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In an unusual move an Italian magistrate has publicly announced a wide-ranging investigation to target public officials who have become dirty tools for the country's Mafia groups as reported by Michael Day for The Independent: "organised crime was continuing to spread through Italy 'like a cancer' thanks to the 'white-collar mafia' of acquiescent public officials and politicians." Magistrate Ilda Boccassini's bold announcement follows the arrests earlier this week of a cop, a judge and a politician for allegedly servicing the 'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia. * * * The 'Ndrangheta has become Italy's most powerful Mafia group due to its obscene...

China wants to convert some of its mountain of U.S. government debt into investment in renovating American roads and subways, the commerce minister said Friday. Speaking to a business group, Chen Deming said China wants closer co-operation with the United States in infrastructure, clean energy and technology. Such investments would tie China more closely to Western economies and might help defuse fears Beijing will use its $3.2-trillion in foreign reserves -- some $1.15-trillion of that in Treasury and other U.S. government debt -- as a political weapon. “We hope to achieve cooperation in the area of infrastructure,” Chen told members...

Led by Professor Dr. Martin Bentz, Bonn archeologists began unearthing one of Greek antiquity's largest craftsmen's quarters in the Greek colonial city of Selinunte (7th-3rd century B.C.) on the island of Sicily during two excavation campaigns in September 2010 and in the fall of 2011. The project is conducted in collaboration with the Italian authorities and the German Archaeological Institute. Its goal is to study an area of daily life in ancient cities that has hitherto received little attention... Concentration in a certain city district applied primarily to potteries in Selinunte, which were massed on the edge of the settlement...

Mt Etna showing life.....a paroxysm response.

Italy's government has revived plans to build a controversial bridge linking the island of Sicily to the mainland. The Messina bridge, whose centre span of 3.3km (two miles) would make it the longest in the world, has been a pet project of Italy's Silvio Berlusconi. His 2001-2006 government backed it, before the succeeding administration scrapped it. It is part of a massive 17.8bn-euro (£15.9bn) public works programme to create new jobs and boost the economy. The programme was announced on Friday after being approved by the cabinet and various government departments. Funding for the programme is a mix of public...

Regular readers of this column know that this is my favorite time of year. Baseball has started, tax season is over and my wife and I are traveling. This year we spent time in Italy and Istanbul. You meet the most interesting people when you travel. It's not because the people who surround you on a daily basis are boring; it's because no matter how exciting their lives may be, they are still so familiar. Radio personality Dennis Prager and I discussed this not too long ago. He mentioned that my column was building a real following, to which I...

Little is known of the Sicans' literature or mythology. Developed some time before 1200 BC, the Phoenician alphabet was used in some form in early Etruscan and Greek, and also influenced the writing systems of Hebrew and Aramaic. The only known alphabet of the Sicanians was essentially Phoenician. It would not be inappropriate to postulate that an identifiably "Sicanian" culture existed in many parts of Sicily by 1600 BC; it certainly existed before the presumed date of arrival of the Elymians and Sicels a few centuries later... It is difficult to overlook the frequency with which Greek and Roman...

Etna Eruption 2011 A few days into the new year, Sicily's entertaining Mt. Etna kicked off a new eruptive phase. Picture below, and below that, link to video. Click image for BIG full-size. Etna eruption video (YouTube)

The remains of a sunken warship recently found in the Mediterranean Sea may confirm the site of a major ancient battle in which Rome trounced Carthage. The year was 241 B.C. and the players were the ascending Roman republic and the declining Carthaginian Empire, which was centered on the northernmost tip of Africa. The two powers were fighting for dominance in the Mediterranean in a series of conflicts called the Punic Wars. Archaeologists think the newly discovered remnants of the warship date from the final battle of the first Punic War, which allowed Rome to expand farther into the Western...

Vatican City, Oct 4, 2010 / 12:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Contrary to preliminary reports from Sicily on Sunday, the crowds attending papal events in the island's capital city were "never before seen in Italy." According to an official from Holy See's Press Office who was on the ground at the event, this is just the latest occurrence in a continuous "crescendo" of "miracle" turnouts for Pope Benedict XVI.The Holy Father visited Sicily for just 10 hours on Sunday, but according to press office figures, he was seen by nearly 300,000 people. Three major events marked the day's schedule, two...

"It has been a matter of policy in the wind farm industry to make the financing of it both opaque and complicated," said Mr Etherington. "In all countries across Europe the customer is not told how much they are paying for it, and the whole financing of the industry is coming out of subsidy on electricity generation." .....Recent research by Kroll, the international corporate security firm, has discovered examples all over Europe of so-called "clean energy" schemes being used to to line criminals' pockets rather than save the planet. Some involve windmills that stand derelict or are simply never built,...

In Palermo, Sicily hundreds of Italians gathered today "to commemorate murdered anti-Mafia judge Paolo Borsellino 18 years after his death" as reported by David Willey for BBC News: "He was killed by a car bomb in one the most brutal attacks on Italian justice. * * * After several trials, the truth about who organised the murder of Borsellino, and fellow judge Giovanni Falcone the same year, remains elusive."

Nothing heralds the arrival of spring in Rome like the first whiff of a blood orange. Vendors cut open the succulent citrus fruits to show off the crimson flesh to shoppers at the Testaccio market near the Aventine hill (Piazza Testaccio, open Mon-Sat, 7am to 1pm) and the Biological Market in Trastevere (Via Cardinale Merry del Val, open the second Sunday of every month). Coffee bars throughout Rome serve freshly squeezed blood orange juice, spremuta, with a touch of sugar. For an exceptional spremuta, swing by Caffè delle Arance, Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, 2 (arance means oranges in Italian)....

One of the Palestinians who hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and killed an American Jewish passenger in 1985 has been released after more than 23 years in jail, officials said Thursday. Youssef Magied al-Molqui left prison in Palermo, Sicily, on Wednesday and was transferred to a holding center for immigrants in nearby Trapani while officials work to expel him, police in the Sicilian capital said.

Palermo, 3 April (AKI) SNIPPET: "Over 36,000 boat people arrived on the southern Italian coast last year - a 75 per cent increase over the number of arrivals in 2007 - according to the Italian government and the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR)."

A French crew has begun to repair two undersea cables in the Mediterranean that were severed on Friday, disrupting internet and phone communications. A robot submarine will locate the ends of the cables on the sea bed and bring them to the surface to be re-connected. They were cut somewhere between Sicily and Tunisia, probably by an anchor. Egypt says it has been able to restore most of its communications by re-routing services, but other parts of the Middle East remain badly affected. Experts have warned that it may be days before the fault is fixed and that the knock-on...

An 82-year-old Italian man who took a Viagra pill scared his wife so much she called the police. Giovanni di Stefano, from Palermo, was so excited his wife thought he would have a heart attack and dialled 999. "The police didn't do anything but their presence had the desired effect. He lost interest in his love life pretty quickly," said a family friend. Terrified wife Carla, 69, told police: "He is 82-years-old and so I thought so much love could have lethal consequences."

Archaeologists working at the ancient Greek city of Himera in northern Sicily have uncovered what they now believe to be the largest Greek necropolis on the island... Hundreds of graves have already been uncovered but archaeologists believe there are thousands more waiting to be found in the burial ground of the city, which rose to prominence more than 2,500 years ago. "The necropolis is of an extraordinary beauty and notable dimensions," Sicily's regional councillor for culture, Antonello Antinoro, said Tuesday. "Preliminary estimates indicate the presence of around 10,000 tombs, which gives the site a good claim to being one...

I can't post any of the pictures that I want to, but they're remarkable. 13 June 2008: Strong Activity at the Fissure in Valle del Bove Here's another site from Volcano Discovery on the May 2008 eruptions that's similar. From: Etna eruption May 2008 Here's a couple of context images. The first shows where the Valle del Bove is. The second is from space, and the Valle del Bove is the broad dark-brown area to the right (east) of the summit craters.

Lightning bolts appear above and around the Chaiten volcano as seen from Chana, some 30 kms (19 miles) north of the volcano, as it began its first eruption in thousands of years, in southern Chile May 2, 2008. Cases of electrical storms breaking out directly above erupting volcanos are well documented, although scientists differ on what causes them. Picture taken May 2, 2008. REUTERS/Carlos Gutierrez (CHILE) The Etna volcano in Sicily rumbled back to life on Tuesday with a "seismic event" followed by a burst of ash, volcanologists said three days after minor eruptions shook the cone. A "seismic...

"An American army officer, played by James Garner, tells his British paramour, played by Julie Andrews, "You American haters bore me to tears. ... I've dealt with Europeans all my life. I know all about us parvenus from the States who come over here and race around your old cathedral towns with our cameras and Coca-Cola bottles ... and act like we own the world. ... I've had Germans and Italians tell me how politically ingenuous we are. ... But we haven't managed a Hitler or a Mussolini yet. I've had Frenchmen call me a savage because I only took...

New cable cut compounds net woes A submarine cable in the Middle East has been snapped, adding to global net problems caused by breaks in two lines under the Mediterranean on Wednesday. The Falcon cable, owned by a firm which operates another damaged cable, led to a "critical" telecom breakdown, according to one local official. The cause of the latest break has not been confirmed but a repair ship has been deployed, said owner Flag Telecom. The earlier break disrupted service in Egypt, the Middle East and India. "The situation is critical for us in terms of congestion," Omar Sultan,...

The Sicilian Mafia, the Cosa Nostra, is facing a revolt by local businessmen who refuse to pay protection money. Until now almost every business in the Sicilian capital, Palermo, has paid off the Mafia or faced retribution.

A Sicilian mother took away her 61-year-old son's house keys, cut off his allowance and hauled him to the police station because he stayed out late. Tired of her son's misbehaviour, the pensioner in the central Sicilian city of Caltagirone turned to the police to "convince this blockhead" to behave properly, La Sicilia, one of Sicily's leading newspapers, reported. The son responded by saying his mother did not give him a big enough weekly allowance and did not know how to cook. "My son does not respect me. He doesn't tell me where he's going in the evenings and returns...

Archaeologist uncover possible medieval mosque in Sicily The Normans are believed to have built the medieval castle of Salemi. It fell into ruin during the mid-20th century and was closed after a devastating earthquake in 1968. The castle is shown here prior to recent exterior renovations. Photo by Michael Kolb" Earlier this summer, while standing in an archaeological pit adjacent to an ancient hilltop castle in west-central Sicily, Northern Illinois University graduate student Bill Balco could literally reach out and touch the centuries—even the millennia. The dig site, about 7-by-10 meters near the castle entrance, reveals a crossroads of cultures...

Which is the true face of 12,000 years BC? NICK PISA IN ROME "TRAVEL back through time and space to the edge of man's beginnings... discover a savage world whose only law was lust!" ran the tagline for One Million Years BC, the "caveman" film starring Raquel Welch. One can only hope that ancient ideals of feminine beauty were somewhat different, after scientists revealed for the first time what Stone Age women really looked like. Thea, who lived more than 14,000 years ago, was reconstructed by sculptors working with anthropologists using computer technology. Experts have recreated the faces of men...

Police officer killed in riots; all Serie A and B matches suspended Maria Sanminiatelli Canadian Press Friday, February 02, 2007 In this frame made from SKYTG24, fans clash with police outside Catania's Angelo Massimino stadium after the Italian first division soccer league match between Palermo and Catania, in Sicily, southern Italy, Friday. (AP/SkyTG24) ROME (AP) - A police officer was killed Friday when fans rioted at a Serie A game between Sicilian sides Catania and Palermo, prompting the Italian soccer federation (FIGC) to postpone all league matches this weekend and cancel next week's friendlies involving the national teams. Fans rioted...

Italy has abandoned controversial plans to build a bridge between the country's mainland and the island of Sicily. The structure would have crossed the Messina Straits, forming the world's longest single-span suspension bridge. But Italian MPs voted to scrap the proposed construction, saying they had other priorities for Italy's impoverished southern island. There were also concerns that organised crime networks could hijack the lucrative project. A total of 272 MPs voted in favour of abandoning the bridge proposal, while 232 voted to continue. Earthquake risk The project had been promoted by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Two motions put...

Phoenician tombs found in Sicily 40 sarcophagi unearthed at necropolis near ancient colony (ANSA) - Marsala (Trapani), August 23 - Archaeologists have unearthed 40 sarcophagi in what was once the sacred Phoenician burial grounds of Birgi, near the ancient colony of Motya . The tombs were discovered by chance by a group of construction workers excavating the foundations of a house close to the westernmost tip of Sicily near Marsala, culture officials said . Archaeologists said the sarcophagi were made of simple stone slabs and resembled those found on display outside the museum on the neighbouring island of Motya (present-day...

ROME (Reuters) - An underwater volcano with a base larger than Washington D.C. has been discovered just off the shores of Sicily, a scientist with Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology said on Thursday. The volcanic structure, which incorporates peaks previously thought to be separate volcanoes, was named Empedocles after the Greek philosopher who named the four classic elements of earth, air, fire and water. Legend has it that the philosopher died by throwing himself into Mount Etna, the nearby Sicilian volcano. Giovanni Lanzafame, who works at the institute and led the research, said Empedocles was at least 400...

CORLEONE, Sicily - Decades before Mario Puzo borrowed its name for his novel about a ruthless Mafia family and Marlon Brando brought "The Godfather" to life with a throaty voice, Corleone — the town, not the don — had its own bloody story. For generations, this medieval mountain town overlooking rolling fields where sheep and horses graze has been home to the murderous Corleonesi crime clan. The capture this month of Bernardo Provenzano, reputed chieftain of the Corleonesi crime family and No. 1 boss of Cosa Nostra across Sicily, ended one shameful chapter in the town's life. While breathing a...

Bernardo Provenzano's arrest, on the day Silvio Berlusconi lost power, provoked a storm of speculation The head of the Sicilian Mafia, Bernardo Provenzano, nicknamed "The Tractor" for the way he once mowed down his rivals, was arrested without a struggle yesterday after 42 years on the run. The 73-year-old was found in a small farmhouse near his home town, Corleone. A small earthquake shuddered through the hills minutes before the police arrived.At first he denied being the world's most wanted Mafia fugitive. But after an on-the-spot DNA test, he confessed: "Yes, it's true, I am Bernado Provenzano."He was then...

Laundry Betrays Reputed No. 1 Mafia Boss By LUCA BRUNO and FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press Writers Italy's No. 1 fugitive and reputed Mafia "boss of bosses" practically thumbed his nose at authorities for more than 40 years. He counted on Sicilians' centuries-old mistrust of the state to help him on the run, sleeping in islanders' homes, having his children born at local hospitals, even sending the public health care system a bill for prostate treatment abroad under a false name. But police finally caught up with Bernardo "The Tractor" Provenzano on Tuesday in a farmhouse outside his power base, Corleone...

Bernardo Provenzano, the chief of the Sicilian Mafia who has been on the run for more than four decades and was Italy's most wanted man, was arrested near Corleone in Sicily on Tuesday, officials said. It was the state's biggest success against the Mafia in more than 13 years. Provenzano, known as the "Phantom of Corleone" after the hill town in Sicily made famous by the Godfather films, has been running the Mafia since 1993, when former "boss of bosses" Toto Riina was arrested in the Sicilian capital Palermo. The last known photograph of mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano taken in...

ROME (Reuters) - Police have arrested Bernardo Provenzano, the head of the Sicilian Mafia who has been on the run for more than four decades and is Italy's most wanted man, Italy's Interior Ministry said on Tuesday.

Phoenician temple found in SicilySite believed to be 'unique', archaeologists say (ANSA) - Palermo, February 28 - An ancient Phoenician temple unearthed in Sicily is "unique" in the West, the head of the Italian dig team claims. "You have to go all the way to Amrit in Syria to find a similar one," said Lorenzo Nigro of the Rome University team. The temple came to light last year after a portion of a lagoon surrounding the Phoenician city of Motya (present-day Mozia) was drained. The pool began to fill up again and a fresh-water spring was found - a fact...

475 families evacuated after storm floods Sigonella housing complex By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes European edition, Friday, December 16, 2005 Photo courtesy of U.S. Navy The military housing complex of Maranai at Naval Air Station Sigonella, Sicily, was evacuated Thursday morning after days of heavy rain and thunderstorms flooded the area, which sits in a valley. The complex houses about 475 families, all of whom were safely moved to area hotels. Some houses had up to 3 feet of water inside, officials said. In spite of flooding that trapped about 475 families overnight in their U.S. military base housing...

 ANTONIN SCALIA, US SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, NAMED GRAND MARSHAL OF NEW YORK’S COLUMBUS DAY PARADEJustice Celebrated In Pageant of Italian-American AchievementNew York, NY, September 23, 2005 - Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, will be Grand Marshal of Manhattan’s 2005 Columbus Day Parade, Lawrence Auriana, president of the Columbus Citizens Foundation, announced today. The parade, which is produced by the non-profit Foundation, is the largest Columbus Day event in the world and will be held on New York’s Fifth Avenue on October 10, 2005.  "We are honored that Justice Scalia has accepted our invitation to be...

ROME, Oct 5 (Reuters) - An Italian man who spent two years supposedly unconscious in a deep coma, written off by doctors as nearly-dead, awoke saying he heard and understood everything happening around him during the long ordeal, his family said. Salvatore Crisafulli, a father of four, is describing his case as a "miracle" which proves that lost causes are anything but hopeless and his recovery appeared to strengthen the hand of Italians opposed to end-of-life solutions. His brother even called Crisafulli "an Italian Terri Schiavo case" with reference to the brain-damaged Florida woman who died in March after her...

ROME - A Tunis Air passenger plane went down in the sea Saturday off the Sicilian coast on a flight from Bari, Italy, to Tunisia, the Palermo airport tower said. "It landed in the sea," Vito De Blasi, a tower official told The Associated Press. Alberto Pellegrino, a spokesman for the air traffic safety agency ENAV told SKY TV TG24 that rescuers were on their way to the craft with 35 passengers on board but the passengers' fate wasn't clear.

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. .................................................................. .................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should...

ROME (AP) - Italian police raided the homes and offices of 186 suspected members of a child pornography ring - including three Roman Catholic priests and a local mayor - that downloaded pictures from an exclusive Web site, officials said Tuesday. The group downloaded photos and video of sex abuse against children, whose ages ranged from 4 to 8, from a Web site that could only be entered with a password, according to a police officer in the Sicilian town of Syracuse, where the investigation was based. The officer, who cited office policy that he could not be identified, said...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. .................................................................. .................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should...

"In the Sunlight" Tells Story of Father Puglisi ROME, JAN. 21, 2005 (Zenit.org).- "In the Sunlight," a film about the life of a priest killed by the Sicilian Mafia in front of his parish church, has been released in Italy. Father Giuseppe "Pino" Puglisi was "guilty" of concern for the children of the Brancaccio neighborhood of Palermo, a value that conflicted with Mafia interests and cost him his life. The priest was murdered Sept. 15, 1993, his 56th birthday. His cause for beatification is being studied. The film recounts the life of the priest who, unarmed, decided to change the...

A SICILIAN motorway from Palermo to Messina, contruction of which began in 1969, will finally be inaugurated today by Silvio Berlusconi. At 113 miles (182km), that represents progress of about three miles a year. The delay is blamed partly on the alleged siphoning-off of funds and materials by the Mafia. The road has cost €730 million (£500 million), partly funded by the European Investment Bank. For years it has been shown as a dotted line on Italian maps. The news magazine Panorama said: “Habemus autostrada” (we have a motorway) — an ironic reference to the Latin formula used for the...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... . U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. . . Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel...

An Al-Qaida Terrorist Related To Bosnian Goverment Arrested In Italy,AP & Reuters, October 1st, 2002.Alleged Tunisian terrorist arrested in southern Italy, reports say BARI, Italy (AP) - Police arrested a Tunisian man Saturday who had been sought by Italian and French authorities for alleged links to Islamic terrorism, news reports said. Bazaaoui Mondher Ben Mohsen, 35, was taken into custody by Italy's DIGOS anti-terrorism police in the southern city of Bari, the AGI news agency reported. He was to be held in Bologna, where he was charged in 1998 with "criminal association" for allegedly supporting Islamic fighters in Bosnia, the...

The strait is the stuff of legend: from the toe of Italy's boot Calabria falls to the shore in steep green folds. Three kilometres away, across sea said to have been ruled by monsters and mobsters, the ancient Sicilian city of Messina cascades down the steep hillside to the port. Now the Messina Strait is to be conquered - by the mightiest bridge in the world. Silvio Berlusconi - battered by negative opinion polls, tormented in Iraq, and frustrated by an economy that has been flat for two years - hopes the Messina bridge will be the ace up his...

Town Battles 'Demonic' Mystery Blazes ROME (Reuters) - A Sicilian town is struggling to work out why dozens of household items from fridge-freezers to furniture keep mysteriously bursting into flame, terrifying locals and sparking theories of demonic intervention. Since mid-January dozens of electrical goods and pieces of furniture have spontaneously gone up in flames, causing huge damage in Canneto di Caronia, a small town perched on the Mediterranean island's rocky coast. "I've seen unplugged electrical cables burst into flames with my own eyes, but I just can't explain it," a local policeman who did not want to be named said...