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Europe

Italy: Libyan bomber targeted Berlusconi and other politicians

2009-11-15

[ADN Kronos] The Libyan man who partly detonated his explosives at an army barracks in the Italian city of Milan in October, apparently had a dossier containing information on Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and other politicians, Italian media reports said on Friday. According to joint investigations by Italy's anti-terror police and a special branch of the paramilitary police, would-be suicide bomber Mohammed Game had carried out painstaking Internet research on at least 15 politicians who were supposed to be his 'potential targets'. Game (photo) is said to have created a dossier on Italian defence minister Ignazio La Russa, interior minister Roberto Maroni and minister without portfolio Roberto Calderoli of the anti-immigrant Northern League party and Italy's senate speaker Gianfranco Fini among others. Reports said Game specifically tried to obtain information about Calderoli's police escort. He also used online applications such as Google Maps and Google Video to obtain information about Calderoli's home in the northern province of Bergamo, near Milan. According to Italian weekly L'Espresso, police found in Game's laptop computer information on the politicians public and private activities, types of transport and habits. Calderoli - known for his anti-immigrant and anti-Islam stance - in 2007 proposed a regular "pig day" in which he threatened to take his pet pig for a walk on land in the Northern League stronghold of the Veneto region where mosques were planned. Pigs are considered unclean in the Muslim and Jewish faiths. Early in October, an Italian soldier was injured after 35-year-old Game exploded a bomb at the entrance of the 'Santa Barbara' barracks using rudimentary explosives reportedly made of solid nitrate. However, not all of the explosives detonated. Two other alleged accomplices, an Egyptian and a Libyan, were arrested after the attack. More than 100 kilogrammes of explosive materials including 40 kilogrammes of ammonium nitrate and other chemicals were seized at an apartment near Game's. While Game suffered severe injuries to his face and his hand was amputated, no other people were injured in his botched bombing attempt. Game is still under arrest while recovering at a hospital in Milan.

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Europe

Catholic Church slams Italys bid to teach Islam

2009-10-19

[Al Arabiya Latest] The head of the Italian Catholic Church in an interview Sunday criticized a government proposal to offer courses on Islam in schools as a way of steering young Muslims away from "fundamentalist teachings." "The hour of Catholic religion (teaching) is justified by the fact that it forms part of our history and our culture," Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco told Corriere della Serra newspaper. "Knowledge of Catholic religious facts is indispensable to the understanding of our culture. It does not seem to me that the planned hour of religion (to teach Islam) corresponds to that reasonable and recognized motivation." Deputy Economic Development Minister Adolfo Urso has proposed an hour of teaching on Islam in public and private schools as a possible alternative to Catholic courses. He has said the move would be aimed at keeping young Muslim students away from fundamentalist Islamic schools. Why not keep the fundamentalist Islamic schools away from the students? The center-left opposition has welcomed the proposal, as has the speaker of Italy's lower house, Gianfranco Fini. But an anti-immigrant party allied to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the Northern League, has called it a "provocation." Foreigners made up 4.2 percent of students in Italian schools at the end of 2007, with some 37 percent of them Muslim, according to figures from the education ministry.

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Europe

Gaddafi in rome for 3 intensive days.

2009-06-08

Everything is in place for Muammar Gaddafìs 3 day visit of Rome and his numerous delegation (more than 300). Gaddafìs agenda has been planned down to the last detail from his arrival in Rome on Wednesday June 10 at 10:00am to his departure on Friday 12. He will be met in the airport by Premier Silvio Berlusconi and there is a possibility that the visit may be extended to Saturday for unofficial meetings. Maurizio Massari, spokesperson for the ministry of Foreign Affairs, said during a presentation press conference that the visit will be "varied" and "in many ways, historic". This visit comes in the wake of the strengthening of ties between Italy and Libya, revived by the Friendship and Cooperation treaty signed in Bengasi on August 30 2008 between Premier Silvio Berlusconi and Colonel Gheddafi in person. In political terms, the only appointment to be noticeable by its absence is that with AIRL ('Associazione degli Italiani Rimpatriati dalla Libià, the association of Italians who returned home from Libya), representing Italians who were 'thrown out' of Libya in 1970 and all of whose properties were confiscated. Work is still going on behind the scenes for a potential meeting between Gaddafi and Libyan Jews, some 6,000 of whom have been thrown out of Libya since 1967. The meeting was requested by Gaddafi himself, but turned down because it coincided with Sabbath, on Saturday 13. Gaddafìs first meeting will be in the Quirinale, where immediately after his arrival he will join Italy's Head of State, Giorgio Napolitano, for breakfast. At 6pm of the same day Gaddafi will be expected in Palazzo Chigi to meet the premier along with Foreign minister Franco Frattini to sign a number of bilateral technical agreements that are a follow-up to the Bengasi agreement. The meeting will be followed by a joint press conference. On the morning of Thursday 11 he will meet Senate Speaker Renato Schifani, and at 12:30pm he will be holding a debate with students and teachers at 'La Sapienza' University. At 6:00pm he will move to the Campidoglio to meet Mayor Gianni Alemanno. His last day in Rome will also be quite busy. At 10:30am the Colonel will be met in Confindustria by its Chair, Emma Marcegaglia, who will introduce him to the Italian business elite who are eager to meet him. Catering to a personal request, Gaddafi will have an appointment in Romés Auditorium where he will meet female representatives of Italian politics, culture and enterprise. He will also meet the country's minister of Equal opportunities, Mara Carfagna. Only 700 women will be allowed in, including Milan's mayor Letizia Moratti. During his speech Gaddafi is expected to talk about the condition of women in his country, while minister Carfagna will focus on the state of African women. At 4:30pm the Libyan leader will meet the speaker of Italy's lower house, Gianfranco Fini, before attending a round table with two former foreign ministers, Fini himself and Massimo D'Alema. At present there is no great prospect of a meeting in the Vatican. The list of Italian guests that are to be allowed into the spacious Bedouin tent which Gaddafi is having erected in the gardens of Villa Doria Pamphili, a traditional guest area of the Italian government, is being kept under wraps

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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Up to 150 dead in ItalyŽs worst quake since 1980

2009-04-07

[Al Arabiya Latest] A powerful earthquake struck central Italy as residents slept on Monday morning, killing at least 150 people and leaving 1,500 injured. "Some towns in the area have been virtually destroyed in their entirety," a somber Gianfranco Fini, speaker of the lower house of parliament, said before the chamber observed a moment of silence. The Italian news agency Ansa, quoting rescue workers, said the death toll had reached 92 nearly 12 hours after the quake struck. Most of the dead were in L'Aquila, a 13th-century mountain city about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Rome, and surrounding towns and villages in the Abruzzo region. Houses, historic churches were demolished and some 15,000 buildings were declared off limits in the worst quake to hit Italy in nearly 30 years.

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Europe

Officials say Italy will not take Gitmo inmates

2009-02-17

ROME — Italy will not accept any Guantanamo Bay detainees when the U.S. prison shuts down, a close ally of Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Monday after meeting with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Feel the love, Nan ... Gianfranco Fini, the speaker of Italy's Chamber of Deputies, said he knew of no Italian citizens at Guantanamo. People can be held in Italian prisons only after they are sentenced by the Italian judiciary or countries with which Rome has a bilateral agreement, he said. Italian reports, citing human rights organizations, say as many as a dozen people who had been residents of Italy but not citizens are being held at Guantanamo. Italian officials have not addressed the issue. Nor will they ... President Barack Obama has ordered the prison in Cuba to be closed within a year and his administration is reviewing the Guantanamo cases to determine whether the suspects remaining there should be tried in U.S. courts or released to other countries. "I don't think we'll see a situation where the president will be asking countries to accept people," unless it is the inmates' country of origin, said Pelosi. Put 'em in Berkeley. Enroll them in classes. You won't be able to tell them apart from the local crazies. Except for the scimitars ...

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Europe

Italy Prez to hold talks to solve political crisis

2008-01-26

President Giorgio Napolitano will open talks on Friday to resolve Italy's political crisis after Prime Minister Romano Prodi's resignation and the end of his centre-left government. While the centre-right is clamouring for snap elections after 20 months in opposition, observers say the President is unlikely to send voters back to the ballot box before Italy's electoral law is overhauled. Right-wing newspapers gloated over the demise of 68-year-old Prodi, the archrival of conservative flag bearer Silvio Berlusconi, both of them now former prime ministers twice over. ''The dream has come true,'' headlined Il Libero over a cartoon showing Prodi hanged by the Senate, where the Prime Minister lost a vote of confidence on Thursday, precipitating his resignation. Prodi ''leaves the country in tatters,'' the paper wrote. The left-leaning press was more sympathetic; Ezio Mauro writing in the daily La Repubblica that the former economic professor's exit was a ''strange and unjust destiny for a politician who has twice defeated Berlusconi (and) twice cleaned up the public accounts.'' Berlusconi, now 71, and right-wing National Alliance leader Gianfranco Fini immediately called for fresh elections on news of the resignation.

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Europe

Berlusconi eyes return to power in Italy

2008-01-25

Italy's president, Giorgi Napolitano, will begin consulting political leaders today on the country's future after the collapse last night of Romano Prodi's centre-left government. So goes the 62nd government since the end of WWII, 63 years ago. Silvio Berlusconi, the opposition leader who has a huge lead in opinion polls, called for a snap election. Napolitano is known to favour a transitional government to steer through electoral reform, but the media mogul who governed Italy until two years ago said the project was "senseless". What the country needed was a "new and authoritative" administration, he said. "We need to go to the polls in the shortest time possible without delay." The senate, the upper house of the Italian parliament, doomed Prodi by voting down a confidence motion in his government by 161 votes to 156 with one abstention. Shortly afterwards, Prodi set off for the president's palace to hand in his resignation. A member of Berlusconi's inner circle told the Guardian that he expected to be prime minister - a post he last held in 2006 - by autumn at the latest. Setting aside the bickering that has characterised the Italian right in recent months, their leader, Gianfranco Fini, said: "We feel ready to govern if the Italians will put their faith in us." The Prodi government was plunged into crisis on Monday when it was deserted by a tiny party whose leader, the former justice minister, left the cabinet on learning he was a suspect in a corruption inquiry. Other small groups and some individuals subsequently peeled off. The odds against the government's survival had been stacking up since before Christmas.The former EU commission president's term of office has seen modest economic growth, but for many Italians its benefits have been offset by tax rises imposed to get the public finances within limits set by membership of the euro. An announcement last month by the EU's statistical office that Spaniards were now earning more in real terms than Italians dented national morale. Just wait a few years when the news hits that the Iraqis are earning more in real terms than the Italians. We'll be up to the 72nd government on that. Or the 82nd. Days later rubbish began piling up in Naples - a tangible sign of political mismanagement and the pervasive influence on Italian society of organised crime. The rubbish crisis was the latest of several to which Prodi's government has reacted sluggishly. Its poor crisis management and incessant bickering within the coalition, began to wear down popular support. According to the latest poll, carried out for the state-owned Rai broadcasting corporation, Berlusconi and his rightwing allies enjoy a 15-point lead.

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Europe

Italy drafts expulsion lists - immigrants deemed threats set to go

2007-11-02

(ANSA) - Rome, November 2 - Italy was set Friday to start expelling European Union citizens considered a menace to society. The move came amid a crime wave involving many immigrants from new EU member Romania - and after a deadly assault on a navy officer's wife that shocked the nation. Giovanna Reggiani, 47, died Thursday night after two days in a coma. An autopsy will be performed on Friday. The alleged aggressor, a 24-year-old Romanian gypsy (Roma) named Nicolae Romolus Mailat, was arrested on suspicion of homicide and robbery. A hearing Friday is expected to charge him with murder and robbery. Reggiani suffered "massive" head injuries consistent with blows from a blunt object such as a rock, police said. Mailat has denied hitting the woman, saying he only stole her bag. An emergency decree allowing the expulsion of potentially dangerous EU immigrants was issued Wednesday night and signed by President Giorgio Napolitano on Thursday night. It is expected to go into force after publication in Italy's Official Gazette at midnight Friday. Italian Police Chief Antonio Manganelli said authorities had already identified candidates whose record, including past convictions, qualified them as likely candidates for expulsion. Manganelli said the lists were being drawn up "with absolute respect for human dignity, avoiding a witch-hunt and without criminalising ethnic groups". Under their new powers, prefects will be able to send them out of Italy without trial. Italian officials say that the new expulsion orders are allowed under EU law. EU citizens are allowed to travel freely within the community. Romanians have flowed into Italy since Bucharest joined the EU in January and they now make up the biggest foreign community here. Romanians top recent crime statistics for serious crimes like murder, rape and robbery. Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni said Romanians accounted for 75% of the city's arrests on those charges from January to September. Amid the emotion aroused by the attack that dominated news this week, Premier Romano Prodi pledged such incidents would "never happen again". The centre-right opposition has long accused Prodi's centre-left government of being soft on crime. Ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) party on Friday called Prodi "a liar" for claiming the immigration problem was ignored by the previous government, Mayor Veltroni should resign, it said, for allegedly under-estimating problems Forza Italia has been highlighting for some time. Another conservative leader, Gianfranco Fini of the National Alliance (AN), said the government should be "ashamed of itself". "Better late than never," he said. Fini has said AN will vote to ratify the decree provided it also covers jobless immigrants while FI merely said it would only vote for a "serious" measure. Apart from opposition criticism, Prodi is facing murmurs from the left wing of his nine-party coalition about appearing to move in response to a single event and under the lead of Veltroni, who was recently elected head of the new Democratic Party which Prodi nominally chairs. Bullzozers moved into a gypsy camp on Friday and Rome Prefect Carlo Mosca said other camps around the city - like the one near which Tuesday night's victim was attacked - would "soon" be evacuated. The expulsion measure was approved under pressure from Veltroni. It had already been included in a crime package due to be sent to parliament, but was plucked out and became an emergency decree. Romania has offered support to Italy while stressing the need to discriminate and noting that it can't bring people back "by force". Three Romanian police officers flew in Thursday to join five colleagues who are already part of crime task forces in Rome, Milan, Bologna and Padua, Prodi noted. Another two men from Bucharest will be arriving in the next few days to help Italian police. Italian police have voiced fears of a potentially violent backlash against immigrants - with vigilante patrols already reported in northern Italy. The new decree does not apply to cases that go to court. However, Justice Minister Clemente Mastella and his Romanian counterpart Tudor Chiuariu agreed on Thursday that many convicted Romanians, who now form a large part of Italy's prison population, will be flown back to serve out their sentences in Romania. Industry Minister Pierluigi Bersani will discuss immigration issues as part of scheduled talks in Bucharest on Tuesday.

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Europe

Italy Welcomes Man Who Fled Afghanistan

2006-03-29

ROME (AP) -- Italy granted asylum Wednesday to an Afghan who faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity, and Premier Silvio Berlusconi said the man was in the care of the Interior Ministry after arriving in Italy earlier in the day. Abdul Rahman "is already in Italy. I think he arrived overnight," Berlusconi said, declining to release more details. Made it out alive. Now he'll need to hide from the fatwa that is sure to come Rahman's jailing in Afghanistan inspired an appeal by Pope Benedict XVI to Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and efforts by the United Nations to find a country to take him. Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini had been outspoken about the case from the start, saying Italy had a duty to make clear its "indignation." Conversion is a crime under Afghanistan's Islamic law. Rahman, 41, was arrested last month after police discovered him with a Bible. He was brought to trial last week for converting 16 years ago while working as a medical aid worker for an international Christian group helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Afghanistan's parliament had demanded earlier Wednesday that the government prevent Rahman from being able to flee the country. Germany, where Rahman once lived, praised the Italian offer. "This is a humanitarian signal and we welcome it," German government spokesman Thomas Steg said. Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi says Italy would be glad to give asylum to the Afghan man who faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity. Anticipating that Italy's Cabinet would approve Rahman's asylum, Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said Tuesday that such a move would bring "all the forms of protection and assistance" related to recognizing refugee status. Italy has close ties with Afghanistan, whose former king, Mohammed Zaher Shah, was allowed to live with his family in exile in Rome for 30 years. The former royals returned to Kabul after the fall of the Taliban regime a few years ago. Italian troops were sent into Afghanistan after the U.S.-led invasion of the country in 2001 to help with reconstruction. Muslim clerics in Afghanistan condemned Rahman's release, saying it was a "betrayal of Islam," and threatened to incite violent protests. Some 500 Muslim leaders, students and others gathered Wednesday in a mosque in southern Qalat town and criticized the government for releasing Rahman, said Abdulrahman Jan, the top cleric in Zabul province. He said the government should either force Rahman to convert back to Islam or kill him. "This is a terrible thing and a major shame for Afghanistan," he said. Yes, it is. Just not how you think it is.

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Afghanistan

Abdul Rahman vanishes after release

2006-03-28

Prolly on a CIA ghost jet? An Afghan man who had faced the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity quickly vanished Tuesday after he was released from prison, apparently out of fear for his life with Muslim clerics still demanding his death. Italy's Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said he would ask his government to grant Abdul Rahman asylum. Fini was among the first to speak out on the man's behalf. Rahman, 41, was released from the high-security Policharki prison on the outskirts of Kabul late Monday, Afghan Justice Minister Mohammed Sarwar Danish told The Associated Press. "We released him last night because the prosecutors told us to," he said. "His family was there when he was freed, but I don't know where he was taken." Deputy Attorney-General Mohammed Eshak Aloko said prosecutors had issued a letter calling for Rahman's release because "he was mentally unfit to stand trial." He also said he did not know where Rahman had gone after being released. He said Rahman may be sent overseas for medical treatment. On Monday, hundreds of clerics, students and others chanting "Death to Christians!" marched through the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif to protest the court decision Sunday to dismiss the case. Several Muslim clerics threatened to incite Afghans to kill Rahman if he is freed, saying that he is clearly guilty of apostasy and deserves to die. "Abdul Rahman must be killed. Islam demands it," said senior Cleric Faiez Mohammed, from the nearby northern city of Kunduz. "The Christian foreigners occupying Afghanistan are attacking our religion."

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Europe

Heads roll after Libya's cartoon riots

2006-02-19

No pun intended *snicker, snicker* Libya has suspended its security minister and other officials, a day after at least 10 people were killed during a demonstration at the Italian consulate in the north eastern city of Benghazi. In Rome, meanwhile, Roberto Calderoli, the Italian reform minister, has resigned, bowing to pressure from government colleagues after Libya blamed his anti-Islamic insults for igniting the demonstration, the most deadly yet of a continuing international orgy of destruction wave of protests against cartoons of Prophet Muhammad. A statement from the general secretariat of Libya's parliament on Saturday read: "Security Minister Nasr Mabrouk has been suspended from his duties and taken before an investigating magistrate." The statement added that a national day of mourning would be observed on Sunday to honour "our martyrs". Calderoli, of the so-called xenophobic Northern League party, had appeared on a prime time news programme on Thursday wearing a T-shirt printed with the provocative cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper last year and which have recently been widely re-published in Europe. The Libyan deaths took place after about 1000 people gathered to protest outside the Roman consulate. Calderoli, who has frequently attacked Islam in recent weeks and once called Muslim immigrants in Italy "Ali Babas" *chortle* , seemed defiant to the last, showing no signs of contrition in a series of newspaper interviews published on Saturday. "I can be sorry for the victims, but what happened in Libya has nothing to do with my T-shirt. The question is different. What's at stake is Western civilisation," the daily La Repubblica quoted him as saying. Yes, but logic and dhimmitude don't mix. Berlusconi-al-Qadhafi talk The al-Qadhafi foundation, headed by the reform-minded son of Muammar al-Qadhafi, the Libyan leader, issued a statement blaming the riot on Calderoli's "provocative and outrageous" actions. And who better to judge "provocative and outrageous" than the Al-Qadaffy foundation? Meanwhile, in a telephone conversation Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, and the Libyan leader agreed that the anti-Italian violence should have no "negative repercussions" for bilateral relations inshallah, Berlusconi's office said. Calderoli's brazen stand embarrassed Italy's centre-right government, which is campaigning for April general elections. On Saturday, several ministers, as well as leaders of the centre-left opposition, urged Calderoli to step down. The two leaders had a "long and amicable" discussion focusing on Friday's violence in Benghazi. Minister grovels desperately visits mosque Gianfranco Fini, the Italian foreign minister, quickly scheduled a visit to Rome's main mosque for later Saturday, saying he wanted "to reaffirm that we respect every religion, and we expect identical respect," according to the ANSA and Apcom news agencies. Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, the Italian president and a highly respected voice in the country, issued a statement saying that in Italy, "there is a clear, undisputed policy that reflects the dominant feeling of non-Muslim Italians: the respect of religious creeds and of the faiths of all peoples. "Above all, those who have a responsibility in government have to show responsible behaviour," Ciampi said, adding that he was "deeply saddened" by the clashes at Benghazi. Calderoli defies PM In an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Calderoli said he had declined a previous plea to resign from Berlusconi last week, after he threatened to wear the T-shirt. "I'm certainly not changing my mind," he told the paper. Under the Italian constitution, the premier does not have the power to sack ministers. Lunch, on the other hand, can definitely be sacked. In comments reported by another newspaper, Corriere della Sera, Calderoli said he would resign only if Umberto Bossi, the Northern League leader, asked him to do so, and "after receiving a signal from the Islamic world that such a gesture would be useful". Please, oh Islamic world, give us infidels a sign! Calderoli travelled to Bossi's house in northern Italy on Saturday to meet him and Fini, another Northern League minister. Fini, who had earlier appealed to Calderoli to avoid provoking Muslims, blamed his fellow minister for the violence in Libya. "It was predictable that Calderoli's display would trigger reactions in the Arab world," Fini told La Repubblica. Because as we all know, Allan helps those who can't help themselves. The front pages of Italian papers were dominated by the story on Saturday.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Italian FM: Syria did nothing to protect embassy

2006-02-08

Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini accused Syria of not working convincingly to block the assaults against Western embassies in that country and denounced the nation as "a danger." "I refuse to think that in a country like Syria, the assaults on the embassies weren't in some way tolerated, or in any case, not blocked in any convincing manner" by the authorities, Fini said on a talk show on state television late Monday night. On Saturday, the Danish and Norwegian embassies were burned in Syria as protesters denounced publication in a Danish paper of 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. "Syria objectively is a danger," Fini said. "Can one think that the regime that militarily controls public opinion did not know about the organization of the protests?" asked the minister, who leads a right-wing party in Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government.

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