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Tag: Italy

  • Italy’s far-right leader formally asks for mandate to govern

    Italy’s far-right leader formally asks for mandate to govern

    ROME — Italian politician Giorgia Meloni, whose party has neo-fascist roots, said Friday that she and her allies have asked the nation’s president to give her the mandate to form what would be Italy‘s first far-right-led government since the end of World War II.

    Meloni and her campaign allies met for about 10 minutes with President Sergio Mattarella at the Quirinal presidential palace. She emerged to tell reporters that the coalition had unanimously indicated to Mattarella that she deserved the mandate to govern.

    The palace later announced that Mattarella had summoned Meloni back, by herself, to meet with the president late Friday afternoon.

    At that meeting, the president could decide Meloni has assembled a viable government and invite her and her ministers to swear in the next day. He could also give her the mandate to try to form a government and some time to report back to him on her progress.

    If Meloni, 45, succeeds, she would be the first woman to become Italian premier.

    Obtaining the premiership would cap a remarkably quick rise for the Brothers of Italy party that Meloni co-founded in December 2012 and which in its first years was considered a fringe movement on the right.

    “We have indicated myself as the person who should be mandated to form the new government,” Meloni said, flanked by her two main, sometimes troublesome, right-wing allies — Matteo Salvini and former Premier Silvio Berlusconi. “We are ready and we want to move forward in the shortest possible time.”

    She cited urgent problems “at both national and international level,” apparent references to soaring energy prices afflicting households and businesses and the war in Ukraine, which has seen European Union members divided over strategy amid worries about gas supplies during the approaching winter.

    Berlusconi and Salvini stayed silent during Meloni’s brief remarks to reporters. But at one point Berlusconi raised his eyebrows and looked behind her head at Salvini as Meloni spoke.

    Both men are longtime admirers of Russian leader Vladimir Putin; Meloni staunchly backs Ukraine in its defense against the Russian invasion. Those differences could make coalition rule challenging.

    Berlusconi, a three-time premier, has been chafing over the election victory by Meloni’s party. The Brothers of Italy took 26%, while Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and the anti-migrant League of Salvini, snagged just over 8% apiece in an election on Sept. 25 that saw record low turnout.

    In 2018, in the previous election for Parliament, Meloni’s party took just over 4%.

    Still, while her forces are Parliament’s largest, Meloni needs her two allies in order to command a solid majority in the legislature.

    Berlusconi, who fancies himself a rare leader on the world stage, recently derided her as “arrogant” in written comments, apparently after Meloni refused to make a lawmaker who is one of the media mogul’s closest advisers a minister.

    Earlier this week in a meeting with his lawmakers he expressed sympathy for Putin’s motivation for invading Ukraine. In that conversation, which was recorded and leaked to Italian news agency LaPresse, he also bragged that Putin had sent him bottles of vodka for his 86th birthday last month and he gave the Russian bottles of wine while the two exchanged sweetly worded notes.

    In response to Berlusconi’s comments that were also derogatory about Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy, Meloni insisted that anyone joining her government must be solidly in sync with the West in opposing Putin’s war. If that meant her government couldn’t be formed, Meloni said, she’d take that risk.

    Salvini has at times also questioned the wisdom of tough Western sanctions against Russia. A fellow lawmaker in Salvini’s League party who was recently elected president of the lower Chamber of Deputies has publicly expressed doubts about continuing the measures.

    Outgoing Premier Mario Draghi’s national pandemic unity coalition collapsed in July, after Salvini, Berlusconi and populist 5-Star Movement leader Giuseppe Conte refused to back his government in a confidence vote. That prompted Mattarella to dissolve parliament and pave the way for elections some six months early.

    While final efforts to form the new government were underway, Draghi was in Brussels, attending the final day of a European Council summit, grappling with ways to deal with higher energy prices.

    On Thursday, Mattarella received opposition leaders, who raised concerns that Meloni, who campaigned with a “God, homeland, family” agenda, would seek to erode abortion rights and roll back rights such as same-sex civil unions.

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    Giada Zampano contributed reporting.

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    Follow AP’s coverage of Italian politics: https://apnews.com/hub/giorgia-meloni

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  • Berlusconi says Putin gifted him vodka, exchanged ‘sweet’ letters

    Berlusconi says Putin gifted him vodka, exchanged ‘sweet’ letters

    In leaked recording, former prime minister also seems to defend Russia’s position in the nearly eight-month war in Ukraine.

    Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said he had recently reconnected with longtime friend Russian President Vladimir Putin, exchanging gifts of wine, vodka and “sweet” letters over his recent birthday, according to a leaked recording.

    The LaPresse news agency on Tuesday published audio of what it said was a secretly taped speech by Berlusconi, who turned 86 last month, to legislators of his Forza Italia party that is set to join Italy’s new government as part of a right-wing coalition led by Giorgia Meloni.

    In the recording, the media tycoon is heard saying he is back in contact with Putin who counts him as one of “his five real friends”.

    “I’ve reconnected with President Putin, quite a lot,” he said, describing how the Russian president sent him “20 bottles of vodka and a very sweet letter” for his birthday.

    Berlusconi said he replied with bottles of Italian wine and a “letter as sweet”.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi sign a guest book as they visit Livadia Palace outside the town of Yalta, Crimea [File: Alexei Druzhinin/RIA Novosti/Kremlin]

    The comments made front-page news as the coalition headed by Meloni, who has strongly backed Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in late February, is divvying cabinet posts before formal consultations this week to form a new government.

    Forza Italia, the junior member of the coalition, is seeking to get the foreign ministry, among other portfolios.

    Ukraine war

    In the tape, Berlusconi also again seemed to defend Moscow’s position in the nearly eight-month war in Ukraine, relaying to his lawmakers that Russian officials have repeatedly said the West is at war with Russia “because we’re giving Ukraine weapons and financing”.

    It is not the first time Berlusconi has seemingly defended Putin. Late in the campaign, he seemed to justify Russia’s invasion by saying Putin was forced into it by pro-Moscow separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

    “The troops were supposed to enter, reach Kyiv within a week, replace [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy’s government with decent people and then leave,” Berlusconi told a late-night talk show on September 22. Later he backtracked, saying his words had been “oversimplified”.

    Smoke rises from a street in Kyiv as rescuers reach the scene.
    Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has continued for more than seven months [Efrem Lukatsky/AP]

    Berlusconi’s office similarly tried to deny his audiotape comments about the birthday vodka. A statement on Tuesday insisted that he had not restarted relations with Putin and that Berlusconi “told an old story to lawmakers about an episode that occurred years ago”.

    Hours later, Forza Italia tried to distance itself from the comments.

    “The position of Forza Italia and President Silvio Berlusconi with respect to the Ukrainian conflict and Russian responsibilities is known to all and is in line with the position of Europe and the United States, reaffirmed on several public occasions,” the party said in a statement. “There are no margins of ambiguity, nor have there ever been.”

    Berlusconi has a long, friendly history with Putin. He has entertained the Russian leader at his Sardinian villa and even visited Crimea with Putin in 2014 after the Russian leader annexed the peninsula from Ukraine.

    Berlusconi’s latest comments are likely to complicate relations with Meloni, who is expected to be tapped to become Italy’s next premier.

    Meloni’s far-right credentials and past Eurosceptic views have raised eyebrows in some European capitals, but she has staunchly supported NATO and Ukraine in the war.

    Relations between the two have already soured over Berlusconi’s insistence on placing a loyalist in her cabinet and over Forza Italia’s refusal to vote for her candidate for Senate president.

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  • Textural White Wines, And The Details That Enrich Their “Plot”

    Textural White Wines, And The Details That Enrich Their “Plot”

    Fuller bodied, and more richly aromatic.

    Those are a few of the descriptors that typically accompany the category of “textural white wine.” Varieties like viognier, chardonnay, friulano, gewürztraminer and roussanne are safe bets for this category, which for me represents a welcome cool-down from the summer heat and a shift into more substantial meals to fortify our bodies against the chill and gusts of autumn wind.

    What accounts for the “texture” of textural white wines?

    Usually the texture of a wine refers to its mouthfeel, or the weight and sensation of a wine when you sip it. Think silky or round or tannic, that grippy sensation most often used in reference to red wine for its polyphenols released from the grape skins as well as its treatment in oak. In white wines, “texture” as a description is more easily an indicator of particular grapes or blends of grapes (viognier, for example, has a distinctly different feel than pinot grigio), origin of the wine (such as gewürztraminer from Alsace, chardonnay from Alto Adige or friulano from Friuli), and treatment in the winery (skin contact, clay amphorae and oak vessels).

    Those are all details that add to the “plot” or the narrative of a textural white wine, that enrich and enhance a wine lover’s experience.

    Here are two wines I’ve tasted recently (and the foods to go with them) that embody the category of textural white wine. Consider them, also, as one of several closely-related wines that are typical of their place: the first example is a specific wine made from müller thurgau grapes in the Alto Adige region of Italy, though I can just as readily recommend certain grüner veltliners or kerners from the same region. For the second example, the “adjacent” wines I’d recommend — grüner veltliner, that is — are typical of their place thanks to the winemaker’s devotion to the terroir of the eastern Santa Ynez Valley.

    2021 Erste + Neue Müller Thurgau

    Though used predominantly (and not often favorably) in Germany, the müller thurgau grape takes on a particularly hearty expression in the mountainous region of Italy’s Alto Adige. There, after fermentation at low temperatures, the wine takes on nutty, floral aromas that are unusually robust. The aroma complements the medium-bodied mouthfeel of this wine, delivering an unexpected twist on a textured white wine made from an unexpected variety.

    Special note on food pairing: I poured this wine with a dinner of pork medallions in lemon-caper sauce; the wine accentuated the tang of the capers with lemon zest and juice while also adding bright flavors of elderflower and herbs.

    2016 Fiddlehead Cellars “Happy Canyon” Sauvignon Blanc

    Some white varieties don’t jump to mind as substantial enough for the textured wine category — pinot grigio, for example, or albariño or sauvignon blanc. There are exceptions to every rule, however, as this sauvignon blanc from winemaker Kathy Joseph attests. The texture results partly from its age (2016), partly from its gentle oak treatment, and partly from the different intentional layers that have been added: Joseph fermented the wine in equal proportions of stainless steel, neutral barrels, and new Damy French oak. There is a sense also of Joseph’s mastery cultivated over 30 years of farming this specific grape in the specific place of Happy Canyon in California’s Santa Barbara in the eastern Santa Ynez Valley.

    Special note on food pairing: I opened this bottle, mindful of this article about textured white wines. Obviously it fit the bill and, moreover, it offered a beautiful complement to our family meal later that day of roasted butternut squash soup and hearty grain bread. Both the wine and the food were studies in balance / counter-balance: light on the palate (the vegetables in the soup and the sauvignon blanc grape) yet also substantial (the roasted squash and the grain bread plus the aged, gently-oaked wine).

    Cathy Huyghe, Contributor

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  • With far-right leaders, Italy remembers WWII roundup of Jews

    With far-right leaders, Italy remembers WWII roundup of Jews

    ROME — Italy’s far-right political leadership marked the 79th anniversary of the World War II roundup of Rome’s Jews on Sunday with calls for such horror to never occur again, messages that took on greater significance following a national election won by a party with neo-fascist roots.

    Giorgia Meloni, who is expected to head Italy’s first far-right-led government since the war’s end, phoned the leader of Rome’s Jewish community, Ruth Dureghello, to commemorate the anniversary, according to a community spokesman.

    Meloni said in a statement that the anniversary serves as a “warning so that certain tragedies never happen again.” She said all Italians bear the memory “that serves to build antibodies against indifference and hatred, to continue to fight anti-Semitism in all its forms.”

    On the morning of Oct. 16, 1943 during the German occupation of Italy, 1,259 people were arrested from Rome’s Ghetto and surrounding neighborhoods and brought to a military barracks near the Vatican, bound for deportation to Auschwitz. Only 16 survived.

    Meloni called it a “tragic, dark and incurable day for Rome and Italy,” that ended with the “vile and inhuman deportation of Roman Jews at the hands of the Nazi-Fascist fury: women, men and children were snatched from life, house by house.”

    Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party won the most votes in Sept. 25 national election — about 26% — and is expected to head a government along with the right-wing League and center-right Forza Italia. Her party traces its roots to the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, or MSI, which was founded in 1946 by the remnants of Benito Mussolini’s final government in the Nazi puppet state in Salo, northern Italy. It remained a small right-wing party until the 1990s, when it became the National Alliance, which sought to distance itself from its neo-fascist origins.

    Meloni, who joined the MSI as a teenager and headed the National Alliance youth branch, founded Brothers of Italy in 2012 along with another former MSI and National Alliance member, Ignazio La Russa, who was elected president of the Senate this week. La Russa has proudly shown off his Mussolini memorabilia collection and, early on in the pandemic, suggested Italians use the fascist salute rather than shake hands in a tweet that he blamed on an underling that was quickly removed.

    On Sunday, La Russa also commemorated the anniversary of the roundup, saying it was “one of the darkest days of our history.”

    “It is the duty of everyone, starting with the highest institutions, to pass on the memory so that similar tragedies will never happen again in the future. To the Jewish community, today as always, my sincere closeness,” he said in a Facebook post.

    Italy’s other political leaders also commemorated the anniversary with tweets, messages and statements. Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, attended a commemoration in the Ghetto itself alongside Dureghello and other members of the Jewish community. They paused for a moment in front of a wreath outside Rome’s main synagogue alongside Rome’s chief rabbi, Riccardo Di Segni.

    The community launched a social media campaign #16ottobre43 with a video scrolling the names of the people killed “whose only ‘guilt’ was that of being Jewish.”

    Dureghello recalled that the anniversary marked “the date in which we remember the first Nazi-Fascist deportation of the Roman Jews. Men, women and children torn from their homes and sent to die. Keeping the memory alive is a moral imperative that serves to extinguish the sirens of hatred and fanaticism.”

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  • Liz Truss’ new chancellor signals he could junk more of her economic plan

    Liz Truss’ new chancellor signals he could junk more of her economic plan

    LONDON — Jeremy Hunt, the man brought in to save Liz Truss’ floundering premiership and calm spooked markets, is “not taking anything off the table” when it comes to rethinking the government’s economic policies.

    In a round of broadcast interviews Sunday, Hunt — appointed as the U.K.’s top finance minister Friday after Truss sacked Kwasi Kwarteng — left the door open to fresh about-turns on the debt-funded, tax-cutting promises that helped Truss become Conservative leader just weeks ago.

    “We are going to have to take some very difficult decisions, both on spending and on tax,” Hunt told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. “Spending is not going to increase by as much as people hoped, and indeed we’re going to have to ask all government departments to find more efficiencies than they had planned, and taxes are not going to go down as quickly as people thought, and some taxes are going go up,” he added.

    Hunt — a former Cabinet minister and two-time leadership contender drawn from the center-left of the Conservative Party — is now in an extraordinarily powerful position, having been drafted in to salvage Truss’ premiership amid collapsing poll ratings and economic turmoil.

    Conservative MPs have been openly criticizing her leadership, amid fevered speculation in Westminster that the party will try to oust her — a move that would likely require a change to the party’s internal rules and could put the U.K. on its third prime minister this year.

    As well as sacking her chancellor, Truss was on Friday forced to abandon a totemic pledge from her leadership campaign, and she will now increase corporation tax as had originally been planned by the man she defeated in the Tory contest, Rishi Sunak. It followed a humiliating climbdown over plans to cut taxes for Britain’s top earners, unveiled in a so-called mini-budget in September that was not subject to the usual scrutiny by Britain’s independent fiscal watchdog and prompted an emergency intervention from the Bank of England and a sharp rise in mortgage rates.

    Hunt went armed to his BBC interview with a message to voters and nervous MPs. “One thing I want to reassure families who are worried at home is that our priority, the lens through which we’re going to do this is as a compassionate Conservative government, and top of our mind when we’re making these decisions will be struggling families, struggling businesses, the most vulnerable people and we will be doing everything we can to protect them,” he said.

    Pressed on the scope of his revised tax-and-spend plans ahead of a fiscal announcement slated for October 31, Hunt told the BBC: “I’m not taking anything off the table.”

    But he warned Conservative MPs against trying to oust Truss, saying a further leadership contest was “the last thing that people really want.”

    Elsewhere on Sunday, Tory MPs expressed their anger at the Truss administration. Senior backbencher and education committee chairman Robert Halfon said he was not calling for Truss to go “at this time,” but demanded a “dramatic reset” of her premiership.

    The government, he told Sky News, had looked like “libertarian jihadists” who had treated the country like “laboratory mice.” Crispin Blunt, a former minister, became the first to publicly call on Truss to step aside, telling telling Channel 4 News: “U think the game’s up, and it’s now a question as to how the succession is managed.”

    Amid efforts by some government ministers to paint the U.K.’s economic woes as entirely global, former Bank of England Deputy Governor Charlie Bean told Sky’s Sophy Ridge show: “Frankly, I think it’s disingenuous to say it’s all a global phenomenon; it’s not.”

    On interest rate rises now facing the U.K., Bean argued that around two-thirds is down to global factors, with the rest a U.K.-specific phenomenon that’s developed since the mini-budget. “Basically we’ve moved from looking not too dissimilar from the U.S. or Germany as a proposition to lend to, to looking more like Italy and Greece,” he said.

    Annabelle Dickson and Matt Honeycombe-Foster

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  • Man plays his saxophone through 9-hour,

    Man plays his saxophone through 9-hour,

    brain-surgery-saxophone.jpg
     A photo provided by the Paideia International Hospital in Rome, Italy, shows a 35-year-old male patient playing the saxophone as he has open brain surgery to remove a tumor, October 10, 2022.

    Courtesy of Paideia International Hospital


    Rome — A musician had a brain tumor removed in Italy this week in a nine-hour surgery that he spent not only awake and fully conscious, but playing his saxophone. The 35-year-old male patient had the procedure at Rome’s Paideia International Hospital on Monday and was discharged early Thursday morning. 

    Dr. Christian Brogna, a neurosurgeon and expert in awake surgery, told CBS News the tumor was removed successfully, and that there were no negative impacts on the patient. Brogna led a highly specialized 10-member international team for the procedure, using state-of-the-art technology. 

    “The tumor was located in a very, very complex area of the brain,” said Brogna. “Moreover, the patient is left-handed. This makes things more complicated because the neural pathways of the brain are much more complicated.”

    The doctor said his patient, who has been identified only as C.Z., played the theme song from the 1970 movie “Love Story,” and the Italian national anthem, at various times throughout the surgery. 

    During the meticulous preparation for the surgery, C.Z. had told the medical team that preserving his musical ability was essential to him. It was also very useful to the surgeon, because his patient playing the sax during surgery allowed Brogna to map different functions of the brain as he operated.

    italy-brugna-surgery.jpg
    Neurosurgeon Dr. Christian Brogna operates on a male patient, who is fully awake, to remove a brain tumor at the Paideia International Hospital in Rome, Italy, October 10, 2022.

    Courtesy of Paideia International Hospital


    “To play an instrument means that you can understand music, which is a high cognitive function. It means you can interact with the instrument, you can coordinate both hands, you can exercise memory, you can count — because music is mathematics — you can test vision because the patient has to see the instrument, and you can test the way the patient interacts with the rest of the team,” he said. 

    Brogna, who has performed hundreds of awake brain surgeries, said the key to pulling off such a complex operation, was preparation.    

    “Every patient is unique, every brain is unique, so we really need to know the patient very well,” he told CBS News.

    Over a period of about 10 days before the operation, the patient met with the medical team six or seven times. He said it was important to the surgeons to respect the patient’s wishes as to which functions they felt were most important to preserve. The process led to what Brogna called “a massively tailored surgery.” 

    During the preparations for this and any other brain surgery, Brogna said the team looks at the entire person, not just the pathology. 

    italy-doctor-awake-surgery.jpg
    Dr. Christian Brogna, a neurosurgeon and expert in awake surgery, is seen outside Rome’s Paideia International Hospital in a handout photo.

    Courtesy of Paideia International Hospital


    “When we operate on the brain, we are operating on the sense of self, so we need to make sure that we do not damage the patient as a person — their personality, the way they feel emotions, the way they get through life. The patient will tell you what is important in his life and it is your job to protect his wishes,” he said.

    The preparation period also ensures the patient knows every detail of the procedure before it happens. During surgery, that helps ensure they remain quiet and collaborative, not scared, said Brogna, adding that that there is an atmosphere of “great calm, great silence” in the operating room during the procedure. Apart from the saxophone, of course, in this case.

    Brogna said he was proud that his patient had been able to go back to his normal life, and proud that with each operation, knowledge of this branch of medicine is advancing.   

    “Every surgery is a window on the brain, on how it works, and while we are learning, we are taking the whole of the person — his life, his passion, his hobbies, his job — into account,” said the surgeon. “That is the goal.”

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  • Italy unions demand Stellantis, Ferrari wage rise of 8.4% for 2023

    Italy unions demand Stellantis, Ferrari wage rise of 8.4% for 2023

     Italian unions representing workers at Stellantis, Ferrari, Iveco and CNH Industrial will on Monday ask for a wage increase of 8.4% to be paid in 2023 to counter rising inflation, a senior union source told Reuters.

    Europe’s cost-of-living crisis is putting upward pressure on wage inflation as companies across the continent face demands from workers to cushion the impact of rising prices. Consumer prices rose 8.9% year on year in Italy in September.

    The request for salary increases is part of official talks starting on Monday between metal workers unions FIM-CISL, UILM, Fismic, UGLM and AQCF and the four industrial groups.

    The talks focus on new four-year contracts for most of their Italian employees. The current contracts expire at the end of this year.

    They affect almost 70,000 workers in Italy, two thirds of them at the former Fiat-Chrysler, which last year merged with France’s PSA to create Stellantis.

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  • Pope slams treatment of migrants as 2 Italians become saints

    Pope slams treatment of migrants as 2 Italians become saints

    VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday denounced Europe’s indifference toward migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea as he elevated to sainthood an Italian bishop and Italian-born missionary whose work and life paths illustrated the difficulties faced by 19th Century Italian emigrants.

    Francis departed from prepared remarks to slam Europe’s treatment of migrants as “disgusting, sinful and criminal.” He noted that people from outside the continent are often left to die during perilous sea crossings or pushed back to Libya, where they wind up in camps he referred to as “lager,” the German word referring to Nazi concentration camps.

    He also recalled the plight of Ukrainians fleeing war, which he said “causes us great suffering.”

    “ The exclusion of migrants is scandalous,’’ Francis said, generating applause from the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the canonizations of Don Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, an Italian bishop who founded an order to help Italian emigrants in 1887, and Artedime Zatti, an Italian who emigrated in 1897 to Argentina and dedicated his life as a lay-worker there to helping the sick.

    “Indeed, the situation of migrants is criminal. They are left to die in front of us, making the Mediterranean the largest cemetery in the world. The situation of migrants is disgusting, sinful, criminal. Not to open the doors to those who are in need. No, we exclude them, we send them away to lager, where they are exploited and sold as slaves.”

    He urged the faithful to consider the treatment of migrants, asking: ‘’Do we welcome them as brothers, or do we exploit them?”

    The pontiff said the two new saints “remind us of the importance or walking together.”

    Francis said Scalabrani showed “great vision,’’ by looking forward “to a world and a Church without barriers, where no one was a foreigner.” And the pontiff called Zatti “a living example of gratitude” who devoted his life to serving others after being cured of tuberculosis.

    Scalabrini founded the Missionaries of Saint Charles Borromeo, known as the Scalabrian Fathers, and the Missionary Sisters of Saint Charles Borromeo Scalabrians, to minister to the many Italians who left their homeland due to what he wrote were the combined effects of an agricultural crisis, social change, a poorly managed economy, exorbitant taxation and “the natural desire to improve one’s condition.”

    Disturbed by statistics on Italian emigration that swelled to 84,000 in 1884 alone, Scalabrini wrote that the mass emigration and separation of families would “help strew white the lands of America with their bones.”

    He died in 1905 in Piacenza, where he was bishop, and was beatified in 1997 by St. John Paul II. Pope Francis dispensed with the canonization requirement of Scalabrini having a miracle attributed to him after his beatification.

    The order he founded currently operates 176 missions around the world, including 27 migrant shelters and 20 schools and centers for children.

    Francis, himself the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, has recalled being inspired by Zatti’s life while he was Jesuit provincial superior in Argentina, saying the number of men entering the Catholic order increased after he prayed for the late bishop’s intercession.

    Zatti was one of eight children born to a farming couple in northern Italy that emigrated to Argentina in 1897 when he was a teenager.

    After entering the Salesian order at age 20, Zatti fell ill with tuberculosis and was sent to a Salesian-run hospital in northern Patagonia to be treated. He made a vow to serve the sick and poor for the rest of his life, if he recovered. Zatti went on to work in the same hospital for 40 years, working as a nurse, in the pharmacy, and later as an administrator.

    His fame for treating the ill attracted the sick from all over Patagonia. Zatti was known to travel the city of Viedma with his bicycle with a medical case to help the sick. The pontiff on Sunday also recalled an occasion when Zatti was seen removing a dead patient on his own shoulders from the hospital, to prevent the sick from seeing the body.

    Zatti died in 1951, and was beatified in 2002. Paving the way for canonization, Francis signed the decree recognizing Zatti’s intercession in the healing of a man in the Philippines who had suffered a brain bleed.

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    Barry reported from Milan. Francesco Sportelli in Rome and Gianfranco Stara in Vatican City contributed.

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    Follow AP’s coverage of global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

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  • European champs Italy draw England in Euro 2024 qualifying

    European champs Italy draw England in Euro 2024 qualifying

    FRANKFURT, Germany — The finalists of Euro 2020 will meet again on the way to the next tournament in two years’ time, with Italy and England drawn in the same qualifying group.

    The draw for the tournament, which will be staged in Germany, was held by UEFA on Sunday.

    Italy versus England was one of the standout match-ups in the Euro 2024 qualifying draw, with European giants Netherlands and France also facing each other.

    Italy defeated England on penalties at Wembley last year to be crowned European champions. But the team coached by Roberto Mancini failed to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar, which kicks off next month.

    Italy and England will also face Ukraine, North Macedonia and Malta in Group C.

    Netherlands and France are joined by Republic of Ireland, Greece and Gibraltar in Group B.

    Italy manager Roberto Mancini welcomed the draw, telling Sky Sports: “I think it’s always good to play against England in Wembley. It’s a good thing.

    “It don’t change nothing for us. Maybe Italy and England will be favourites in this group, but it’s important to play all the games 100 per cent.”

    ———

    The draw in full:

    Group A: Spain, Scotland, Norway, Georgia, Cyprus

    Group B: Netherlands, France, Republic of Ireland, Greece, Gibraltar

    Group C: Italy, England, Ukraine, North Macedonia, Malta

    Group D: Croatia, Wales, Armenia, Turkey, Latvia

    Group E: Poland, Czech Republic, Albania, Faroe Islands, Moldova

    Group F: Belgium, Austria, Sweden, Azerbaijan, Estonia

    Group G: Hungary, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Lithuania

    Group H: Denmark, Finland, Slovenia, Kazakhstan, Northern Ireland, San Marino

    Group I: Switzerland. Israel, Romania, Kosovo, Belarus, Andorra

    Group J: Portugal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Liechtenstein

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    AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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  • London, Paris, Frankfurt and beyond: CNBC names Europe’s best hotels for business travel

    London, Paris, Frankfurt and beyond: CNBC names Europe’s best hotels for business travel

    International travel may still have its challenges.

    But finding a solid hotel for a business trip isn’t one of them.     

    CNBC Travel and the market data firm Statista today release a ranking of the “Best Hotels for Business Travelers” in Europe.

    This is the first ranking of its kind between CNBC and Statista, who are also releasing hotel rankings in the Middle East today. Asia-Pacific rankings were published in September.

    In total, we analyzed more than 10,000 four- and five-star hotels in 117 locations to produce lists corporate travelers can trust. We did this using a three-step process:

    • Asking business travelers and hotel industry professionals to answer a CNBC reader survey which ran from May 3 to June 7, 2022.
    • Reviewing more than 1 million hotel data points, which included objective information (location, business facilities, food, leisure activities and room characteristics) and subjective reviews (gathered from Google, TripAdvisor, Expedia and similar websites).
    • Weighting the data to prioritize the hotel characteristics deemed most important in the reader survey.

    For full details about our research methodology, click here.

    From Amsterdam to Zurich, here is the full list of the European winners in PDF format — complete with final scores — some of which are highlighted below.

    Alternatively, you can search by city or country using the table here:

    Amsterdam

    1. Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam
    2. Canal House Suites at Sofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam
    3. Hotel Okura Amsterdam
    4. Sofitel Legend The Grand Amsterdam
    5. Conservatorium Hotel

    Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam

    Source: Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam

    The Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam tied for the highest scores for customer reviews among Europe’s largest financial centers, a distinction it shared with Rome’s Villa Spalletti Trivelli. Travelers rave about the canal-side location, but they say it’s the smaller points — the turndown service, fresh tulips in the room, the luxurious bedding — that make it one of Amsterdam’s finest hotels.

    Berlin

    1. Louisa’s Place
    2. InterContinental Berlin
    3. SO/Berlin Das Stue
    4. Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin
    5. KPM Hotel & Residences

    In a city with ample competition from major hotel brands, the owner-run Louisa’s Place — named after Queen Louise of Prussia — topped our list. Built around 1900, the boutique hotel in West Berlin has 47 spacious rooms, each with high ceilings and separate bedrooms.

    Brussels

    1. Steigenberger Wiltcher’s
    2. Sofitel Brussels Europe
    3. Hotel Manos Premier
    4. Le Louise Hotel Brussels – MGallery
    5. Stanhope Hotel Brussels

    Steigenberger Wiltcher’s location on the prestigious Avenue Louise — and its style, aptly described as “luxurious simplicity” — make it a favorite with business travelers in Belgium. Travelers can take an online tour of the hotel before visiting, virtually walking the hallways to peer into its restaurants and ballrooms.

    Copenhagen

    1. Charlottehaven
    2. Hotel Kong Arthur
    3. Villa Copenhagen
    4. Hotel Skt Petri
    5. Zoku Copenhagen

    Charlottehaven

    Source: Charlottehaven

    Charlottehaven has hotel apartments in two areas — the larger units in the “Garden” and the newer apartments in the “Tower” which have 180-degree views of the city. The hotel combines kitchens, laundry areas and other comforts of a house with the amenities of a hotel. Nearby metro and train stations make it easy to commute around the city too.

    Dublin

    1. The Merrion
    2. InterContinental Dublin
    3. The Marker
    4. Camden Court Hotel
    5. The Shelbourne, Autograph Collection

    The Merrion

    Source: The Merrion

    Scoring 3.78 (out of a possible 4 points), the five-star Merrion hotel in the center of Dublin tied for the second highest overall score in Europe. Its 142 rooms and suites are inside four restored Georgian townhouses dating to the 1760s. There’s also a two-star Michelin restaurant — Ireland’s first — plus two bars, a spa and six meeting spaces.

    Frankfurt

    1. Sofitel Frankfurt Opera
    2. JW Marriott Hotel Frankfurt
    3. Best Western Premier IB Hotel Friedberger Warte
    4. Le Meridien Frankfurt
    5. Steigenberger Airport Hotel Frankfurt

    Sofitel Frankfurt Opera

    Source: Sofitel Frankfurt Opera

    The Sofitel Frankfurt Opera is on Opera Square, or the Opernplatz, near the city’s famed opera house. In addition to its central location, the hotel wins over business travelers for the small touches that make for seamless stays: complimentary car valets and minibar beverages, 24-hour room service and stylish rooms outfitted with Illy espresso machines and Bose sound systems. 

    Geneva

    1. Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues Geneva
    2. Fairmont Grand Hotel Geneva
    3. Hilton Geneva Hotel and Conference Centre
    4. The Woodward Geneve
    5. La Reserve Geneve Hotel & Spa

    Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues

    Source: Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues Geneva

    Marble bathrooms, down pillows and balconettes with unobstructed views of Lake Geneva — these are some of the reasons the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues Geneva consistently ranks among the city’s most luxurious places to stay. Business travelers can take meetings to the next level with private tours of the nearby Patek Philippe Museum or helicopter tours over Mont Blanc — with all details organized by the hotel.

    London

    1. The Langham London
    2. The Savoy
    3. Bulgari Hotel London
    4. One Aldwych
    5. The Lanesborough

    The Langham London

    Source: The Langham London

    The Langham London is a U.K. institution. It’s got a West End location, restaurants helmed by the two-Michelin starred chef Michel Roux Jr., and a bar, Artesian, that was named the world’s best four times in a row. Travelers who book executive rooms or higher get access to The Langham Club, which comes with perks like private check-ins, pressing services, all-day dining options and private meeting spaces.

    Madrid

    1. Gran Hotel Ingles
    2. Barcelo Torre de Madrid
    3. Rosewood Villa Magna
    4. VP Plaza Espana Design
    5. Wellington Hotel & Spa Madrid

    Gran Hotel Ingles

    Source: Gran Hotel Ingles

    It’s rare for a small property to outrank major hospitality companies, but Gran Hotel Ingles has done exactly that. “Pure luxury” is how the 48-room hotel is described by travelers, from its sleek interior to its cocktail weekend events accompanied by live music. Opened in 1886, the hotel is said to be Madrid’s oldest.

    Milan

    1. Hotel Viu Milan
    2. Excelsior Hotel Gallia
    3. Best Western Plus Hotel Galles
    4. Milano Verticale | UNA Esperienze
    5. Armani Hotel Milano

    Hotel Viu Milan

    Source: Marriott International

    The website for Hotel Viu Milan leads off — not with its rooms or restaurants — but with one word: bleisure. That’s because this hotel is serious about blending business stays with relaxation: morning yoga on the terrace, aperitives after work and dinner at the on-site restaurant Morelli, helmed by the Italian Michelin-starred chef Giancarlo Morelli.

    Oslo

    1. The Thief
    2. Hotel Continental
    3. Radisson Blu Scandinavia Hotel, Oslo
    4. Clarion Hotel The Hub
    5. Scandic Holmenkollen Park

    The Thief

    Source: The Thief

    The Thief Hotel on Tjuvholmen, or “Thief Islet,” takes its name from its seedy past as a hotbed of criminals. Now it’s an upmarket neighborhood known for art and architecture. Art features prominently in the hotel too, as do designer furniture and upmarket Nordic cuisine.

    Rome

    1. Hotel de la Ville
    2. Villa Spalletti Trivelli
    3. Hotel Villa Pamphili Roma
    4. Hotel Artemide
    5. Anantara Palazzo Naiadi

    The historic Hotel de la Ville, next to the Spanish Steps, is a Rocco Forte Hotel — a company bearing the name of one of Italy’s most famous hotelier families. Business travelers love its rooftop bar and central courtyard, but it’s the concierge — known to help with insider tips and hard-to-book restaurant reservations — that gives the hotel the edge in Italy’s capital city.

    Paris  

    1. Le Bristol Paris
    2. Les Jardins du Faubourg
    3. Kimpton – St Honore Paris
    4. Pullman Paris Center-Bercy
    5. Le Meurice

    Le Bristol Paris

    Source: Le Bristol Paris | Claire Cocano

    Guests of Le Bristol Paris can count President Emmanuel Macron as a neighbor — Elysee Palace, the official residence of France’s president — is just steps away. From white-gloved service to its three-Michelin-starred restaurant Epicure, the hotel is the height of Parisian elegance and culinary excellence.

    Stockholm

    1. Grand Hotel Stockholm
    2. Radisson Blu Waterfront Hotel Stockholm
    3. Hotel At Six
    4. Bank Hotel
    5. Lydmar Hotel

    Grand Hotel Stockholm

    Source: Grand Hotel Stockholm

    Tying for No. 2 in overall points with Dublin’s The Merrion, the stylish Grand Hotel Stockholm secured the top score for its amenities and facilities, not only in Sweden, but in all of Europe. Its waterfront location is bolstered by four restaurants, a champagne bar, spa and gym, the latter with personal trainers. Room service is available round the clock for those with late-night work to complete.

    Vienna

    1. Palais Coburg Hotel Residenz
    2. Hotel Sans Souci Wien
    3. The Ritz-Carlton, Vienna
    4. The Harmonie Vienna
    5. Grand Hotel Wien

    This grand hotel built in 1845 is the former home of Austrian royalty. The all-suite boutique hotel has a restaurant with two Michelin stars and a wine cellar that is said to house some 60,000 bottles of wine.

    Zurich

    1. The Dolder Grand
    2. Widder Hotel
    3. Baur au Lac
    4. Park Hyatt Zurich
    5. Acasa Suites Zurich

    The Dolder Grand

    Source: The Dolder Grand

    The Dolder Grand may have opened in 1899, but this hotel outside of Zurich’s city center has an almost futuristic feel. The interior features works by Salvador Dali and Jean Tinguely, and it has a two-Michelin starred restaurant and a 4,000-square-foot spa. From royalty to rock legends, former guests include King Charles and The Rolling Stones.

     — Natalie Tham contributed to this report.

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  • How the far-right got out of the doghouse

    How the far-right got out of the doghouse

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    European far-right politicians just stormed to victory in Italy, after achieving historic results in France and Sweden.

    “Everywhere in Europe, people aspire to take their destiny back into their own hands!” said Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Rally Party. 

    But if you think there is a new wave of right-wing radicalism sweeping Europe, you’d be wrong. Something else is going on.

    Analysis by POLITICO’s Poll of Polls suggests far-right parties in the region on average did not increase their support by even one percentage point between the start of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine in February and today.

    POLITICO looked at the median and average increase of all parties organized in right-wing European Parliament groups of Identity and Democracy, the European Conservatives and Reformists or unaffiliated parties with political far-right positions.

    Overall, the results indicate that if an increase in support occurred for far-right parties, it happened several years ago.

    The Sweden Democrats’ first surge happened after the 2014 election, when the party grew from around 10 percent to 20 percent, the same one-fifth share of the vote they received in this year’s election. The far-right Alternative for Germany AfD in Germany grew fast in 2015 and 2016 reaching 14 percent in POLITICO’s polling tracker. In Italy, the Northern League overtook Forza Italia for the first time in early 2015, and peaked in 2019 at 37 percent before starting a downward trend ending on 9 percent in last month’s election. In the Italian election, voters mostly switched between rival right-wing camps.

    The far-right has moved from the fringes of politics into the mainstream, not only influencing the political center but also entering the arena of power. 

    “There is a normalization of far-right parties as an integral part of the political landscape,” said Cathrine Thorleifsson, who researches extremism at the University of Oslo. “They have been accepted by the electorate and also by other, conventional parties.”

    Cooperation between the center-right and the extreme-right has become less taboo. 

    “The rise of far-right parties is only part of the story. The facilitating and mainstreaming of far-right parties as well as the adoption of far-right frames and positions by other parties is at least as important,” tweeted Cas Mudde, a leading scholar on the issue. 

    This may risk destabilizing Europe even more than winning a couple of percentage points in the polls.

    Italy’s far-right firebrand Giorgia Meloni is a clear-cut example. While her party draws its origin from groups founded by former fascists, she’ll now lead the EU’s third-largest economy.

    Leader of Italian far-right party “Fratelli d’Italia” (Brothers of Italy), Giorgia Meloni | Pitro Cruciatti/AFP via Getty Images

    In Sweden, the center-right party has started coalition talks for a minority government which would have to draw on opposition support, most likely from the far-right Swedish Democrats. Far-right parties have also entered governments in Austria, Finland, Estonia and Italy. Other countries are likely to follow. 

    George Simion, the leader of Romania’s far-right party, Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), celebrated Meloni’s win in Italy, saying his party is likely to follow in their footsteps.

    Spain heads to the ballot box next year and socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez may have a tough time winning re-election. The conservative People’s Party is between five and seven points ahead of the Spanish socialists in all the published polls, but it is unlikely to garner enough votes to secure a governing majority outright.

    That means it may have to come to an agreement with far-right party Vox, whose leader, Santiago Abascal, is an ally of Meloni’s. While the People’s Party previously refused to govern with Vox, last spring its newly elected leader, Alberto Núnez-Feijóo, greenlit a coalition agreement with the ultranationalist group in Spain’s central Castilla y León region. 

    Tom Van Grieken, the right-wing Belgian politician, also pointed to Spain as the next likely example, especially because of the possible cooperation with the PP. “All over Europe, we see conservative parties who are considering breaking the cordon sanitaire,” he said, referring to the refusal of other parties to work with the far-right. “They are tired of compromising with their ideological counterparts, the parties at the left end of the spectrum.”

    Chairman of Vlaams Belang party Tom Van Grieken | Stephanie Le Coqc/EFE via EPA

    This didn’t happen overnight. The far-right worked hard to shrug off their extremist, neo-Nazi image.

    “In some of the reporting on the Swedish Democrats, you’d think they’ll deport people on trains as soon as they’re in power. Come on, these parties have changed,” said one EU official with right-wing affiliations. 

    The far-right invested in “image adjustment and trying to tread carefully with some issues, while unashamedly catering to others,” said Nina Wiesehomeier, a political scientist at the IE University of Madrid.  “This is particularly obvious in Italy right now, with Meloni sticking to the slogan of ‘God, homeland, family,’ as a continuation, while having tried to purge the party from more radical elements.”

    In Belgium’s northern region of Flanders, the right-wing Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) explicitly dismisses the label “extreme-right.” Just like his counterparts in Italy, Sweden and France, Van Grieken, the party’s president, denounced the more extremist positions of his group’s founding fathers and moderated his political message to make voting for the far-right socially acceptable. 

    Overt racism is taboo. Instead, the rhetoric changes to criticizing an open-door migration policy. By carefully catering to centrist voters, the far-right aims for a bigger slice of the cake, while still riding on the anti-establishment discontent.

    “There is a clear fault line between the winners of globalization and the nationalists,” Van Grieken told POLITICO. “This comes on top on the concerns about mass migration, whether it’s in Malmö, Rome or other European cities.”

    Perfect storm

    Now, the time is right to capitalize on that transformation.

    As Europe is battling record inflation and Europeans fear exorbitant heating bills, governments warn about the political implications of a “winter of discontent.” 

    “It’s a massive drainage of European prosperity,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo told POLITICO recently. “In the current situation, it’s hard to believe in progress, it’s very hard to make progress. So there’s a very pessimistic feeling.”

    The current war in Ukraine is the latest in a succession of crises — in global finance, migration and the pandemic. Experts argue that this is key to understanding the rising support for the far-right. 

    “Such existential crises have a destabilizing effect and lead to fear,” said Carl Devos, a professor in political science at Ghent University. “Fear is the breeding ground for the far-right. People tend to translate that fear and outrage into radical voting behaviour.”

    Migration and identity politics are less prominent in the media because of the Ukraine war and rising energy prices, but they’re still key issues in right-wing debate.

    In Austria, the coalition parties fought over whether or not asylum seekers should receive climate bonuses. In the Netherlands, the death of a baby at the asylum center Ter Apel led to a renewed debate over the overcrowded migration centers. 

    The combination of those issues is likely to feed into more right-wing wins across the continent. “The far-right offers nationalist, protectionist solutions to the globalized crises, said Thorleifsson. “We see how the migration issue was momentarily off the agenda during the pandemic, but now it’s back.”

    Aitor Hernández-Morales, Camille Gijs and Ana Fota contributed reporting.

    Barbara Moens and Cornelius Hirsch

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  • EU aims for Israel reboot with summit

    EU aims for Israel reboot with summit

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    The EU is seeking to reset its often testy relationship with Israel next week, convening a summit on Monday of senior political figures for the first time in a decade. 

    The meeting format, known as the EU-Israel Association Council, has essentially been dormant since 2013, when Israel canceled a gathering in protest over the EU’s stance on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Since then, the two sides have continued to clash over similar issues. 

    But the 2021 exit of hardline Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened the door for current rapprochement. His replacement, Yair Lapid, who also holds the foreign minister role, has embraced a two-state solution with Palestine — a position more in line with many EU countries’ approach, even if several countries are still expected to express disapproval of Israel’s Palestinian policies on Monday. Brussels is also eager to shore up energy supplies from Israel amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.

    Lapid is expected to attend Monday’s council meeting. 

    “There’s a big hope that the upcoming association council between the EU and Israel will bring … a new wind into our relationship,” Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský told POLITICO last week at the United Nations General Assembly, expressing optimism that the development will be one of the key achievements of the Czechs’ six-month rotating EU presidency.

    Still, getting EU consensus on one of the world’s most notoriously contentious conflicts is not going to be easy. 

    Countries like Ireland and Sweden have traditionally taken a more pro-Palestinian stance — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stopped off in Dublin for a meeting with the Irish prime minister earlier this month en route to the U.N. annual gathering. On the other end of the spectrum, Israel has strong supporters within the EU. Hungary, for example, is a staunch ally with economic and ideological bonds forged over the years between Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Netanyahu.  

    Before the EU-Israel council went dark, it had served for more than a decade as a forum for officials to regularly meet and discuss these issues. Now, with the council set to be revived, member states are tinkering with an official communique that needs to satisfy the spectrum of views regarding EU-Israeli relations. 

    Finding common language can mean weeks of fighting over a single word while backroom deals are cut to appease the myriad interests at play. Palestinian officials are also watching closely, demanding not to be left out of a similar diplomatic engagement with Brussels. 

    The EU’s complicated role in the Israel-Palestine conflict has played out in numerous controversies this year alone. 

    This spring, the European Commission was forced to delay funding for the Palestinian Authority over the content of textbooks, which critics say included anti-Israeli incitements to violence. 

    The decision to block the funds was led by Hungarian EU Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi. As POLITICO first reported, 15 countries sent a letter to the Commission in April blasting the move. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen finally announced the money would be disbursed during a visit to the Palestinian city Ramallah in July.

    EU commissioner for neighbourhood and enlargement Olivér Várhelyi | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images

    Further tensions with Tel Aviv emerged following an Israeli raid in July on the offices of Palestinian NGOs. 

    Israel had accused the groups — some of which received funds from EU countries — of being terrorist organizations. But numerous EU countries weren’t convinced.

    In a joint statement at the time, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden all blasted Israel, saying it had not supplied “substantial information” to justify the raids. The bloc reiterated those “deep concerns” in August after further Israeli raids on civil society groups. 

    Another dynamic affecting the EU’s relationship with Israel is the Continent’s energy woes. As Europe scrambles to find alternative sources of Russian gas, furthering energy ties with Israel is one possible answer.  

    In a June visit to Israel, von der Leyen signed a memorandum of understanding with Israel and Egypt to boost gas exports. The EU is also Israel’s largest trade market and accounts for about a third of Israel’s total trade. 

    But while economic imperatives explain part of the new push for engagement with Israel, long-term observers say the outreach also reflects a new willingness to engage with Tel Aviv after Lapid came to power this summer. Lapid entered office as part of a power-sharing arrangement with Naftali Bennett, who held the job for a year prior to him. 

    “I think it is a genuine shift,” said Maya Sion-Tzidkiyahu, who helms the Israel-Europe Program at Mitvim Institute, an Israeli think tank. “The change of tone was made by Lapid, who shares much of the EU’s normative stance on the liberal democratic world order. It’s now much more positive than during Netanyahu’s government, even if Bennett and now Lapid government is not advancing the peace process.”

    Sion-Tzidkiyahu said mutually beneficial scenarios are helping to replace “megaphone diplomacy” with closer dialogue.

    “Disagreements on contentious issues such as the Palestinian or Iranian one will not disappear, but perhaps there are now better understanding for the concerns of each side,” she said.

    Lipavský, the Czech foreign minister, is aware of the concerns some EU countries have about the Israeli’s government actions in the West Bank and towards Palestinians. 

    “We need to discuss [these concerns] openly, but I don’t think that one issue should block the debate about the others,” he said.

    European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen poses for pictures with Israel’s Yair Lapid | Pool photo by Maya Alleruzzo/AFP via Getty Images

    Officially, the EU supports the two-state solution that sees a Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace and security with Israel — a vision also shared by the United States. But making that prospect a reality seems as far away as ever. 

    Sven Koopmans, the EU special representative for the Middle East peace process, wrote earlier this month that all parties needed to help identify ways to solve the man-made conflict.

    “The current situation is increasingly seen as a structural human rights problem, in which Israel has the upper hand,” he wrote in the Israeli outlet Haaretz. “That negatively affects how the world perceives Israel, and holds risks for the long-term. It should not be that way.”

    When it comes to resuming the peace process, Sion-Tzidkiyahu is not confident. 

    “Under the current political circumstances in the Palestinian Authority and Israel, such development is not foreseen,” she said. “At most, the EU can push for more practical steps by Israel to improve Palestinian’s condition.”

    Ilya Gridneff and Joshua Zeitz

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  • ‘Crucial’ vote could move Italy to right; many might boycott

    ‘Crucial’ vote could move Italy to right; many might boycott


    ROME (AP) — Italians will vote on Sunday in what is being billed as a crucial election as Europe reels from the repercussions of Russia’s war in Ukraine. For the first time in Italy since the end of World War II, the election could propel a far-right leader into the premiership.

    Soaring energy costs and quickly climbing prices for staples like bread — the consequences of Russia’s invasion of breadbasket Ukraine — have pummeled many Italian families and businesses.

    Against that bleak backdrop, Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy party — with neo-fascist roots and an agenda of God, homeland and Christian identity — appear to be the front-runners in Italy’s parliamentary election.

    They could be a test case for whether hard-right sentiment is gaining more traction in the 27-nation European Union. Recently, a right-wing party in Sweden surged in popularity by capitalizing on peoples’ fears about crime.

    No single party in Italy stands much chance of winning enough seats to govern alone, but right-wing and right-leaning centrists forged a campaign pact that could secure Meloni a parliamentary majority and propel her into power. Her main alliance partner is right-wing League party leader Matteo Salvini, who blames crime on migrants and has long been a staunch ideological booster of right-wing governments in Hungary and Poland.

    “Elections in the middle of a war, in the midst of an energy crisis and the dawn of what is likely to be an economic crisis … almost by definition are crucial elections,″ said Nathalie Tocci, director of Rome-based think tank the International Affairs Institute.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, is gambling that “Europe will break” under the weight of economic and energy problems brought on by the war, Tocci told The Associated Press.

    Salvini, who draws his voter base from business owners in Italy’s north, has donned pro-Putin T-shirts in the past. Salvini has also questioned the wisdom of maintaining Western economic sanctions against Russia, saying they could hurt Italy’s economic interests too much.

    The publication of polls was halted 15 days before Sunday’s vote, but before then they indicated Meloni’s party would be the biggest vote-getter, just ahead of the center-left Democratic Party headed by former Premier Enrico Letta.

    The campaign alliance linking Meloni to Salvini and former Premier Silvio Berlusconi confers a clear advantage over Letta under Italy’s complex system of divvying up seats in Parliament.

    Letta had hoped in vain for a campaign alliance with the left-leaning populist 5-Star Movement, the largest party in the outgoing legislature.

    While it is a fraught moment for Europe, Sunday’s election could see modern Italy’s lowest-ever turnout. The last election, in 2018, saw record-low turnout of 73%. Pollster Lorenzo Pregliasco says this time the percentage could drop to as low as 66%.

    Pregliasco, who heads the YouTrend polling company, says Italy’s last three different governing coalitions since the last election have left Italians “disaffected, disappointed. They don’t see their vote as something that matters.”

    The outgoing government is headed by former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi. In early 2021, Italy’s president tapped Draghi to form a unity government after the collapse of the second ruling coalition of 5-Star leader Giuseppe Conte.

    In what Pregliasco called an “apparent paradox,” polls indicate that “most Italians like Draghi and think his government did a good job.” Yet Meloni, the sole major party leader to refuse to join Draghi’s coalition, is polling the strongest.

    As Tocci put it, Meloni’s party is so popular “simply because it’s the new kid on the block.”

    Draghi has said he doesn’t want another term.

    To Meloni’s annoyance, criticism still dogs her that she hasn’t made an unambiguous break with her party’s roots in a neo-fascist movement founded by nostalgists for dictator Benito Mussolini after his regime’s disastrous role in World War II. During the campaign, she declared that she is “no danger to democracy.”

    Some political analysts say worries about the fascist question aren’t their main concern.

    “I am afraid of incompetence, not the fascist threat,″ said Roberto D’Alimonte, a political science professor at LUISS, a private university in Rome. ”She has not governed anything.”

    Meloni served as youth minister in Berlusconi’s last government, which ended a decade ago.

    Instead, her main right-wing coalition partner is worth worrying about, D’Alimonte told The AP.

    “Salvini will be the troublemaker, not Meloni,″ he said. “It is not Meloni calling for the end of sanctions against Russia. It is Salvini. It is not Meloni calling for more debt or more deficit. It is Salvini.”

    But recent incidents have fed worries about Brothers of Italy.

    A Brothers of Italy candidate in Sicily was suspended by his party after he posted phrases on social media showing appreciation for Hitler. Separately, a brother of one of Meloni’s co-founders was spotted giving what appeared to be the fascist salute at a funeral for a relative. The brother denied that was what he was doing.

    For years, the right wing has crusaded against unbridled immigration, after hundreds of thousands of migrants reached Italy’s shores aboard smugglers’ boats or vessels that rescued them in the Mediterranean Sea. Both Meloni and Salvini have thundered against what they see as an invasion of foreigners not sharing what they call Italy’s “Christian” character.

    Letta, who wants to facilitate citizenship for children of legal immigrants, has, too, played the fear card. In his party’s campaign, ads on buses, half the image depicts a serious-looking Letta with his one-word motto, “Choose,” with the other half featuring an ominous-looking image of Putin. Salvini and Berlusconi have both expressed admiration for the Russian leader. Meloni backs supplying arms so Ukraine can defend itself.

    With energy bills as much as 10 times higher than a year ago, how to save workers’ jobs ranks high among Italian voters’ worries.

    But perhaps with the exception of Salvini, who wants to revisit Italy’s closed nuclear power plants, candidates haven’t distinguished themselves in proposing solutions to the energy crisis. Nearly all are pushing for a EU cap on gas prices.

    The perils of climate change haven’t loomed large in the Italian campaign. Italy’s tiny Greens party, a campaign partner of Letta, is forecast to capture barely a few seats in Parliament.

    ___

    Colleen Barry reported from Milan. Sabrina Sergi contributed to this report from Rome.



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  • Italy ties China’s hands at Pirelli over fears about chip technology | CNN Business

    Italy ties China’s hands at Pirelli over fears about chip technology | CNN Business


    London
    CNN
     — 

    Italy has imposed several curbs on Pirelli’s biggest shareholder, Sinochem, in a move aimed at blocking the Chinese government’s access to sensitive chip technology.

    The Italian government decided last week to make use of its so-called “Golden Power” regulations, designed to protect assets of strategic importance to the country, Pirelli said in a statement Sunday.

    The government order risks inflaming tensions between Europe and Beijing, and follows similar intervention by Germany and the United Kingdom to protect their semiconductor technology.

    Earlier this year, Europe joined a US-led effort to restrict China’s access to the most advanced chipmaking technology when the Netherlands — home to ASML Holding, a key supplier to the global semiconductor industry — said it would introduce export controls.

    Italy’s move comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken wraps up a high-stakes visit to China aimed at repairing strained relations between the world’s two biggest economies.

    Sinochem, owned by the Chinese government, is Pirelli’s biggest single shareholder, with a 37% stake, and has 60% of seats on the board of the Italian tire maker. CNN has contacted Sinochem for comment.

    In a statement Friday, the Italian government said Pirelli’s Cyber Tyre, which uses chip technology to collect vehicle data, is “configured as a critical technology of national strategic importance.”

    “Improper use of this technology can pose significant risks not only to the confidentiality of user data, but also to the possible transfer of information relevant to security,” the statement added.

    The order sets a host of limitations on Sinochem’s involvement in Pirelli, including a bar on it devising the company’s strategy and financial plans, or appointing a CEO.

    The government said these curbs would protect the “autonomy” of Pirelli and its management, as well as “information of strategic importance.”

    Europe is heavily reliant on China for trade and investment, but relations have come under strain from ideological differences, including over Russia’s war in Ukraine, and recent moves by European Union regulators and governments to limit China’s access to sensitive technology.

    The order takes a page out of this playbook. It requires that Pirelli refuse any requests from Sinochem’s owner — China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council — for information sharing, including any information connected to the “know-how” of proprietary technologies.

    The government said “some” strategic decisions would require approval from at least 80% of board directors, a further limitation on Sinochem’s influence.

    Separately, Rome is also assessing whether to renew its partnership with Beijing on the Belt and Road Initiative — China’s global infrastructure and investment megaproject. Italy is the only Group of Seven nation to have joined the initiative.

    In a further sign of the steps multinational companies are beginning to consider to protect their operations from growing geopolitical friction, drugmaker AstraZeneca

    (AZN)     has drawn up plans to spin off its China business and list it separately in Hong Kong, according to the Financial Times. AstraZeneca

    (AZN)     declined to comment.

    Earlier this month, Sequoia Capital, the Silicon Valley venture capital group, said it would separate its China investments into an independent unit.

    On Tuesday, the European Commission will unveil measures — possibly including screening of outbound investments and export controls — to keep prized EU technology from countries such as China, Reuters reported.

    — Laura He in Hong Kong contributed to this article.

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  • Italy blocks ChatGPT over privacy concerns | CNN Business

    Italy blocks ChatGPT over privacy concerns | CNN Business


    London
    CNN
     — 

    Regulators in Italy issued a temporary ban on ChatGPT Friday, effective immediately, due to privacy concerns and said they had opened an investigation into how OpenAI, the US company behind the popular chatbot, uses data.

    Italy’s data protection agency said users lacked information about the collection of their data and that a breach at ChatGPT had been reported on March 20.

    “There appears to be no legal basis underpinning the massive collection and processing of personal data in order to ‘train’ the algorithms on which the platform relies,” the agency said.

    The Italian regulator also expressed concerns over the lack of age verification for ChatGPT users. It argued that this “exposes children to receiving responses that are absolutely inappropriate to their age and awareness.” The platform is supposed to be for users older than 13, it noted.

    The data protection agency said OpenAI would be barred from processing the data of Italian users until it “respects the privacy regulation.”

    OpenAI has been given 20 days to communicate the measures it will take to comply with Italy’s data rules. Otherwise, it could face a penalty of up to €20 million ($21.8 million), or up to 4% of its annual global turnover.

    Since its public release four months ago, ChatGPT has become a global phenomenon, amassing millions of users impressed with its ability to craft convincing written content, including academic essays, business plans and short stories.

    But concerns have also emerged about its rapid spread and what large-scale uptake of such tools could mean for society, putting pressure on regulators around the world to act.

    The European Union is finalizing rules on the use of artificial intelligence in the bloc. In the meantime, EU companies must comply with the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, as well as the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, which apply to tech platforms.

    Meanwhile, so-called “generative AI” tools available to the public are proliferating.

    Earlier this month, OpenAI released GPT-4, a new version of the technology underpinning ChatGPT that is even more powerful. The company said the updated technology passed a simulated law school bar exam with a score around the top 10% of test takers; by contrast, the prior version, GPT-3.5, scored around the bottom 10%.

    This week, some of the biggest names in tech, including Elon Musk, called for AI labs to stop the training of the most powerful AI systems for at least six months, citing “profound risks to society and humanity.”

    — Julia Horowitz contributed reporting.

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  • Cooking Italian With Joe “Making the Perfect Scrambled Eggs”

    Cooking Italian With Joe “Making the Perfect Scrambled Eggs”

    Press Release
    –

    Aug 18, 2016


    Syracuse, NY, August 18, 2016 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Making the Perfect Scrambled Eggs

    When it comes to breakfast food, celebrity chef Joe Borio of the YouTube cooking show, “Cooking Italian with Joe”, knows that nothing says good morning better than a plate of freshly made scrambled eggs. They are simple, filled with flavor, hot, and offer the perfect accent to toast or a side dish of grilled potatoes and a cup of hot coffee. As simple as scrambled eggs are, chef Joe Borio, wants to share some do’s and don’t and some tips that will make your next morning breakfast dish of scrambled eggs go from oh hum to OMG delicious, and the best eggs I have ever had. 

    Let’s start with one of the most overlooked yet important part of scrambled eggs, the eggs. If possible you will want to shop for farm fresh, one to two day old, free range large to extra-large eggs. A healthy chicken who gets to run around and eat naturally is always going to offer you up a better tasting healthy egg. When you crack open a local farm fresh egg you will notice a bright and deep orange color yolk with perfectly clear egg white and a good density gel like feel. 

    With 3 locally grown eggs per person we are now on our way to total deliciousness for our hot breakfast for two. 
    Start your pan with a very low heat, where the pan begins to be just above warm, but not hot, as we are not frying the eggs but gently and slowly convincing them to marry under candlelight if you will. Too hot a pan will stiffen the eggs immediately, and make them too firm while removing the flavor of the yolk and egg white.  
    Next comes the scramble. Working or beating an egg too much will change the protein and fat consistency leading to a flat scramble and a loss in flavor. So good news, crack six eggs in a bowl and then with a fork offer up just enough scramble to break the yolks and mix them without blending them. General rule is a 30 to 40 second scramble or mix leaving a lot of streaks in color offering up a lot more flavor and texture, when it comes to seasoning, many times there is the tendency to season before the pan, and this is a big no. Adding salt to anything will draw water from the food, so adding salt now will cause water to be drawn from the egg white and yolk, which will cause them to harden or stiffen. Salt and pepper is best added after the eggs are plated, offering a beautiful balance of egg and seasoning with every bite.

    As we prepare to meet the warmed pan that has been heating for less than 60 seconds, we need a heat resistant spatula as we will be slowly folding the eggs as they heat and we want a clean pan with every fold. The pan will be prepared with just a splash of extra virgin olive oil. I can think of nothing better than my own olive oil, Vito and Joe’s Extra Virgin Italian Olive Oil, and only a teaspoon is needed. Make a few swipes with spatula to coat the pan with olive oil, which will prepare the pan and prevent sticking of the eggs as well as add some flavor to the dish as fat, especially extra virgin olive oil, offers you a gentle back drop of warmth to the palate with the olive fruit.

    Now it is time to slowly pour the egg mixture into the pan with a gentle folding of the spatula. One of the old Italian secrets here is to hold back a few tablespoons of egg mixture to add to the pan near the end of heating, offering a soft moist texture to your perfect eggs. Butter is the next ingredient and unsalted is the only way to go here as we discussed the problems of salt above. The chef Joe Borio recipe calls for 1/2 of a tablespoon with every egg, so with 6 eggs we want three tablespoons of unsalted butter and just let the butter stay in the middle of the eggs and slowly melt as you stir and fold the eggs every 15 to 30 seconds. The butter adds a little moisture but more than this it adds the butter fat which makes the eggs more flavorful, silky, light, and rich in flavor. Adding the butter first to the pan and heating the butter cause the butter to separate and change its flavor and texture, where the olive oil handles the low heat perfectly.

    Now, grab a plate, start the toast and don’t leave the pan, while you slowly fold in the eggs as the heat and firm at the pan surface. I like to put the plate on the stove top near to the heat to warm the plate, as I keep an attentive eye on the eggs with 15 second gentle folds, five minutes is the general time here maybe seven, but know with every passing minute the egg mixture is heating up and rising in temperature, so the firming of the eggs as they heat will occur faster as time goes by.

    Now when you will be thinking they are almost done, they are almost there, immediately turn off the heat. Remember they are hot and will continue to cook so waiting till they are done in the pan will result in over done dry eggs. While keeping the pan on the stove with the heat off, slowly add the last few tablespoons of egg mixture that you held back in the beginning. These will cook and mix well while immediately bringing down the temperature of the eggs. Most importantly, this will add a silky texture and flavor to the scramble that is unmatched by any other method I have tried.

    With 30 to 40 seconds of an intermittent slow fold, remove the eggs from the pan onto your warmed plates with toast off to the side. As I like my toast firm and crunchy, with a toasted texture upon the bite.

    I finish with a small sprinkle of gray sea salt and two to three spins with my fresh pepper grinder. Lastly, I love a tablespoon sized sprinkle of freshly chopped raw spinach. This adds a beautiful color, as well as just a drop of the great flavor of the farm, without taking away from the bold, silky fresh flavor of the best scrambled eggs recipe you will ever have. Enjoy!

    You can spend time with Celebrity Chef, Joe Borio and “Cooking Italian with Joe” on YouTube, cooking in his very own kitchen at his home in Cazenovia NY, or in his villa and very own olive farm in Puglia Italy and see exactly how the old school Italians make magic in the kitchen, as well as benefit from generations of experiences to bring you the best cooking tips, travel tips, and what to love about Italy, for your family for years to come.

    Join “Cooking Italian with Joe” on www.facebook.com/cookingitalianwithjoe/, Twitter, YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/joecookingitalian our blog at cookingitalianwithjoe.tumblr.com, Instagram, and at Pinterest, or on our website, www.cookingitalianwithjoe.com, to share in our videos, recipes, stories of family, and love of Italian life. Celebrity Chef Joseph Boriois an olive oil producer and offers for sale, Extra Virgin Italian Olive Oil, named after his two sons, Vito & Joe’s Extra Virgin Italian Olive Oil, available for purchase atwww.cookingitalianwithjoe.com or on www.amazon.com.

    Source: Cooking Italian with joe

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  • How Traditional Values Can Impact the Quality of Life

    How Traditional Values Can Impact the Quality of Life

    An open house on environmental issues focused on the connection between environmental crime and morality and a humanitarian program the Church supports to instill moral values.

    Press Release
    –

    Jul 12, 2016


    Rome, Italy, July 12, 2016 (Newswire.com)
    –
    A community open house held in one of the seminar rooms at the Church of Scientology of Rome promoted the importance of environmental responsibility. Emceed by the Church’s Social Reform Officer, speakers discussed environmental issues from their own unique perspective. They included a professor of philosophy and sociology, an attorney, and a retired police officer.

    According to the United Nations’ World Environment Day (WED) website, the dollar value ​of eco-crime outstripped illegal trade in small arms this year at an estimated $258 billion. This is 26 percent higher than previous estimates.

    The WED website also points out that:

    • More than one quarter of the world’s elephant population has been killed in the last decade.
    • Some of the world’s most vulnerable wildlife such as rhinos and elephants are being killed at a rate that has grown by more than 25 percent every year in the past decade.
    • Money generated from the illegal exploitation of natural resources funds rebel groups, terrorist networks and international criminal cartels.

    It was clear from each of the presentations at the forum that environmental irresponsibility is first and foremost a moral issue—a matter of personal choice. No matter how many regulations and laws exist, without a moral compass there is nothing to restrain people from destroying the natural resources we hold in trust for future generations.

    To address this and other pressing moral issues, the Church supports distribution of The Way to Happiness—a nonreligious moral code based entirely on common sense. Written in 1981 by author, humanitarian and Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard and published in 111 languages, it fills the void in an increasingly immoral society.  

    The Church of Scientology and its members are proud to share the tools for happier living contained in ​The Way to Happiness with all who seek to create a better world. 

    Source: ScientologyNews.org

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  • How to Make Perfect Crispy Calamari

    How to Make Perfect Crispy Calamari

    Press Release
    –

    Jun 7, 2016


    Syracuse, NY, June 7, 2016 (Newswire.com)
    –
    In Joe Borio’s latest video release on his popular YouTube show, “Cooking Italian with Joe”, the doctor turned chef shares with you the secrets to making perfect calamari like an Italian master.

    This delicious light and crispy recipe for fried calamari or fried squid is an easy to follow recipe that will serve you with crispy, crunchy, and light fried calamari, bringing you the flavor of old Italy.

    “Having the knowledge and some simple cooking tips from the Italian masters I have studied with for years, allows you to bring the flavors, textures, smells, and tastes of Italy right in your own kitchen”,  says Joe Borio. “Taking a few more simple and easy steps in the preparation of the calamari and breading as well as the plating and dipping sauce, is the difference between having the experience of your next plate of squid in America, or feeling like you are sitting in Rome, or Florence along the river on a warm summer night.”  

    In Joe Borio’s, Cooking Italian with Joe, cooking videos, you will learn what the masters in Italian cooking do, as well as benefit from a lifetime of experience to bring a generation of cooking tips to your family for years to come.

    Joe Borio started Cooking Italian with Joe, a weekly YouTube show where he is in the kitchen cooking all of your favorite Italian dishes, while he shares stories, tips, as he offers you, easy and simple authentic Italian recipes.

    Join Cooking Italian with Joe on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest or on our website to share in our videos, recipes, stories of family, and love of life. Dr. Joe Borio also offers real Extra Virgin Italian Olive Oil, named after his two sons, Vito & Joe’s Extra Virgin Italian Olive Oil, available at www.shop.cookingitalianwithjoe.com.

    Source: Cooking Italian with Joe

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