Trump and Merkel: Friends, foes or frenemies?
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
The president, who called the European Union a ‘foe’ following a series of meetings in Europe, may not realize just how much Americans have gained from their relationship with Europe.
Waiting at the asylum registration centre at the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.
Orestis Panagiotou/EPA
Newly proposed ‘controlled centres’ in the EU must not breach migrants’ human rights.
EPA/Luca Zennaro
In government with the Five Star Movement, the radical politician’s Lega is going from strength to strength.
A 16th century chart of Europe and North Africa.
Luis Texieira, Portolan Chart, Lisbon, ca. 1600 via Wikimedia Commons.
Migration is central to Mediterranean history and people have always moved between its two shores.
Food is handed out by the NGO ‘SOS Mediterranee’ to people on the Aquarius.
Kenny Karpov/EPA
Spain has agreed to allow the Aquarius, a boat carrying 629 migrants, to dock in Valencia. But the EU remains gridlocked over asylum rules.
EPA/Kyoshi Ota
Seven world leaders with axes to grind are preparing to sit round one table. Sparks will fly.
Man the lifeboats!
Miriam Doerr Martin Fromherz
The new coalition’s spending plans will ramp up Italy’s annual budget by over €100 billion a year.
Giuseppe Conte is Italy’s newest prime minister.
AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia
An economist answers four important questions on what’s behind the political turmoil in Italy and what’s at stake for Europe and the world.
Five Star Movement leader Luigi di Maio brandishes an Italian flag at a rally in Naples.
Ciro Fusca/EPA
Italy’s economy is verging on bankrupt and its election results have dealt a hammer blow to the prospects of fixing things. The best option, financially at least, may be to put someone else at the helm.
Matteo Salvini: the League has left its roots.
Flavio Lo Scalzo/EPA
The history of north Italian regionalism, and why Matteo Salvini’s League represents the end of a long era.
Sergio Mattarella (right) and his prime minister designate, Carlo Cottarelli.
EPA-EFE
If you thought the risk of Grexit was bad, you’ve got a shock coming in the shape of Italy.
Carlo Cottarelli: Italy’s prime minister. But for how long?
Alessandro Di Meo/EPA
What’s caused Italy’s political crisis and what’s likely to happen next.
Prime minister designate Giuseppe Conte addresses the media.
EPA/Ettore Ferrari
Law professor Giuseppe Conte has no experience in politics – which makes him the perfect candidate for the uncomfortable partnership now in government.
Shutterstock
If you’re going to drive badly in Italy, do it towards the end of the local mayor’s term in office.
Teach a child about other cultures and we can form bonds around the world.
jenspie3
Forging emotional bonds through care, companionship and shared experiences, two very different countries built civic ties from the rubble of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
Beppe Grillo speaks in Rome on March 2, 2018..
Filippo Monteforte/AFP
While often lumped with other European populist parties, Beppe Grillo’s M5S is a movement of activist fans mobilized by the messages of his “celebrity brand”.
Legal senator Tony Chike Iwobi casts his ballot to elect the speaker of the Italian Senate.
EPA-EFE/Alessandro di Meo
Italy’s first black senator, and the party he represents, won’t be advancing the fight against xenophobia.
Detail from Francesco Rosselli (Italian) The Execution of Savonarola and Two Companions at Piazza della Signoria, 16th century, oil on canvas 112 x 138.5cm (framed)
Galeria Corsini, Florence
In 1497 Girolamo Savonarola burned books and art in Florence in the most infamous act of European cultural desecration. A year later, he met the same fate.
Bramfab via Wikipedia
An all-women workforce used to weed Italy’s rice fields. And they left a powerful historical legacy.
Voters are set to be disappointed.
EPA-EFE/Ettore Ferrari
Both the Northern League party and Five Star Movement have a very expensive shopping list for extra spending, with little detail on how to fund these policies.
The Five Star Movement’s Luigi Di Maio and founder Beppe Grillo won big in the March 4 elections.
AP Photo/Andrew Medichini
Italy has stagnated for more than two decades, yet its politicians seem hardly aware of the source of the problem, let alone how to fix it.
EPA/Daniel Dal Zennaro
The Five Star Movement is the biggest party, but forming a government is going to be difficult. Will a right-wing coalition prevail?
Silvio Berlusconi, left, arrives to vote as a bare-breasted woman protests in background.
AP Photo/Luca Bruno
Together, two parties with a tough stance on immigration and the EU – the Five Star Movement and the League – received nearly 50 percent of the vote.
Berlusconi: can’t move his face enough to say ‘goodbye’.
EPA/Flavio Lo Scalzo
He’s barred from public office but this former prime minister isn’t going to be held back by the small matter of a conviction for tax evasion.
Di Meo/EPA
Italy’s political future hangs in the balance – will it see another chaotic grand coalition, or take an anti-EU populist step into the unknown?