Move comes after Italian deputy PM met leaders of the anti-Macron gilets jaunes
Paris has taken the extraordinary step of recalling its ambassador from Rome, in the worst crisis between the two neighbouring countries since the second world war.
France blamed what it called called baseless verbal attacks from Italy’s political leaders, which it said were “without precedent since world war two”.
Continue reading...UK among countries set to back Guaidó as interim president unless Nicolas Maduro calls election
The UK, France, Germany and other European countries are expected to recognise Juan Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela on Monday if the current president, Nicolás Maduro, has not set a date for fresh elections by then.
EU leaders, including the Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, started expressing their support for Guaidó before the midnight deadline Sunday night.
Continue reading...On Saturday, firefighters used ropes and planks of wood to rescue three teenagers from a muddy river after their car swerved off the road in heavy rain.
Several regions across Italy are on high alert as fierce winds and rain have lashed the country for days
Continue reading...Louvre blockbuster marking 500 years since artist’s death may end up a casualty
He was a Renaissance master – painter, scientist, engineer and inventor – who was hailed as one of the greatest artists who ever lived.
But as Europe stages a year-long frenzy of events to mark 500 years since Leonardo da Vinci’s death, Italy and France are engaged in a diplomatic tussle over him that threatens a blockbuster exhibition at the Louvre in Paris.
Continue reading...Families question how experts did not immediately recognise remains were ancient
Human remains found at property in Rome owned by the Vatican belonged to an ancient Roman man and not to either of two teenage girls missing since the early 1980s, authorities have said.
The discovery of the remains in October raised hopes of a breakthrough in the cases of Mirella Gregori and Emanuela Orlandi, both of whom were 15 when they disappeared within weeks of each other in 1983.
Continue reading...Largest drugs haul in Italy in 25 years comes after sting operation involving Colombia and Spain
Italian police have taken possession of more than two tonnes of cocaine in the largest drugs seizure in the country in 25 years, after a sting operation involving three other nations across two continents.
The drugs, discovered in 60 bags in a cargo container at the Port of Genoa, have a total value of €500m (£436m) and were found with the help of the British, Colombian and Spanish police.
Continue reading...Italian police have seized more than two tonnes of cocaine in the largest drugs seizure in the country in 25 years, during a sting operation involving three other nations across two continents. The drugs, discovered in 60 bags in a cargo container at the port of Genoa, have a total value of €500m (£436m) and were found with the help of the British, Colombian and Spanish police
Continue reading...Authorities believe trafficking ring lured young women to Italy to force them into prostitution
Sicilian authorities have made a series of arrests after a suspected sex trafficking ring was believed to have forced at least 15 Nigerian girls into prostitution in Italy.
Among those arrested were two Nigerian women, Rita Ihama, 38, and Monica Onaigfohe, aged 20, who police believe organised the trafficking of the women from Libya to Italy. An Italian national, Giovanni Buscemi, was also arrested on suspicion of helping facilitate the trafficking and exploitation of the girls.
Continue reading...Darkness falls on the small town of Sambuca di Sicilia, where the council offices on Corso Umberto have been closed for more than three hours. And yet the phones keep ringing, hour after hour.
“They’re calling from Sydney, London, New York,” says the exhausted deputy mayor, Giuseppe Cacioppo. A week after the town announced it was putting up abandoned homes for sale at a euro each, he has fielded requests for information from all over the globe. By Wednesday last week the council had received more than 300 calls and 94,000 emails. Many prospective buyers, not wanting to miss out, grabbed the first available flight to Palermo.
Continue reading...Italian doctoral student’s family seek truth about his torture and murder in early 2016
Three years after the disappearance, torture and murder of Italian doctoral student Giulio Regeni in Cairo, Egypt is stonewalling Italy’s efforts to investigate.
In November, Italian prosecutors officially named five members of Egypt’s security services as subject to investigation in the case of Regeni, who went missing on 25 January 2016 aged 28. But two months on, Egypt has barely acknowledged the development.
Continue reading...Leader of far-right party under investigation after preventing 177 migrants from disembarking in Italy
Italy’s deputy prime minister and interior minister, Matteo Salvini, is one step away from facing trial after a surprise court ruling determined that he be tried for kidnapping.
In August, prosecutors in Agrigento, Sicily, placed Salvini, who is leader of the far-right party the League, under investigation for the alleged kidnapping and detention of 177 migrants whom he prevented from disembarking the Italian coastguard ship Ubaldo Diciotti.
Continue reading...American wants conviction of malicious accusation over Meredith Kercher’s murder overturned
The European court of human rights has ordered Italy to pay Amanda Knox €18,400 for police failures to provide her access to a lawyer and a translator during questioning over the 2007 killing of her British flatmate Meredith Kercher in Perugia.
The ruling opens the way for Knox’s lawyers to challenge her last remaining conviction, for malicious accusation, in the Italian courts.
Continue reading...Italian deputy PM blames migrant crisis on France’s ‘colonisation’ of Africa
France’s foreign ministry has summoned the Italian ambassador in an escalating row over migrant arrivals in Europe that pits the centrist government of Emmanuel Macron against Italy’s far-right-populist coalition.
Teresa Castaldo was summoned over “hostile” remarks made by the Italian deputy prime minister, Luigi Di Maio.
Continue reading...The vessel left Libya two days ago and started sinking after 10 to 11 hours at sea
About 117 migrants who left Libya in a rubber dinghy two days ago are unaccounted for, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has said, after three people were rescued from the sinking vessel in the Mediterranean.
“The three survivors told us they were 120 when they left Garabulli, in Libya, on Thursday night. After 10 to 11 hours at sea (the boat) started sinking and people started drowning,” IOM spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo said.
Continue reading...Matteo Salvini celebrates likely extradition of leftwing militant by Jair Bolsonaro
Cesare Battisti, a former leftwing guerrilla fighter wanted by the Italian authorities over four murders in the late 1970s, has been arrested in Bolivia and has been extradited to Italy.
The prime minister of Italy, Giuseppe Conte, said a government aircraft was on its way to bring Battisti, 63, back to Rome and Brazilian officials later confirmed his extradition. Conte praised the Bolivian and Brazilian authorities for the overnight capture of Battisti, who has been on the run for almost four decades, in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and said he would begin his life sentences as soon as he lands on Italian soil.
Continue reading...Italy’s interior minister strives to forge far-right alliances before European elections in May
Italy’s far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, has said that Italy and Poland could trigger a “European spring” that could break the dominant “Germany-France axis” as he strives to forge far-right alliances before the European parliamentary elections in May.
Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right League, travelled to Poland on Wednesday for strategy meetings with members of the ruling Law and Justice party. The two parties share similar anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and Eurosceptic views.
Continue reading...Lucia Riina, youngest child of Salvatore ‘Totò’ Riina, names establishment after crime family’s home town
The daughter of a notorious Sicilian mafia boss has opened a restaurant near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris called Corleone.
Lucia Riina, a painter and the youngest child of the late “boss of bosses” Salvatore “Totò” Riina, named the establishment after her father’s home town and the crime family in Francis Ford Coppola’s award-winning Godfather trilogy of films.
Continue reading...A tax on daytrippers has hit the headlines, but La Serenissima’s mounting problems also include rising waters, angry locals and a potential black mark from Unesco
Why Italy regrets its Faustian pact with tourist cash
Venice’s Santa Lucia railway station is packed as visitors scuttle across the concourse towards the water-bus stops. Taking a selfie against the backdrop of the Grand Canal, Ciro Esposito and his girlfriend have just arrived and are unimpressed with what may greet them in future if the Venetian authorities get their way: a minimum city entry fee of €2.50 throughout the year, rising to between €5 and €10 during peak periods.
It is the price of a cappuccino, but for them “it’s going too far”. “They are using people like a bank machine,” says Esposito. “We are in Europe and can travel freely across borders, yet we have to pay to enter one of our own cities.”
Continue reading...Until a few years ago, every nation wanted to bring in the most tourists possible. Receiving visitors wasn’t just a means of promoting a country and its culture, but a sure-fire way to fill the coffers. Tourism offered money for old rope, or at least for old ruins.
Blessed with beauty, culture and class, Italy assiduously promoted itself as a dream destination throughout the postwar period. For centuries it had welcomed aristocrats and connoisseurs on the Grand Tour, so thought coping with the less demanding masses would be simple.
Continue reading...