It was reported recently that a fresco has been stolen from Pompeii. Its absence must have been hard to notice. Flooding had severely damaged the already disintegrating frescoes in Pompeii, so one might…
The rapid escalation of the situation in Crimea has led us faster than we might have thought to consider if and how Russia might unleash energy policy as part of its geopolitical strategy. President Vladimir…
He no longer looks like the eternal symbol of youth and beauty, but rather like the macho hero of an action film. The image of Michelangelo’s David holding a rifle in his hands featured in the last advert…
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…
In the light of Friday’s guilty verdict in the case of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, the Italian criminal justice system is once again under the magnifying glass. Foreign scrutiny of the case has…
The six-year saga that has been the trial of Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito for the murder of English student Meredith Kercher in Italy in 2006 has taken another dramatic turn…
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…
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…
On 18 November 2013, the Italian right-wing leader Silvio Berlusconi dissolved his party, Popolo della Libertà (PDL –- People of Freedom), the founding of which he had announced to his supporters in Milan…
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…
The derby match between Salernitana and Nocerina started strangely. Played in the third tier of Italian football, the match saw three Nocerina substitutions after just three minutes. Soon, another Nocerina…
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…
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…
Marco Morosini, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
In the midst of its worst depression since 1861, Italy appears to be witnessing the collapse of another government - the 62nd in 68 years. Add ungovernability to economic depression, and Italy is becoming…
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…
“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…
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…
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 has had several crucial elections in the past. In 1946, right after the end of World War II, citizens were called to decide between Republic and Monarchy. Two years later, the 1948 general election…
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…
When Fascist Italy declared war on Britain in mid-1940, almost 5,000 Italians living in Australia were imprisoned in internment camps. Few Italian families escaped the human cost of detention as “enemy…
On 23 July, the rating agency Moody’s put the triple A debt of Germany, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg on a negative outlook. The day after, the outlook on the European Financial Stability Fund was also…
Today Eurozone leaders will meet in Brussels. On the agenda is nothing less than the survival of the euro. Officially, it is about Spain: Spain’s economic and financial woes show the urgency. Moody’s drastically…
The decision by Standard and Poor’s to downgrade the debt of nine Eurozone countries last week, followed by the inevitable downgrade of the Eurozone rescue fund two days later, raises important questions…
Every year, on the evening of December 31, the President of the Republic of Italy addresses the Italian people with a video message broadcast by all the major radio and television networks. This “end of…