INSIDER NEWSDESK

 PALERMO – The Palermo city library was scheduled to be dedicated to Sicilian writer Leonardo Sciascia on Wednesday, the 99th anniversary of his birth.

 A novelist, essayist and politician best known for his Mafia crime novel Il giorno della civetta (The Day of the Owl,) Sciascia was born in Racalmuto, Sicily, on Jan 8. 1921.  He had strong links to Palermo – a city councillor in the later 1970s, he lived in Palermo for 22 years and died there in 1989.  He is considered one of the most important writers of twentieth-century Italy. 

7 Jan 2020
ISABELLA MASSAM

 ROME – Italy’s government was looking increasingly shaky as politicians of ruling-coalition party the Five Star Movement resigned, defected or were expelled from the party, political sources reported.

 The most high-profile Five Star resignation was the education minister, Lorenzo Fioramonti.  At Christmas, Fioramonti carried out his threat to resign if the 2020 budget did not include an increase of 3 billion euros for education spending.

7 Jan 2020
Desmond O'Grady

 ROME - The rivalry between two early 19th century sculptors, Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen, re-emerges in simultaneous major exhibitions in Rome and Milan.  In Milan their works are brought together on a large scale for the first time.  Both are excellent, each with over 160 works well - mounted and with loans from other European and North American museums.

7 Jan 2020
INSIDER NEWSDESK

 ROME – Escalating hunger needs in sub-Saharan Africa dominate a World Food Programme (WFP) analysis of global hunger hotspots in the first half of 2020, with millions of people requiring life-saving food assistance in Zimbabwe, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central Sahel region in the coming months, the WFP said.

7 Jan 2020
ABDELKADER CHEREF

 New York -- Just 11 days after Abdelmadjid Tebboune was elected president of a deeply polarised Algeria, the country’s powerful military chief, Lt Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah, died of a massive heart attack.

 This unexpected development has prompted questions about the future of Algeria's political system; it is obviously too soon to tell if Gaid Salah's death will bring further instability to the country, or whether – as some would hope – this will change the forces at work within the system.

2 Jan 2020
Mariana Somensi

MACERATA - The children of the ancient Andriatic town, thanks to the solidarity of Qatar, received Saturday a modern school complex to replace the one damaged by the earthquakes that hit Central Italy in 2016. The reconstruction of the school is part of a Memorandum of Understanding signed between Rome and Doha under which the Arab state donated 5.6 million euros for the project's development.

22 Dec 2019
INSIDER NEWSDESK

  ROME -- Kuwait's new Ambassador to Italy, H.E. Sheikh Azzam Mubarak Sabah Al-Sabah, had a meeting with the Italian Senate President, Elisabetta Casellati, Senate officials said. During the meeting the Kuwaiti Ambassador made a gift of a model of a traditional Kuwaiti Dhow sailing vessel to the head of the Upper House.

20 Dec 2019
ISABELLA MASSAM

 ROME – Part of the Embassy of Pakistan in the Eternal City was transformed into a dazzling fashion catwalk this week as students of the Pakistan Institute of Fashion and Design showed off their creations to an audience of diplomats.

 The clothes were almost uniformly “high fashion” in the sense of statement pieces designed for fashion shows rather than everyday life.  This allowed the students to be particularly imaginative with the looks they created, making use of feathers, wires, embroidery and ribbons to name only a few of the materials transformed into unique outfits. 

19 Dec 2019
ISABELLA MASSAM

 ROME – A pragmatic approach making use of local powers and groups with practical influence in the area is essential to bringing about an end to conflict in Syria, Russian diplomat Marija Chodynskaja-Goleniščeva has argued.

18 Dec 2019

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