Six-year-old boy has been at the centre of a bitter custody battle between relatives in Italy and Israel
Israel’s top court has ruled that a six-year-old boy who was the sole survivor of a cable car crash in northern Italy must be returned to relatives there within the next couple of weeks.
Eitan Biran has been at the centre of a bitter custody battle between relatives in Italy and Israel since his parents were killed in the Stresa-Mottarone aerial tramway crash on 23 May.
Continue reading...From designing homewares to recording music, many who fled to Europe are building independent lives against the odds
Pieces of fabric of various vibrant shades fill the Naples studio where Paboy Bojang and his team of four are working around the clock to stitch together 250 cushions for their next customer, The Conran Shop.
They are not long from dispatching their first orders to Selfridges and Paul Smith, and with requests for the distinctive cotton cushions with ruffled borders flooding in from around the world, they will be busy for months to come.
Continue reading...A Spanish trans woman’s memoirs, a Mumbai gangster drama, Israeli sisters in trouble… the Covid era is a rich moment for TV drama. Critics from Spain to South Korea tell us about the biggest shows in their countries
Continue reading...An ‘extraordinary’ campaign is credited for Palazzo Adriano’s stellar uptake – even if topping 100% is a statistical quirk
While European governments weigh up new mandates and measures to boost the uptake of Covid jabs there is on the slopes of Sicily’s Monte delle Rose a village with a vaccination rate that defies mathematics: 104%.
The figure is in part a statistical quirk – vaccine rates are calculated by Italian health authorities on a town or village’s official population and can in theory rise above 100% if enough non-residents are jabbed there – but Palazzo Adriano, where the Oscar-winning movie Cinema Paradiso was filmed, is by any standards a well-vaccinated community. A good portion of the population has already taken or booked a third dose and since vaccines were first available it utilised its close-knit relations to protect its people.
Continue reading...Activists threaten legal action over mouflon hunting on Tuscan island as part of EU-funded biodiversity project
Animal rights activists have threatened legal action against the national park that runs a group of islands off Italy’s Tuscan coast as controversy intensifies over the culling of rare mouflon sheep on the tiny island of Giglio.
Hunters arrived on Giglio this week and have so far killed four mouflons, a wild sheep native to the Caspian region that is thought to be an ancestor of domestic breeds.
Continue reading...Sharbat Gula left Afghanistan after Taliban takeover that followed US departure from country
National Geographic magazine’s famed green-eyed “Afghan Girl” has arrived in Italy as part of the west’s evacuation of Afghans after the Taliban takeover of the country, the Italian government has said.
The office of the prime minister, Mario Draghi, said Italy organised the evacuation of Sharbat Gula after she asked to be helped to leave the country. The Italian government would help to get her integrated into life in Italy, the statement said on Thursday.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Far-right politician is in campaign mode and says he has no regrets about draconian policies he introduced when he was interior minister
Whether they’re camped outside in freezing temperatures or stranded at sea, Matteo Salvini exhibits little sympathy for the asylum seekers blocked at European borders. The Italian far-right leader, who as interior minister attempted to stop NGO rescue boats landing in Italian ports, in one case leading to criminal charges, will travel to Warsaw next month in a show of solidarity with his Polish allies who have deployed hardcore tactics to ward off thousands of refugees trying to enter from Belarus.
“I think that Europe is realising that illegal immigration is dangerous,” Salvini told the Guardian in an interview conducted before 27 people drowned attempting to cross the Channel in an inflatable boat. “So maybe this shock will be useful.”
Continue reading...Survey also finds adults aged 18-24 and women more concerned about personal finances than other groups
Young people and women have taken the hardest psychological and financial hit from the pandemic, a YouGov survey has found – but few people anywhere are considering changing their lives as a result of it.
The annual YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project found that in many of the 27 countries surveyed, young people were consistently more likely than their elders to feel the Covid crisis had made their financial and mental health concerns worse.
Continue reading...Man convicted of murdering British student asks for sentence, due to end in January, to be reduced
Rudy Guede, the only person definitively convicted of the murder of the British student Meredith Kercher, could be freed in the coming days after completing 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
Guede’s sentence is due to end on 4 January, but he has asked magistrates to reduce it by a further 45 days.
Continue reading...Exclusive: the Hollywood actor, who lawyers have listed as a key witness, describes scenes of desperation on the Open Arms vessel
The Hollywood actor Richard Gere has revealed for the first time the full story behind his mercy mission to the NGO rescue boat Open Arms as he prepares to testify as a witness against Italy’s former interior minister and far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, who is on trial for attempting to block the 147 people onboard from landing in Italy.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Gere, 72, who lawyers have listed as a key witness to the situation aboard the NGO rescue boat Open Arms, described the scenes of desperation he saw when he arrived on the vessel being held off the Italian island of Lampedusa in the summer of 2019 with conditions rapidly deteriorating.
Continue reading...YouGov/Guardian poll finds ‘clear pattern of decreasing support for populism’ in European countries
Support for populist sentiment in Europe has fallen sharply over the past three years, according to a major YouGov survey, with markedly fewer people agreeing with key statements designed to measure it.
The YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project’s annual populism tracker, produced with the Guardian, found populist beliefs in broadly sustained decline in 10 European countries, prompting its authors to suggest the wider electoral appeal of some may have peaked.
Continue reading...Operators greet reopening with cautious optimism with bookings coming in mainly from Italy
Enrico Rossi was among the protesters in Bardonecchia when the Italian government decided in February to maintain a Covid shutdown on ski resorts just hours before the slopes were due to reopen.
Rossi described the loss of the ski season as a tragedy for the small town and others in the Susa Valley, Piedmont, especially after the 2020 season had also been cut short.
Continue reading...Police pursuing several theories about identity of man believed to have died between 1970s and early 1990s
Police in Sicily are investigating whether human remains found in a secluded cave on Mount Etna are those of a journalist who disappeared more than 50 years ago.
The remains found on Tuesday night are of a man believed to have died between the 1970s and early 1990s. Police said the man was believed to have been at least 50, was 1.7 metres (5ft 7ins) tall and had “congenital malformations to his nose and mouth”.
Continue reading...More than 350 people linked to organised crime are being tried, with biggest names yet to be judged
Italy struck an early blow on Saturday against the country’s powerful ’Ndrangheta organised crime group, convicting 70 mobsters and others in a first, crucial test of the largest mafia trial in more than three decades.
Judge Claudio Paris read out verdicts and sentences against 91 defendants in the massive courtroom in the Calabrian city of Lamezia Terme.
Continue reading...Far-right Brazilian president given honorary citizenship by Anguillara Veneta
Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, was met with cheers and jeers as he visited a small Italian town on Monday to collect honorary citizenship.
Bolsonaro’s great-grandfather was born in Anguillara Veneta, a town of 4,200 people in the Veneto region. Tensions have been brewing since its far-right mayor, Alessandra Buoso, approved granting honorary citizenship to the far-right leader.
Continue reading...Statues and ruins of a 2,000-year-old resort, famed for luxury and vice, are now a marine visitor attraction
Fish flit around Enrico Gallochio as he gently brushes away a layer of sand to reveal an ornate mosaic floor on which Roman nobility would have hosted non-stop parties in Baiae, an ancient resort in the gulf of Pozzuoli, close to Naples. Four metres below the surface of the water, Gallochio passes more mosaic pavements and the remains of walls that once surrounded a spa.
The mosaics date from the third century and are just a small part of the remains uncovered since Baiae, now a vast undersea archaeological park, began to emerge from its watery grave. The site has become an unlikely tourism destination, even as work continues to uncover more ruins.
Continue reading...Bill would have made violence against LGBT people and disabled people, as well as misogyny, a hate crime
Italy’s senate has killed off a bill that would have made violence against LGBT people and disabled people, as well as misogyny, a hate crime.
The 315-member senate voted by 154 to 131 on Wednesday to block the debate on the law, named after the gay centre-left Democratic party (PD) legislator Alessandro Zan and previously approved by the lower house of parliament in the face of months of protests from far-right and Catholic groups.
Continue reading...‘Medicane’ storm with winds of 100km/h expected in Sicily, where two have died in flooding
Southern Italy was braced on Wednesday for the arrival of what forecasters have described as a Medicane – a rare Mediterranean hurricane bringing winds of more than 100kmh and producing 5-metre waves.
Fierce storms have battered Sicily for days, leaving roads submerged in the eastern part of the island and claiming the lives of at least two people. Video footage shows flood waters engulfing the city of Palermo, turning streets into rivers and squares into lakes.
Continue reading...At least two people have died after a powerful storm battered Sicily, leaving parts of the Italian island submerged. Streets were flooded and many vehicles were stranded in Catania, and power cuts were reported in the city centre
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Russia to Yemen