Italy

ROME (AP) — The sea captain who rammed a police boat while bringing 40 rescued migrants to an Italian port she’d been warned to stay out of must be freed from house arrest, a judge ruled Tuesday in a decision that angered the Italian government minister who had declared the defiant mariner an outlaw.

Carola Rackete, 31, was arrested after she docked the rescue ship of German nonprofit group Sea-Watch at Italy’s tiny Lampedusa island early Saturday, 17 days after taking the migrant passengers aboard off Libya.

LAMPEDUSA, Sicily (AP) — The German captain of a humanitarian rescue ship with 40 migrants aboard has been arrested after she rammed her vessel into an Italian border police motorboat while docking at a tiny Mediterranean island Saturday in defiance of Italy’s anti-migrant interior minister.

Jeering onlookers shouted “handcuffs, handcuffs” as Carola Rackete, the 31-year-old captain, was escorted off the boat at Lampedusa, which is closer to north Africa than to the Italian mainland.

29 June 2019; DW: Sea-Watch 3 entered the Italian port of Lampedusa without authorization early Saturday following a two-week standoff between the charity ship's captain and Italian authorities.

German captain Carola Rackete was arrested as the boat docked with 40 migrants remaining on board, spokesman Ruben Neugebauer told Agence France-Presse. Television footage showed a heavy security presence at the port and police escorting 31-year-old Rackete off the vessel.

28 June 2019; DW: Italian authorities have given permission for a sick man and his brother to disembark from Sea-Watch 3. The boat is still carrying some 40 migrants and has been sitting in international waters for more than two weeks.

Italy on Friday allowed two more migrants to disembark from a German Sea-Watch rescue boat carrying another 40 migrants off Lampedusa island, the NGO said.

27 June 2019; DW: Sea-Watch 3 Captain Carola Rackete said Wednesday that the rescue ship would head to Lampedusa with its rescued passengers.

"I've decided to enter the port of Lampedusa," Sea-Watch tweeted the ship's German captain as saying. "I know this is risky, but the 42 shipwrecked on board are exhausted. I will bring them to safety."

25 June 2019; DW: Milan has won the right to host the 2026 Winter Olympics after an International Olympic Committee vote. The Swedish city of Stockholm lost out in the final round of voting in a process considered to have been as much about finance as the sport itself.

"It's a victory for Italy, for the future and for sports," Italian Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said in a statement. "With the Winter Olympics, we will prove to the world our strengths and our skills."

ROME, June 23 (Xinhua) -- Chinese vice minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Qu Dongyu was elected as new head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) here on Sunday.

ROME (AP) — Members of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have started voting to elect the new head of the U.N. food agency, and China’s candidate is seen as the front-runner.

The 194 member countries, convened at the FAO’s headquarters in Rome for the agency’s 41st conference, were picking the new director general on Sunday among three candidates from China, France and Georgia who all have extensive experience in the sector. The candidates for the first time include a woman.

16 June 2019; DW: Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini on Saturday gave permission for 10 migrants to leave the German Sea-Watch 3 rescue ship.

Among the 10 were two pregnant women, three minors and two sick men. The group was allowed to disembark on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, which lies between the Italian mainland and the North African coast.

12 June 2019; DW: Millions of locusts have invaded the Italian island of Sardinia, seriously affecting farmers' livestock and crop production.

Italian agricultural organization Coldiretti has pleaded for government assistance in fighting the plague.

"We are walking on locust carpets," Coldiretti said in a statement.

The locusts have destroyed 2,500 hectares (6,200 acres) of agricultural land in the province of Nuoro, between the towns of Ottana and Orani.