Tug boats sent to help passengers on the Euroferry Olympia, which was headed to Italy
A fire has broken out on a ferry sailing from Greece to Italy with 288 people on board, according to the Greek coast guard.
The Italian-flagged Euroferry Olympia was headed to the port of Brindisi from the Greek city of Igoumenitsa when the fire broke out on Friday morning near the island of Corfu in the Ionian Sea.
Continue reading...Progress has been slower than in adults, with authorities blaming hesitancy among parents and some doctors as well as mixed messaging from experts
All nations of the UK will offer Covid-19 vaccines to all 5-11 year olds, with England, Northern Ireland and Scotland all joining Wales in offering the jabs to younger children on Wednesday.
Britain has been slower than some other countries in offering the shots to this age group. Many EU member states began offering vaccination to all children aged five to 11 in December, but progress has been patchy, with authorities blaming hesitancy among parents and some doctors as well as mixed messaging from experts.
Continue reading...Social impact of Italy’s 50% energy price rise is evident in city where 27.6% of the population is over 65
Florence residents are being asked to pay the utility bills of elderly people living alone and struggling to make ends meet as the city’s leaders seek to shield the most vulnerable from soaring energy costs.
The “adopt a bill” initiative begins in the next few days and comes as the social implications of a more than 50% hike in gas and electricity bills in Italy this winter start to manifest.
Continue reading...The Austrian director torments everyone, including the audience, in this grotesque tale set in the Italian resort out of season
Wretchedness, sadness and confrontational grotesquerie once again come together in a movie by Ulrich Seidl, although it’s leavened by something almost – but not quite – like ordinary human compassion. If you’ve seen Seidl’s other movies you’ll know what to expect and you’ll know to steel yourself for horror. Perhaps this one doesn’t take Seidl’s creative career much further down the road to (or away from) perdition, but it is managed with unflinching conviction, a tremendous compositional sense and an amazing flair for discovering extraordinary locations.
The Italian coastal resort of Rimini in winter is an eerie, melancholy place; Seidl shows it in freezing mist and actual snow. Refugees huddle on the street and some groups of German and Austrian tourists take what must be bargain-basement package vacations at off-season rates in the tackiest hotels. It is here that Ritchie Bravo, played by Seidl regular Michael Thomas, plies his dismal trade. He is an ageing lounge singer with a drinking problem, a cheery, bleary style, an Islamophobic attitude, a bleached-blond hairdo of 80s vintage and a spreading paunch. Ritchie makes a living crooning to his adoring senior-female fanbase, who show up in their coach parties to catch his act. (You could compare him to Nick Apollo Forte in Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose or Gerard Dépardieu in Xavier Giannoli’s The Singer – except much, much more horrible.) He also tops up his income by having sex with some of the fans for money – truly gruesome scenes in the starkly unforgiving Seidl style.
Continue reading...When Covid stopped contact sports, Italians took to padel, a sport popular in Spain, similar to tennis with a dash of squash
At one of Italy’s darkest moments in the pandemic, the government introduced a list of draconian rules to halt the outbreak of Covid, including which sports Italians would be allowed to practise.
Among the activities the authorities considered safe were a few Italians barely knew. One was padel, a fast-paced racket sport popular in Spain, similar to tennis but with a dash of squash thrown in. For Italians, it was love at first smash.
Continue reading...Analysis: From Pakistan to the US, Australia to Germany, the cost of living is rising to new highs and causing new hardships
After decades lurking in the shadows, inflation is back. On Amazon, you can find fridge magnets printed with words spoken 40 years ago by Ronald Reagan, before the election that swept him into the White House.
“Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.”
Continue reading...Discovery of 70-year-old’s remains years after she died prompts calls for better care for older people in Italy
Italian police have discovered the mummified remains of a 70-year-old woman sitting at a table more than two years after she died, prompting calls for better care for older people in the country.
Marinella Beretta, who had no living relatives, was found in her house in Prestino near Lake Como in northern Italy. Police stumbled upon her remains when they made a house call during high winds in Lombardy, which risked uprooting neglected trees in her garden.
Continue reading...A tender moment captured by Mehmet Aslan of Munzir al-Nazzal and his son, both survivors of the Syrian war, prompted Italian organisations to act. A year on, they are settling into life in Tuscany
In January last year, while working on the Turkish-Syrian border, photojournalist Mehmet Aslan photographed a Syrian man, Munzir al-Nazzal, who had lost a leg in a bomb attack. Munzir was playing with Mustafa, his 5-year-old son, who was born without limbs, and the shot portrayed the father, propped up on a crutch, raising his smiling child into the air.
Aslan entitled his photograph Hardship of Life.
Continue reading...Vitti shot to international fame in Michelangelo Antonioni’s drama L’Avventura in 1960
• Monica Vitti – a life in pictures
Italian actor Monica Vitti, an icon best known for her starring roles in films by Michelangelo Antonioni, has died aged 90, the country’s culture ministry said on Wednesday.
“Goodbye Monica Vitti, goodbye queen of Italian cinema. Today is a truly sad day, we have lost a great artist and a great Italian,” the culture minister, Dario Franceschini, said in a statement.
Continue reading...Finds date to sixth-century BC Battle of Alalia, in which the Greeks defeated Etruscans and Carthaginians
Two ancient warrior helmets, metal fragments believed to have come from weapons, and the remains of a temple have been discovered at Velia, an archaeological site in southern Italy that was once a powerful Greek colony.
Experts believe the helmets, which were found in good condition, and metal fragments date to the sixth-century BC Battle of Alalia, when a Greek force of Phocaean ships clinched victory over the Etruscans and their Carthaginian allies in a naval battle off the coast of Corsica. One of the helmets is thought to have been taken from the enemies.
Continue reading...Attempt to create a rightwing political force may mean the end of partnership with Brothers of Italy
The Italian League leader, Matteo Salvini, has proposed creating a rightwing political force styled on America’s Republican party in a move that threatens to spell the end of his tense partnership with his far-right sometime rival Giorgia Meloni.
Salvini’s League and other parties including the centre-left Democratic party and populist Five Star Movement that make up Italy’s broad ruling coalition have been left in disarray after failing to agree on a mutually acceptable candidate for head of state in last week’s presidential election, culminating with Sergio Mattarella, 80, being elected for a second term against his earlier expressed wishes.
Continue reading...Many European countries are a step ahead of the British government, which has yet to announce plans to help homes facing annual bills of almost £2,000
In the next week Great Britain’s energy regulator will announce the steepest rise ever in its energy price cap, effectively saddling millions of households with an annual energy bill of close to £2,000.
The blow to household finances follows almost six months of record high energy market prices because of the global gas crisis. Despite the deepening gloom facing bill payers, ministers are yet to agree a package of measures to prevent a national energy crisis.
Continue reading...80-year-old did not want a new term but was persuaded to stay on after failure to find successor
Sergio Mattarella has been reelected as Italy’s president, ending days of a farcical parliamentary voting process that has exposed deep divisions within the country’s governing coalition.
Mattarella won a second seven-year mandate with 759 votes, far exceeding the threshold of 505, after being persuaded to stay on in the role after ruling party leaders failed to reach an agreement on a candidate who could secure broad support from the 1,009 parliamentarians and regional representatives electing the president.
Continue reading...Many EU countries opt to reopen despite record infections as WHO suggests Omicron may signal more manageable phase of pandemic
The Netherlands has lifted its toughest Covid controls, Denmark is to remove all restrictions within days and France will begin easing curbs next week, as many – but not all – EU countries opt to reopen despite record infection numbers.
The moves come as data shows hospital and intensive care admissions are not surging in line with cases, and after the World Health Organization suggested the Omicron variant – which studies show is more contagious but usually less severe for vaccinated people – may signal a new, more manageable phase in the pandemic.
Continue reading...Items have been in storage since 1946, when Umberto II was banished as Italians voted to abolish monarchy
Descendants of the last king of Italy have made their first formal request to reclaim the crown jewels, which for almost 76 years have been stashed in a treasure chest in a safety deposit box at the Bank of Italy amid a long-running mystery over their ownership.
The bank took delivery of the jewels, comprising more than 6,000 diamonds and 2,000 pearls mounted on brooches and necklaces worn by various queens and princesses, on 5 June 1946, three days after Italians voted to abolish the monarchy and nine days before King Umberto II, who ruled for just 34 days, was banished into exile along with his male heirs.
Continue reading...Lawmakers and regional delegates will vote for successor to Sergio Mattarella, who steps down on 3 February
Italian parliamentarians will begin casting their votes for a new president on Monday after the scandal-plagued Silvio Berlusconi abandoned his dream of becoming the next head of state.
More than 1,000 lawmakers and regional delegates will participate in the complex secret ballot, described as being akin to the appointment of a new pope, that could go through several rounds before a successor to Sergio Mattarella, who is due to step down on 3 February, is elected.
Continue reading...Until August last year, 18-year-old Nazira Khairzad lived a carefree existence with her family in the foothills of the Bamyan mountains. She loves sport and was a champion skier, but when the Taliban took over she decided to flee, leaving her old life behind. Photojournalist Rick Findler documented her attempts to settle into a new life
Continue reading...Africa’s unprecedented population growth will impact geopolitics, global trade, migration and almost every aspect of life. It’s time for a reimagining of the continent
In 2022 the world’s population will pass 8 billion. It has increased by a third in just two decades. By 2050, there will be about 9.5 billion of us on the planet, according to respected demographers. This makes recent comments by Elon Musk baffling. According to him, “the low birthrate and the rapidly declining birthrate” is “one of the biggest risks to civilisation”.
Fertility rates in Europe, North America and east Asia are generally below 2.1 births per woman, the level at which populations remain stable at constant mortality rates. The trajectory in some countries is particularly arresting. The birthrate in Italy is the lowest it has ever been in the country’s history. South Korea’s fertility rate has been stuck below one birth per woman for decades despite an estimated $120bn (£90bn) being spent on initiatives aimed at raising it. Japan started the century with 128 million citizens but is on course to have only 106 million by 2050. China’s population will peak at 1.45 billion in 2030, but if it proves unable to raise its fertility rate, the world’s most populous country could end the century with fewer than 600 million inhabitants. This is the “big risk” alluded to by Musk. The trouble is, his statement seems to imply that “civilisation” does not include Africa.
Continue reading...Kelly Duda faces fascist-era charge of ‘offending the honour or prestige’ of prosecutor in case alarming free speech advocates
An American film-maker has been put on trial in Italy for “offending the honour or prestige” of an Italian prosecutor after testifying in a criminal case against a former health ministry chief and representatives of a pharmaceutical company accused of supplying Italians with tainted blood products.
Kelly Duda, who revealed how contaminated blood taken from prisoners in Arkansas was sold around the world, faces up to three years in prison if found guilty of an offence that dates back to Italy’s fascist period.
Continue reading...Four arrests of cult-like criminal gang members made in southern Italy after Nigerian woman forced into prostitution comes forward
Four alleged members of the Nigerian mafia have been arrested in southern Italy after a young sex trafficking survivor spoke out against them.
The men, who were arrested in Palermo and Taranto in the early hours of Tuesday, allegedly belong to the feared Black Axe, a cult-like criminal gang that emerged in the 1970s at the University of Benin, according to police.
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