The Italian Cup final has come to serve as a magnifying glass for Italian football’s worst problems. The 2014 final between Fiorentina and Napoli, marred by violence which left three people in hospital…
Silvio Berlusconi has finally learned the outcome of being found guilty of tax fraud last May. He was originally sentenced to four years in prison, but Italian law prevents over-70s from doing prison time…
What happens to Romulus and Remus?
Wolfgang Zwanzger/Shutterstock
It has been reported that new archaeological finds have pushed back the age of Rome. A team of archaeologists discovered the remains of a wall built to channel water, which dates back to the ninth century…
What do you think of when Italian fashion is mentioned? Versace’s shiny, gold Medusa-head logo? Armani’s sleek, unstructured tailoring? Prada’s textural, ladylike sportswear? Or maybe Jeremy Scott’s recent…
Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi.
EPA/Julien Warnand
On 12 March, Italy’s Chamber of Deputies approved proposals for major electoral reform, which must now be passed by the senate. The proposals are the fruit of a cross-party agreement that has given Italy…
The stolen fresco.
EPA/Ufficio Stampa Scavi Pompei
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…
“Wenders meets Fellini” in The Great Beauty.
Courtesy of Palace Films
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
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…
Apart from a sensational winning goal, the main memory I have of the 1992 European Cup Final between Barcelona and Sampdoria is a moment in the second half when the camera panned to the man in the crowd…
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 in the hands of the Italian police.
Antonio Calanni/AP
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
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…
After 20 years, Silvio Berlusconi’s greatest legacy is a country in shambles, without a future and hope.
EPA/Guido Montani
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…
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 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…
Professor of International Migration and Forced Displacement and Director of the Institute for Research into International Migration and Superdiversity, University of Birmingham