More than 350 people linked to organised crime are being tried, with biggest names yet to be judged
Italy struck an early blow on Saturday against the country’s powerful ’Ndrangheta organised crime group, convicting 70 mobsters and others in a first, crucial test of the largest mafia trial in more than three decades.
Judge Claudio Paris read out verdicts and sentences against 91 defendants in the massive courtroom in the Calabrian city of Lamezia Terme.
Continue reading...Far-right Brazilian president given honorary citizenship by Anguillara Veneta
Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, was met with cheers and jeers as he visited a small Italian town on Monday to collect honorary citizenship.
Bolsonaro’s great-grandfather was born in Anguillara Veneta, a town of 4,200 people in the Veneto region. Tensions have been brewing since its far-right mayor, Alessandra Buoso, approved granting honorary citizenship to the far-right leader.
Continue reading...Statues and ruins of a 2,000-year-old resort, famed for luxury and vice, are now a marine visitor attraction
Fish flit around Enrico Gallochio as he gently brushes away a layer of sand to reveal an ornate mosaic floor on which Roman nobility would have hosted non-stop parties in Baiae, an ancient resort in the gulf of Pozzuoli, close to Naples. Four metres below the surface of the water, Gallochio passes more mosaic pavements and the remains of walls that once surrounded a spa.
The mosaics date from the third century and are just a small part of the remains uncovered since Baiae, now a vast undersea archaeological park, began to emerge from its watery grave. The site has become an unlikely tourism destination, even as work continues to uncover more ruins.
Continue reading...Bill would have made violence against LGBT people and disabled people, as well as misogyny, a hate crime
Italy’s senate has killed off a bill that would have made violence against LGBT people and disabled people, as well as misogyny, a hate crime.
The 315-member senate voted by 154 to 131 on Wednesday to block the debate on the law, named after the gay centre-left Democratic party (PD) legislator Alessandro Zan and previously approved by the lower house of parliament in the face of months of protests from far-right and Catholic groups.
Continue reading...‘Medicane’ storm with winds of 100km/h expected in Sicily, where two have died in flooding
Southern Italy was braced on Wednesday for the arrival of what forecasters have described as a Medicane – a rare Mediterranean hurricane bringing winds of more than 100kmh and producing 5-metre waves.
Fierce storms have battered Sicily for days, leaving roads submerged in the eastern part of the island and claiming the lives of at least two people. Video footage shows flood waters engulfing the city of Palermo, turning streets into rivers and squares into lakes.
Continue reading...At least two people have died after a powerful storm battered Sicily, leaving parts of the Italian island submerged. Streets were flooded and many vehicles were stranded in Catania, and power cuts were reported in the city centre
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Russia to Yemen
Rule that pass must be presented to access workplaces forces hand of many vaccine-hesitant Italians
At the vaccination hub outside Termini train station in Rome, a steady flow of people have been turning up for their first Covid vaccine dose in recent days. The mood is begrudging. “If I didn’t have to do it, I wouldn’t,” said Rosanna Barbuto, a supermarket worker. Catalin, 41, who works in a factory, said: “I’m taking it because I need to work.”
They are among the vaccine-hesitant who caved in after Italy made it mandatory for all workers to present a so-called green pass to access their workplaces. The rules are the strictest in Europe and require workers to present proof of vaccination, immunity or of a negative test taken within the previous 48 hours. Some see Italy’s cautious approach as the key to its current low infection rate.
Continue reading...Several European nations have questioned British response but there are growing signs of fresh wave across continent
For the past several weeks, many western European countries have been eyeing Covid case numbers across the Channel with mounting trepidation.
“Why does Britain have more than 40,000 Covid cases a day, and why is it the European country with the most infections?” asked Spain’s ABC, while France’s L’Express criticised “disastrous myopia” in London.
Continue reading...Since 2006, the acclaimed writer has lived in fear for his life, following publication of his exposé on the criminal gangs. The Observer takes a trip back to Naples with him and his minders
On a Friday in autumn 2006, local newspapers and prosecutors in Italy’s south-western region of Campania received the same anonymous letter. Computer-typed and delivered by hand in the early morning, it detailed the Neapolitan Mafia’s plan to execute a 26-year-old Italian writer. His name was Roberto Saviano and his book, Gomorrah, a devastating denunciation of the Camorra’s criminal activity, was on its way to becoming a bestseller.
The unpublished letter, seen by the Observer, refers to a meeting held in a betting office in Casal di Principe, Saviano’s hometown, in which local bosses, known as some of the most violent in the Camorra, decreed that Saviano must die, saying that his murder would take place “when the waters are calm”.
Continue reading...UK residents abroad are shocked at the lack of mask wearing back home, and point fingers at the government’s blase approach
Compared with some other countries, along with high numbers of Covid cases and deaths, the UK has relatively relaxed Covid restrictions, with no mandatory vaccine passports, no social distancing measures, and no mask mandate in England.
Four people from the UK and in Europe share their views on the country’s approach to Covid restrictions compared with others they are visiting or living in.
Continue reading...Prospect of the FDP’s Christian Lindner taking charge has ‘half of Europe quaking in its boots’
Germany’s biggest neighbours are watching the formation of the country’s new government with a mixture of hope and fear, amid concerns that a fiscal hardliner hotly tipped to become the next finance minister could drag the continent back to the frosty standoffs of the eurozone crisis.
The Social Democratic party (SPD), the German Greens and the Free Democratic party (FDP) were expected to inch further towards a “traffic light” power-sharing deal on Friday, with formal coalition talks likely to start next week.
Continue reading...A decades-long policy of criminalising asylum seekers is filling prisons with innocent men, according to analysis by rights groups
Italian police have arrested more than 2,500 migrants for smuggling or aiding illegal immigration since 2013, often using anti-mafia laws to bring charges, according to the first comprehensive analysis of official data on the criminalisation of refugees and asylum seekers in Italy.
The report by three migrant rights groups has collected police data and analysed more than 1,000 criminal cases brought by prosecutors against refugees accused of driving vessels carrying asylum seekers across the Mediterranean.
Continue reading...Decision follows hours of deliberation over whether it is fair for four Egyptian security officials to be tried in absentia
A court in Rome has suspended trial proceedings against four Egyptian security officials accused of kidnapping, torturing and murdering the Italian student Giulio Regeni in Cairo, following hours of deliberation over whether it is fair for the men to be tried in absentia.
The trial was returned to a preliminary court, after judges debated for seven hours about whether hearings could continue amid any doubt they were aware of proceedings against them.
Continue reading...Strictest vaccine mandate in Europe expected to bring fresh protests and leave some industries struggling with staff shortages
Italy is bracing itself for further unrest and labour market mayhem as the strictest vaccine mandate in Europe takes effect on Friday.
All workers will be obliged to present a coronavirus health pass before entering their workplaces, a move that is expected to leave some industries struggling with staff shortages.
Continue reading...The accused, all members of the National Security Agency, are being tried in absentia after the researcher’s kidnap and killing in Cairo
A court in Rome has begun the trial of four Egyptian security service officers accused of killing an Italian researcher, Giulio Regeni, five and a half years after his mutilated body was found in a ditch by a road in Cairo.
Italian prosecutors accuse Gen Tariq Saber, Col Aser Ibrahim, Capt Hesham Helmi, and Maj Magdi Abd al-Sharif of the “aggravated kidnapping” of Regeni, while Sharif is also charged with “conspiracy to commit aggravated murder”. Kidnap carries a potential sentence of up to eight years in Italy, while Sharif could receive a life sentence.
Continue reading...Group of more than 300 descendants of people born under Italian rule accuse state of ‘crime of colonial racism’
Hundreds of Eritreans of Italian descent who trace their ancestry to the period of Italy’s colonial rule are demanding Italian citizenship, a right denied to them by Benito Mussolini’s racial laws.
A group of more than 300 grandchildren or great-grandchildren of people born to Italian fathers and Eritrean mothers have written to the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, and other government officials urging them to “finally examine and resolve an issue that has never really been addressed, a crime of colonial racism that marked the life of thousands of innocent women and men, and which continues to discriminate against generations of Italians”.
Continue reading...Man told police he was mimicking style of TV series’ suave master criminal, Assane Diop
A man told police he was mimicking the style of the suave master thief in the French TV series Lupin when he attempted to rob the bar of a church oratory in northern Italy.
Donning a leather jacket, similar to the one worn by the protagonist of the Netflix show, the 21-year-old, who has not been named, said he waited for the church bells to ring so as to muffle the sound of him smashing through the glass door of the oratory’s bar on Saturday night.
Continue reading...Leaders will discuss UN proposal to channel funds to Afghanistan to ease growing humanitarian catastrophe
G20 leaders and ministers will meet by video conference on Tuesday to discuss a United Nations proposal to channel funds to Afghanistan to ease its worsening humanitarian catastrophe.
It will be the first time the world’s richest nations have met to discuss the consequences of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover on 15 August. Afghanistan was 75%-dependent on foreign aid before the takeover, and funds held overseas have been frozen by the US.
Continue reading...Slower vaccination rates in east lead to dramatic surge in cases, while UK remains outlier in west as cases rise despite vaccinations
Higher vaccination rates are translating to lower Covid infection and death rates in western Europe than in parts of central and eastern Europe, the latest data suggests – except in the UK, where case numbers are surging.
Figures from Our World In Data indicate a clear correlation between the percentage of people fully vaccinated and new daily cases and fatalities, with health systems in some under-inoculated central and eastern EU states under acute strain.
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