Category Archives: Italy

Sea rescue charities rebel against Italian anti-immigration rules

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NGOs say measures including requirement to request port after first rescue could result in thousands of deaths

Sea rescue charities are rebelling against tough new anti-immigration measures imposed by the Italian government, arguing that they could result in thousands of deaths.

Ship captains risk fines of €50,000 and having their vessels impounded if they break the rules, which include a requirement to request a port and sail to it immediately after undertaking one rescue instead of remaining at sea to rescue people from other boats in difficulty.

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EU states resist joining Italy on Covid testing for arrivals from China

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Italy urges action at European level as more than 50% of recent arrivals from China test positive at Milan airport

Member states of the European Union have resisted pressure from Italy to immediately impose mandatory anti-Covid checks on travellers entering the borderless Schengen area from China, with health officials in Brussels saying they would instead continue to monitor the consequences of Beijing’s rapid rollback of its previously stringent hygiene restrictions.

In recent days more than 50% of passengers from China at Milan’s Malpensa airport have tested positive for the virus, and on Wednesday Italy brought back mandatory coronavirus tests for everyone arriving from China, after reports of rising infection rates in the world’s most populous country.

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Ruggero Deodato, director of notorious horror Cannibal Holocaust, dies aged 83

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Italian film-maker found infamy when rumours about his 1980 ‘found footage’ horror led to him being charged with murder

Ruggero Deodato, director of the notorious 1980 horror film Cannibal Holocaust, has died aged 83. Italian media reported that he died on Thursday.

Deodato had a lengthy film-making career and operated in a variety of genres but remains best known for his gruesome horror film, which was banned in multiple countries and even resulted in him being put on trial for murdering his actors.

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US to require arrivals from China to provide negative Covid test

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Other countries including Italy have taken similar steps after Beijing’s rollback of ‘zero-Covid’ policies led to surge in cases

The US has announced all travellers from China must provide a negative Covid-19 test to enter the country, joining other nations imposing restrictions because of a surge of infections.

The increase in cases across China follows the rollback of the nation’s strict anti-virus controls. Beijing’s “zero Covid” policies had kept the country’s infection rate low but fuelled public frustration and crushed economic growth.

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‘It is a war’: senator and Auschwitz survivor Liliana Segre on fighting Italy’s far right

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Liliana Segre, 92, has been subjected to racist attacks, and fears the Holocaust will become a footnote in the history books

An Italian senator who survived the Auschwitz concentration camp and this year found herself witnessing a far-right government take power again in Rome has said her “personal nightmare” is that the Holocaust will all but vanish from history books.

Liliana Segre, 92, was the only one of her relatives to survive the Holocaust, which killed six million Jews as part of Nazi Germany’s second world war campaign to obliterate the Jewish population in Europe.

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Mafia-themed food items sold abroad unacceptable, say Italian farmers

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Investigation takes aim at everything from Cosa Nostra whiskey to El Padrino restaurant in Spain and Nasi Goreng Mafia eaterie in Indonesia

Italy’s biggest farmers’ association is waging a battle against the “scandalous” use of mafia terms to sell a variety of food and drink products around the world, from Cosa Nostra whiskey to Chilli Mafia tomato sauce.

Coldiretti undertook an extensive investigation and also discovered that almost 300 restaurants beyond Italy have mafia-themed names, including El Padrino in Spain, Don Corleone in Finland, Burger Mafia in Germany, Falafel Mafia in the US and Nasi Goreng Mafia in Indonesia.

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‘God not on mafia’s side’: mobsters who hijacked religious procession jailed

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Thirty-nine people imprisoned for forcing a procession in Sicily to pay homage to crime boss Francesco La Rocca in 2016

A judge in Sicily has handed down jail sentences totalling 80 years to 39 people for diverting a Good Friday religious procession to the house of a mafia family and paying homage to an imprisoned crime boss.

People were carrying a statue of Jesus Christ through the Sicilian village of San Michele Di Ganzaria at Easter in 2016 when a group stopped the cortege, moved it away from the agreed itinerary and forced it to pass in front of the house of the mafia godfather Francesco La Rocca.

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Italy to let hunters loose against ‘invasion’ of wild boars

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Farmers’ lobby welcomes move by Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing coalition, claiming animals are getting ‘ever closer’ to homes

Italy’s ruling right-wing coalition is set to loosen hunting rules to deal with what the country’s farming lobby has called an “invasion” of wild boars.

The boars are common in the countryside, but have recently also been spotted in central parts of Rome, attracted by the Eternal City’s chronically overflowing rubbish skips.

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Pope Francis orders Parthenon marbles held by Vatican be returned to Greece

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Three 2,500-year-old pieces will be ‘donated’ to Greece’s Archbishop Ieronymos II amid wider conversation about future of Parthenon marbles held by Britain

Pope Francis has decided to return to Greece three 2,500-year-old pieces of the Parthenon that have been in the papal collections of the Vatican Museums for two centuries.

The Vatican said in a brief statement that the pope was giving them to Archbishop Ieronymos II, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church and Greece’s spiritual leader, as a “donation” and “a concrete sign of his sincere desire to follow in the ecumenical path of truth”.

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‘Life is ebbing away’: Egyptians face peril at sea in dangerous new exodus to Europe

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Poverty puts thousands into the grip of people smugglers plying a deadly trade in the Mediterranean

Youssef initially doesn’t want to remember the treacherous boat journey that took him from Egypt, then to Tobruk in Libya and finally to Italy, but he knows clearly why he left.

A young man in his 20s, Youssef is recently married and expecting a baby in a few months, and fears about the increasing cost of living in Egypt overwhelmed him. He gave in and contacted a people smuggler on the internet, using a Facebook group where those looking to migrate can post information about crossings.

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Friend of Giorgia Meloni among three dead in Rome coffee shop shooting

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Suspect, 57, opens fire on a meeting of apartment block residents but police yet to comment on motive

A man who opened fire on a meeting of apartment block residents in a coffee shop in northern Rome has killed three people, including a friend of the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.

The suspect, 57, had been in a series of disputes with the residents’ association, a witness told Italy’s Rai News.

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Italian trapped in UAE embassy pleads with Giorgia Meloni to get him home

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Andrea Costantino says he has been in tiny room since release from prison on ‘totally unfounded’ charges of funding terrorism

An Italian man trapped for six months in his country’s embassy in the UAE has claimed he is the victim of a diplomatic spat between the two states and pleaded with Giorgia Meloni’s government to bring him home.

Andrea Costantino, 49, said he had been living a “Groundhog day-like” existence in a tiny room at the Italian embassy in Abu Dhabi since being released in late May from the emirate’s notorious maximum-security prison, Al Wathba, where he spent more than a year on charges of funding terrorism in war-torn Yemen after shipping a cargo of diesel to a client there.

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UK to develop next-generation fighter jets with Italy and Japan

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Rishi Sunak says defence deal for Tempest means ‘outpacing those who seek to do us harm’

Britain will work to develop next-generation fighter jets with Italy and Japan, Rishi Sunak has announced.

The prime minister said the defence partnership will ensure the UK and allies are “outpacing and outmanoeuvring those who seek to do us harm”.

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Rome’s solar-powered Christmas tree lights spark row over ‘ugly’ panels

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Critics accuse authorities of ‘bogus environmentalism’ over installation in historic Piazza Venezia

A row has broken out over two “ugly” solar panels intended to power the lights on Rome’s traditional Christmas tree.

There is always much anticipation in the Italian capital when the fir arrives at the Piazza Venezia in the historic centre – a Unesco world heritage site – with many giving their view on the choice of decoration.

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Calls for crackdown on construction in Italy after Ischia disaster

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Officials warned last year more than 90% of municipalities were at risk from landslides, floods and erosion

There have been calls to limit and crack down on both legal and illegal construction in Italy after the head of the country’s civil protection office said more than 90% of Italian municipalities were at risk from landslides and other natural disasters.

Fabrizio Curcio made the comments in an interview with La Stampa after travelling to the southern Italian island of Ischia, where eight people including a 22-day-old baby are so far confirmed to have been killed in a landslide on Saturday.

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Anger grows as illegal construction partly blamed for landslide deaths on Italian island

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Seven confirmed dead and search continues for people missing after Saturday’s disaster on Ischia

As rescuers continued to search for five people still missing after a catastrophic landslide in Ischia, anger was growing on the southern Italian island on Sunday over the years of rampant illegal construction that contributed to the disaster.

Seven people, including a three-week-old baby and a pair of young siblings, are confirmed to have died in Saturday’s landslide, which was triggered by a violent storm that sent mud and debris from Monte Epomeo, a 789-metre (2,590ft) peak, crashing into the hamlet of Casamicciola Terme. One victim – 32-year-old Eleonora Sirabella – has been named. The others, who include the infant boy’s parents, a five-year-old girl and her 11-year-old brother, a 31-year-old island resident and a Bulgarian tourist, have not yet been officially identified.

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A woman dies and 10 people missing after landslide on Italian island of Ischia

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Island near Naples was engulfed by heavy rain, causing a landslide that flooded homes and swept away cars

A woman has died and 10 people are missing after a severe storm triggered a landslide on the Italian island of Ischia.

The island, in the Gulf of Naples, was engulfed by heavy rain overnight, with the landslide hitting the hamlet of Casamicciola Terme early on Saturday morning, flooding homes and sweeping away several cars.

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Row breaks out over favourite for EU’s first ever special envoy to Gulf

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Critics say former Italian foreign minister Luigi Di Maio lacks experience and has poor record in Gulf relations

A row has broken out over the appointment of the EU’s first ever special envoy to the Gulf, as internal critics allege the frontrunner, the former Italian foreign minister Luigi Di Maio, is poorly qualified for the job.

Di Maio, a former leader of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), served as Italy’s foreign minister for just over three years until last month. He has now been selected by a panel of European officials as the best of four candidates to become the EU’s special representative to the Gulf states, beating veteran politicians with more experience.

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Fleabag producer brings Berlusconi musical to London stage

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‘Fierce, feminist’ show from Francesca Moody is written by former Grange Hill actors Ricky Simmonds and Simon Vaughan and tells an ‘almost true’ story

A musical about Silvio Berlusconi that is described as “Evita on acid”, written by two former Grange Hill stars and features a song called My Weekend With Vladimir is to be staged in London next year.

Entitled Berlusconi, it is billed as an “almost true story” and produced by Francesca Moody who is best known for her success with Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag. The musical depicts the three-time former Italian PM on the eve of the verdict in his trial for tax fraud as he looks back on his rise and fall and resolves to write an autobiographical opera. His story is then told through the eyes of three women: Ilda Boccassini, the Milan magistrate known as Ilda the Red who investigated him; Berlusconi’s second wife, the actor Veronica Lario, who left him in 2009 after nearly 20 years of marriage; and the character of a journalist who is based on real people. “It places a fierce feminist lens on him,” said Moody of the musical. “These women are telling their story.”

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Nun who wowed The Voice of Italy becomes waitress in Spain

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Cristina Scuccia, who stunned judges in 2014 contest, explains decision to leave nunhood on talkshow

A nun who became a singing sensation after winning Italy’s version of The Voice has stunned TV viewers again after announcing that she has kicked the habit and is now a waitress in Spain.

Sister Cristina Scuccia, from Sicily, shocked judges, including the late Raffaella Carrà, during her blind audition for the show in 2014, giving a rapturous performance of the Alicia Keys’ hit song No One. After realising the incredible voice belonged to a nun, Carrà, who died last year, said: “I couldn’t speak for several minutes.”

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