Category Archives: Italy

Italian police officers jailed for 12 years over 2009 custody death

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Carabinieri Alessio di Bernardo and Raffaele d’Alessandro found guilty of involuntary manslaughter of Stefano Cucchi

Two Italian police officers have been sentenced to 12 years in jail over the fatal beating of a 31-year-old man in custody in 2009, in a case that has gripped the country.

Alessio di Bernardo and Raffaele d’Alessandro, members of the carabinieri, the Italian military police, were both found guilty of the involuntary manslaughter of Stefano Cucchi, who was arrested in a Rome park on 15 October 2009 after being found in possession of about 20g of hashish and three packets of cocaine.

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‘An apocalypse happened’: Venice counts cost of devastating floods

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Businesses and residents say they feel helpless as they brace for next high tides

As tourists posed for selfies at St Mark’s Square on Wednesday evening, shop owners mopped the floors of their premises and cleared debris while assessing the cost of the damage caused by record high tides.

“An apocalypse happened,” said Antonella Rossi, who owns a handmade jewellery shop under the portico that surrounds the square.

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How the megacities of Europe stole a continent’s wealth

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While hi-tech cosmopolitan centres like Milan flourish financially and culturally, former industrial towns continue to decline

Night-time haunts go in and out of fashion, but the Bar Basso in Milan, which opened in 1967, remains one of the city’s most venerable social institutions. Embodying a very Milanese combination of stylish prosperity and tasteful design, it is a favourite destination for the area’s creative elite and the discreetly wealthy.

Tucked away in a corner, Pierluigi Dialuce is explaining why, if a political nightmare unfolds in the rest of Italy, the city he has made his home will be able to cope.

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Italy to put sustainability and climate at heart of learning in schools

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Country will become first to make study of global heating and human influence on natural resources compulsory in state schools

Italy is to become the first country in the world to make sustainability and climate crisis compulsory subjects for schoolchildren.

State schools will begin incorporating the UN’s 2030 agenda for sustainable development into as many subjects as possible from September, with one hour a week dedicated to themes including global heating and humans’ influence on the planet.

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Tamba: Senegal’s migration starting point – photo essay

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People of Tamba is a project by the Italian artist Giovanni Hänninen, consisting of 200 portraits taken across the Tambacounda region in Senegal and accompanied by Senegal/Sicily, a series of documentaries created with the film-maker Alberto Amoretti, courtesy of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and Le Korsa

People of Tamba, inspired by German photographer August Sander’s seminal work, People of the 20th Century, was conceived as a catalogue of the society of Tambacounda, the largest city in the most remote and rural region of Senegal, and the point of departure for the majority of Senegalese migration.

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Italy to renew anti-migration deal with Libya

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Foreign minister says deal has reduced number of arrivals and deaths at sea

Italy is to renew its deal with the UN-backed government in Libya under which the Libyan coastguard stops migrant boats at sea and sends their passengers back to the north African country, where aid agencies say they face torture and abuse.

The foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, told the lower house of parliament that it would be “unwise for Italy to break off its agreement with Libya on handling asylum seekers and combating human trafficking”.

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Libya orders arrest of alleged trafficker who attended Italy migration talks

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Arrest warrant issued for Abd al-Rahman Milad, suspected of drowning dozens of people

The UN-backed government in Libya has ordered the arrest of a man described as one of the world’s most notorious human traffickers who was this month revealed to have attended meetings between Italian officials and a Libyan delegation to discuss controls on migration flows from north Africa.

In a note released on Monday by the interior ministry in Tripoli, authorities said Abd al-Rahman Milad, described by the UN security council as a ruthless human trafficker suspected of drowning dozens of people, was “a wanted man and an arrest warrant was issued against him”.

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Umbria election exit poll points to win for Salvini and Italy’s right

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Donatella Tesei, backed by Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi, appears set to win in centre-left Italian stronghold

Matteo Salvini’s political fortunes have been given a boost after an exit poll by Italy’s state broadcaster pointed to a win for a rightwing coalition backed by his League party in a regional election in Umbria.

Donatella Tesei, backed by the League, the far-right Brothers of Italy and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, will be elected governor with 56.5% to 60.5% of the vote, according to an exit poll for state broadcaster RAI.

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Pope apologises for theft of Amazon statue from Rome church

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Incident at end of Francis’s Amazon synod blamed on conservatives and ‘racists’

Pope Francis has apologised to Amazonian bishops and tribal leaders after thieves stole indigenous statues from a church close to the Vatican and tossed them into the River Tiber in a show of conservative opposition to the first Latin American pope.

Speaking as “the bishop of Rome”, Francis dismissed allegations that the wooden statues of naked pregnant women were pagan symbols and said they had been placed in the church “without any intention of idolatry”.

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Rome’s mayor under pressure to resign as general strike looms

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Many blame M5S’s Virginia Raggi for a drastic decline in the city’s services

The mayor of Rome is under pressure to resign as trade unions join forces for the Italian capital’s first major general strike on Friday over the dire state of services in the city.

Virginia Raggi, a politician with the Five Star Movement (M5S), the party ruling nationally alongside the centre-left Democratic party, won mayoral elections in June 2016 on a promise to make the city “liveable again”.

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Thousands take to streets in Rome for far-right rally

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Matteo Salvini’s League joins rightwing parties in ‘Italian pride’ protest

Thousands of Italians descended on Rome for a far-right rally labelled “Italy pride”, evoking connotations to the “march on Rome” held on 27 October 1922 that marked the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s rise to power.

The rally on Saturday had been in the making since Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League, was spectacularly ousted from government in late August.

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Biggest ever Leonardo da Vinci exhibition to open in Paris

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Louvre will host works of Italian artist after long-running political spats and legal battles

The most important blockbuster art show in Paris for half a century took 10 years to prepare and was nearly thwarted by the worst diplomatic standoff between Italy and France since the second world war. With days to go before the opening, there is still no sign of whether one of the major works will appear.

The Louvre’s vast Leonardo da Vinci exhibition to mark 500 years since the death of the Italian Renaissance master will finally open next week as the world’s most-visited museum prepares to handle a huge influx of visitors.

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Mayor of Sardinian village blames Google Maps for lost tourists

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Rescuers in Baunei called out 144 times in past year to save visitors from impassable roads

The mayor of a town in Sardinia is to attempt to end the use of Google Maps by tourists in his local area because visitors keep getting lost on mountain roads.

Salvatore Corrias, the mayor of Baunei, a mountain village in Ogliastra province, advised people to use traditional paper maps as “so many” visitors have had to be rescued after being led astray.

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Italian judges find ‘serious neglect’ in mistaken identity case

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Prosecutors criticised over jailing of Eritrean man wrongly identified as human trafficker

Italian investigators who pursued a case against an Eritrean man accused of being one of the world’s most-wanted human traffickers in a case of mistaken identity were guilty of “serious neglect”, judges in Sicily have said.

In a 400-page judicial report, the court of assizes traced the three-year ordeal of Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe, a 30-year-old refugee released from an Italian jail in July.

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Italian leaders decry human rights ruling on mafia prison regimes

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Prosecutors denounce European court ruling calling on Italy to revise justice laws

Italian ministers, prosecutors and police chiefs have denounced a European court ruling that tough prison regimes for mafia bosses violate their human rights, warning the judgment will hinder the fight against organised crime across the continent.

On Tuesday, the Strasbourg-based European court of human rights (ECHR) ruled Italy should reform its justice laws that state mafia inmates cannot have time off life sentences unless they cooperate with investigations.

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13 women dead and eight children missing after boat capsizes off Italy

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Vessel carrying people from sub-Saharan Africa hit rough seas near island of Lampedusa

At least 13 women have died and eight children are missing after a boat capsized in rough seas off the Italian island of Lampedusa on Sunday night as a patrol vessel attempted to save it.

Italian authorities have rescued 22 survivors from the boat, which was carrying about 50 people. Only four of the 13 recovered bodies have been identified by surviving family members, including that of a 12-year-old girl.

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Human trafficker was at meeting in Italy to discuss Libya migration

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Abd al-Rahman Milad attended 2017 talks between intelligence officials and Libyan coastguard

One of the world’s most notorious human traffickers attended a meeting in Sicily with Italian intelligence officials to discuss controls on migrant flows from Libya.

Abd al-Rahman Milad, known as Bija, took part in a meeting with Italian officials and a delegation from the Libyan coastguard at Cara di Mineo, in Catania, one of the biggest migrant reception centres in Europe, on 11 May 2017.

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Ancient scrolls charred by Vesuvius could be read once again

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US scientists say it may be possible to decipher words using new x-ray technique

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79 it destroyed the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, their inhabitants and their prized possessions – among them a fine library of scrolls that were carbonised by the searing heat of ash and gas.

But scientists say there may still be hope that the fragile documents can once more be read thanks to an innovative approach involving high-energy x-rays and artificial intelligence.

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Faces for fallen trees: the man behind Rome’s tree stump sculptures

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Cities on Instagram: Andrea Gandini is breathing new life into the ancient city’s many decapitated tree trunks

You may not know his face or name, but if you’ve visited Rome recently, chances are you may have seen his work.

Sculptor Andrea Gandini, 22, is transforming tree stumps around the city by carving faces into them. In the last four years he has made 65 such sculptures in the capital as part of his Troncomorto (“dead trunk”) project, documenting his creations on his Instagram account.

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Sicily’s ‘king of wind’ guilty of bankrolling top mafia fugitive

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Windfarm entrepreneur given nine years for funding mafioso Matteo Messina Denaro

A Sicilian windfarm businessman, known as the “king of wind”, has been sentenced to nine years in prison for bankrolling the No 1 mafia fugitive, Matteo Messina Denaro.

Vito Nicastri, a former electrician from Alcamo in the province of Trapani, was one of the key funders of Denaro’s long spell on the run, a judge in Palermo ruled on Tuesday.

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