstream

Geert Wilders’ shock victory in the Dutch general election confirms the upward trajectory of Europe’s populist and far-right parties, which – with the occasional setback – are continuing their steady march into the mainstream.

There is no guarantee that Wilders, whose anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV) won 37 seats in Wednesday’s ballot – more than twice its 2021 total – will be able to form a government with a majority in the Netherlands’ 150-seat parliament.

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Girl, two, dies and eight missing after boat sinks off Lampedusa in Italy

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Coastguard and fishing boat rescue dozens, including girl who later died, with search ongoing

A two-year-old girl has died and other eight people were reported missing after a boat carrying about 50 people across the central Mediterranean sank in waters off the coast of Lampedusa, Italian authorities said.

The Italian coastguard, aided by a local fishing boat, managed to rescue 42 people on Monday, including the baby girl, but she subsequently died onboard a rescue vessel en route to the island, the Italian foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said on Tuesday.

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More than 200 mobsters convicted in Italian mafia ‘maxi trial’

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Specially built courtroom in Calabria heard evidence of ruthless tactics of ’Ndrangheta crime syndicate

An Italian court has convicted and sentenced more than 200 people of crimes including criminal association, extortion and bribery in what has been described as Italy’s largest mafia trial in three decades.

The verdicts mark the end of a three-year “maxi trial” held in a high-security courtroom in the southern Calabria region built specifically to hold up to 350 defendants, accommodate 400 lawyers and hear from the 900 witnesses providing testimony against an extensive network of members belonging to the notorious ’Ndrangheta.

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Venice Biennale’s new, rightwing director has art world guessing

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Meloni’s party is pleased by the appointment but Pietrangelo Buttafuoco has surprised before – not least by adopting Islam

When Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, the incoming new president of the Venice Biennale, was once asked in an interview whether he was a fascist, the Italian rightwing journalist and public intellectual replied: “I am not a fascist. I am something else.”

After Buttafuoco was this week officially nominated to lead the oldest and largest cultural exhibition in the world, it is not just the artists, actors, architects, film-makers, dancers and musicians whose work will be shown at the coming biennales’ six events who are asking themselves what exactly that “something else” may be.

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Pope Francis dismisses conservative Texas bishop and critic Joseph Strickland

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Rare move comes after years of criticism from Strickland, a strong supporter of former US president Donald Trump

Pope Francis has dismissed a bishop in Texas, Joseph Strickland, one of his fiercest critics among US Roman Catholic conservatives, the Vatican has said.

It is very rare for a bishop to be relieved of his duties outright. Usually bishops in trouble with the Vatican are asked to resign before submitting a resignation, which the pope accepts.

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German chancellor Olaf Scholz agrees ‘historic’ stricter migration policy

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Move comes hours after Italy unveils plan to build asylum reception centres in Albania for those arriving by sea

Stricter measures to deal with a large number of migrants arriving in Germany have been agreed by the chancellor Olaf Scholz and state leaders, as NGOs criticised Italy’s plans to create centres in Albania to accommodate asylum seekers.

After a marathon session of talks in Berlin which went on into the early hours of Tuesday, Scholz said the measures would help speed up asylum procedures, restrict social benefits for migrants, and provide more federal funding for local communities.

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EU asks for more information on Meloni’s move to send asylum seekers to Albania after ‘practically zero notice’ of deal – as it happened

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EU wants to discuss implications of deal after Italy announces new migration policy

Swedish ministers sent a letter today to EU institutions calling for strengthening security cooperation and implementing an effective migration returns policy.

Gunnar Strömmer, Sweden’s minister for justice, together with minister for migration Maria Malmer Stenergard, said “it is of utmost importance for the over-arching future security of the EU zone that the EU reaches an agreement on the EU pact on migration and asylum.”.

This entails both making more effective work within our own countries and in relation to our cooperation with third countries. More can be done realistically within the legal framework we have today. More discussions on cooperation on returns are necessary.

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Italy to create asylum seeker centres in Albania, Giorgia Meloni says

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Neighbouring country would house up to 3,000 people rescued at sea by Italian boats, with some exceptions for vulnerable groups

Italy’s far-right government has announced plans to create centres in Albania to accommodate asylum seekers, the prime minister said on Monday, hailing it as a “historic” deal with Tirana to manage migration flows.

“I am pleased to announce with Albanian prime minister Edi Rama a memorandum of understanding between Italy and Albania concerning the management of migration flows,” said Giorgia Meloni. “Italy is Albania’s top trading partner. There is already close collaboration in the fight against illegality.”

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Storm Ciarán leaves seven dead in Italy as torrential rain causes flooding

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Hundreds forced to evacuate homes and others left without power in Tuscany as storm sweeps across Europe

A seventh person has been found dead and another is still missing more than a day after rivers burst their banks following torrential rain in the central Italian region of Tuscany, the Ansa news agency reported.

The body of a 69-year-old man was found in the town of Campi Bisenzio, about 9 miles (15km) north-west of Florence, the news agency said. Officials earlier said six people had died in the deluge that started late on Thursday.

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‘Dogs should eat as well as humans’: high-end canine cucina opens in Rome

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Fiuto restaurant offers poké-style bowls to attract Italy’s growing number of dog owners

In the kitchen of a restaurant in the north of Rome, chef Luca Grammatico delicately blends nuggets of chicken and courgette with pureed potato.

He then reaches for a fancy bowl, positions the mix inside and uses a shaper to fashion a food tower before garnishing it with courgette sauce. Grammatico’s next task is to create a biscuit, shaped like a bear, for a guest celebrating her birthday.

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Storm Ciarán kills at least 15 across western Europe as floods strike Italy

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Tuscany is in a state of emergency and three people died when their sailing boat capsized off Portugal

At least six people have died in severe flooding in Tuscany, central Italy and three in Portugal, bringing to 15 the provisional death toll across western Europe from the torrential rain and record winds brought by Storm Ciarán.

Eugenio Giani, the president of Tuscany, announced a state of emergency on Friday, describing the situation as “really very serious”. It had been “a long and complex night for the entire regional civil protection system”, he said.

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‘Tiredness on all sides’ over war in Ukraine, Italian PM tells prank caller

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Giorgia Meloni ‘misled’ into phone conversation reportedly with Russian comedian posing as African political leader

The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, told a prank caller posing as an African leader there was “a lot of tiredness” over the war in Ukraine and that she had some ideas up her sleeve on how to “find a way out”.

Meloni’s office confirmed that she had been “misled” into the phone call – reportedly by two Russian comedians – that took place on 18 September “by an impostor who passed himself off as the president of the African Union Commission”.

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Michelangelo’s secret sketches under church in Florence open to public

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Artist spent months in a chamber below the Medici Chapels to evade Pope Clement VII’s death sentence

Michelangelo Buonarroti left behind a trail of artistic marvels, including his statue of David and the sublime frescoes that adorn the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Now a “secret” room in Florence whose walls are sketched with doodles that the Italian Renaissance master is believed to have created while evading a death sentence ordered by Pope Clement VII amid his falling out with the powerful Medici family is to officially open to the public for the first time.

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Bologna seals off ‘leaning tower’ over fears it is tilting too far

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Italian city’s mayor says square around 12th-century structure will shut for ‘a few years’ for repairs

The square surrounding Bologna’s medieval “leaning tower” is to be closed off for “a few years” amid concerns that the 12th-century structure is tilting a little too precariously.

The Italian city’s mayor, Matteo Lepore, said the closure of Piazza di Porta Ravegnana was necessary in order to “save” the Garisenda tower. “We’re not intervening because we think it could collapse at any moment,, we’re intervening because we want to make it safe and restore it,” he said.

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Italian woman wins court case to evict her two sons, aged 40 and 42

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The bamboccioni (big babies) refused to fly nest and ‘did not contribute’ – in country where most under-35s still live with parents

The proportion of Italian adults still living with their parents has long been high but one mother was forced to take drastic action after her two sons – both in their 40s – refused to abandon the comforts of the family home.

The woman, 75, from the northern city of Pavia, had grown weary of having to maintain her sons, 40 and 42, and on several occasions tried to convince them to find a more autonomous living arrangement, especially as each had a job. “But neither of them wanted to know,” she said, according to a report in the local newspaper La Provincia Pavese.

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Young Europeans more likely to quit driving and have fewer children to save planet

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Exclusive: Poll shows young people willing to make big lifestyle changes but baulk at smaller gestures

They are willing to have smaller families, stop using cars and – albeit in smaller numbers – go vegan for the planet, but abandoning single-use plastics and growing a few more plants could be a step too far.

Across Europe, according to a seven-country survey, it seems young people are more willing than older generations to make big lifestyle changes that would help combat the climate crisis – but are less convinced by smaller gestures.

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‘Pervasive and relentless’ racism on the rise in Europe, survey finds

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Poll of 6,752 people of African descent in 13 countries finds almost half have experienced discrimination

Racism is “pervasive and relentless” and on the rise in Europe, with nearly half of black people in member states surveyed by the EU reporting discrimination, from the verbal abuse of their children to being blocked by landlords from renting homes.

In every walk of life, from schools to the job market, housing and health, a survey by the EU’s rights agency of people of African descent found high levels of discrimination, with some of the worst results recorded in Austria and Germany, where far-right parties have been on the rise.

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‘They have this ferocious loyalty’: Trudie Styler on the people of Naples

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Her new documentary, Posso Entrare? An Ode to Naples, explores the lives of residents in mafia-ridden backstreets

If people think of Trudie Styler and her association with Italy, they are most likely to conjure up an image of the wine-making estate she owns with her husband, Sting, in Tuscany.

Few people would know her as a woman raised on a council estate in the English Midlands who wandered through the labyrinthine, mafia-ridden backstreets of Naples for her latest documentary, Posso Entrare? An Ode to Naples, which draws on the lives of a host of city residents.

The documentary starts in the evocative Sanità district, where Styler meets Antonio Loffredo, a priest transforming the lives of young people who might otherwise have fallen prey to the Camorra mafia organisation, and where she visits multigenerational families living in case bassi – ground-floor homes that usually have just one room – and a door opening on to the street that provides the only source of air and light.

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‘A lot of pain’: Europe’s Jews fear rising antisemitism after Hamas attack

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Protection of Jewish sites increased in towns and cities across continent after outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas

In the usually bustling “Little Jerusalem” area of Sarcelles, north of Paris, the popular falafel and grill restaurant was eerily quiet. “People are not going out,” said Jérémy, the 33-year-old restaurant owner. Lunchtime and evening crowds are common in one of the largest Jewish communities on the Paris outskirts. But many thought it wiser to stay at home, fearing a growing number of antisemitic incidents in France and across Europe since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October and the ensuing bombardment of Gaza.

In France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish community, police recorded more than 320 physical acts of antisemitism, and made more than 180 arrests, in the first 10 days of the war.

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