Category Archives: Italy

Italian PM battles for coalition’s survival over Covid recovery plan

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Italia Viva party’s departure deprives Conte of majority, with crunch vote on Tuesday

Italy deserves a “cohesive government”, its prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, has said as he began the fight for his coalition’s survival.

Conte told the lower house of parliament on Monday that the political crisis triggered last week by the former prime minister Matteo Renzi was “unfounded” and risked severely damaging the country at a time when Italians were struggling with health and financial worries.

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Long johns for Prada as Milan fashion week goes online

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Collaboration between Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, only the second for the designers, includes gloves and comfort-wear

At a time when the relevance of high fashion is being questioned, Prada’s menswear show in Milan addressed the criticism with an unusually practical item of clothing: a pair of long johns.

Speaking after an audience-free show at a largely virtual Milan fashion week, Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada, co-creative directors of the brand, described the item as symbolic of the current situation. Worn by every model, and intended as a second skin, they were inspired as much by pyjamas and babies as wetsuits and “rockers”, though Simons was quick to add: “We didn’t want it to look like activewear.”

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‘Now is not the time’: Italians angry and perplexed as government teeters

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Administration on brink of collapse as Matteo Renzi pulls his party from ruling coalition

Italians have responded with a mix of anger, perplexity and calls for the entire government to be sent packing after the country was plunged into political mayhem once again.

The Giuseppe Conte-led administration is teetering on the brink of collapse after the former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, pulled his small Italia Viva party from the ruling coalition. Renzi said his party was not to blame for triggering the crisis, but that it had been going on for months. He argued that his ministers had shown courage in leaving their posts, and blamed their departure on the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and weak strategy in rebuilding the tattered economy.

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Drone footage shows huge sinkhole in Naples hospital car park – video

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A sinkhole measuring 2,000 sq metres has opened up in the visitors' car park of a hospital in Naples, forcing the temporary closure of a nearby residence for recovering coronavirus patients because of a power cut.

A number vehicles fell into the sinkhole in the otherwise empty car park, but the hospital remained operational and no injuries were reported

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Giant sinkhole opens in hospital car park in Naples

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Nearby Italian residence for Covid-19 patients had to close temporarily because of electricity cuts

A giant sinkhole has opened up in the car park of a hospital in Naples, Italy, forcing the temporary closure of a nearby residence for recovering Covid-19 patients because the electricity was cut.

Operations at the Hospital of the Sea were not affected, and firefighters said no one appeared to be injured. The sinkhole consumed a few cars in the hospital’s otherwise empty visitors’ car park on Friday.

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As parts of UK enter third Covid lockdown, how does rest of Europe compare?

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Rules vary from country to country but many European nations face severe restrictions

After a brief and partial relaxation of the rules over Christmas and New Year, many continental European countries have returned to the tough anti-Covid regimes that were imposed this autumn – with some tightening measures further.

According to the latest update from the World Health Organization, in the final week of 2020 the UK had a 14-day new-case notification rate of 720 for every 100,000 people, more than double that in France, Germany, Italy and Spain but lower than the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.

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Italian government under pressure over economic recovery plan

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Prime minister to meet with coalition party leaders as Italia Viva threatens to quit in dispute over Covid-19 fund

The fate of the Italian government hangs in the balance this week amid a confrontation between the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, and his coalition ally and former prime minister, Matteo Renzi.

Renzi has repeatedly threatened to pull his small Italia Viva party from the ruling majority unless the government changes tack on how to reboot Italy’s fragile economy. Renzi has also called for Conte to relinquish his control over the secret services and for the government to speed up the distribution of Covid-19 vaccinations.

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Italy begins year of Dante anniversary events with virtual Uffizi exhibition

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Gallery puts seldom-seen Divine Comedy sketches on display online to mark 700 years since poet’s death

Eighty-eight rarely seen drawings of Dante’s The Divine Comedy have been put on virtual display as Italy begins a year-long calendar of events to mark the 700th anniversary of the poet’s death.

The drawings, by the 16th-century Renaissance artist Federico Zuccari, are being exhibited online, for free, by the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

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Tributes paid to Ethiopian refugee farmer who championed integration in Italy

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Agitu Ideo Gudeta, who was killed on Wednesday, used abandoned land to start a goat farming project employing migrants and refugees

Tributes have been paid to a 42-year-old Ethiopian refugee and farmer who became a symbol of integration in Italy, her adopted home.

Agitu Ideo Gudeta was attacked and killed, allegedly by a former employee, on her farm in Trentino on Wednesday.

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Home firework displays lead to fires, injuries and death in Germany and Italy

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Boy, 13, killed in Italy and fires across Berlin as people respond to public fireworks bans by letting them off at home

Banned from setting off fireworks in much of their city, some Berliners instead tried to launch them from their homes on New Year’s Eve, leading to dozens of fires across the German capital.

By six minutes after midnight, the Berlin fire service had been called to 18 fires, with more following. No one was initially reported seriously injured.

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Egypt drops inquiry into murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni

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Prosecutors reject Italy’s finding that Egyptian security officials were behind kidnap and torture

Egypt’s public prosecution has officially closed its investigation into the murder of Giulio Regeni, rejecting Italian prosecutors’ findings that accused four Egyptian security officials of kidnapping and torturing the Italian doctoral student in 2016.

Italy officially indicted four Egyptian security officials including two from Egypt’s national security agency in early December. The four men were accused of kidnapping Regeni, whose body was found on an outlying Cairo highway in February 2016 showing signs of torture. One of the suspects, named as Magdi Ibrahim Abdel Al Sharif, is accused of grievous bodily harm.

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Render unto Rome – contrite tourists return pilfered relics

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Whether compelled by guilt or superstition, more and more tourists are returning items they lifted from Italian cultural sites

Some of the repentant sinners may be compelled by guilt, others by superstition.

But Italian museum curators and archeological officers have observed a trend of tourists who, having pilfered artefacts from cultural sites, return them, years later, with a heartfelt letter of confession.

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Snack bar in Pompeii offers insights into ancient eating habits – video report

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The director of archaeology at Pompeii shows an exceptionally well-preserved snack bar, or thermopolium, which served food and drink to passers-by. Traces of food have been found in some of the jars, and the frescoes offer insights into Pompeiian eating habits. Human remains were also found of a victim of the volcanic eruption in AD79 that buried the ancient Roman city

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Maradonaland: Naples plans statues and museum to honour ‘Saint Diego’

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City’s murals of Maradona have become pilgrimage sites since footballer’s death in November

A month since the death of Diego Armando Maradona and the southern Italian city of Naples is looking more like a Maradonaland each day.

After renaming Napoli football club’s San Paolo Stadium and a train station in his honour this month, local authorities are planning a large museum, commissioning statues and dedicating an entire square to the Argentinian who took the city’s football team to glory and is regarded as one of the greatest players of all time.

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Coronavirus global report: Christmas curtailed as UK arrivals face tougher measures

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Pope addresses fewer than 200 people in St Peter’s; China and US take action against UK amid concerns about new variant; South Korea reports daily case record

The coronavirus pandemic cast a pall over Christmas celebrations worldwide, with the pope holding a reduced St Peter’s mass, and further restrictions imposed on arrivals from the UK and South Africa amid concerns about potentially more transmissible variants of the virus.

China said it would halt UK flight arrivals indefinitely, deciding to follow the example of dozens of countries that introduced bans this week following the emergence of a new mutation in the virus. There are currently eight weekly flights between mainland China and Britain, including two by British Airways.

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Olive-stuffing and in-theatre piano: the brain surgeon breaking new ground

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Italian Roberto Trignani is known for ‘awake surgery’ and other unorthodox methods

Playing the violin, watching cartoons and doing crosswords: these are just some of the activities patients have performed while having brain surgery under Roberto Trignani.

Trignani, the head of neurosurgery at Riuniti hospital in Ancona, Italy, was already known for his “awake surgery” techniques, which he has used roughly 70 times in the last few years. But he broke new ground in June this year when a 60-year-old woman prepared stuffed olives as he removed a tumour from her left temporal lobe.

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Relatives of Italian Covid victims to file lawsuit against leading politicians

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PM, health minister and Lombardy president named in action by 500 bereaved families

Relatives of coronavirus victims in Italy are taking legal action against the prime minister, health minister and the president of the Lombardy region for alleged criminal negligence over their handling of the pandemic.

The group of 500 families will file their civil lawsuit on Wednesday with prosecutors in the Lombardy province of Bergamo, which was badly hit during the first wave of the pandemic. They claim the three leaders – Giuseppe Conte, Roberto Speranza and Attilio Fontana respectively – have contributed to Italy’s almost 70,000 Covid-19 deaths.

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Microplastics revealed in the placentas of unborn babies

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Health impact is unknown but scientists say particles may cause long-term damage to foetuses

Microplastic particles have been revealed in the placentas of unborn babies for the first time, which the researchers said was “a matter of great concern”.

The health impact of microplastics in the body is as yet unknown. But the scientists said they could carry chemicals that could cause long-term damage or upset the foetus’s developing immune system. The particles are likely to have been consumed or breathed in by the mothers.

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Multiple European countries ban travel from UK over new Covid strain

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WHO tells members to redouble efforts to stop spread as Israel turns away UK passport holders

European countries have begun to close their doors to travellers from the UK after the discovery of a fast-spreading strain of Covid-19 in England.

As the World Health Organization called on its members in Europe to step up measures, countries including France, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands announced bans on travel from the UK.

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