Italy

3 Nov 2019; MEMO: Italy is set to ban flights by Iran’s Mahan Air, an Iranian industry official said on Saturday, as the United States seeks action against the airline accused by the West of transporting military equipment and personnel to Middle East war zones, reports Reuters.

ROME (Reuters) - League leader Matteo Salvini led the opposition center-right to a crushing victory in the Italian region of Umbria, results on Monday showed, raising questions about how long the national government in Rome can survive.

Parties in the ruling coalition, the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and center-left Democratic Party (PD), stood together on a joint ticket for the first time in the Umbrian vote, but were crushed by a resurgent Salvini.

ROME (Reuters) - A former U.S. spy, pardoned by Italy in connection with the CIA kidnapping of a terrorism suspect in Milan, has fled from Italy to the United States fearing for her safety, Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera on Sunday quoted her as saying.

Sabrina de Sousa is one of 26 people convicted by Italy in absentia over the 2003 abduction of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, but the only one to spend any time in prison for the operation, in which she denies involvement.

ROME (Reuters) - Italy’s 2020 draft budget does not imply a significant deviation from European Union rules, the Italian government said in a letter sent to the European Commission on Thursday.

Italy’s fiscal plan assumes a rise in the structural deficit, the measure excluding business cycle swings and one-off expenditure and revenue, of 0.1% of GDP. Under EU rules, it should fall 0.6% of GDP.

Kochi, Oct 12 (PTI) Pope Francis will declare Indian nun Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan a saint on October 13 at the Vatican City, the Church said.

Mariam Thresia, the foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family (CHF), will be raised to the glory of the altar during a solemn Eucharistic Celebration in Rome's St Peter's Square on Sunday, Vatican News said.

ROME (Reuters) - The European Union must not bow to threats from Turkey to push millions of Syrian refugees into EU countries, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Friday, adding that Ankara should stop its military operations in northern Syria at once.

“The EU cannot accept this blackmail. Turkish efforts to welcome in Syrian refugees cannot then become a tool of blackmail for a military initiative that we cannot accept and which must immediately stop,” Conte told reporters.

ROME, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) must take on the challenges of providing jobs and prosperity while combating climate change and managing migration, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and European Council President-elect Charles Michel told reporters at a joint press conference in Rome on Tuesday evening.

The two leaders spoke ahead of a bilateral meeting at Palazzo Chigi, the official residence of Italy's prime minister.

Conte called for the EU to have "more internal solidarity and to be stronger in the world".

ROME, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Two Italian police officers were shot dead and three others wounded by two robbery suspects at a police station in the northeastern port city of Trieste on Friday.

None of the wounded officers was in serious condition, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

The report said that the two suspects are brothers, aged 29 and 32. They were suspected of stealing a scooter. They used a gun stolen from an agent in the shooting, then tried to flee but were apprehended soon after.

ROME, Oct 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Italy presented a scheme on Friday to accelerate the expulsion of migrants who have no right to stay in the country, cutting the time it takes to decide on whether an asylum seeker must return home.

Immigration flows helped fuel the rise of Italy’s far-right League party, whose leader Matteo Salvini imposed a crackdown on arrivals while he was interior minister until August.

Salvini closed Italy’s ports to migrant rescue ships, threatening the charities operating them with fines of up to €1 million (US$1.10 million) if they tried to dock.

ROME, Sept 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Hundreds of thousands of youths demonstrated across European cities on Friday in the second in a global series of protests to avert a climate catastrophe.

Waving signs and yelling slogans, schoolchildren and students in Italian cities were among those joining the latest “Friday for Future” rallies.

Organisers said 200,000 people joined a march in Milan while another major rally snaked through the centre of Rome. Demos were called in some 180 Italian cities.