Tag: Italy

Putin ready to help overcome food crisis if West lifts sanctions

Moscow is ready to make a “significant contribution” to averting a looming food crisis if the West lifts sanctions over Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin told Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi on Thursday. Russia was slapped with unprecedented sanctions after Putin ordered troops into neighbouring Ukraine on February 24. The sanctions and military action have disrupted supplies of fertiliser, wheat and other commodities from both Russia and Ukraine. The two countries produce 30 percent of the […]

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Italy expels 30 Russian diplomats

Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said Tuesday that Rome has expelled 30 Russian diplomats as part of a joint European action after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. “We have expelled 30 Russian diplomats for national security reasons,” Di Miao told Italy’s Rai television in Berlin, in news confirmed by the ministry in Rome. Di Maio said Russia’s ambassador to Italy, Sergey Razov, had been summoned earlier Tuesday “to notify him of the Italian government’s decision […]

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Italy PM urges more action on Russia oligarchs, central bank

ROME, Italy (AFP) — Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi on Tuesday urged tougher action against Russian oligarchs and more pressure on Russia’s central bank over the invasion of Ukraine. The European Union on Monday added top Kremlin-linked oligarchs and President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman to its sanctions blacklist. More wide-sweeping measures, including prohibiting transactions with Russia’s central bank, have helped send the Russian economy into turmoil. Italy, the eurozone’s third largest economy, “is ready for further […]

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Greece resumes search for ferry fire survivors

CORFU, Greece (AFP) — Greek firefighters and coastguards said Monday they were resuming the search for 10 people still missing from a ferry fire last week in which a truck driver perished. Television footage showed smoke still billowing from the Italian-flagged Euroferry Olympia, more than 72 hours after a fire ripped through the vessel as it sailed from Igoumenitsa in Greece to Brindisi in Italy with nearly 300 people aboard. “It is a very difficult […]

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12 missing after Greece ferry fire

by John HADOULIS with Ljubomir MILASIN in Rome ATHENS, Greece (AFP) — Twelve people were missing and two remained trapped after an Italian-flagged ferry caught fire overnight on the Ionian Sea, Greek officials said, as emergency crews raced against the clock to put out the blaze and locate survivors before dark. Divers were being brought in to widen the search for those missing, the Greek coastguard said, after 278 people had been rescued and taken […]

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Tunisia to return illegally imported waste to Italy

TUNIS, Tunisia (AFP) – Tunisia will return more than 280 containers of waste illegally imported from Italy in 2020, the north African country’s environment ministry said Monday. The containers were brought in by a Tunisian company that falsely claimed that the household waste — barred from import under Tunisia law — was in fact plastic scrap to be recycled. The importation had sparked widespread anger, resulting in protests in Tunisia as people demanded that Italy […]

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Italy tightens restrictions on Covid unvaccinated

ROME, Italy (AFP) — People in Italy who are not vaccinated against Covid-19 are barred from restaurants or taking domestic flights under new rules which came into force Monday as schools reopened nationwide. Only those who have recently recovered from a coronavirus infection are exempt from the regulations, which represent a further tightening of restrictions in the face of rising infections. The majority of schools opened Monday for a new term under government orders, despite […]

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Italy to introduce mandatory Covid vaccination for over 50s

ROME, Italy (AFP) — Italy’s government said Wednesday that it would make vaccination against Covid-19 compulsory from February 15 for everyone over the age of 50, in a bid to battle surging infections. “We want to slow down the curve of contagion and encourage Italians who have not yet been vaccinated to do so,” Prime Minister Mario Draghi said during a cabinet meeting at which the measure was adopted, according to a statement. “We are […]

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45 cruise passengers with Covid disembark in Italy

ROME, Italy (AFP) — Some 45 cruise ship passengers disembarked in the Italian port of Genoa on Monday after contracting coronavirus, while others who tested positive remained aboard to be let off later, the operator said. Media reports had suggested anywhere between 120 and 150 people were infected onboard MSC Grandiosa, which arrived in Genoa on Monday morning from the French port of Marseille. MSC denied “incorrect” media reports, but would not say how many […]

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Italian hospitals under strain as Covid hits new highs

by Gildas LE ROUX / Alexandria SAGE ROME, Italy (AFP) — “We are inundated,” Antonino Marchese says wearily as his Rome Covid hospital fills up with patients, most of them unvaccinated despite tougher restrictions for Italians who are not jabbed. As daily coronavirus infections in Italy hit new highs, hospital admissions across the country are surging once again due to the new Omicron variant and the persisting reluctance among some to get vaccinated. At Rome’s […]

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Pregnant nurse among 7 dead in Sicily building collapse

by Ella IDE ROME, Italy (AFP) — Rescuers were searching Monday for two missing people among the rubble of collapsed buildings on the Italian island of Sicily, after seven people including a pregnant nurse died in a suspected gas explosion. The blast tore through four residential buildings on Saturday evening in the southern town of Ravanusa, with one survivor describing it “as if a bomb had gone off”. Around 100 emergency workers have been picking […]

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Sicily braces for second cyclone this week

ROME, Italy (AFP) — Sicily braced for the arrival of a cyclone Thursday, the second this week after a deadly storm hammered the southern Italian island, killing three people. The Mediterranean cyclone known as a “medicane” was set to reach Sicily’s eastern coast and the tip of mainland Calabria between Thursday evening and Friday morning, Italian public research institute ISPRA said. The civil protection unit placed eastern Sicily under an orange alert in anticipation of […]

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