Category Archives: Italy

Vatican urges Italy to stop proposed anti-homophobia law

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Law calls into question the church’s ‘freedom of organisation’ and threatens ‘freedom of thought’, letter claims

The Vatican has made an unprecedented intervention urging the Italian government to change a proposed law that would criminalise homophobia over concerns it will infringe upon the Catholic church’s “freedom of thought”.

A letter delivered by British archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary of relations with states, said parts of the legislation violated a treaty made between Italy and the Catholic church in the 1920s that secured the freedoms and rights of the church, Corriere della Sera reported.

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Armani’s menswear confirms in-person future of Milan fashion week

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Italian designer says fashion cannot survive in exclusively virtual form

Such is Giorgio Armani’s eagerness for getting back to holding physical fashion shows that not even a nasty fall resulting in a fractured shoulder and 17 stitches 20 days ago could stop him from holding his first show in 16 months on Monday evening in Milan.

Addressing the rumours that he had recently been in hospital, the 86-year-old designer explained to waiting press after taking his bow at his spring/summer 2022 menswear show that he fell down the stairs while leaving the cinema but wanted to reassure everyone that he was fine and still raring to go.

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Italy’s PM says Euro 2020 final should be moved to Rome due to UK Covid rates

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After Mario Draghi’s remarks, head of Italian football federation says they are not seeking to move match

Italy’s prime minister Mario Draghi has said he wants the final of the European football championships to be held in Rome rather than in London, because of Britain’s rising number of coronavirus infections.

Asked during a news conference in Berlin if he was in favour of the move, Draghi said: “Yes … I will try to stop the final being held in a country where infections are rising quickly.”

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‘It’s such a relief’: how Europe’s Covid vaccine rollout is catching up with UK

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More supplies and vaccination centres have put France, Italy and Germany back on track in battle against coronavirus

On Friday morning, Leyla Çelik woke up with butterflies in her stomach. For weeks, the 22-year-old student at Berlin’s Freie Universität had tried in vain to get an appointment for her first Covid-19 vaccine shot so she could volunteer as a polling station administrator at federal elections in September. “I’d basically given up hope.”

But last week her university had suddenly got in touch via email, offering her a chance to get a first dose of Moderna vaccine on campus, and within a few days. By 9am on Friday, the anxiety has turned into euphoria: “It’s such a relief,” said the native Berliner, nursing her achey shoulder at Freie’s biology institute, converted into a vaccine delivery point as of this week. “At last I can catch a train or a bus without feeling anxious.”

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More than half of Europe’s cities still plagued by dirty air, report finds

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Data shows only 127 of 323 cities had acceptable PM 2.5 levels despite drop in emissions during lockdowns

More than half of European cities are still plagued by dirty air, new data shows, despite a reduction in traffic emissions and other pollutants during last year’s lockdowns.

Cities in eastern Europe, where coal is still a major source of energy, fared worst of all, with Nowy Sącz in Poland having the most polluted air, followed by Cremona in Italy where industry and geography tend to concentrate air pollution, and Slavonski Brod in Croatia.

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‘Miniature Pompeii’ found beneath former cinema in Verona

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Ancient Roman building with ‘magnificent frescoed walls’ appears to have been survived a fire

An ancient Roman building has been found during excavations at a former cinema in the northern Italian city of Verona in what has been described as a “miniature Pompeii”.

The discovery was made during excavations in the basement of Astra cinema, which is undergoing renovation after lying abandoned for more than 20 years.

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Giulio Regeni’s last messages before his death in Egypt counter spy claims

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Facebook messages from the Italian student killed in Cairo in 2016 show his concerns about studying in the country

The Facebook messages written by the Cambridge student Giulio Regeni in the weeks leading up to his murder give the lie to any notion he was a spy or political agitator.

Even before he left England, Regeni was concerned about the risks he might face doing his thesis on trade unions in Egypt, a sensitive subject in the country.

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Italian TV employees suspected of thieving dozens of works of art

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‘Priceless’ pieces removed from Rai’s offices by employees and replaced with fakes, police believe

“Disloyal employees” at Italy’s public broadcaster, Rai, are suspects in the theft of dozens of works of art from its offices thought to date back to the 1970s.

In what the daily newspaper Il Messaggero has described as “the sack of Rai”, the “priceless” artworks were removed from the broadcaster’s headquarters in Rome and units across the country and replaced with fakes. The works included original paintings by Renato Guttuso and etchings by Claude Monet and Amedeo Modigliani.

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Maradona Jr pleads for DNA donors in search for Argentina’s stolen babies

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The son of the footballing legend is carrying on his father’s quest to trace the children taken from parents murdered by the junta

Diego Armando Maradona Jr, son of the late Argentine football legend, is urging Italians to submit DNA to help the Argentinian government trace hundreds of children who were stolen and their parents murdered by the military junta that controlled the country four decades ago.

Maradona Jr is doing radio interviews in Italy and using his 400,000-strong social media following to broaden the search, which has already seen DNA testing programmes rolled out in Madrid and Rome.

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Eurovision winners Måneskin: ‘Cocaine? Damiano barely drinks beer!’

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Already multiplatinum in their native Italy, the swaggering rock quartet now have two singles in the UK chart. They discuss their rise to success – and that drug-taking allegation

Before their momentous Eurovision victory with Zitti e Buoni, placing Italian rock back on the world stage and earning praise from Simon Le Bon and Miley Cyrus; before a baseless accusation of snorting cocaine almost veered into a full-blown diplomatic crisis; and before their post-win ping-pong tournament became a twee secondary narrative, the Italian band Måneskin had already raised eyebrows in Rotterdam, this year’s host city.

After a rehearsal session ended late, says the bassist, Victoria De Angelis, they were parched – but realised there was no drinking water in their hotel rooms. “We went to the hotel reception, but they said there was no water around,” De Angelis says. “So we made it into the kitchen and took some.”

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Italy investigates UN officer over death of diplomat in DR Congo

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Prosecutors accuse suspect of failing to ensure protection of convoy that was attacked in February

Italian prosecutors have placed a UN officer under investigation in relation to the murder of Italy’s ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who was killed in February along with two other people in an attack in the restive east of the central African country.

Magistrates in Rome are investigating the role of a UN World Food Programme (WFP) officer in the DRC, whose name has not been disclosed, who is accused of allegedly omitting to take all the necessary security to ensure against a potential attack.

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Spat at, abused, attacked: healthcare staff face rising violence during Covid

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Data shows increased danger for those on the frontline in the pandemic, with misinformation, scarce vaccines and fragile health systems blamed

Hundreds of healthcare workers treating Covid patients around the world have experienced verbal, physical, and sometimes life-threatening attacks during the pandemic, prompting calls for immediate action from human rights campaigners.

Covid-related attacks on healthcare workers are expected to rise as new variants cause havoc in countries such as India and rollouts of vaccination programmes belatedly get under way in some countries, according to the UN special rapporteur on the right to health.

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‘We were deceived’: hundreds protest in Venice at return of giant cruise ships

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Ban on huge vessels passing St Mark’s Square proves to be temporary after liner docks in city for first time in 17 months

Anti-cruise ship campaigners in Venice claim they were “deceived” by the Italian government as hundreds protested against huge vessels docking in the historic city’s port on Saturday.

Residents were caught by surprise on Thursday when a cruise liner sailed into the lagoon city for the first time since the pandemic began, despite prime minister Mario Draghi’s government declaring that the ships would be banned from the historic centre. The 92,000 tonne ship MSC Orchestra collected 650 passengers before leaving for Bari, in southern Italy, on Saturday.

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‘We have to participate’: what Europe’s Gen Z want from their post-Covid lives – video

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Covid-19 policies risk leaving psychological and socioeconomic scars on millions of young people across Europe, with far-reaching consequences for them and society, a wide-ranging Guardian project has revealed.

Taking a snapshot, the Guardian asked five members of Europe’s Generation Z how the worst global pandemic in a century has affected their lives, what they have learned and how they see their future after the pandemic

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European finance ministers say deal to stop global tax abuse is ‘within reach’

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France, Germany, Italy and Spain increase pressure for an end to loopholes that enable multinationals to pay minimal tax

The EU’s four biggest economies have raised the pressure for a landmark agreement to curb tax abuse by multinational companies to be reached at G7 meetings in London on Friday.

Sending a united message in a letter in the Guardian, the finance ministers of France, Germany, Italy and Spain said a critical moment had been reached to strike a blow against tax avoidance as governments around the world attempt to rebuild from the Covid-19 pandemic.

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‘A question of dignity’: the pathologist identifying migrants drowned in the Med

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Dr Cristina Catteneo made it her mission to put a name to each man, woman and child found in the overcrowded hulls of sunken boats bound for Europe

At a glance, Dr Cristina Cattaneo assessed the lifeless body on the floor of an abandoned Sicilian hospital – a thin, young Eritrean refugee about 180cm tall. While most of the corpse was intact, his face and hands were skeletonised, probably the work of sea animals.

It was the morning of 3 July 2015, and this was the first body to be recovered by a navy robot after a shipwreck on 18 April that year, which left more than 1,000 people dead.

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US sets – and quickly suspends – tariffs on UK and others over digital taxes

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Biden administration suspended duties to allow time for negotiations over digital-services taxes on US tech companies

The Biden administration announced 25% tariffs on over $2bn worth of imports from the UK and five other countries on Wednesday over their taxes on US technology companies, but immediately suspended the duties to allow time for negotiations to continue.

The US trade representative, Katherine Tai, said the threatened tariffs on goods from Britain, Italy, Spain, Turkey, India and Austria had been agreed after an investigation concluded that their digital taxes discriminated against US companies.

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Red faces in Rome as street plaque misspells ex-president’s name

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President Sergio Mattarella forced to abandon dedication after officials noticed mistake on stone plaque

The Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, was forced to abandon a ceremony dedicating a road in Rome to one of his predecessors, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, after officials noticed the name on the stone plaque was misspelled.

Instead of “Azeglio”, the street marker said “Azelio”. Mattarella had already turned up to the event on Tuesday, alongside members of Ciampi’s family and the mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi, before the embarrassing mistake was noticed, with the lettering showing up clearly through the translucent cloth covering the plaque.

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Italy cable car crash detainees released from prison

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Judge places one of the three men under house arrest as investigation into brake tampering continues

An Italian judge ruled late on Saturday that three men detained over a cable car crash that killed 14 people in northern Italy could leave prison, with one of them being placed under house arrest.

In the crash a week ago, a gondola on the cable connecting the Lake Maggiore resort town of Stresa to a nearby mountain plunged to the ground, killing all aboard apart from a five-year-old Israeli boy who remains in hospital.

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‘I’m still alive’: Gomorrah author hails court victory over mafia threats

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Roberto Saviano says that a court has shown that the crime clans – whose threats forced him to live with a bodyguard – are not invincible

The internationally renowned anti-mafia writer Roberto Saviano has declared that “journalism has been vindicated; words are vindicated – and so am I”, after a landmark judgment in Rome over threats to his life.

Judges ruled on Monday that a courtroom manoeuvre 13 years ago by a Camorra mafia boss and his lawyer constituted a threat to Saviano’s life, and that of a colleague – Rosaria Capacchione, then of the Naples daily Il Mattino – condemning the journalists to live ever since in the shadows, under bodyguard.

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