Category Archives: Italy

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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Argentina sends out DNA kits in drive to identify thousands ‘disappeared’ under dictatorship

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Move is part of groundbreaking effort to name 30,000 murdered by regime after 1976 coup

The Argentinian government has sent hundreds of DNA testing kits to its consulates around the world in a groundbreaking effort to put names to unidentified victims murdered in the “Dirty War” waged by the brutal military dictatorship four decades ago.

Last month, the Argentinian authorities, in collaboration with the National Commission for the Right to Identity, the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo movement and investigators from the Argentinian Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF), launched its international Right to Identity campaign, committed to putting a name to every woman, man and child killed by the military junta in Argentina in the 1970s and early 80s.

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Italy cable car crash: five-year-old survivor to be moved out of intensive care

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Eitan Biran, whose parents, younger brother and great-grandparents were killed in the crash, has woken up and spoken to his aunt

The five-year-old boy who survived last weekend’s deadly cable car crash in the Italian mountains that killed his parents and sibling is awake and will soon be moved out of intensive care, hospital officials said on Thursday.

Eitan Biran has been in critical condition since the cabin plunged to the ground on the Mottarone mountain, killing the other 14 people inside, including his parents, younger brother and great-grandparents. Thirteen of the passengers died at the scene, while Eitan and another child were taken to hospital. The other child later died.

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Italian cable car brakes ‘tampered with’, say prosecutors

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Crash investigators say emergency brakes had been deactivated to avoid disruptions to service

The emergency brakes on a cable car that crashed in northern Italy on Sunday, killing 14 people, had been “tampered with”, prosecutors said as three people were arrested on charges of suspected involuntary manslaughter and negligence.

The three, including the owner of the firm that manages the Stresa-Mottarone aerial tramway near Lake Maggiore in the Piedmont region, are alleged to have made a “conscious gesture” by “tampering” with the emergency brakes in order to “avoid disruptions” to the cable car service, Ansa reported, citing the chief public prosecutor, Olimpia Bossi.

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‘Community is broken’: Stresa shaken by cable car tragedy

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Italy’s worst cable car disaster in more than 20 years has left people questioning what went wrong

Two Sundays before fourteen people fell to their deaths in Italy’s worst cable car disaster in more than 20 years, hundreds of marathon runners had raced up a mountain path behind Lake Maggiore. After reaching the summit of Monte Mottarone, they made their way back down in cable cars, departing every 20 minutes for the return to the lakeside resort of Stresa below.

“It’s difficult to believe that just two weeks ago so many people – maybe 800 – ran up the mountain and all came down safely by cable car,” said Rinaldo Piraccini, who was sitting outside L’Idrovolante, a bar and restaurant next to the entrance of the funicular, with his friend Daniele Sacchi on Monday afternoon.

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Italian investigators assess wrecked cable car that crashed to ground – video

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Fourteen people, including a child, have died when a cable car linking Italy’s Lake Maggiore with a nearby mountain in the Alps plunged to the ground. The cable car fell from the Stresa-Alpine-Mottarone line near Lake Maggiore in Stresa, smashing into the wooded area which does not have road access as it approached the station nearly a mile above the lake

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Italy in shock as 14 people die in cable car accident

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Casualties reported after cable car with 15 passengers collapsed near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy

Italy was in shock on Sunday after a cable car crashed to the ground in a northern Italian beauty spot, killing 14 people including a nine-year-old child.

The cable car is believed to have been carrying 15 people on the 20-minute ride between the resort town of Stresa and the Mottarone mountain in the Piedmont region when it plummeted into the woods near Lake Maggiore shortly after midday.

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DNA study sets out to establish true origins of Christopher Columbus

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Was the explorer from Italy, Spain, Portugal or elsewhere? Researchers hope to find out once and for all

Spanish researchers have launched a new attempt to finally settle the dispute over the true origins of Christopher Columbus after various theories have claimed the explorer hailed from Portugal or Spain, rather than Italy as most scholars agree.

“There is no doubt on our part [about his Italian origin], but we can provide objective data that can … close a series of existing theories,” said José Antonio Lorente, the lead scientist of the DNA study at the University of Granada.

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Stolen Roman frescoes returned to Pompeii after investigation

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Six fragments returned to archaeological park, some after being illegally trafficked in 1970s

Six fragments of wall frescoes stolen from the ruins of ancient Roman villas have been returned to Pompeii’s archaeological park, after an investigation by Italy’s cultural protection police squad.

Three of the relics, which date back to the first century AD, are believed to have been cut off the walls of two Roman villas in Stabiae, a historical site close to the main Pompeii excavations, in the 1970s before being exported illegally.

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Wild boar corner Italian woman and steal her food shopping – video

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A group of wild boar surrounded a woman who had just come out of a supermarket near Rome and stole her shopping, rekindling a debate about the animal's presence in Italian towns and cities. A video posted on social media shows the boar pursuing the woman in a supermarket car park in the village of Le Rughe before raiding the shopping bag she is forced to drop. Italian farmers have protested in recent years about wild boar wreaking havoc on their land and causing fatal road accidents

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EU states cooperating informally to deny refugees asylum rights – report

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Beatings, thefts and dog attacks are just some of the border police practices migrants say they face when pushed back from Europe’s frontiers

Informal cooperation between states has prevented thousands of women, men and children from seeking protection in Europe this year, according to a report released by nine human rights organisations.

The Protecting Rights at Borders (Prab) initiative has recorded 2,162 cases of “pushbacks” at different borders in Italy, Greece, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Hungary carried out on the basis of bilateral agreements between countries, which resulted in them circumventing their responsibilities and pushing unwanted groups back outside the EU.

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