The Italian government and top authorities in Rome have vowed to take punitive action against the hundreds of city police – 83.5% of those on call – who did not show up for work on New Year’s Eve. Whether or not this will happen remains to be seen: in Italy, talk is cheap. But the […]
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano confirmed on January First that he will be resigning his office later this month. In April, 2013, the 89-year old Head of State reluctantly agreed to stay on for a second term when, after four unsuccessful ballots, Italy’s wrangling political parties were unable to agree on a successor. It was the […]
While the Italian government still has little to show for its plans to help the country out of its economic doldrums, the Italian Coast Guard, its Navy and Air Force get kudos for saving travelers aboard a stricken ferry and rescuing hundreds of illegal migrants arriving from war-torn and/or poverty-struck countries and abandoned in the […]
This was the scene in Piazza di Spagna and Via dei Condotti on Sunday, January 3, when post-Christmas sales began in Rome.
Last week, Italian premier Matteo Renzi decided to tell Italian youngsters the bitter truth, and that is that in today’s Italian economy there is no longer such a thing as a permanent position. The posto fisso was a reality during and after the boom years of the postwar Italian economy and has remained the dream […]
Rome’s current mayor, Ignazio Marino, is not popular, except perhaps among some city planners and archeologists. He has angered merchants for closing several key streets around the Colosseum to traffic; he has been unable to get rid of illegal vendors, has failed in keeping the city clean and in improving public transport. Now he will […]
Yesterday, Rome’s unpopular “first citizen”, Ignazio Marino officially registered 16 gay marriages celebrated abroad by homosexual Rome residents. The mayor’s act will have no legal effect, because tomorrow, if not today, the prefect of Rome, the government’s representative in legal matters, is expected to nullify Marino’s act, that is to strike it off the books. […]
This is what happens when governments – local and national – fail to act. Three years after one of the most disastrous floods it has known, the Italian city of Genoa and manyof the surrounding smaller towns, are covered in mud. There were, fortunately, few fatalities but enormous damages to private and public property. After […]
Another never-ending Roman story: what do about the city’s cobblestones, known as sanpietrini because they were first used in the 1700s to pave Piazza S. Pietro. Some people love’em, some people – especially motorists and cyclists hate them – but any way you look at it, deciding what to do about them is a politically […]
Great news. The Alari (1686)- Priori (1884) organ in Rome’s marvelous San Pietro in Vincoli church has got its voice back after 50 years of silence. A long and expensive restoration culminated yesterday (wish I’d known about it beforehand) in what appears to have been a marvelous concert. It’s not clear now how often the […]
