Italy Archives - Page 9 of 11

20Dec

By SHOAHNo Comments

Italy, Saudi Arabia, Turkey

Italy’s Lega Nord Party Urges Sanctions on Ankara, Riyadh for Funding Daesh

NOVANEWS By Svetlana Alexandrova The European Union should impose sanctions on Turkey and Saudi Arabia for financing the Islamic State (IS or Daesh in Arabic) jihadist group, instead of extending its anti-Russia sanctions, the leader of Italy’s Eurosceptic Lega Nord party, Matteo Salvini, toldSputnik Wednesday. A UN Security Council Resolution to counter the financing of terrorism, targeting in particular Daesh, an organization outlawed in a number of states including Russia, was adopted Thursday. The resolution specifies that Daesh derives its main source of income from smuggled oil and obliges all states to oppose this illicit oil trade in the strongest terms. Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said that Turkish companies found to be involved in this illicit oil tr...

24Jul

By SHOAHNo Comments

Italy

Italian Premier Renzi gets his facts and priorities wrong on I$raHell and the Palestinian struggle

NOVANEWS Matteo Renzi, failing to ensure respect for international law is “futile and stupid”, not the boycott of Israel Media release from BDS Italia: During his visit to Israel, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi gave a speech to the Knesset in which he stressed the relationship and friendship between Italy and Israel, affirming that “Italy will always be in the front line against all forms of boycott, which are futile and stupid”. Renzi’s statement demonstrates his utter lack of knowledge of the movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) launched in July 2005 by a broad coalition of Palestinian civil society as a necessary and moral response to the failure of international institutions to halt Israel’s continuing violations of international law.1 For decades and with comple...

19Apr

By SHOAHNo Comments

Italy

Upto 700 feared dead as migrant boat capsizes off Libyan coast

NOVANEWS A boat transporting migrants arrives in the port of Messina after a rescue operation at sea on April 18, 2015 in Sicily. ─ AFP ROME/PALERMO: As many as 700 people are feared dead after a boat carrying migrants capsized off the Libyan coast overnight, a United Nations official said on Sunday. Antonino Irato, a senior official from the Italian border police told television station RaiNews24 that 28 people were rescued in the incident, and 24 bodies had been recovered, adding that the boat had capsized just off Libyan waters, south of the southern Italian island of Lampedusa. If confirmed, the death toll would bring the total number of dead since the beginning of the year to more than 1,500. The boat is believed to have capsized when the migrants shifted to one side...

16Mar

By SHOAHNo Comments

Italy

Italy Takes Regional Anti-Mosque Law to Constitutional Court

NOVANEWS Members of the Muslim community in Italy leave Rome's mosque after prayers Following a series of protests across the country, Italy moved to block a regional law recently passed which was aimed at preventing the building of mosques. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (center-left) declared on Friday that his government had gone to the Constitutional Court to examine the so-called “anti-mosque law” - a series of measures that were approved by local authorities (far-right) in the northern region of Lombardy at the end January. The legislation possible breaches several constitutional rules of the country, such as freedom of religion, and could have over-stepped its ability to rule in state-religion matters, or given too much power to local mayors. The law create...

8Mar

By SHOAHNo Comments

Europe, Italy

ONE MILLION REFUGEES SET TO FLOOD INTO ITALY

NOVANEWS Upwards of one million refugees could reach Europe from Libya amid collapsing security in the northern African country, the European Union’s border agency chief has warned. Frontex executive director Fabrice Leggeri said he expects asylum seekers’ crossings to skyrocket in 2015 and urged EU governments to ready themselves to “face a way more difficult situation than last year”. “We are told there are between 500,000 and one million migrants ready to leave from Libya,” Leggeri told Italian news agency Ansa. “We have to be aware of the risks”. In 2014, more than 173,000 asylum-seekers were rescued in the Mediterranean after they set off from African shores on overcrowded, run-down boats in a bit to reach the Italian coast. At least 3,500 others died at sea. Numbers have increa...

13Sep

By SHOAHNo Comments

Italy

Muslim councillor Aicha Mesrar flees Italy in fear for her life after death threats

NOVANEWS By: MICHAEL DAY 'I cannot always live under escort,' says Mesrar as she resigned her post Italy’s first Muslim councillor says she is fleeing the country after a series of death threats, in the latest example of racism suffered by the country’s non-white public figures, from politicians to football players. Aicha Mesrar, 45, resigned from her post as local councillor for the Democratic Party in Rovereto, in the northern Trentino province, saying she feared for her children’s lives. The Moroccan-born politician, who has lived in Italy for 23 years, has been an active and effective community liaison worker, according to local media. She was the first woman to wear a veil in the city hall. The city’s Mayor, Andrea Miorandi, had hailed her appointment as preside...

8Jul

By SHOAHNo Comments

Italy, Turkey

A Tale of Two Cities: Istanbul and Rome

NOVANEWS by Richard Falk [This is a corrected and slightly revised version of yesterday's post; I apologize for the various mistakes in the earlier text, maybe an effect of jet lag or something worse!] Why Istanbul? In earlier posts [Nov. 2 & 7, 2012], I urged that symbolically and culturally Istanbul deserved to be privately christened as the global capital of the 21st century. It is the only world city that qualifies by virtue of its geographic and civilizational hybridity, Western by history and experience, Eastern by culture and location, Northern by stage of development, modernism, and urban dynamism, Southern by some affinities, outreach, and partial identification. The feast for the eyes provided throughout much of the city includes the Bosphorus Straight (connecting the B...

10Mar

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Italy

Rome welcomes 15 MKO terrorists

NOVANEWS The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) thanked Italy for welcoming 15 members of Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, a.k.a. MEK and NCRI). “UNHCR welcomed the Italian government’s decision to let into the country a total of 15 Iranian refugees from Iraq, including the seven latest arrivals,” Gazzetta del Sud quoted UNHCR Italia as saying. The UN’s refugee agency has repetitively called on the international community to accept some 3000 members of the terrorist MKO grouplet. Earlier in December 2013, UNHCR said in a press release that it urgently “reiterates the need to find solutions for the camp’s residents, and is appealing to countries to act urgently on 1,400 cases from Camp Hurriya that have already been submitted for relocation.” The press release added that...

25Feb

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Italy

Italy’s new PM backs I$raHell sees Iran as major threat

NOVANEWS Matteo Renzi considers Iranian regime ‘main problem’ of the Middle East, says left should learn to understand, support Israel Haaretz Matteo Renzi is Italy’s youngest-ever premier, and he could also be one of the most pro-Israeli. The 39-year-old ambitious leader of the center-left, who was sworn in on Saturday as Italy’s fourth prime minister in four years, may bring Rome, already one of Israel’s key allies in Europe, even closer to the Jewish state. The former mayor of Florence burst onto the national stage in December by winning the primary election of the Democratic Party, the largest force in parliament, and earlier this month used his new position to oust the 10-month-old coalition government of fellow democrat Enrico Letta. His popularity is mostly linked to a reputation ...

19Feb

By SHOAHNo Comments

Italy

Italy’s PM-to-be is tough on Iran, empathetic to I$raHell

NOVANEWS Matteo Renzi supported the 2009 ‘Green Movement’ against the ayatollahs, and has urged ‘more careful consideration of I$raHell’s stances’ Times of Israel The man expected to become Italy’s next prime minister is known to be friendly toward Israel and to take a tough line on Iran. Matteo Renzi, currently the mayor of Florence and the secretary of the Italian center-left Democratic Party, is the top candidate to succeed Prime Minister Enrico Letta, who resigned last week. “Sometimes Israel exceeds its defense [actions], and we need to say it, but it is time that the left state unequivocally that Israel has a right to live without threats,” Renzi, who has visited the country, has been quoted as saying. “Israel is a country that is surrounded by organizations that wish its destructi...