KABUL -- Afghan press service alerts initially spoke of an ‘American’ beaten to death in the Panjshir Valley on June 3 after he opened fire on a local. Later it was found that the man killed was actually an Italian anti-narcotics agent. Reports in the Italian media claimed that the Carabiniere had ‘’died defending an American woman’’.
Philip Willan
ROME -- With competition from the monuments of Ancient and Christian Rome, it is not surprising that few tourists find time to visit the capital’s Museum of the Liberation in Via Tasso.
Used by the Gestapo as a prison for Resistance fighters and political prisoners during World War II, some of its cramped, windowless cells still bear the graffiti scratched by wartime inmates.
24 Jun 2011
Gemma Lynch
ROME -- The British Minister for Europe, David Lidington, took up the issue of Italian universities' shameful, discriminatory treatment of UK lecturers this week during a meeting he had with the Italian Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini, officials said. Diplomatic sources described the talks as "encouraging." Mr Lidington has on previous occasions stated that the British government was taking the matter very seriously, describing the treatment of foreign lecturers in the peninsula as "unacceptable," but until now the concern did not appear to be shared by Italian officials.
23 Jun 2011
Philippa Malicka
OSTUNI--Rising in shimmering white out of a lone hill, towering over miles of Apulian olive plains and gazing across the Adriatic lies this dazzling city, otherwise known as ‘La Citta Bianca’ or ‘The Queen of Olives.’ A city deserving of its regal title, the hill top buildings are still fortified and overlook many ancient masserias, farm houses which have also retained their fort-like structures, protecting against raiders from the sea.
15 Jun 2011
MARGARET STENHOUSE
ROME -- A 12thcentury ivory crucifix, known as the “Canosa Cross”, that vanished from the Cathedral of Sabina in Apulia in the 1960s was eventually traced to an antique dealer in Paris in 2009, while in 1995 a lightning operation by Italy's Guardia di Finanza (customs and fiscal police) succeeded, in only four days, in tracking down a “Madonna col Bambino e San Giovannino” by the school of Giovanni Bellini, stolen from the Vatican.
13 Jun 2011
Insider reporters
ROME — Italian magistrates have shelved criminal proceedings in connection with the death of respected Belgian foreign correspondent Federic Hacourt at the Fate BeneFratelli hospital on Rome’s island on the Tiber, judicial sources say.
3 Jun 2011
Gemma Lynch
Rome- Three orphan students from Malawi have expressed their gratitude to the Commonwealth Club of Rome and its members. Their donations are currently paying for education which they would otherwise not have had access to. Through The Malawi Orphan Care Trust Fund, founder Jill Bennet strives to help children who have lost one or both parents receive education so that they can work themselves out of poverty. In Malawi the equivalent of just $10 covers one whole term of school fees at a Community Day Secondary School.
1 Jun 2011
Insider reporters
CANBERRA – The U.N. World Food Programme has announced the appointment of Jessica Watson as youth representative to support the organisation in the global fight against hunger. Having just turned 18, Jessica has already sailed around the world and been named Young Australian of the year.
31 May 2011
Anonymous
By ANGUS CAMPBELL
CALATAFIMI, Sicily -- Here in eastern Sicily we are just creeping out of the cold months, threatened by mountains of flowers. But already complaints can be heard in back rooms ... Dio mio che caldo che fa, Christ Almighty how hot it is, Si può morire! People born in hot countries sensibly avoid the sun like the plague and those accustomed to cold climes naturally find absolution in it ... bad organisation one might have thought, but there it is.
26 May 2011