Italy

MILAN (AP) — Italian Premier Mario Draghi travels to Algeria on Monday to sign a deal for more natural gas, the latest push by a European Union country to acquire alternative energy sources to reduce dependence on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

Russia is Italy’s biggest supplier, representing 40% of total imports, followed by Algeria, which provides some 21 billion cubic meters of gas via the Trans-Mediterranean pipeline. The new deal would add an additional 9 billion cubic meters of gas from Algeria, just eclipsing Russia’s 29 billion cubic meters a year.

MILAN, April 9 (Reuters) - Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Saturday he was deeply disappointed and saddened by the behaviour of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The tycoon, who for years enjoyed a close friendship with the Russian leader, said Putin had to take full responsibility in the eyes of the world over the invasion of Ukraine.

"I got to know him 20 years ago and he had always seemed to me a man of democracy and peace... what a pity," Berlusconi said, addressing a convention of his conservative Forza Italia party in Rome.

GENOA (Italy), April 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — An Italian judge ordered 59 people, including former Atlantia CEO Giovanni Castellucci, to stand trial over the deadly collapse of a bridge in Genoa four years ago, judicial sources said.

The trial will start in Genoa on July 7, the sources added.

The road bridge, operated by Atlantia’s motorway unit Autostrade per l’Italia, collapsed in the port city on Aug 14, 2018, killing 43 people and laying bare the dire state of Italy’s crumbling infrastructure.

ROME, March 31 (Reuters) - Italy will only hit the NATO goal of spending 2% of GDP on defence in 2028, Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Thursday, confirming it will miss an original target of 2024 after opposition from within his ruling coalition.

The government currently earmarks around 1.4% of economic output for military spending and would have had to increase its defence budget by 12 billion euros ($13.4 billion) over the next two years to reach a goal established by members of the Atlantic alliance in 2014.

ROME (AP) — A bus carrying about 50 Ukrainian refugees overturned on a major highway in northern Italy at dawn on Sunday, killing one person, Italian firefighters said.

Italian state radio said there were several injured in the accident on the A14 autostrada near Forli’, a town in the Emilia-Romagna region in northeastern Italy. It said the rest of those aboard were safely evacuated.

The bus landed on its side on a grassy slope just beyond a highway guardrail and near a farm field. Firefighters used two cranes in an operation to set the bus upright and remove it.

ROME, March 5 (Reuters) - Italian police have seized villas and yachts worth at least 140 million euros ($153 million) from four high-profile Russians who were placed on an EU sanctions list following Moscow's attack on Ukraine, sources said on Saturday.

A police source said a villa owned by billionaire businessman Alisher Usmanov on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, and a villa on Lake Como owned by state TV host Vladimir Soloviev, had both been seized.

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis is planning to visit Congo and South Sudan in July, the Vatican announced Thursday, fulfilling a wish to minister to the faithful in the conflict-ridden countries.

Francis is scheduled to visit the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, and the city of Goma on July 2-5, and plans to be in Juba, South Sudan, on July 5-7, the Vatican said.

02 March 2022; MEMO: Italian oil giant Eni intends to sell its 50 per cent stake in the Blue Stream gas pipeline, which it controls equally with the Russian giant Gazprom, in the wake of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, a company spokesman announced yesterday evening.

ROME, February 26. /TASS/: The active anti-Russian sanctions, imposed in 2014, reduced European exports to Russia by over 22%, according to information, provided by the Confartigianato association of Italian small and medium businesses.

"Economic sanctions against caused European exports to this country to shrink by 22.2%; Italy was affected the most (minus 28.5%)," the association noted. "In eight years, our losses on the Russian market amount to €24.7 billion, or about €3 billion per year."

ROME, Feb 22 (Reuters) - The Italian coastguard rescued 573 migrants at sea who were trying to reach Europe aboard two fishing boats in distress in bad weather, a statement said on Tuesday. One body was found.

The rescue operation took place off the southern Italian coast. Three coastguard units transferred the migrants to another vessel, which will bring them ashore at the port of Augusta in Sicily.

The migrants told the coastguard the body found was that of a migrant who had died several days earlier, the statement said.