Category Archives: Benito Mussolini

Aide tried to stop Trump praising Hitler – by telling him Mussolini was ‘great guy’

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Ex-president’s second chief of staff tried to convince him fascist dictator was ‘great guy in comparison’, John Kelly tells Jim Sciutto

Donald Trump’s second White House chief of staff tried to stop him praising Adolf Hitler in part by trying to convince the then president Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist dictator, was “a great guy in comparison”.

“He said, ‘Well, but Hitler did some good things,’” the retired marines general John Kelly told Jim Sciutto of CNN in an interview for a new book.

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Fascist salute not a crime unless a risk to public order, Italy’s top court says

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Ruling by court of cassation allows gesture at rallies but not where it risks ‘revival of fascist party’

Performing the fascist salute is only a crime if it endangers public order or risks leading to a revival of the banned fascist party, Italy’s top court said in a ruling that has been hailed by neofascists.

In making its ruling on Thursday, the court of cassation ordered a second appeals trial for eight neofascist militants who made the salute during a commemorative event in Milan in 2016 marking the anniversary of the killing of a fellow militant in the city in 1975.

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Italian neofascists display banner celebrating Mussolini’s march on Rome

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Picture of dictator along with text exalting in his seizure of power 100 years ago reportedly placed by far-right militants

Neofascist militants have hung a banner from a bridge near the Colosseum in the Italian capital to celebrate Friday’s 100th anniversary of Benito Mussolini’s march on Rome.

The banner, which features a large picture of the fascist dictator wearing military uniform alongside the words “100 years after, the march continues”, appeared on the Ponte degli Annibaldi, a small elevated bridge close to Italy’s most visited cultural monument, on Thursday night.

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Why Italy is on verge of electing its first far-right leader since second world war

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Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy draw on a vein of fascism in a country that – unlike Germany – has never had to confront its past

A hundred years after the rise of Italian fascism was heralded by Mussolini’s 1922 march on Rome, the country is on the verge of electing a party with its roots in neo-fascism.

With just over a week to go until polling day, the smiling face of Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the Brothers of Italy, is emblazoned on thousands of posters from the heel in the south to the Alps in the north.

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Eritreans of Italian descent demand Rome finally grant them citizenship

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Group of more than 300 descendants of people born under Italian rule accuse state of ‘crime of colonial racism’

Hundreds of Eritreans of Italian descent who trace their ancestry to the period of Italy’s colonial rule are demanding Italian citizenship, a right denied to them by Benito Mussolini’s racial laws.

A group of more than 300 grandchildren or great-grandchildren of people born to Italian fathers and Eritrean mothers have written to the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, and other government officials urging them to “finally examine and resolve an issue that has never really been addressed, a crime of colonial racism that marked the life of thousands of innocent women and men, and which continues to discriminate against generations of Italians”.

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Rachele Mussolini wins most votes in Rome city council election

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Far-right Brothers of Italy candidate is granddaughter of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini

The granddaughter of Benito Mussolini won the highest number of votes in elections for Rome’s city council as support for Brothers of Italy, the far-right party to which she belongs, edged up in northern cities held by the left.

Rachele Mussolini secured more than 8,200 votes in the municipal elections on Sunday and Monday, an increase on the 657 received when she entered the council on her first mandate in 2016.

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The lion in the London black cab: the remarkable story of Singh, and the boy who loved him

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Gifted as a cub by a Maharajah to a young British boy, Singh lived at a house in Surrey before outgrowing his home and being driven in a black cab to the zoo. Now his story has been made into a book

“He was,” London Zoo said, “one of the zoo’s politest pets.”

Singh the Lion arrived in a black cab and padded in through the front door, on a lead.

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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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Mussolini’s birthplace cashes in on the surge of far-right tourism

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Thousands of curious visitors – and fascists – descend on the Apennine town

Dressed in black T-shirts, their arms inked with tattoos, Fabrizio and Mameli Gamberini are on their yearly homage trip to Predappio, the birth town and burial place of Benito Mussolini.

“We’re fascists,” Mameli proudly admits as she leaves Predappio Tricolore, a souvenir shop teeming with Mussolini memorabilia, on Friday morning. “We come every year at the end of July to buy a few new keepsakes, visit his tomb and leave some flowers in his honour.”

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