Category Archives: Italy

Pope Francis goes to hospital for scheduled surgery on colon

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Vatican says pontiff will undergo operation for diverticular stenosis of the colon

Pope Francis has been admitted to a hospital in Rome for scheduled surgery on his large intestine, the Vatican has said. The news came just three hours after the pope had cheerfully greeted the public in St Peter’s Square and told them he would visit Hungary and Slovakia in September.

The brief statement from the Holy See’s press office did not say exactly when the surgery would be performed at the Gemelli Polyclinic, a Catholic teaching hospital, only that there would be a medical update when the surgery was complete. However, sources indicated that the surgery would be carried out later on Sunday.

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All roads lead to Rome for England’s ardent army of expat fans

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Foreign-based fans slept in cars and even planned marriage proposals to be at the scene of Euro 2020 quarter final

They came from Berne, Berlin, Luxembourg and Dubai, some forgoing a night’s sleep as they drove across the Alps or took red-eye flights. Some of the more ardent football fans bought tickets two years ago; others bagged them in the last-minute rush that followed England’s historic win over Germany on Tuesday.

They were rewarded with an extraordinary, emphatic, exhilarating 4-0 victory over Ukraine, and those inside the stadium sang till their voices gave out.

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Belgium v Italy: Euro 2020 quarter-final – live!

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A couple of beauties from Nicolo Barella and Lorenzo Insigne saw off Belgium’s golden generation

Jonathan Wilson was in Munich to witness this fine match in person. His report has just landed ... and here it is. Get clicking, people. Congratulations to Italy, commiserations to Belgium, and thanks to you all for reading this MBM. Hope to see you again tomorrow. Nighty night!

Related: Barella and Insigne break Belgium to send Italy through to semi-final

The one downer for Italy - and it’s a big one - is the loss to injury of the hamstrung Leonardo Spinazzola. The marauding left-back has been one of the sensations of the tournament, so entertaining to watch in full flight, and one of those nice late-blooming career stories to boot. His presence will be missed, though you’d still back these exciting Italians to see off unconvincing Spain at Wembley next week. But it’s tournament football, so, well, y’know.

Related: Leonardo Spinazzola: Italy’s frequent flyer down the left flank

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Croatia and Italy renew feud over prošek and prosecco wines

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Italy tries for second time to block Croatia’s efforts to win special EU recognition for its dessert wine

Croatian winemakers have leapt to the defence of their centuries-old dessert wine, prošek, amid a renewed prosecco identity war sparked by Italy.

Italy said it would defend prosecco at all costs after Croatia applied to the European Commission for special recognition of prošek.

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Libyan coastguards ‘fired on and tried to ram migrant boat’ – NGO

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German rescue group issues video of Libyans’ ‘brutal attack’ on boat of migrant families in Mediterranean

Footage has emerged that appears to show the Libyan coastguard firing on a boat in distress carrying migrant families in the Mediterranean Sea.

Rescue workers from the German organisation Sea-Watch recorded the coastguard patrol vessel apparently trying to ram the small wooden boat and firing shots in an attempt to force the people onboard back to Libya.

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Italian prisons under fire as video footage shows guards beating inmates

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Italy’s justice minister orders an investigation after images from the 2020 incident are published

Italy’s justice minister, Marta Cartabia, has ordered a report into conditions in the country’s prisons after the release of video footage showing guards brutally beating inmates at a jail near Naples who had demanded better coronavirus protections.

The shocking scenes of prisoners being kicked, slapped and beaten with truncheons at Santa Maria Capua Vetere prison in Caserta were caught by surveillance cameras on 6 April 2020, the day after a riot erupted in the prison as inmates demanded face masks and Covid-19 tests in reaction to an outbreak of the virus. The footage was published this week by the newspaper Domani.

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Italian region bans farm work during hottest hours after Malian worker dies

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Camara Fantamadi died after picking tomatoes in scorching sun – critics question if ban will be respected

Authorities in southern Italy have prohibited outdoor farm work during the hottest hours of the day after the death of a Malian farm worker, but a representative of the African community in Puglia says the ban does not go far enough.

Officials in the region have banned farm work between 12.30pm and 4pm during the hottest days after Camara Fantamadi, a 27-year-old man from Mali, died after picking tomatoes under the scorching sun last Thursday.

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Recipe for inflation: how Brexit and Covid made tinned tomatoes a lot dearer

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Combine the pandemic with rising raw material costs, stir in a labour shortage, a twist of Brexit, add a pinch of poor weather and voila …

Tinned tomatoes are a taken-for-granted store cupboard staple, relied upon by Britons to whip up home cooked favourites such as spaghetti bolognese. But the price could soon make you take notice, amid warnings of higher shopping bills, set against a backdrop of soaring global food prices.

From the packaging to the transportation and the energy used in manufacturing, nearly all aspects of the production of this popular ingredient now cost more. The crushed tomatoes alone are 30% dearer than a year ago, at €0.48 per kilo. The same pressures are driving the prices of many foods higher, meaning Britons will probably face bigger bills for groceries or meals out this autumn.

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Underground tunnels of Rome’s Colosseum fully opened to public

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Hypogeum of 2,000-year-old monument – its ‘backstage’ – restored with walkways for visitors

For the first time, visitors to the Colosseum in Rome can fully explore the underground tunnels and chambers where gladiators and wild animals once prepared for battle.

Spread across 15,000 square metres, the hypogeum of the 2,000-year-old monument is open to the public following the completion of a restoration project funded by the Italian fashion house Tod’s.

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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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