Category Archives: Italy

Italy could soon make Covid-19 vaccines mandatory, says PM

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Mario Draghi’s announcement sparks row in country where protests and violence from anti-vaxxers are on the rise

Italy’s prime minister has announced his government could make Covid-19 vaccines mandatory, sparking a row in the country that has seen a recent rise in protests and violence from anti-vaxxers.

During a press conference on Thursday, Mario Draghi said all Italians of eligible age could soon be obliged to get a shot, as soon as the European Medicines Agency (EMA) gives its conditional approval for four vaccines.

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How street art is helping young migrants paint a brighter future in Italy

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An innovative community project has brightened buildings, ‘brought people together’ and provided an emotional outlet after traumatic journeys

Jadhav*, 18, from Bangladesh, arrived in Italy 10 months ago, but is still haunted by memories of his journey with people smugglers across the Mediterranean Sea.

“There were 156 people packed into a small boat. There were women and children,” says Jadhav in broken Italian and Bengali translated on a smartphone app. “Waves were coming over the side. People were weeping. There was no hope of survival.”

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Mayor of Rome sues local region over wild boar ‘invasion’

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Five Star Movement’s Virginia Raggi accuses Lazio regional government of failing to tackle problem

Rome’s mayor has opened a criminal lawsuit against the surrounding Lazio regional government over “the massive and uncontrolled presence of wild boar in Italy’s capital”.

In recent years, Rome’s citizens and farmers have protested about wild boar wreaking havoc on their land and causing fatal car crashes. The animal is believed to be responsible for an average of 10,000 road accidents a year in the country.

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‘I pray they are alive’: Afghans headed to US think of families left behind

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Kabul evacuees at Sicilian air base of Sigonella worry about those left living under Taliban rule

As another 250 Afghan refugees evacuated from Kabul left the Sigonella airbase in Sicily bound for Philadelphia, Haifa, 30, watches the plane lift off the runway and disappear into the clouds.

With dozens of other compatriots, she waits in line for her turn for an afternoon departure, when another plane will bring hundreds of other Afghans to the other side of the ocean, far away from the Taliban. There are 3,000 Afghans at the base, known as the Hub of the Med and serving as a transit station complete with temporary lodgings, religious and recreational areas, for evacuees moving on to other locations.

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Milan mayor likens tower block fire to Grenfell disaster

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Experts say combustible materials were used in 20-storey building that went up in flames with no loss of life

The mayor of Milan has compared a fire that ripped through a 20-storey residential building on Sunday to the Grenfell Tower blaze in London that killed 72 people four years ago.

The fire, which started on the upper floors of the tower on the southern outskirts of the capital of the Lombardy region, spread to the rest of the building owing to what experts described as the “chimney effect”, which turned the building into a torch.

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Flames engulf residential tower block in Milan – video

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Firefighters have battled a high-rise blaze in Milan that spread rapidly through a 20-storey residential building and poured black smoke into the air. Residents were evacuated and the city's mayor, Giuseppe Sala, said there were no reports of injuries or deaths. He added that firefighters were kicking down doors, apartment by apartment, to make sure there were no residents left behind. The 60-metre (200ft) tall building, part of a recent development project, was designed to look like the keel of a ship and included an aluminium sail on its roof, which burned and fell to the street in pieces 

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Revisited: Inside the ’Ndrangheta trial – podcast

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Guardian journalists Lorenzo Tondo and Clare Longrigg discuss the largest mafia trial in three decades. At the centre is Emanuele Mancuso, son of boss Luni Mancuso, who has been revealing the clan’s secrets after accepting police protection

The Guardian’s Lorenzo Tondo tells Rachel Humphreys about the trial against the ’Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia syndicate who are Italy’s most powerful organised crime group. The trial has 900 witnesses testifying against more than 350 people, including politicians and officials charged with being members of the syndicate.

All eyes will be on Emanuele Mancuso, who has been revealing the clan’s secrets after accepting police protection. His testimony will be used against his uncle Luigi Mancuso, said to be the region’s most powerful mafia figure.

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Afghanistan: what does each nation hope to get out of the G7 meeting?

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Analysis: Tuesday’s meeting called by Boris Johnson may include postmortem on Joe Biden’s handling of crisis

The emergency meeting of G7 nations on Tuesday – called by Boris Johnson as this year’s chair of the G7 – is in essence a gathering of the vanquished but faces a threefold agenda: how to ensure as many Afghans as possible can leave Kabul, and whether the US is prepared to stay beyond the original 31 August deadline for the withdrawal of all US forces; how a resettlement programme can be coordinated for the medium term; and finally, how to encourage the Taliban to form an inclusive government, including by threatening sanctions or withholding recognition.

But each country will bring its own concerns and an ugly postmortem on Joe Biden’s handling of the crisis cannot be ruled out.

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Levelling up Pompeii: grave shows how a former slave went far

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Inscriptions by the body of Marcus Venerius Secundio proudly list his achievements after being liberated

The inscription on the gravestone proudly attests to how far Marcus Venerius Secundio, a former slave of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, went in life. In order of importance, he lists his achievements after being liberated. The first was his role as custodian of the Temple of Venus, built soon after the creation of Pompeii as a Roman colony.

He also joined the ranks of the Augustales, a college of priests who were in charge of a form of emperor worship. But perhaps the most telling indication of his eventual status was that he financed entertainment events in Greek and Latin.

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Human remains in tomb are best-preserved ever found in Pompeii

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Former slave who rose through the social ranks was interred at necropolis of Porta Sarno before AD79

The partially mummified remains, including hair and bones, of a former slave who rose through the social ranks have been found in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii.

The remains of Marcus Venerius Secundio were found in a tomb at the necropolis of Porta Sarno, which was one of the main entrance gates into the city. The tomb is believed to date back to the decades before Pompeii was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79.

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Turkey flood deaths rise as fresh fires erupt on Greek island of Evia

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Twenty-seven killed in Turkish flash flooding, with southern Europe bracing for more extreme weather

The death toll from flash floods in Turkey has reached 27 and fresh wildfires erupted on the ravaged Greek island of Evia, as southern Europe braces for more extreme weather events caused by human-made climate change.

Record Mediterranean heatwaves fuelled blazes that have devastated parts of Italy, Turkey and Algeria, with Spain and Portugal on high alert, while Turkey’s Black Sea region has been hit by some of the worst floods in living memory.

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Sardinia’s seasonal crimewave of sand thieves

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Tourists can’t resist a keepsake, despite a public information campaign and fines of up to €3,000

What irritated the local mayor most was the audacity of the tourists who tried to conceal their crime on the white-sanded Sinis beach along the west coast of Sardinia.

On a morning in late July, the visitors – a couple with a child, from mainland Italy – were spotted by a fellow beachgoer filling a plastic bottle with sand. The witness to the act immediately called the police.

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‘All that’s left are ashes’: Italian communities count cost of wildfires

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Blazes raging in southern regions have ravaged mountain area of Calabria that is home to Unesco world heritage site

As with most farmers living in the remote towns of the Aspromonte mountain range in Calabria, southern Italy, Nicola Fortugno’s land was his life. The 79-year-old refused to be evacuated when flames engulfed Piraino, a hamlet surrounded by pine forest above the town of Cardeto, on Wednesday. Instead, he stayed at home to try to save his animals and crops. His burnt, lifeless body was found by firefighters.

“I used to see Nicola whenever he came to town to go to the chemist or see the doctor,” said Francesca Crea, owner of the newspaper shop in Cardeto. “His death is very painful as we’re a community of mostly farmers, people who make great sacrifices for a small patch of land – the animals are their treasures.”

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Firefighters battle flames for 12 hours in worst night of southern Italy wildfires – video

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Firefighters battled 300 different blazes across the southern regions of Italy, Calabria and Sicily in the night between Tuesday and Wednesday.

Seven Canadair planes flew over the area, which has had 70% more wildfires than in the previous year, the majority breaking out in Sicily, Puglia, Calabria and Sardinia

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Video captures moment arsonist sets fire to grass in southern Italy – video

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A video has been released by the Italian carabinieri military police showing a hidden camera capturing an arsonist starting a fire in the countryside.

The video released on 6 August showed a person light a match and place it on the grass before running away near Montesarchio, a town 31 miles (49km) from Naples in Italy. The man was arrested.

In Italy, the civil protection authority warned on Monday of more fires to come as temperatures in parts of the country reach 45C.

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Wildfires rage in Greece and Italy as EU mounts firefighting operation

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Week of blazes forces evacuations and brings devastating scale of destruction to large areas of southern Europe

The devastating scale of destruction from a week of wildfires in Greece and Italy was being assessed as the EU mounted one of its largest firefighting operations ever and smoke from forest fires in Siberia reached the north pole.

As UN experts on Monday said global warming was advancing faster than feared and that humanity was “unequivocally” to blame, firefighters and local residents battled massive blazes on the island of Evia, east of Athens, for a seventh straight day.

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Thousands flee Greek island as wildfires raze forest and homes

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Firefighters tackle blazes on two fronts on Evia as heatwave-driven devastation across southern Europe continues

Thousands of people have fled wildfires that are destroying vast swathes of pine forest and razing homes on Greece’s second-largest island, Evia, as devastating summer blazes rage from southern Europe to Siberia.

“We have ahead of us another difficult evening, another difficult night,” Greece’s deputy civil protection minister, Nikos Hardalias, said on Sunday, adding that nearly a week after the blazes started, strong winds were driving two major fire fronts in the north and south of the island.

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‘If you talk, you live well’: the remote Sardinian village with eight centenarians

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Books, clean air and socialising thought to have helped the latest five mark their 100th birthdays in Perdasdefogu this year

If there’s one thing the remote mountain village of Perdasdefogu needs to ensure it always has a steady supply of, it’s birthday candles. Already this year, 500 have been needed to decorate the birthday cakes of five residents who turned 100.

Each milestone usually means a celebration involving the entire town. The mayor, Mariano Carta, presents a medal to the centenarian, who more often than not can recall details of their life over the past century with remarkable lucidity.

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Reputed mafia ‘godmother’ arrested at Rome airport

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Prosecutors allege Maria Licciardi, 70, ran extortion rackets as head of Naples-based Camorra crime syndicate

A reputed top Naples crime syndicate boss was arrested as she was about to board a flight to Spain, Italian authorities said.

The interior minister, Luciana Lamorgese, praised the arrest of Maria Licciardi, 70, by Carabinieri officers on the orders of Naples prosecutors.

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‘It is a bit annoying’: Italy’s Covid pass restrictions kick in

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Green pass rule has prompted some protests but not on same scale as similar scheme in France

The ritual of coffee and breakfast at the bar in Italy has become slightly more complicated as restrictions on unvaccinated citizens kicked in.

People can still drink coffee and eat a cornetto, a type of croissant, while standing at the bar or sitting at an outside table without needing to present a so-called green pass. But not if they are seated inside.

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