The Pope stole the front page of many newspapers today, both in Italy and abroad, as he performed a deft PR sidestep leaving Academics and students at Rome’s La Sapienza university to celebrate a pyrrhic victory as they open the Academic year tomorrow without him. The Pope had been invited by the university’s governing body […]
Former caretaker Prime Minister Lamberto Dini, who with an open mind has served in administrations headed by both Silvio Berlusconi and Romano Prodi – supposedly ideologically worlds apart – has issued an ultimatum to current Prime Minister Romano Prodi. In an open letter to the premier, published in the Corriere della Sera, Dini outlines seven […]
Over the Christmas period, coincidentally when the newspapers were not published’grazia’, or early release, for his client, on humanitarian grounds. Contrada is an ageing and apparently ill man. The former police chief of Palermo, and later leading light in SISDE – one of Italy’s secret services, is currently serving a ten year sentence for collusion […]
Without much fanfare an Italian Senate commission on Justice matters has recommended a measure be brought before parliament allowing for a reduction in minimum period required to obtain a divorce. The recommendation calls for the reduction from 3 years to 1 year (or perhaps 6 months, where there are no children involved). While the measure […]
In the wake of the Chernobyl disaster in 1987 the Italian public voted, in a referendum, to halt the country’s nuclear program. In the last 2-3 years various leading politicians, from both the left and right, have supported the overturning of this referendum as Italy faces spiralling energy costs. Yesterday, for example, our favourite post-fascist […]
Intercepted telephone calls between the leader of the opposition, Silvio Berlusconi, and the head of the state broadcasting company RAI’s fiction department have been blasted across the front pages of the newspapers, as a scandal blows itself up. The reason? Well, it appears that Silvio, a budding TV entrepreneur, has taken the opportunity to suggest […]
Did you feel the paradigm shift yesterday? Did your knees tremble as the Italian delegation at the United Nations smiled humbly watching their painstaking work on the abolition of the death penalty turn into a completely non-binding resolution voted for by 109 countries,54 against, and 29 abstentions. The evening news here ran with it as […]
Italian journalism, much maligned by this monkey, has in fact revealed itself to be at the front of the pack pioneering a new form of journalism, one that has quickly come to terms with the changing nature of news, recounting events through the prism of ‘hyper-reality’ and ‘super-fiction’ (discussed further by Mark Lawson). An example […]
As the Bali talks begin, British newspaper the Guardian asked various ‘thinkers’ to propose key breakthroughs that could be made globally/locally to combat the threat of climate change. One of the less predictable ideas came from musician and activist Brian Eno, who proposed electoral reform (presumably in the UK) as an important step towards combatting […]
Earlier this year news reports emerged that celebrated director Spike Lee would be turning his hand to a slice of Italian WWII history, as he prepares his next film the Miracle of St. Anna (due for release next year). The film focusses on four American soldiers trapped behind the Gothic line in Italy in 1944. […]
