Category Archives: Italy

Brutal deaths of exploited migrants shine a spotlight on Italy’s farms

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Covid-19 exposed the country’s reliance on ‘invisible workers’ enduring wretched conditions – and a new visa scheme has not addressed the problem

Earlier this summer, as millions of Italians were locked down inside their homes, fruit and vegetables were left to rot in the fields despite the cost to the country’s economy.

Italy’s informal refugee and migrant workforce, who had previously worked long hours in wretched conditions for paltry wages to bring produce off the fields, were absent from the farms.

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Coronavirus brings tension and prejudice to Italy’s beaches

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Tempers fray over social distancing and visitors from Lombardy tell of discrimination

Tensions are breaking out on beaches and tourists from Lombardy have reported instances of discrimination as Italy’s first holiday season since the coronavirus outbreak gets under way.

Residents of Codogno, in Lodi province, the first town in the country’s badly affected Lombardy region to be quarantined, have claimed attempts to book holidays elsewhere in Italy were rebuffed after they revealed they would be travelling from a former “red zone”.

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Venice’s much-delayed flood defence system fully tested for first time

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Designed in 1984 and expected to be in service a decade ago, the project is still incomplete

Italy has successfully conducted the first full test of Venice’s flood defence system, a much-delayed project designed in 1984 but still incomplete a decade after it was due to come into service.

Amid much fanfare, the Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, activated the 78 mobile barriers of the Mose dam on Friday. “We’re here for a test, not a parade,” Conte, who was greeted in Venice by activists who have long protested against the project, told reporters. “The government wants to check the progress of the work.”

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Médecins Sans Frontières is ‘institutionally racist’, say 1,000 insiders

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Medical charity accused of shoring up colonialism and white supremacy in its work

The medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières is institutionally racist and reinforces colonialism and white supremacy in its humanitarian work, according to an internal statement signed by 1,000 current and former members of staff.

The statement accused MSF of failing to acknowledge the extent of racism perpetuated by its policies, hiring practices, workplace culture and “dehumanising” programmes, run by a “privileged white minority” workforce.

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Sex traffickers left thousands of women to starve during Italy lockdown

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Revealed: Gangs abandoned trafficked Nigerian women without access to food or funds amid coronavirus pandemic

Thousands of Nigerian women forced into prostitution were left to starve by sex traffickers during the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy, the Guardian can reveal.

According to the UN’s International Office for Migration (IOM), more than 80% of the tens of thousands of Nigerian women who arrived in Italy from Libya in recent years were victims of highly organised sex trafficking gangs. The women are forced into prostitution to pay off debts of up to €40,000 (£36,000) and controlled through violence and fear of “juju” black magic rituals they are made to undergo before their journey to Europe.

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Ennio Morricone, Oscar-winning Italian film composer, dies aged 91

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Morricone’s work helped define the western but he went on to work across all film genres

Ennio Morricone, the Italian composer whose symphonic scores backed everything from spaghetti westerns to romance, horror and sci-fi films, has died aged 91.

Morricone had broken his femur days ago and died during the night in a clinic in Rome. His death was confirmed by his lawyer, Giorgio Assumma. In a statement, Assumma said that the composer “died at dawn on 6 July in Rome with the comfort of faith. He preserved until the final moment full lucidity and great dignity.

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Algae turns Italian Alps pink, prompting concerns over melting

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Pink snow observed on parts of the Presena glacier believed to be caused by plant that makes the ice darker, causing it to melt faster

Scientists in Italy are investigating the mysterious appearance of pink glacial ice in the Alps, caused by algae that accelerate the effects of climate change.

There is debate about where the algae come from, but Biagio Di Mauro of Italy’s National Research Council said the pink snow observed on parts of the Presena glacier is likely caused by the same plant found in Greenland.

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Italy breaks up child abuse ring ‘that shared images of babies’

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Police say material, including photos of acts with newborns, shared on a well-known instant messaging platform

Italian police say they have broken up a child abuse ring used to share illicit material, including photos of newborns, via an instant messaging platform.

Police said on Saturday that the crackdown involved dozens of search warrants and led to the arrest of three people for allegedly possessing what was described in a statement as “huge quantities of pornographic material depicting minors”. About 50 people are under investigation.

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Italian police seize £900m of ‘Isis drug’ fenethylline en route from Syria – video

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Police in Italy have seized more than 84m fenethylline tablets, weighing 14 tonnes, at the port of Salerno, in what they say is the biggest seizure of amphetamines in the world. Fenethylline is known by some as the 'Isis drug' after investigations found it was used by Islamic State fighters during battles and sold by the group for profit

This video does not include sound

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Record Covid-19 cases in California as some countries prepare for ‘universal’ testing

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LA closes beaches and businesses as hospitals fill up while Bavaria announces ‘test offensive’

California has reported record new infections following its reopening as Los Angeles county ordered all beaches closed for 4 July and the re-shuttering of some businesses.

Amid warnings hospitals were filling up and others could run out of intensive care beds in the coming weeks, the state broke its record on Monday for the highest number of new coronavirus cases reported in a single day, with more than 8,000 – the third time in eight days the state has broken a record for new cases.

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British state ‘covered up plot to assassinate King Edward VIII’

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Historian says papers challenge official version that George McMahon was a fantasist

It has all the hallmarks of a 21st-century political thriller, including a plot to assassinate a controversial monarch, an MI5 double agent, and claims of a high-level cover-up.

In 1936, an MI5 informant called George McMahon tried to assassinate King Edward VIII as he rode his horse near Buckingham Palace. Just as he was taking aim with a revolver, a woman in the crowd grabbed his arm and a policeman punched him, causing the weapon to fly into the road and strike the monarch’s mount.

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Clashes near Naples as cluster of Covid-19 cases puts five buildings in lockdown – video

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Residents have clashed in a coastal town near Naples after five large blocks of flats were put under a strict 15-day lockdown. More than 40 people living there had tested positive for Covid-19. The Italian army was deployed to the area in the small town of Mondragone after some people broke the lockdown to go to work. Residents also protested against the lack of information, and racism towards a Roma community involved in seasonal fruit-picking 

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Italian team covers glacier with giant white sheets to slow melting

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Every summer, the Presena glacier in northern Italy is protected from the sun with huge reflective tarps

A vast tarpaulin unravels, gathering speed as it bounces down the glacier over glinting snow. Summer is here and the alpine ice is being protected from global warming.

In northern Italy, the Presena glacier has lost more than one third of its volume since 1993.

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‘I just need a connection’: the refugees teaching languages across borders

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A unique platform lets teachers from Venezuela to Syria to Burundi earn a living teaching their language online

Louisa Waugh and Ghaith Alhallak have met for language lessons in seven countries. “We counted it up the other day,” says Waugh, recalling the list of places from which she has video-called Alhallak: Britain, Mali, Senegal and Greece. Alhallak has answered from Lebanon, France and Italy, where he is now studying for a master’s degree in political science at the University of Padua.

“You just need a connection,” he says.

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Family of Giulio Regeni ‘betrayed’ by Italian PM over arms sale to Egypt

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Murdered student’s mother and rights groups condemn $1.2bn deal approved by Giuseppe Conte

Rights groups and the family of the murdered Italian student Giulio Regeni have heavily criticised an arms deal between Italy and Egypt worth an estimated $1.2bn (£960m).

Regeni’s mutilated body was found by the side of a major road on the outskirts of Cairo in early 2016. His murder remains unsolved, but there are widespread suspicions that he was abducted, tortured and killed by Egyptian security forces.

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Germany and France reopen borders as Europe emerges from lockdown

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Spain to reopen borders on 21 June but other countries are adopting more targeted approach

France and Germany became the latest European countries to reopen their borders as the continent emerges from its three-month Covid-19 lockdown.

Speaking on Sunday evening, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said the country’s Schengen borders would be open from Monday and its non-EU borders from 1 July.

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Milan mayor refuses to remove defaced statue of Italian journalist

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BLM protesters targeted monument to Indro Montanelli, who admitted buying 12-year-old Eritrean girl

Milan’s mayor has rejected calls to remove a statue from a public park of an Italian journalist who acknowledged having bought a 12-year-old Eritrean girl to be his wife during Italy’s colonial occupation in the 1930s.

Giuseppe Sala said in a Facebook video that he was perplexed by “the lightness” with which Indro Montanelli had confessed to buying the child from her father, in a widely circulated video of a 1969 talkshow appearance, but said “lives should be judged in their totality” and he believed the statue should stay.

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At least 35 people dead as migrant boat sinks off Tunisia

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Boat carrying 53 people trying to reach Italy sank last week, reports say

At least 35 people have died after a boat carrying dozens of people sank last week off the coast of Tunisia, according to local officials.

According to an initial reconstruction of events, the boat, carrying 53 people mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, had left the Tunisian coast from the city of Sfax, aiming to reach Italy. The shipwreck occurred between 4 and 5 June off the Kerkennah Islands, said investigators, and authorities were alerted on 9 June by fishermen who first spotted the floating bodies.

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‘The older I get, the less I fear’: meet the Italian Larry David

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A decade after his two much-loved comedies about the vicissitudes of ageing, director Gianni Di Gregorio explains why, against his own expectations, he had to make another

In 2000, after a decade of caring for his ailing mother in her large flat in Rome, Gianni Di Gregorio wrote a comedy about a bloke called Gianni who looks after his 93-year-old mother in a large flat in Rome. No one was interested in the story, in which the unemployed bachelor ends up running around after a cohort of old ladies whose spirit and vigour remain undimmed despite various ailments. Everyone thought he was crazy: who would be interested in a funny film about four old women and a middle-aged bloke?

Related: Gianni Di Gregorio: The incidental director

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