Boat believed to be bringing refugees from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan struck rocks off coast of Calabria
Fifty-nine people, including a newborn baby and other children, have died after a wooden sailing boat believed to be carrying refugees crashed against rocks off the coast of Italy’s Calabria region.
Many of the bodies were reported to have washed up on a tourist beach near Steccato di Cutro, while others were found at sea.
Continue reading...Researchers have found a racial bias by match officials in the country’s top league, but say it could be linked to crowd pressure
Referees in Italy’s top football league give more yellow and red cards to Black and darker-skinned players than to their light-skinned teammates, research shows.
Officials in Serie A awarded an average of 20% more fouls per season against darker-skinned players from 2009 to 2019, with 11% more yellow cards and 16% more red cards.
Continue reading...Moscow accused of attempting to source weapons parts through front companies in neighbouring states
A group of 10 EU member states have called for a crackdown on Russia’s attempts to source military parts through front companies in neighbouring countries, thereby evading western sanctions.
The 10 countries, which include France, Germany, Italy and the Baltic states, write that “2023 must be the year of success in countering circumvention”, warning that public support and international legitimacy of sanctions could wane if they are deemed ineffective.
Continue reading...PM to reassert support for Ukraine after coalition partner Silvio Berlusconi blamed Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has arrived in Kyiv to meet the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and reiterate Italy’s support for the war-torn country, as she navigates tensions on the issue within her rightwing alliance and divided public opinion.
Tuesday’s trip is seen as one of the most significant made by Meloni since she came to power in October and comes a week after her coalition partner Silvio Berlusconi, the Forza Italia leader, blamed Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Continue reading...Object hit balcony in Matera and remnants in pristine condition – ‘almost as if we collected it directly from space’, says expert
Residents of southern Italy’s picturesque and ancient “city of stone” have been gripped by another rocky phenomenon after a meteorite crash-landed on the balcony of a home in Matera’s suburbs.
The space object, which had been travelling at about 200mph, was spotted in the skies above the Puglia and Basilicata regions on 14 February, becoming known as “Valentine’s fireball”, before falling on to the balcony of the home of brothers Gianfranco and Pino Losignore and their parents.
Continue reading...Image of man battling serpents is confirmed as preparation for renaissance artist’s masterpiece
A 16th-century drawing of a nude man, seen from behind, has been identified as a study by Michelangelo for his monumental masterpiece, the ceiling fresco of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.
The red chalk drawing has been linked to one of the figures battling serpents on the Worship of the Brazen Serpent painting. It is thought to date from 1512, shortly before Michelangelo painted that final section of one of the world’s most famous works of art, which he had started in 1508.
Continue reading...Economic growth forecast to be 0.8% in 2023 but households still face cost of living pressures
The EU is predicted to narrowly avoid recession as a result of a milder-than-expected energy shock, although households face difficult times ahead as cost of living pressures ease only gradually, the European Commission has said.
Economic growth for the 27 countries of the EU is forecast to be 0.8% in 2023, compared with a 0.3% projection last autumn, when fears of winter power outages and the rising cost of living ran high. In the 20-country eurozone, the economy will expand by 0.9% in 2023, boosted by a better-than-expected performance in Germany and Italy, as well as relatively stronger growth in Spain.
Continue reading...Mattia Muggittu says he feels like David v Goliath as energy drink firm disputes branding on his first bottles
A small wine producer in Sardinia accused by the maker of the energy drink Red Bull of copying its logo has said he feels as if he is in a David and Goliath battle against the Austrian company.
Mattia Muggittu, the owner of Muggittu di Mamoiada, had just produced his first bottle of wine, which features two traditional Sardinian oxen tied together on its label, when he received a legal notice from Red Bull claiming the image bore similarities to the one on its energy drink depicting two bulls charging at each other inside a golden sun.
Continue reading...Two nuns told they ‘disobeyed the church’ by trying to stay at seven-centuries-old site in Ravello
The Vatican has expelled two cloistered sisters from the nunhood after the pair disobeyed a request to leave a seven-centuries-old monastery along Italy’s Amalfi coast.
Known in the clifftop town of Ravello as “the rebel nuns”, Massimiliana Panza and Angela Maria Punnackal left the Santa Chiara monastery on Saturday after receiving a letter signed by Pope Francis telling them they were being relieved of “the obligations of sacred ordination”.
Continue reading...Survivors tell Italian authorities vessel carrying about 50 people lost its way trying to cross from Tunisia
A baby was among nine people including his mother and a pregnant woman who died of cold and thirst on a boat carrying about 50 migrants across the central Mediterranean, Italian authorities have said.
Survivors who landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa after being rescued late on Thursday told investigators the four-month-old baby slipped out of the boat after his mother, who was holding him, collapsed and died from exposure.
Continue reading...An unwelcome and unwanted relationship cannot be imposed, supreme court rules
Italy’s top court has ruled that children are under no obligation to see their grandparents if they do not wish to do so.
The ruling from the supreme court of cassation relates to an appeal by the parents of two children against the decision of a lower court which had forced the youngsters to spend time with their paternal grandparents.
Continue reading...P38-La Gang perform in balaclavas, namecheck the Red Brigades – and are under criminal investigation for inciting terrorism. Are they, as they believe, being scapegoated for their politics?
For P38-La Gang, everything changed on 1 May 2022, Labour Day. The Italian rap group were performing at the club Arci Tunnel in Reggio Emilia. The location appeared to be no coincidence. It is the city that birthed the Red Brigades, the far-left terrorist group that shocked Italy with kidnappings, kneecappings and more than 80 political assassinations in the 1970s and 1980s – a period of social turmoil known as the “Years of Lead”. On stage that day, the four-piece covered their faces with balaclavas and made a three-fingered gesture representing the P38 gun – the symbol of the 70s leftist movement Autonomia Operaia. As usual, the group flew the Red Brigades flag at the back of the stage – the title of their 2021 debut album, Nuove BR, translates as “new Red Brigades”.
Until then, the Bologna-based band had been considered one of the most bizarre and original newcomers in the Italian trap scene: angry, funny, outrageous, paradoxical, even a novelty act, depending on who you asked. Mixing bad taste with offending politicians and talkshow reporters, making fun of terrorism and dictatorships, P38-La Gang showed a face of Italy that few people want to see: the anger of workers paid €3 an hour and of a generation defeated by the class struggle who are surviving on memes and desperate irony.
Continue reading...Giuseppe Graviano files for defamation against Gomorrah author over origin of nickname
A Sicilian mobster has asked a judge to order the seizure of all copies of a book by the author Roberto Saviano, who is living under police protection after he faced death threats for exposing mafia secrets.
Giuseppe Graviano, who is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison, filed a lawsuit for defamation last week against the author of books including Gomorrah, and Solo è il Coraggio (Lonely is the Courage), about the life of the judge Giovanni Falcone, who was killed by the mafia in 1992.
Continue reading...Piece acquired by English painter in antiques shop in 1960s has been confirmed as lost work by Italian sculptor
Sometimes a hunch pays off, and when the English painter John Craxton recognised a work of genius for sale in a London antiques shop, he made very much the right call.
Craxton parted with £250 for an unusual chandelier he suspected was by the great sculptor Alberto Giacometti. Now that chandelier, made in the late 1940s, may sell at Christie’s in a few weeks’ time for as much as £7m. Pieces by the revered Swiss artist are the most expensive sculptures to buy at auction, and his work regularly breaks saleroom records.
Continue reading...Work depicting mythological hero and apparently dating back to Roman imperial period found near Appian Way
An ancient Roman statue of Hercules has been discovered during repairs to the sewerage system underneath a park in Rome.
The statue, which apparently dates back to the Roman imperial period (27BC to AD476), emerged from the ground around the second mile mark along the ancient Appian Way, a famed historic road.
Continue reading...Thousands sign petition calling for better postnatal care amid concerns over conditions in maternity units
Controversy is mounting in Italy over conditions in hospital maternity units after a newborn is believed to have died by suffocation under the weight of his mother who fell asleep after breastfeeding him.
An investigation is under way into the tragedy, which occurred at the Sandro Pertini hospital in Rome on 8 January. The results of the autopsy are expected within 60 days.
Continue reading...Italy celebrates return of 60 artefacts, some dating back to first century BC, with total value of more than $20m
Italian art investigators have exhibited a fresco that survived the destruction of the ancient Roman beach town of Herculaneum in the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius only to be plundered from its ruins and smuggled to the US, among 60 relics returned to home soil.
The total value of the works, some of which date back to the first century BC, looted from Italy over the past five decades and eventually traced to the US is estimated at more than $20m (£16m). The relics, which were displayed during a press conference in Rome on Monday, include a terracotta Etruscan kylix, bronze busts, ancient vases and kitchenware.
Continue reading...Russians have replaced Ukrainians since the war began and at least 14 have been arrested in Italy, NGOs claim
People-smugglers are recruiting dozens of Russian citizens to replace Ukrainian sailors captaining boats carrying migrants from Turkey to Italy, NGOs have claimed.
Since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine at least 14 Russian nationals have been arrested by the Italian police on charges of illegally transporting asylum seekers.
A report by the Italian non-governmental organisation Arci Porco Rosso and the nonprofit Borderline Europe “noted a doubling in the number of arrests of Russian citizens” accused of piloting the vessels compared with the previous year, as well as many more arrests of ‘‘Syrians, Bengalis, and even people from landlocked countries, such as Kazakhstan and Tajikistan’’.
The Turkey to Italy route was established by a criminal network of Turkish smugglers as an alternative to the long Balkans overland route to the EU, in part in response to pushbacks, typically using small fast yachts, most often stolen or rented. About 11,000 migrants arrived on the Italian coasts of Puglia, Calabria and Sicily in 2021 from the Turkish ports of Izmir, Bodrum and Çanakkale.
Initially the smugglers almost exclusively recruited Ukrainian skippers, many of whom had fled the country to escape military service during the war against Russian-backed separatists in Donbas. But since the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the number of Ukrainians recruited by Turkish smugglers has been decreasing.
Dmitry Mazepin’s vessels, both called Aldabra, went missing within weeks of each other last summer
Italian authorities are on the hunt for a Russian oligarch after two of his luxury yachts that were seized under EU sanctions mysteriously disappeared from a port in Sardinia.
A public notice informing Dmitry Mazepin, the billionaire owner of a mineral fertiliser company, of the penalties against him over the alleged illegal removal of the vessels has been issued by the town hall of Forte dei Marmi, the Tuscan coastal resort where the oligarch owns a home.
Continue reading...Coffin is accompanied into church by estranged son, grandson and ex-husband who are embroiled in inheritance feud
Fans of the Italian screen legend Gina Lollobrigida shouted “goodbye, Queen of Rome” as they gathered for her funeral in the city while defending her against relatives embroiled in a bitter inheritance feud.
Lollobrigida, one of the most glamorous actors of Hollywood’s golden age, died on Monday at the age of 95.
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