Category Archives: Italy

Salvini suffers setback in leftwing stronghold during Italy regional elections

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League’s Matteo Salvini has failed to wrest crucial Emilia-Romagna from centre-left, projections suggest

Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy’s far-right League party, has failed to overturn decades of leftwing rule in the northern region of Emilia-Romagna in an election that brought relief to the embattled centre-left.

With 98% of the ballots counted, the incumbent Democratic party (PD) governor Stefano Bonaccini had won 51.4% of the vote compared to 43.7% for Lucia Borgonzoni, the candidate backed by the League and its allies, interior ministry data showed.

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Salvini vows to ‘evict’ government if far right wins Italy regional polls

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League leader hopes to secure political comeback via votes in Emilia-Romagna and Calabria

The far-right Italian politician Matteo Salvini has threatened to “evict” the national government if his coalition triumphs in two regional elections.

Italian newspapers reported a “boom” in turnout – up 23% in the wealthy northern region of Emilia-Romagna and 10% in Calabria, in the south – by midday, as voters headed to the polls in elections that could precipitate a return to national power for Salvini’s League.

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Mount Vesuvius eruption ‘turned victim’s brain to glass’

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Scientists discover vitrified remains caused by immense 520C heat of disaster in AD79

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79, the damage wreaked in nearby towns was catastrophic. Now it appears the heat was so immense it turned one victim’s brain to glass – thought to be the first time this has been seen.

Experts say they have discovered that splatters of a shiny, solid black material found inside the skull of a victim at Herculaneum appear to be the remains of human brain tissue transformed by heat.

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Painting found inside Italian gallery wall confirmed as a Gustav Klimt

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Gardeners discovered Portrait of a Lady while clearing ivy at gallery in Piacenza

A painting found hidden in an Italian gallery in December is an authentic Gustav Klimt piece stolen almost 23 years ago, experts have confirmed.

The Portrait of a Lady was one of the world’s most sought-after stolen artworks before it was found concealed in a wall of the Ricci Oddi modern art gallery, the same gallery from where it went missing in the northern city of Piacenza.

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Scuba divers’ bodies found in Sicily ‘linked to drug trafficking’

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Hundreds of packets of hashish, worth €1m, also found on three Sicilian beaches

The recent discovery of the decomposed bodies of three scuba divers on the beaches of Sicily could be tied to drug trafficking, according to prosecutors.

The body of a third diver was found on Wednesday in Contrada Ginestra, in Termini Imerese, on the northern coast of Sicily. The first two washed ashore in the area of Cefalù and Castel di Tusa, on the northern coast, on 1 and 8 January. None of the bodies have been identified and local authorities have not received any reports of missing persons.

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Mobile phones cause tumours, Italian court rules, in defiance of evidence

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Judges find prolonged use can cause tumours, going against mass of scientific opinion

An Italian court has ruled that prolonged use of mobile phones can cause head tumours despite scientists overwhelmingly agreeing there is no evidence to back this up.

The Turin court of appeal on Tuesday upheld a ruling issued by a lower court in 2017 in relation to a man with neurinoma of the acoustic nerve, a benign but disabling tumour. The decision was based on studies provided by two court-appointed doctors that showed an increased risk of head tumours among those who talked on their phones for 30 minutes a day over a 10-year period.

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Prada works commuter chic at Milan men’s fashion week

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A surreal take on tailoring echoed masculine workwear themes seen elsewhere

On the third day of Milan men’s fashion week, the concept of the working man emerged as a theme in the newest collection from Prada.

The brand, which skipped Milan last season to show instead in Shanghai, showcased a collection which focused on formality and tailoring but with Miuccia Prada’s surreal touches. On a set that was designed to replicate a futuristic town square (a white statue of a man on a horse stood in the centre of the box-like runway), models replicated Prada-ised commuters on their way to work.

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‘They don’t help’: refugees condemn UN over failures that drove them to sea

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Pregnant women and children among dozens forced into perilous Mediterranean crossing to escape overcrowded centre in Libya

Dozens of people who were put under pressure to leave a failing EU-funded UN refugee agency centre in Tripoli have used smugglers to cross the sea to Italy in the last month, according to refugees and aid workers.

One Somali man who spoke to the Guardian said he was among a group of more than 50 who left Libya in November and December and were rescued by ships including the Ocean Viking, the Médecins Sans Frontières and SOS Méditerranée ship, in the Mediterranean. He is now in Italy.

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Confusion clouds international efforts to reach Libya ceasefire

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Erdoğan and Putin make call for ceasefire, as Italian PM hosts Libyan factions in Rome

An unprecedented drive involving Europe, Russia and Turkey has been launched to broker a Libyan ceasefire, and end the risk of the country collapsing into total all-out war.

However, it is unclear to which extent the joint Russian-Turkish call for a ceasefire by 12 January should be seen as complementary or in competition to an intensified Italian-led European push to end the fighting.

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‘Don’t bite!’: Pope jokes to nun at first audience since hand-slap video

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Pope Francis tells enthusiastic worshipper: ‘I’ll give you a kiss but stay calm’

Pope Francis jokingly told a woman not to bite him as he greeted pilgrims before his weekly general audience.

It was the pontiff’s first walkabout among worshippers after he angrily slapped the hand of a woman in response to her abruptly grabbing his arm on New Year’s Eve.

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Six people dead after being hit by suspected drunk driver in Italy

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Group of 17 German tourists were struck by speeding Audi TT in early hours in Alto Adige

Six people have been killed and 11 injured after a suspected drunk driver hit a crowd of German tourists in the northern Italian region of Alto Adige.

Those who died, all in their early 20s, were among a group of 17 people when they were struck by the speeding Audi TT as they crossed a road at about 1am on Sunday near the mountain village of Lutago in Valle Aurina. Three of the injured are in a serious condition. One woman was transported by helicopter to a hospital in Innsbruck, Austria.

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Ostrich-like birds’ Venice day out earns fines for owners

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Police received dozens of calls about two rheas wandering among tourists

Two ostrich-like birds have provoked the ire of Venetian authorities after they brazenly roamed around the lagoon city’s narrow streets.

The rheas, which are native to South America, arrived in the city by train on Thursday with their Slovenian owners from nearby San Donà del Piave, where a circus is in town.

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Vogue Italia drops photoshoots from January issue in green statement

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Illustrated covers intended to highlight environmental impact of shoots

Vogue Italia will not feature any photoshoots in its January 2020 issue in a bid to make a statement about sustainability. The move is intended to highlight the environmental impact of photoshoots in print magazines.

In his editor’s letter, Emanuele Farneti listed some of the resources it took to fill the September 2019 issue, the biggest of the year, with original photographs: “One hundred and fifty people involved. About 20 flights and a dozen or so train journeys. Forty cars on standby. Sixty international deliveries. Lights switched on for at least ten hours nonstop, partly powered by gasoline-fuelled generators. Food waste from the catering services. Plastic to wrap the garments. Electricity to recharge phones, cameras … ”

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Pope Francis apologises after slapping woman’s hand

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Pontiff admits ‘sometime even I lose patience’, referring to incident with pilgrim at Vatican

Pope Francis has apologised after slapping a woman’s hand as he greeted pilgrims at the Vatican on New Year’s Eve.

‌Francis lost his cool when the woman abruptly grabbed his hand and yanked him towards her just after he reached out to greet a child during a visit to the Vatican’s nativity scene on Tuesday night.

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Romanian man jailed in Italy over human trafficking ring

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Guardian investigation in 2017 revealed Romanian women were being exploited on farms

An Italian court has sentenced a Romanian man to 20 years in prison for human trafficking after a Guardian investigation revealed that thousands of women from Romania were being raped and used as forced labour on farms in Sicily.

In what investigators claim is Italy’s first conviction for labour trafficking of European citizens, Lucian Milea, 41, was convicted last week of running a trafficking ring that recruited dozens of women in Romania who were then forced into exploitation and prostitution on farms in Ragusa, Sicily.

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Reasons to be fearful – the international news review of 2019

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This year world leaders struggled to manage the fallout from the erratic tenant in the White House – as China flexed its imperial muscles. We look back at the events that created the most turbulence

Click here for 2019’s reasons to be cheerful

A year of high anxiety was rendered more alarming by intensifying clashes of interest between world powers. As international cooperation declined, and nationalist agendas gathered strength, China, the US, Russia and Europe, and their respective allies, emulators and proxies, engaged in often dangerous competition.

The Chinese communist regime’s increasingly assertive behaviour at home and abroad, reflecting the authoritarian outlook of its paramount leader-for-life, Xi Jinping, produced head-on collisions with western countries, notably over Hong Kong, trade, technology and the repression of the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang.

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Italian politicians and police among 300 held in mafia bust

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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.

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Serie A anti-racism artwork featuring monkeys condemned as a ‘sick joke’

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• Three paintings of monkeys put on display at league’s HQ
• Anti-discrimination group Fare labels campaign ‘a sick joke’

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”.

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Italy: more than 50,000 evacuated in Brindisi after WW2 bomb found

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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.

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