Category Archives: Italy

Paolo Rossi: Italy’s World Cup hero whose quick feet earned redemption | Nicky Bandini

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The forward’s goals made him a national hero in 1982 after a two-year ban threatened to destroy his playing career

Paolo Rossi scored more than 150 goals in his career but if you wanted to understand the brilliance of a player whose death at the age of 64 sent Italy into mourning on Thursday, it may be enough to watch the one he grabbed in the 1982 World Cup final.

Or, more realistically, perhaps a slow-motion replay. The Italy striker does not appear to have position on his West Germany opponent Karlheinz Förster as Claudio Gentile prepares to send in a cross from the right. Only with repeat viewings does it become clear Rossi has started his run a frame or two sooner, building velocity, anticipating the delivery before it has even been dispatched. He beats Förster, and his own team-mate Antonio Cabrini, to the ball by a fraction, heading in from close range.

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Egypt cheated all Italians, says family of Giulio Regeni

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Struggle of murdered student’s parents has come to symbolise broader fight for justice

When the body of the Italian doctoral student Giulio Regeni was found by the side of a Cairo highway in 2016, his mother later said she only recognised her son’s corpse by “the tip of his nose”, as he had suffered such extensive torture.

Almost five years after Regeni’s body was found, and following years of investigation by the Italian authorities, prosecutors in Rome on Thursday charged four men with Regeni’s kidnapping, including one accused of grievous bodily harm.

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Indictment of Egyptian officials over Giulio Regeni murder brings hope

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Analysis: prosecutions seen as opportunity for national security apparatus to come under scrutiny

Almost five years after the mutilated corpse of Giulio Regeni was found on the outskirts of Cairo in February 2016, Italian prosecutors have charged four members of Egypt’s national security agency over his kidnapping and murder.

For those working to uncover the truth about how Regeni died and why Egyptian security forces had entrapped the student in a web of surveillance, it was a day heavy with emotion.

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Italy charges Egyptian security agency officials over murder of Giulio Regeni

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Cairo killing of doctoral student in 2016 long believed to be work of Egypt’s security forces

Prosecutors in Italy have charged four members of Egypt’s national security agency over the kidnapping and murder of the Italian doctoral student Giulio Regeni in Cairo.

Tariq Saber, Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim, Capt Uhsam Helmi and Maj Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif are accused of kidnapping the young student in 2016, and Sharif is also accused of grievous bodily harm and murder.

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Italy bans travel between towns over Christmas

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Midnight mass to be brought forward so worshippers can get home before 10pm curfew

The Italian government has approved a ban on inter-regional travel during the Christmas period as the country registered the highest daily coronavirus death toll of the pandemic.

Under a new decree signed by the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, on Thursday night, people will be barred from travelling beyond their regions between 20 December and 6 January except for work, health or emergency reasons.

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France will carry out border checks to stop skiers from spreading Covid

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Coronavirus clusters in Alpine resorts played key role in early spread of virus in Europe

France will carry out random border checks over the holiday season targeting French skiers on their way to and from foreign resorts – particularly Switzerland and Spain – where slopes stay open, the prime minister, Jean Castex, has said.

“The goal is to avoid French citizens getting contaminated. That will be done by performing random checks at the borders,” Castex told French television, adding that returning holidaymakers would be ordered to quarantine for seven days.

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UK ski holiday firms in limbo as Covid restrictions and Brexit bite

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British tourists, chalet owners and resort staff wait for winter season decisions across Europe

British holidaymakers, chalet owners and resort staff are in limbo as countries across Europe decide whether or not this winter’s ski season will go ahead.

This week, Britain’s biggest ski operator Crystal Ski Holidays was forced to cancel all its French ski trips in December after President Macron ordered the nation’s resorts to stay shut until the new year.

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Italian state TV’s ‘sexy shopping’ tutorial for women sparks outrage

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Episode of Detto Fatto told women how to push a trolley and reach for items in an alluring way

A tutorial aired on public television that gave women tips on how to “shop in a sexy way” has sparked outrage in Italy.

The guide was transmitted during Detto Fatto, a programme on the state broadcaster’s Rai 2 channel, and featured the ballerina and pole dance teacher Emily Angelillo advising women on how to look sensual in the supermarket.

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Europe at odds over plan to ban Christmas ski holidays amid pandemic

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Germany, Italy and France in favour of resort closures but Austria and Switzerland fear economic damage

Governments are at odds over a Europe-wide plan to bar ski holidays over Christmas and new year, with Germany, Italy and France in favour but Austria and Switzerland reluctant to damage a sector worth billions to their economies.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, on Thursday joined Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in calling for a Europe-wide shutdown of winter sports until 10 January to avert a fresh coronavirus wave.

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Rescuers recover migrants’ wedding rings lost at sea

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Algerian couple were survivors of a shipwreck in October off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy

On 9 November, a migrant rescue boat came across a red backpack floating in the Mediterranean alongside other remains from a shipwreck that took place weeks before. The rucksack, covered with sea snails and reeking of petrol, contained two wedding rings, inscribed with the names Ahmed and Doudou.

“We thought it was proof of yet another love story that ended up at the bottom of the sea,” said Riccardo Gatti, the president of the NGO Open Arms in Italy, who recovered the personal items. “Unfortunately we find many of these. Most of the time suitcases and bags, floating in the sea, are nothing more than symbols of yet another journey that began in Libya and ended in tragedy.”

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Pompeii dig reveals ‘almost perfect’ remains of a master and his slave

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Archaeologists have unearthed two exceptionally well-preserved victims of the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79

The almost perfectly preserved remains of two men have been unearthed in an extraordinary discovery in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii.

The bodies of what are thought to be a wealthy man and his slave, believed to have died as they were fleeing the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79, were found during excavations at a villa in the outskirts of the city, Pompeii archaeological park officials said yesterday.

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Italian children take lessons outside school in protest at Covid closures

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Movement began with 12-year-old Anita Iacovelli in Turin, who says her message is schools are safe

Temperatures have dropped in recent days in the northern Italian city of Turin, but that hasn’t prevented Anita Iacovelli from persevering in her protest against the closure of her school.

Every day since 6 November, when schools across the city and the wider Piedmont region were closed due to escalating coronavirus infections, the 12-year-old, wearing a hat, gloves and face mask, has sat outside Italo Calvino school and continued with her lessons remotely on a tablet computer. Behind her is a handwritten poster that reads “Learning at school is our right”.

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Italian police swoop on mafia racket extorting €50 a coffin from funeral homes

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Dawn raids in Puglia lead to about 40 arrests of suspected members of the ‘fifth mafia’

An emerging mafia that ran a protection racket extorting €50 (£45) a coffin from funeral homes has been raided by hundreds of police in one of the largest ever such busts in the southern Italian region of Puglia.

Dawn raids centred on the city of Foggia led to the arrest of some 40 alleged members of a criminal organisation described by Italian authorities as the country’s “number one public enemy”.

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Rafaella Carrà: the Italian pop star who taught Europe the joy of sex

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A new jukebox musical of Carrà’s songs caps a 60-year career for a cultural icon who revolutionised Italian entertainment – and gave women agency in the bedroom

At the beginning of Explota Explota, a new Spanish-Italian jukebox musical comedy set at the tail end of the Franco dictatorship in 1970s Spain, airport employee Maria is making a delivery at a TV studio when she catches the attention of Chimo, the director of a variety show. When she tells him she’s not a dancer, he replies: “No dancer with blood flowing in their veins can resist this rhythm.”

He plays her Bailo Bailo, a hit by Italian pop star Raffaella Carrà, who, on top of becoming one of the best known personalities in her native Italy, ended up a sensation in the 20th-century Spanish-speaking world. Where Sweden had Abba, Italy had Carrà, who sold millions of records across Europe. Sure enough, Maria can’t resist Bailo Bailo, and Chimo hires her.

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Global report: Germany may extend lockdown as Covid cases in Italy soar

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Record daily infections in Germany; Naples hospitals at risk of being overwhelmed; France reports slowdown in rate of new cases

Germany’s partial lockdown could be extended beyond the end of the month and hospitals in parts of Italy are near breaking point as Covid-19 cases continued to surge in both countries, despite positive signs elsewhere in Europe.

New daily coronavirus cases in Germany hit a record of 23,542 on Friday, the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases reported, prompting government spokesman Stefan Seibert to say measures “were not expected to be relaxed” by next week.

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Violent extremism linked to failure of migrants to integrate, EU says

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Reference to Islam removed from EU governments’ declaration after disagreements

The rise of violent extremism in Europe has been linked to the failure of migrants to integrate, in a hard-debated joint declaration by EU governments on the recent terror attacks.

The statement by EU home affairs ministers was described by Horst Seehofer, Germany’s interior minister, as a “great sign of solidarity” when delivered on Friday but it had been heavily watered down from a controversial initial draft.

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More than 110 migrants die in Mediterranean in three days

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Bodies of 74 people wash up on beach in western Libya as baby boy dies on rescue boat

Four shipwrecks in the space of three days have claimed the lives of more than 110 people in the Mediterranean, including at least 70 people whose bodies have washed up on the beach of al-Khums, in western Libya.

According to the UN migration agency (IOM), that boat was reported to be carrying more than 120 people, including women and children. Forty-seven survivors had been brought to shore by the coastguard and fishermen, while the bodies of at least 74 people were floating near the water’s edge on Thursday.

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End of Trump era deals heavy blow to rightwing populist leaders worldwide

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As Biden’s victory sinks in across Brazil, Hungary and elsewhere, dreams of a rightwing global crusade appear to be fading

As the Donald Trump era draws to a close, many world leaders are breathing a sigh of relief. But Trump’s ideological kindred spirits – rightwing populists in office in Brazil, Hungary, Slovenia and elsewhere – are instead taking a sharp breath.

The end of the Trump presidency may not mean the beginning of their demise, but it certainly strips them of a powerful motivational factor, and also alters the global political atmosphere, which in recent years had seemed to be slowly tilting in their favour, at least until the onset of coronavirus. The momentous US election result is further evidence that the much-talked-about “populist wave” of recent years may be subsiding.

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Global report: new Covid lockdown in Hungary as Belgium passes second peak

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Portugal imposes state of emergency; global cases pass 50m; infections in Germany ‘levelling off’

Hungary and Portugal have become the latest countries in Europe to impose tough new restrictions to stem the second wave of the coronavirus, as the first signs of light at the end of the tunnel emerged in France, Germany and Belgium.

As the US pharmaceuticals company Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, said their experimental Covid-19 vaccine appeared safe and more than 90% effective, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, announced a partial lockdown.

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