Investigation is fresh sign of breakdown in relations between Brussels and Anglo-Swedish vaccine supplier
An AstraZeneca plant has come under investigation by the Italian police at the request of Brussels in a sign of the breakdown in relations between the Anglo-Swedish vaccine supplier and the EU.
Officers were sent into the facility in the town Anagni, east of Rome, on Saturday evening after the European commission contacted the Italian government with concerns.
Continue reading...About 40,000 logistical workers hold national walkout over working conditions
Italian consumers were urged by unions to refrain from buying from Amazon for the day on Monday as about 40,000 of the online shopping giant’s logistical workers held a national strike over working conditions.
It is the first walkout in Italy to affect Amazon’s entire supply chain and involves warehouse and logistical hub workers as well as drivers provided by third-party services.
Continue reading...In the city of Catania, at the foot of the volcano, scientists are trying to explain its recent unusual behaviour
When his phone rang at 3.22am last Wednesday, 50-year-old Giuseppe Salerno, the head of volcanologists at Catania’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), was already up after a thundering rumble had awoken many of the city’s inhabitants. The call came from the headquarters of the INGV where, a few seconds before that disturbance, seismic waves on one of the 40 monitors in the operations room seemed to jump off the screen. For the 14th time in less than a month, Mount Etna had sent another reminder that it is one of the world’s most active volcanoes.
Etna, 3,300 (10,800ft) metres above sea level, has been in explosive form in recent weeks, spewing incandescent magma and a copious shower of ash that has reached as far as Catania. Since 16 February, with fastidious precision, every 48 hours the volcano has put on a firework display with lava fountains reaching as high as 2,000 metres.
Continue reading...Greece, Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Malta say burden has to be shared more justly with other EU partners
Europe’s southern states have stepped up calls for solidarity in managing mass migration to the bloc saying the burden has to be shared more justly with other EU partners.
Highlighting the deep divisions over the issue, politicians from countries along Europe’s Mediterranean rim said a proposed migration pact fell far short of resolving the crisis equitably.
Continue reading...EMA says benefits outweigh risks but it is continuing to study possible link with very rare blood clotting disorder
Italy, France and several other countries will resume administering AstraZeneca jabs from Friday after Europe’s medicines regulator said the vaccine was “safe and effective” and its benefits outweighed its risks.
Germany and Portugal will resume on Monday, Spain and the Netherlands next week, while Sweden’s public health agency said it would take “a few days” to decide.
Continue reading...Health authority in Lombardy withdraws questionnaire for patients after sexism complaints
A health authority in Italy’s Lombardy region has come under fire after distributing a questionnaire to recovering Covid-19 patients that included questions about cooking and housekeeping aimed solely at women.
The questionnaire, issued by the ASST Rhodense health authority in Milan and intended to capture the lingering symptoms of coronavirus, was being given to patients invited back to hospitals for check-ups.
Continue reading...Decision to pause use of AstraZeneca jab could lead to more deaths as new variant cases increase rapidly
Large parts of Europe are at the start of a third coronavirus wave, experts have said, with warnings that the decision to pause the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine over health concerns is likely lead to a rise in cases and a high number of deaths as more contagious new variants account for the majority of cases.
Christian Drosten, a leading virologist at Berlin’s Charité hospital said Germany’s epidemiological situation was “not good right now”, and was compounded both by the exponential rise in the spread of the B117 mutation which first originated in Britain that now makes up about three-quarters of new cases in Germany, and the decision to temporarily stop using Oxford/AstraZeneca. “We need this vaccine,” he insisted.
Continue reading...Decision has led to vaccination centres closing doors and appointments being cancelled
There has been chaos and confusion in Germany and Italy after their decisions to suspend use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine, with vaccination centres closing their doors and appointments being abruptly cancelled.
The countries are two of the biggest on a growing list of European nations that have in recent days ordered a pause in the distribution of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Continue reading...Letta to lead second largest party in Draghi government as Giuseppe Conte in talks to lead Five Star Movement
A former Italian prime minister, Enrico Letta, has been elected leader of the centre-left Democratic party (PD), the second largest party in Mario Draghi’s government, as another former prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, was in talks to become leader of the Five Star Movement (M5S), its largest.
Letta takes over from Nicola Zingaretti, who abruptly quit the party’s leadership earlier this month over what he called an “unending stream” of criticism, and was elected on Sunday with 860 votes in favour and two against.
Continue reading...New variants blamed as Italy, France, Germany and Poland see infection rates surge
A third wave of the Covid pandemic is now advancing swiftly across much of Europe. As a result, many nations – bogged down by sluggish vaccination campaigns – are witnessing sharp rises in infection rates and numbers of cases.
The infection rate in the EU is now at its highest level since the beginning of February, with the spread of new variants of the Covid-19 virus being blamed for much of the recent increase.
Continue reading...Schools, restaurants and shops expected to shut with hospitals under strain from new wave
Italy’s government is expected to announce the closure of schools, restaurants and shops across most of the country as a new wave of coronavirus infections puts hospitals under strain.
The prime minister, Mario Draghi, will hold a mid-morning cabinet meeting on Friday to decide new restrictions for the eurozone’s third-largest economy, which on Thursday recorded almost 26,000 new Covid-19 cases and 373 deaths.
Continue reading...Several countries suspend inoculations but regulator says vaccine benefits outweigh its risks
The European Medicines Agency has said the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine can continue to be used during an investigation into cases of blood clots that have prompted several European countries to pause their use of the shot.
The EMA said 30 cases of “thromboembolic events” or blood clots had been reported among 5 million people who had received the jab in Europe so far. “The vaccine’s benefits continue to outweigh its risks,” the regulator said in a statement.
Continue reading...Politicians and Olympics chief back Lara Lugli, who was fired and is now being sued after requesting back pay
An Italian volleyball player who is being sued by her club for allegedly breaking her contract after becoming pregnant said she was being treated as if she had done something “illicit and malicious”.
In a case that has provoked outrage among politicians and sports chiefs, Volley Maniago Pordenone claimed Lara Lugli, 41, failed to tell them she was planning to have a baby when she signed a contract to play for the club during the 2018-19 volleyball season.
Continue reading...Jab has already been ordered or used in some EU countries, and Italy could start producing vaccine in July
Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine appears to be gaining acceptance in the European Union, as the head of Germany’s regulatory authority publicly praised the Covid-19 jab and Italy could become the first European country to produce the vaccine from the summer.
Thomas Mertens, the head of Germany’s standing commission on vaccination, described Sputnik V in an interview on Wednesday as “a good vaccine that will presumably also be approved in the EU at some point”.
Continue reading...Measures first imposed in Italy a year ago seemed shocking at first but soon became the new normal across the continent
They seemed, this time last year, almost unimaginable: the most severe restrictions imposed on a western nation since the second world war. “The whole of Italy is closed now,” was the shocked headline in Corriere della Sera the next day.
On 9 March 2020, a population of more than 60 million was ordered to stay at home, permitted to venture out only under specific circumstances – solitary exercise close to home, grocery shopping, going to the doctor – on pain of a €400-€3,000 fine.
Continue reading...‘Limited’ cardiology research also shows mask wearing likely to reduce spread of coronavirus in indoor gyms
Face masks can be worn safely during intense exercise, and could reduce the risk of Covid-19 spreading at indoor gyms, preliminary findings suggests.
Scientists from the Monzino Cardiology Centre (CCM) in Milan and the University of Milan tested the breathing rate, heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen levels of six women and men on exercise bikes, with and without a mask.
Continue reading...From fairytale beginning to unimaginable tragedy, Valentino and Carly Giannoni have been through a lot in two decades together
Names: Valentino and Carly Giannoni
Years together: 20
Occupations: Self-employed
Carly and Valentino Giannoni’s relationship had a picture book start. In 2000, Carly, a twenty-something Australian, went backpacking around Europe. While she was in Italy, she wanted to visit Cinque Terre, the picturesque fishing villages on the Italian Riveria, overlooking the Mediterranean. She found herself in the pretty hamlet of Vernazza and rented a room from Luciano, a local who would turn out to be a fairy godfather of sorts.
Continue reading...Prosecutor says Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth should also be put in solitary confinement
A Rome prosecutor has called for two American students accused of murdering an Italian police officer to be sentenced to life in prison.
In her indictment, prosecutor Maria Sabina Calabretta told a court on Saturday that the pair, Finnegan Lee Elder, 21, and Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth, 19, should also be put in solitary confinement during the day.
Continue reading...Staff of charities including Save the Children and MSF among dozens facing sentences of up to 20 years over humanitarian work
After an investigation lasting almost four years, Italian prosecutors have charged dozens of rescuers, from charities including Save the Children and Médecins Sans Frontières, who were accused of collaborating with people smugglers after saving thousands of people from drowning in the Mediterranean.
Investigators in Trapani, Sicily, formally closed the inquiry on Monday and charged more than 20 people, including boat captains, heads of mission and legal representatives, with crimes carrying sentences of up to 20 years.
Continue reading...Gianfranco Rosi’s documentary depicts a Middle East emerging from trauma, but it is self-conscious at times
Documentary film-maker Gianfranco Rosi has created a very characteristic cine-poem of sadness, about the Middle East as it emerges from Isis terror, but remaining scarred by the intervention of western powers who had promised so much. It’s an intensely considered curation of scenes: glimpses, perhaps, into a collective mind or soul. Rosi has assembled this from years of filming in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. It’s similar in its observational procedures to films such as Sacro GRA, his 2013 study of those who live on the periphery of Rome, near the “GRA” ring road, and also his masterly Fire at Sea from 2016, about the lives of desperate migrants who arrive in Lampedusa, Sicily, and the locals who are coming to terms with them.
The title means “night” or “of the night”, and many scenes seem to be happening at nightfall (or possibly at daybreak), particularly the opening, extended sequence of soldiers drilling, jogging around in a circle. There are many striking moments and beautifully realised images and vignettes here, a rhetorical structure that is perhaps inspired by the play that, in one scene, psychiatric patients are shown rehearsing about the lives of people in Iraq. But I worried a little that Rosi’s techniques are becoming a self-conscious mannerism, and furthermore that the film is a little too diffuse, taking in four different places and effectively homogenising them.