Over the Christmas period, coincidentally when the newspapers were not published’grazia’, or early release, for his client, on humanitarian grounds. Contrada is an ageing and apparently ill man. The former police chief of Palermo, and later leading light in SISDE – one of Italy’s secret services, is currently serving a ten year sentence for collusion […]

Without much fanfare an Italian Senate commission on Justice matters has recommended a measure be brought before parliament allowing for a reduction in minimum period required to obtain a divorce. The recommendation calls for the reduction from 3 years to 1 year (or perhaps 6 months, where there are no children involved). While the measure […]

In the wake of the Chernobyl disaster in 1987 the Italian public voted, in a referendum, to halt the country’s nuclear program. In the last 2-3 years various leading politicians, from both the left and right, have supported the overturning of this referendum as Italy faces spiralling energy costs. Yesterday, for example, our favourite post-fascist […]

Intercepted telephone calls between the leader of the opposition, Silvio Berlusconi, and the head of the state broadcasting company RAI’s fiction department have been blasted across the front pages of the newspapers, as a scandal blows itself up. The reason? Well, it appears that Silvio, a budding TV entrepreneur, has taken the opportunity to suggest […]

Did you feel the paradigm shift yesterday? Did your knees tremble as the Italian delegation at the United Nations smiled humbly watching their painstaking work on the abolition of the death penalty turn into a completely non-binding resolution voted for by 109 countries,54 against, and 29 abstentions. The evening news here ran with it as […]

Italian journalism, much maligned by this monkey, has in fact revealed itself to be at the front of the pack pioneering a new form of journalism, one that has quickly come to terms with the changing nature of news, recounting events through the prism of ‘hyper-reality’ and ‘super-fiction’ (discussed further by Mark Lawson). An example […]

As the Bali talks begin, British newspaper the Guardian asked various ‘thinkers’ to propose key breakthroughs that could be made globally/locally to combat the threat of climate change. One of the less predictable ideas came from musician and activist Brian Eno, who proposed electoral reform (presumably in the UK) as an important step towards combatting […]

Earlier this year news reports emerged that celebrated director Spike Lee would be turning his hand to a slice of Italian WWII history, as he prepares his next film the Miracle of St. Anna (due for release next year). The film focusses on four American soldiers trapped behind the Gothic line in Italy in 1944. […]

You’ll be familiar with the ever-so-slightly desparate attempts by the movie and music industries to convince consumers that bootleg copies of films and music not only rob the industry of vitally needed funds, and provide poor audio visual quality, but also provide funds to organised crime. The ads where a man buys a cheap film […]