2,500 police deployed in raids centred on Calabria targeting members of ‘Ndrangheta
Italian military police have arrested more than 300 people including politicians and officials on suspicion of membership of the ‘Ndrangheta, in what is being described as the second biggest mafia bust in the country’s history.
About 2,500 officers participated in raids centred on the Calabrian city of Vibo Valentia on Thursday.
Continue reading...Serie A has received widespread condemnation after artwork for an anti-racism campaign comprised three paintings of monkeys.
The three works were created by Simone Fugazzotto and will be on permanent display at the league’s headquarters in Milan. The league said the images are intended to “spread the values of integration, multiculturalism and brotherhood”.
Continue reading...British bomb believed to have been dropped on southern Italian city in 1941
More than 50,000 people had to evacuate their homes in Brindisi in the south of Italy on Sunday, as experts removed a second world war British bomb.
The British bomb, uncovered by construction workers on 2 November during refurbishment works at a cinema, is believed to have been dropped on the port city in 1941.
Continue reading...Grassroots protests have brought tens of thousands of people on to the streets of Rome
Tens of thousands of people have crammed together in Rome on Saturday as part of the growing “sardines” movement against the leader of the far-right League and Italy’s former deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, and his allies.
Protesters converged in Piazza San Giovanni early in the afternoon in a bid “to further shake up the country’s politics and battle xenophobia”, in what was billed as their biggest rally.
Continue reading...Giorgio Suppiej was badly beaten up when he campaigned for Venice to break away from its mainland borough, Mestre, in 1979. He was 18 at the time and was set upon as he attended a demonstration in support of autonomy by a gang deliberately dispatched by opponents to sabotage the vote.
“They were people sent by the most violent parties of the period,” said Suppiej, a lawyer and president of Venezia Serenissima, a cultural association. “It took me two months to recover.”
Continue reading...Italian MP Flavio Di Muro was greeted with applause when he asked his girlfriend to marry him during a parliamentary debate on post-earthquake reconstruction.
Flavio Di Muro, 33, a member of the far-right League party, made the proposal as MPs prepared to vote on measures to assist central Italian regions struck by earthquakes in 2016.
The Speaker of the chamber was less enthusiastic and reprimanded Di Muro for the interruption
Suspects allegedly wanted to create ‘openly pro-Nazi, xenophobic, antisemitic group’
Police in Italy say they have arrested 19 far-right extremists who wanted to form a new Nazi party.
In raids across the country, police discovered weapons, explosives, Nazi plaques featuring swastikas, Nazi flags and books on Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
Continue reading...Spontaneous rallies opposing Matteo Salvini’s divisive rhetoric have captured imaginations. They offer a model that could be emulated elsewhere
For over a decade, the dominant theme in European politics has been the emergence of movements that seek to dramatise and exploit social divisions through crude and aggressive sloganeering. One of the trendsetters in this regard was the comedian Beppe Grillo, who in 2007 held an anti-establishment rally billed as “Vaffanculo Day” (Fuck-off Day). That mass protest in Bologna launched a populist wave in Italy, eventually leading to the rise of the anti-immigration politician Matteo Salvini, whose hard-right League party – currently out of government – is polling far ahead of its rivals.
Progressives have despaired at the apparent inability of centre-left politicians to find the vocabulary and imagination to challenge the divisive and often violent rhetoric of figures such as Salvini and Marine Le Pen. But help may be at hand, in the form of a burgeoning grassroots movement in Italy that takes the symbol of a fish as its inspiration. Appropriately, it began in Bologna.
Continue reading...Her shocking pictures told the truth about mafia murders – and earned her death threats. Ahead of a powerful film about her extraordinary life, we meet the woman who dared to confront killers. Warning: contains graphic imagery
Letizia Battaglia can still remember the first corpse she photographed: a man lying beneath an olive tree in a field in rural Sicily. It remains a viscerally unsettling image, made all the more so by its telling details: the dead man’s shoeless left foot, the resigned gaze of the policeman guarding the body, the olive leaves hanging low over the spreadeagled torso. The fact that he was a mafioso murdered in a local feud is, insists Battaglia, neither here nor there. “Everyone,” she says quietly, “is equal in death.”
What has stayed with her, over 40 years later, is the smell that hung in the summer air that day and was carried on the breeze. “It was very hot and he had been dead for a few days,” she says, drawing deeply on a cigarette. “Now, as soon as you ask about this photograph, it comes back to me. I can almost feel it, this atmosphere of death.”
Continue reading...Dramatic footage shows the moment a young girl was hauled to safety after a migrant boat capsized in the Mediterranean. The Italian coastguard says it rescued 149 people after the boat ran into trouble a mile off Lampedusa while transporting hundreds of migrants from Libya. At least 20 people are feared dead
Continue reading...Seven people die as weekend of heavy rain brings landslides, floods and collapsed overpass
Seven people have died as violent storms swept through parts of France, Greece and Italy over the weekend, causing flash floods, landslides and the collapse of an overpass.
Greek media described the storms as leaving a trail of “biblical destruction” in some areas of the country while the overpass collapse in northern Italy brought back a chilling reminder of Genoa’s Morandi bridge giving way during a thunderstorm in August 2018, killing 43 people.
Continue reading...Demonstrators chant ‘Venice resist’ amid anger over waves caused by ocean liners and flawed flood-proofing project
Thousands of Venetians have taken to the streets to protest over frequent flooding and the impact of giant cruise ships.
In heavy rain between 2,000 and 3,000 people answered the call of environmental groups and a collective opposed to the ships. Critics say the waves cruise ships create are eroding Venice’s foundations.
Continue reading...The Cacciatori unit searches the rugged landscape of Calabria for fugitives who have dug themselves deep into the earth
On the slopes of the Aspromonte mountains, Pasquale Marando, a man known as the Pablo Escobar of the Calabrian mafia, the feared ’Ndrangheta, built a secret bunker whose entrance was the mouth of a pizza oven.
Less than 10 miles away, Ernesto Fazzalari, who allegedly enjoyed trap shooting with the heads of his decapitated victims, lived in a 10 square-metre hideout in the formidable southern Italian range. When authorities came for him in 2004, Fazzalari, then the second most-wanted mafia boss after Matteo Messina Denaro of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, had already escaped through a secret tunnel under the kitchen sink.
Continue reading...Thousands converge in bid to beat numbers drawn to League leader’s pre-election rallies
An estimated 7,000 people have crammed together in the northern Italian city of Modena as part of a growing “sardines” movement against the politics of the far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, in which opponents attempt to beat the numbers he draws to his rallies.
Protesters converged under the rain at Piazza Grande on Monday night as the former interior minister campaigned in the city before crucial regional elections in Emilia-Romagna, a leftwing stronghold.
Continue reading...No link found between number of Mediterranean crossings and level of NGO rescue ship activity
No valid statistical link exists between the likelihood that migrants will be rescued at sea and the number of attempted Mediterranean crossings, a study has found. The findings challenge the widespread claim in Europe that NGO search and rescue activity has been a pull factor for migrants.
Fear that the NGOs’ missions attract immigrants has been the basis for measures restricting humanitarian ships including requiring them to sign up to codes of conduct or simply blocking them from leaving port.
Continue reading...Italian city suffers worst series of high tides since 1872, with an estimated cost of €1bn
Venice has closed St Mark’s Square as the city suffered a third major flooding in less than a week, while rain lashed the rest of Italy and warnings were issued in Florence and Pisa.
Venice was hit with an “acqua alta”, or high water, of 150cm (5ft) on Sunday, lower than Tuesday’s 187cm – the highest level in half a century – but still dangerous.
Continue reading...Venice authorities have called on people around the world to help restore the stricken lagoon city following a series of devastating floods.
The mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, has opened a bank account for contributions, writing on social media that Venice is “the pride of Italy and everyone’s heritage”. “Thanks to your help, it will shine again,” he added.
Continue reading...Italian TV show to reveal alleged abuse at Vatican’s youth seminary in 1980s and 90s
Three more former altar boys have claimed they were sexually abused by two priests in the Vatican, as the child abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic church zeroed in for a second time on its headquarters.
The allegations of abuse in the Vatican’s youth seminary, to be set out in an Italian TV show on Sunday, date back to the 1980s and 90s when the boys were aged between 10 and 14.
Continue reading...Rightwing parties reject proposals as lagoon city faces worst flooding in 53 years
Veneto’s regional council rejected a plan to combat climate change minutes before its offices on the Grand Canal, in Venice, were flooded, it has emerged as the city continues to battle high water levels.
Venice has been hit by recurrent flooding since Tuesday, with 70% of the lagoon city engulfed on Friday morning as the acqua alta, or high water, level reached 1.54 metres amid heavy downpours.
Continue reading...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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