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Articles on Italy

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“Wenders meets Fellini” in The Great Beauty. Courtesy of Palace Films

Does The Great Beauty signal an Italian film renaissance?

Paolo Sorrentino’s film The Great Beauty is one of the five films nominated in the category of best foreign film in the 2014 Academy Awards, which take place on March 2. If it wins, the Oscar will follows…
Consummate political performer: Matteo Renzi. Mario Carlini / Iguana Press

Springtime for Matteo Renzi, Italy’s untested political tyro

Three weeks can be an awfully long time in politics. Last Thursday, Matteo Renzi, the new leader of Italy’s Democratic Party (PD) – the largest member of the country’s ruling coalition – announced that…
Amanda Knox in the hands of the Italian police. Antonio Calanni/AP

Knox case has put the Italian legal system on trial in the US

Amanda Knox has faced three verdicts in six years over a case in which it was alleged she was part of a brutal knife attack on Meredeth Kercher in Perugia in 2007 that resulted in her death. Although Knox…
A World Bank report gives a hopeful forecast for global growth. Image sourced from www.shutterstock.com

Growth spurt hopes for global economy, but challenges remain

The World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects report released this week is moderately optimistic about the short-term outlook of the global economy. World Bank economists anticipate an improvement in most…
After 20 years, Silvio Berlusconi’s greatest legacy is a country in shambles, without a future and hope. EPA/Guido Montani

Enough of the failed fable of the martyr Silvio Berlusconi

On Wednesday evening, the Italian Senate forced former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to step down as a senator. In typical Italian fashion, the day of reckoning for Berlusconi lasted almost four months…
Survivors of last week’s Lampedusa boat sinking, which is estimated to have left hundreds of African migrants dead. What can Australia learn from the tragedy? EPA/Ettore Ferrari

The Lampedusa asylum tragedy and the lessons for Australia

The recent event of yet another boat sinking off the coast of Lampedusa in Italy resulted in the death of hundreds of migrants with still more unaccounted for. Despite the tyranny of distance, the incident…
An unspeakable loss. EPA/Franco Lannino

Italy ignores real cause of Lampedusa refugee tragedy

The latest in a “succession of true slaughters of innocents”. This is how Italian president Giorgio Napolitano described the incident in which hundreds of migrants, mainly from Eritrea and Somalia, died…
Despite not holding an official cabinet position, Silvio Berlusconi will exert a great deal of influence over Italy’s newly-formed government. EPA/Pier Paolo Ferreri

He did it again: how Berlusconi managed to keep power in Italy

Under the leadership of re-elected president Giorgio Napolitano, a “grand coalition” of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and the centre-right coalition of parties - headed by Silvio Berlusconi - has…
Beppe Grillo could be a victim of his own success. EPA/Massimo Percossi

Too much too young for Italy’s Five-Star Movement?

“Paris is worth a mass”, replied my friend, citing Henry IV’s probably apocryphal comment on his conversion to Catholicism in order to break the religious impasse in sixteenth-century France. She was explaining…
Leader of the Five Star movement, Beppe Grillo, rode a wave of unexpected popularity to obtain one quarter of the votes in Italy’s House of Representatives. AAP

Italy’s post-election nightmare: stalemate sinks growth hopes

The economic troubles of Italy are largely homegrown. Some might argue that they have been made worse by the fiscal austerity measures adopted under pressure from the European Union. But the truth is that…
Former Italian Prime Minister and leader of the People of Freedom party Silvio Berlusconi’s comeback has left Italy with a hung parliament. Mike Palazzotto/EPA

Berlusconi’s rise and the search for stable government in Italy

A Berlusconi led right-wing coalition has delivered a shock in the Italian elections, taking 30% of the vote and winning the senate in the key regions of Lombardy, Sicily and Veneto. Berlusconi was trailing…
Italy is in an economic and political mess, with or without the leadership of Mario Monti (pictured), who announced his resignation this week. AAP

Exit the technocrat, enter the populist? Europe braces for next act in Italian drama

For a little longer than a year, the “technical” government of Mario Monti was supported by a vast and heterogeneous coalition: the centre-right People of Freedom Party of Silvio Berlusconi (PDL), the…
Judge Marco Billi reads the sentence of the seven defendants in the trial ‘Major Risks’ in L'Aquila, Italy, 22 October 2012. Six scientists and a government official were sentenced to six years in prison for manslaughter by an Italian court on for failing to give adequate warning of an earthquake that killed more than 300 people in L'Aquila in 2009. EPA/CLAUDIO LATTANZIO

Researchers alarmed by jail sentence for Italian scientists

Researchers worldwide have condemned an Italian court’s judgement that six scientists and a government official are guilty of manslaughter for underestimating the risk of an earthquake accurately. The…

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