The Local

The woman found the crying child with its umbilical cord still attached as she threw out her rubbish on Sunday evening, in the town of Santa Maria di Sala, near Venice, Rai News reported.

She initially mistook the child's cries for those of a cat and began searching around the bins to see if there was an animal in trouble. She eventually found the plastic bag containing the newbo behind the bins.

The woman immediately called the emergency services, who took the boy to Dolo hospital. In spite of his ordeal, the child is in perfect health and hospital staff have named him 'Attilio'.

Police suspect the child was abandoned by his mother and are investigating the incident. If nobody comes forward to claim the child within 10 days, the boy will automatically be put up for adoption.

“Throwing a newbo baby in the bin is a defeat for humanity,” Gian Luigi Gigli, president of the Italian pro-life group, Movement for Life, told Andkronos.

“We need to do more to offer alteatives to abandonment, such as informing people about the ability to give birth anonymously in Italian hospitals.”

In June 2015, a baby girl was found abandoned at a different set of rubbish bins in Santa Maria di Sala by a passing nun.

With Silvio Berlusconi still at the helm, for the next four years the party worked tirelessly, mostly using the inteet, to reflect the palpable change in mood among Italians - that they were fed up with the ruling class.

In February 2013, the party became the second biggest political force in Italy behind the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) after scooping 25 percent of the vote in the general election.

During the intervening years, most of that success was down to the protest nature of the group, with the burly Grillo – as much of a showman as Berlusconi - making a stand against everything from the euro and corruption to Italy’s sclerotic political and economic system.

Beppe Grillo, leader of Italy's Five Star Movement. Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFP

The party has since seized control of small cities, including Parma, Livoo and Ragusa, in Sicily, and on Sunday clinched two of its biggest prizes yet: the capital of Rome, and the former capital, Turin.

So how did the so-called ‘Grillini’ get this far?

Possibly due to the party's leader taking a back seat. In January, the 67-year-old announced his retu to the comedy circuit, not because he was distancing himself from the movement, he said, but simply “taking a step to the side”.

The move was preceded by a colourful few years, during which the party made headlines more for Grillo’s tirades than for anything else.

Most of those, including telling a prostitute to ply her trade online because it’s safer and making Nazi jibes at EU politicians, came in 2014 – the year he allied with Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, the British right-wing populist party.

Just a few weeks ago, Farage, who is campaigning for Britain to leave the EU ahead of a referendum on Thursday, told Corriere della Sera that the pair would “destroy the old EU” . “On June 19th, the Five Star Movement elects the mayor of the capital,” he said. “On June 23rd, Britain leaves the EU and changes Europe.”

Grillo also once said that he and Farage were “rebels with a cause”.

But 2014 was also the year Grillo, dubbed by the Italian media as ‘the clown’, was advised by the party’s co-founder and spin-doctor, the late Gianroberto Casaleggio, to tone down his aggression and “smile more”. The advice came during a post-mortem of the party’s performance in the European Elections, which left it trailing behind the PD.

Grillo had kept a relatively low profile since then, with Luigi Di Maio, widely tipped to succeed him, working to transform the party, clean up its image and broaden its appeal. Grillo has also removed his name from the party’s logo.

But he was back to his old tricks again in early May, sparking widespread condemnation after making a terrorist ‘joke’ about London’s new Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, during a show in Padua.

At the time, some commentators wondered if the gaffe risked damaging the party’s chances in the impending mayoral elections. Not so.

So how come the tuaround?

Almost out of nowhere came Virginia Raggi, who was elected Rome’s first-ever female mayor on Sunday.

An intellectual property lawyer and mother-of-one, Raggi has no experience of running anything.

But her pledge to crackdown on fare dodgers, improve public transport and clean-up the capital’s streets struck a chord with the basic demands of an electorate that has long been weary of its political class.

With Rome’s administration wracked by an ongoing trial over the infiltration of organized crime, and former mayor Ignazio Mario being ousted over an expenses scandal, Raggi also vowed to rid city hall of corruption.

Meanwhile in Turin, one of Italy’s largest urban centres, the Five Star Movement’s Chiara Appendino, 31, claimed just over 54 percent of the vote to oust the PD’s long-serving Piero Fassino.

She became the city’s third female mayor – after Maria Magnani Noya, elected in 1987, and Giovanna Cattaneo Incisa, who became mayor in 1992 but died within a year, aged 69. Noya died just a few days before, aged 80.

In their victory speeches, both Raggi and Appendino touched on their wins as being about “change” rather than “protest”.

"For the first time Rome has a female mayor in an age where equality of opportunity remains a mirage," Raggi said. "I will be a mayor for all Romans. I will restore legality and transparency to the city's institutions after 20 years of poor goveance. With us a new era is opening."

Appendino, a multilingual businesswoman who helps run her family's laser equipment company, said: "We have made history. This was not a protest vote, it was about pride and change."

Has the party forged alliances with any others in order to win votes?

Since inception, one of the party’s golden rules has been not to form any alliances with its opponents. Locally-elected representatives are also bound by a code of conduct that means they have to ask permission from the top for every important position.

So why else is the party appealing right now?

That Italians MPs are among the highest paid in the world is well-known, and many voters have voiced their outrage by backing the Five Star Movement, whose representatives are forced to contribute part of their salaries towards reducing Italy’s public debt and funding small businesses.

Raggi has vowed to tackle corruption in Rome. But are there any lurking threats to the party’s image?

The party has been beating the drum about corruption since the beginning, but alas, its anti-graft banner has, in fact, been blackened by allegations it struck deals with local mobsters in Naples, while investigations have been launched into the Five Star’s mayor of Parma for abuse of office, while his counterpart in the Tuscan city of Livoo is being probed for fraud.

Only time will tell if the Five Star Movement can truly break from Italian political tradition.

"It's definitely a defeat for us. Losing Rome and Turin is a blow, it's painful," Matteo Orfini, president of the Democratic Party (PD), said in an interview with La Stampa daily.
   
The city elections have been a closely-watched barometer of Italian politics.
   
Renzi's political strength has weakened in recent months. Rome in particular is seen by some analysts as a springboard for general elections due in 2018.
   
Sunday's polls saw the populist Five Star Movement (M5S) sweep to power in the capital and in the northe industrial city of Turin.
   
Virginia Raggi, 37, was elected as Rome's first female mayor, trouncing the PD candidate, Roberto Giachetti, in a 67-to-33 percent share of the vote.
   
The anti-establishment M5S also claimed control of Turin, where another woman, Chiara Appendino, 31, took 54.56 percent, ousting the long-serving mayor, Piero Fassino, a PD heavyweight.
   
The PD had some satisfaction by winning in Milan, Italy's principal economic hub, against a centre-right opponent.
   
Orfini said the results from the various cities bore out M5S's tactics, of forging local alliances with rightwing or far-right candidates to gain the votes of their supporters for the second round of voting.
   
The PD's leadership is to meet on Friday to analyse the outcome of the elections, Orfini said.

The picture, which shows a young woman, is thought by some to have been painted by Amedeo Modigliani and was salvaged from the rubbish tip by an avid 'skip diver', who now owns it, in the suburb of Rustica on the outskirts of Rome.

The salvaged portrait, entitled 'Odette', bore a large humidity stain and a hole which experts think was chewed by a passing rodent, but has been lovingly restored by Italy's Amedeo Modigliani Institute.

It will be on display at the Fesival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Umbria, from next Thursday.

“By putting the portrait on display we hope to encourage scholarly debate about its authenticity,” Franco Sensi, the institute's vice president, told The Local.

Until now, the portrait's authenticity has been fiercely contested with Modigliani experts in France - where the painter and sculptor lived and worked for much of his adult life - refusing to analyze the painting as they are convinced from photographs it is a forgery.

“Not one single element of the work corresponds to Modigliani's craftsmanship. Neither the theme, the chromatic structure nor the choice of structure,” experts from a French Modigliani group wrote in a letter to the painting's owner.

But Italian experts say there is reason to believe the painting is original.

“Studies carried out in Milan have dated the materials to 1917-1918," added Sensi.

"At that time Modigliani was practically unknown and his paintings worthless, so it's unlikely someone would have wasted the canvas and materials in producing a forgery, although it could have been produced by an admirer."

"The figure is painted in his trademark style and the picture is signed by him," Sensi added.

“We can't say it's definitely an original, but obviously the owner is very hopeful because Modigliani paintings are among the most valuable in the world.”

If scholars can agree on the painting's authenticity, it could net its owner millions.

Last November, a Modigliani portrait of a reclining nude sold for €154.6 million at auction – making it the most expensive work by an Italian artist in history and the seventh most expensive painting of all time.

Driven by jealousy, Vincenzo Paduano followed her home after a night out, ramming his car into the back of hers before dousing the vehicle with a flammable liquid and setting it alight.

Di Pietrantonio was able to escape from the car, but he chased after her. The student is said to have screamed for help from passing motorists, but nobody stopped.

The 27-year-old security guard then set her alight. Her still-smouldering body was found a few hours later by her mother.

Paduano soon confessed to the crime, telling investigators that he couldn't accept that she'd abandoned him.

He also reportedly admitted: “I am really a monster. I am obsessive, paranoid, jealous.”

Di Pietrantonio became the 55th "femicide" victim in Italy so far this year - three more were murdered by either a spouse, boyfriend or ex within a few weeks after.

Last year, 128 women were victims of femicide, the year before there were 136. Thousands more have suffered domestic excuse or are stalked by men.

These figures come from Telefono Rosa, a women's rights organization offering legal advice and counselling.

But they are just the tip of the iceberg: an estimated 90 percent of these crimes go unreported.

In some ways, the situation has improved. Italy's govement has taken steps to address violence against women, introducing an ‘anti-femicide’ law and appointing a govement advisor on the issue in 2013 - after being shamed into action by a damning UN report, which called domestic abuse “the most pervasive form of violence in Italy”.

But while legislation is an important step, changing the mentality and culture that lie behind the attacks will take much longer. Most femicides and rapes are carried out by partners or - most often - ex-partners, according to figures from Istat released in 2015, which also showed that while the overall number of incidents has declined slightly, acts of violence are becoming more serious, with more women fearing for their lives.

Divorced or separated women are most at risk, with over half suffering violence (compared to 31.5 percent on average), and attacks often occur after the victim has begun a new relationship, as was the case with Di Pietrantonio.

Disturbingly, a 2015 study by non-profit organization We World found that one in four young Italians believed violence against women could be justified by "love", or exasperation at the woman or her clothing.

So how can the country get to the root of the problem and tackle the perception of violence as a legitimate reaction to rejection?

Centres offering anger management courses and other treatment, aimed directly at men who consider themselves violent, are growing in number across the country.

The president of Ferrara’s Cam (Centre for violent men), Michele Poli, says there is no common factor among the men the centre has worked with.

“Violence against women happens across-the-board,” he told The Local. “It’s about a patriarchal culture which validates violence against women and prevents effective action against it," he said, adding that every member of society must actively work towards change.

Poli says the centre has been able to measure the success of its courses through interviews with the men’s partners - or sometimes ex-partners - carried out at the start, middle and end of the course.

Another centre includes the following testimony in its advertising material: "Now I know that nothing justifies my violent behaviour".

Men receive treatment at the centre either after being referred by a doctor or social services worker - which may mean the treatment comes too late - or by self-referral, which relies on men to recognize that they have a problem and take responsibility for dealing with it.

One centre appeals to those who “do not consider themselves to be a violent person" but may have hurt their partners “without meaning to” - but how are men going to seek out this kind of help if they are not properly educated on respect and domestic violence?

Laura Boldrini, an Italian politican and long-time advocate for women's rights, said: “the voice of men is missing” in the discourse and spoke of the need to “change the mentality of men”, arguing that schools in particular must do more to educate young boys. Many men seem unwilling to acknowledge the sexism underlying Italian society; Italian media coverage of attacks on women overwhelmingly focuses on cases where the perpetrator is foreign, despite the fact that in most cases, they are carried out by Italian men.

Monica Pepe and Luca Cardin, who run online magazine Zero Violenza, told The Local that more and more men, including high profile figures, are adding their voices to the discussion. Their organization is working on training teachers and parents on how to ensure that their children are equipped to deal with the opposite gender in a healthy manner.

"No man is bo violent, but becomes violent for a variety of reasons linked to their environment, family, society and education," they said. "At Zeroviolenza, we have created violence prevention training for parents and teachers together, because it is important that they are aware of the importance of their role in the formation of the younger generation.

"The goal of our courses is to deconstruct the most common stereotypes and look at the meaning of identity and belonging to a genre. Respect and recognition of the individual need to come before gender difference."

Pepe and Cardin also pointed out the lack of sex education and emotional education in the Italian school system, which shows that "bogeyman still represents healthy, responsible sexuality."

Some schools are introducing lessons on domestic violence into the curriculum, for example in Turin, where boys are educated on consent and girls taught how to spot the signs of abuse. The University of Bologna is the only one in Italy to offer a seminar dedicated to violence against women, which includes discussions with those who have suffered.

But on the whole, the issue is still "taboo", as three students at the university explained to The Local.

One of them, Irene, said her only experience of domestic violence being discussed in school was a PE lesson in self-defence. "The teacher spoke to us specifically about female self-defence - psychological as well as physical - and how to avoid a violent man. But this doesn’t tackle the problem at its roots," she says.

Another student, Chiara, 21, said: “Italian schools don’t pay attention to gender-based violence at all, and no one talks about domestic abuse. We don’t even study the story of feminism.” She added that some men disagree with the idea of courses on gender or relationships, because they feel it labels them all as violent.

The reluctance to address the topic means that women are often left to shoulder responsibility for their protection themselves. One mayor celebrated Inteational Women’s Day this year by handing out pepper spray to female residents, while a Milan-based women’s organization recently launched an app named ‘Stalking Buster’ launched, allowing women to keep a record of incidents and contact police immediately.

Sonia, a third student, said that while improvements to the education system were "essential", it is also crucial to focus on "major means of communication, like TV, advertising and film". In fact, in the UN report cited above, it commented on the unequal representation of women in Italian media, for example the fact that over half of women shown on TV did not speak, while the rest were overwhelmingly presented in relation to stereotypical topics such as sex and beauty.

Italy’s Rai TV channel has a programme titled ‘Amore Criminale’, running since 2007. Created in collaboration with the Italian police, it does important work in reporting on cases of femicide, as well as speaking to psychologists, criminologists and occasionally formerly violent men who have undergone anger management therapy.

However, the title, which translates as 'Criminal Love', seems to support the idea that the culprits simply 'loved too much'. Accompanying its opening credits are the lyrics “Each man kills the thing he loves”, with the title (which translates as ‘Criminal Love’) encircled in a heart on screen.

And the way the Italian media reports these crimes too often paints them as tragic love stories, illustrating articles with smiling photos of the victim and her killer when they were a couple. One recent headline read ‘He killed his partner with a vase of flowers’ - only explaining later in the article that the relationship had ended over a year earlier.

Reports often refer to the victim as the ‘girlfriend’ or ‘partner’ of her killer, even when the relationship ended some time previously; the woman obviously did not want to be seen as the man’s partner, and the tragedy is not that the 'happy couple' has been to apart, but that a woman has been killed by a man who saw her as a possession. This kind of reporting unfortunately plays into the narrative of the perpetrators.

Lucia Annibali, the victim of an acid attack by an ex-partner, addressed this issue in her book, called: Here I am: My Story of Non-Love.

Its blurb sums up the problem, saying: "The outline is unfortunately ‘classic’: possession mistaken for love, anger which becomes ferocious, up to the ultimate cruelty."

Yet pecorino, which shares its name with one of Italy's best-known cheeses, might not even exist but for the vision of a trailblazing pioneer fondly remembered by his daughters as being "a little bit crazy".

The late Guido Cocci Griffoni is revered as a hero of Italian viticulture and his native region of Marche for having hauled the ancient grape back from
the brink of extinction.

In the early 1980s however, the self-taught winemaker was almost alone in identifying the potential of a varietal now enjoying critical acclaim and commercial success after a four-fold increase in plantings between 2000 and 2011.

"Pecorino is not just a great grape variety; it is also one of Italy's biggest wine success stories of the 21st century," says writer Ian d'Agata, the author of "Native Wine Grapes of Italy".

The grape's name is derived from the Italian word for sheep, "pecora", which are ubiquitous in the hills of central Italy, where both wild and cultivated pecorino vines abounded in the 19th century, providing a ready snack for shepherds.

Things began to change after World War II as rural depopulation emptied mountain villages in Marche and the neighbouring Abruzzo region.

Professional grape growers tued away from pecorino to the higher-yielding but less characterful varieties trebbiano and malvasia, grapes generally destined to be made into non-descript wines by cooperatives lacking Cocci Grifoni's vision.

"Pecorino is not generous in yield terms and, at that time, volume was everything; farmers needed money," explains Marilena Cocci Grifoni, who now runs the estate alongside her winemaker sister Paola.

Rebo in Marche

But their father had a hunch that pecorino could produce interesting results and in 1982 he began experimenting with a parcel of wild vines acquired from an 80-year-old farmer no longer able to tend his garden vineyard at Arquata del Tronto, 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) above sea level in the Marche mountains.

Experimental samples were made from vines planted on four different slopes before the decision was made to go with the coolest of them, a steep north-facing slope licked by salty breezes from the Adriatic Sea.

A peach orchard was ripped up to make way for what is now the "mother vineyard" and the first Cocci Grifoni Pecorino was made from the 1990 harvest.

That year's production had to be bottled as a humble table wine but recognition was to come quickly.

In 2001, Pecorino from the Offida area was granted DOC or controlled origin status. A decade later it completed an extraordinarily quick ascent to the top rank of Italian wine by obtaining the DOCG classification occupied by the likes of Barolo and Chianti Classico.

Export markets are the next horizon with the wine now starting to appear on the shelves of British supermarkets and restaurant wine lists in North America.

Baptized in Abruzzo

Winemaker Paolo says a good pecorino should smell of tropical fruits but also display balsamic, herbal and honey notes thanks to the grapes' combination of high sugar and high acidity.

"The sugar means it is always strong in alcohol and the acidity brings freshness," she says. "These two elements give the wine its potential to age and this evolution leads to a particularly complex range of tastes."

Marilena says their father would regard the pecorino success story as a miracle.

"He has given the possibility of work to the children of farmers who believed there was no future in their area. Now young people are deciding to stay, to invest and not to abandon the vines. This is what he'd be proudest of."

Despite Cocci Griffoni leading the way in Marche, more pecorino is now produced in Abruzzo, where Luigi Cataldi Madonna was the first producer to market a pure pecorino based on the varietal name.

"The Cocci Griffonis rediscovered pecorino but I was the one to baptise it," says the university philosophy lecturer.

Cataldi Madonna says acidity-based freshness should be the defining quality of a pecorino, and his lead has influenced the style of other producers in Abruzzo.

"If I need to meditate I read Saint Augustine, I don't drink a glass of wine," he told AFP, saying he has no time for those who seek to elevate fermented grape juice into something overly complex.

"I drink when I'm happy, with friends and having fun. That's what wine is for.

"The only noble drink is water!"

Diluted versions

Wine expert D'Agata meanwhile was that rapidly expanding production could make pecorino a victim of its own success.

"Right now it is Italy's hottest white. And there is no doubt it can give complex, age-worthy wines," he says.

"But it is being planted everywhere and from high yielding biotypes, whereas pecorino is a low yielder by definition. The result is that a lot of Pecorino doesn't resemble what I think the wine should smell and taste like."

His ambitious three kilometre-long (1.9 miles) walkway of 200,000 floating cubes covered in orange fabric floating atop Lake Iseo was evacuated Saturday evening after wind and rain made it unstable.
   
"Given the influx of people and potentially bad weather, it is advisable to rethink your trip," said a manager at the installation in a statement.
   
Local authorities have also cancelled train services to the lake to limit the numbers able to reach the project.
   
After being closed throughout Saturday night, the project only partly reopened Sunday moing with one of the two walkways still closed to the public.
   
Crowds of visitors hoping to visit Christo's "The Floating Piers" have been gathering around the lake since it opened on Saturday, with organizers hoping that 500,000 people will experience it by July 3rd when the pontoons close to the public.

But the walkways can only hold 11,000 people at any one time - and only if weather conditions allow.
   
More than 55,000 visitors attempted to cross the walkways on Saturday, forcing organizers who had anticipated just 40,000 to ask that they retu another day.
 
 And by the early evening the bridges had been forced to close by heavy winds and driving rain.
   
Christo first conceived the project in 1970 for the River Plate delta in Argentina but was thwarted after failing to secure the necessary permits.
   
Despite the long delay in realizing his vision Christo said on Thursday that the project, his first since 2005, "stayed in our hearts".

Exit polls gave the anti-establishment Five Star Movement's candidate at least 60 percent of the vote in a run-off contest with Roberto Giachetti of Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party.

The 37-year-old lawyer and local councillor, a complete unknown only a few months ago, had been widely expected to claim the keys to City Hall.
   
But the margin of her victory exceeded expectations with the exit polls pointing to her taking between 62 and 68 percent of the vote.
   
Polls suggested the PD had not suffered such big reverses elsewhere but the centre-left was in danger of losing control of the major northe cities Milan and Turin while holding on to Bologna and Naples.
   
Victory in Rome is a major coup for the Five Star Movement (MS5) founded by comedian Beppe Grillo in 2009, which has since established itself as the major opposition force in Italian politics.
   
Raggi successfully tapped into widespread anger among voters over the state of the capital's public transport and other services, widely seen as having been undermined by years of cronyism and sleaze in the municipal administration.

Raggi, a 37-year-old lawyer and local councillor, has leapt from anonymity to become one of the best-known faces in Italian politics in the space of only a few months on the campaign trail.

The telegenic brunette is the rising star of the populist Five Star movement (M5S), the anti-establishment party founded by comedian Beppe Grillo.

It has emerged as the best-supported opposition to the centre left, Democratic Party (PD)-led coalition of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and the stakes are extremely high for a movement that was only founded in 2009.

With the ebullient Renzi's star waning slightly, success in Rome could provide a platform for a tilt at national power in general elections due in 2018.

"We are witnessing a historic moment," Raggi said after the June 5 first round of voting, from which she emerged with 35 percent of the vote, well ahead of her run-off rival, Roberto Giachetti (24 percent).

It was a remarkable achievement for a party with a very limited organisational apparatus and also for a woman who only entered politics five years ago.

That was a move, she recently told AFP, triggered by the birth of her son Matteo and her determination that he should not grow up in a city beset by the intertwined problems of failing public services and endemic corruption.

Opposition to Italy's endemic cronyism and sleaze is the foundation of M5S's appeal to voters and the Roman electorate have had their fill of those in recent years.

Dozens of local businessmen, officials and politicians are currently on trial for their involvement in a criminal network that ripped off the city to the tune of tens -- if not hundreds -- of millions.

From stealing the funds allocated to get ethnic Roma children to school out of isolated camps, to paving the city's streets with wafer-thin surfaces, scams abounded for years, according to prosecutors, in what is known as the Mafia Capitale scandal.

The industrial action has been organized between 1pm and 5pm by the Italian Union of Flight Assistance and Control (Unica) and the League of Italian Air Traffic Controllers (Lica).

The workers are striking over issues surrounding pensions and contractual rights.

“We hope our requests are finally met,” Unica spokesperson Gianluca Labigi told La Repubblica.

“We ask all passengers to check their flights are leaving before coming to the airport to avoid discomfort,” he added.

In addition to causing hundreds of cancelled flights, the staff shortages caused by the action means many travellers can expect a long afteoon of crowded waiting rooms and heavy delays.

Many people have criticized the unions for not providing advanced waing ahead of the strike, while others have pointed to the fact it conveniently coincides with Italy's Euro 2016 fixture against Sweden, which starts at 3pm.

“Given the extremely short notice, we are doing our best to reduce problems for passengers,” said national airline carrier, Alitalia, in a statement.

“We will try and find alteative solutions to cancelled flights, where possible leaving today.”

The strike caps a difficult week for Italy, with rubbish piling up on the streets on Wednesday as refuse collectors held a national strike.

Meanwhile, workers with Rome's transport authority, Atac, were heavily criticized on Monday for calling a strike which coincided with Italy's opening Euro 2016 fixture against Belgium.  

All that separated him and the vast body of water was 200,000 floating orange cubes that create a three kilometre-long (1.9 miles) runway that connects the village of Sulzano to the small island of Monte Isola on the lake.

"It's a very physical project, you need to go there (to understand it)," he said on Thursday of the project called "The Floating Piers" which will open to the public from June 18th to July 3rd.

"It's not a painting, it's not a sculpture. You need to walk on it... feel it with the sun, with the rain, with the wind. It's physical, not virtual."

First conceived in 1970 for the River Plate delta in Argentina, the Christ-like project that Christo, 81, devised with his late wife Jeanne-Claude has finally been resurrected.

Despite the long delay in realizing his vision Christo said the project, his first since 2005, "stayed in our hearts".

Forced to abandon the aquatic walkways in Argentina, then again in Japan due to permit troubles, the piers exhibition got the go-ahead in just two years in Italy, thanks to the enthusiasm of local officials and nearby residents.

Photo: Facebook

Made of 200,000 recyclable polyethylene cubes linked by 200,000 giant screws, the piers are covered with a dahlia-yellow fabric made of tightly woven nylon designed to change tone as the sun sets and become an intense red when wet.

This is not Christo's first artistic outing in Italy.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, both bo June 13th, 1935, brought three projects to the country in the 1960s and 1970s, including an installation on Milan's Cathedral square in which they wrapped a monument to King Vittorio Emanuele.

The couple first rose to fame for their eye-catching packaging of famous landmarks like the Pont Neuf across the Seine in Paris in 1985 and Berlin's Reichstag in 1995 - a project which took almost a quarter of a century of bureaucratic wrangling to get off the ground.

'Artists do not retire, they die'

Describing his passion for reimagining objects with audacious wrapping and packaging, Christo said: "I don't like to talk on the telephone, I don't know how to drive cars... I'm interested (in the) real thing."

"The Floating Piers" cost €15 million ($16.7 million) to create but will be free to the public and is expected to attract 500,000 visitors by the time it closes.

It was funded as is typical for Christo's works by the sale of his blueprints and design models.

Local businesses are already hoping to cash-in on the cultural phenomenon described by The New York Times as one of the "musts" of the year.

Michele Pescali, a bakery owner based close to the lake, has created a line of "Christo biscuits" for the occasion made of pastry covered with jam and orange peel reminiscent of the artificial pontoons.

Some visitors like Almut and Walter Horstmann from Germany arrived days early so as not to miss the final stage of installation.

"We wanted to see the construction work. We already saw the Reichstag, the wrapped trees in Basel, the wall of oil barrels, the Oberhausen gas holder in Germany," said Walter, 75.

He described Christo's latest feat as "fantastic, with this mix of water, countryside, colour and fabric".

And fans of the octogenarian genius need not fear that Christo is winding down.

He is now thought to be awaiting approval for two projects, one in the US and the other in Abu Dhabi.

Asked if he plans to hang up his welly boots and settle down, he said simply: "Artists do not retire, they die."

Speaking on the sidelines of the Inteational Economic Forum in St Petersburg, Renzi told the Russian news agency, Tass: “Of course it would be a problem, but it would be a small problem for Europe and a much larger one for Britain."

The premier has also expressed his dismay over the fatal stabbing and shooting of British Labour MP, Jo Cox, on Thursday. The 41-year-old was a prominent campaigner for the UK to stay in the EU.

“It’s a horrible act of hatred that casts a shadow over the hearts of all of us,” Renzi said. “This hatred will never prevail, in Britain or elsewhere.”

There were no reported casualties in the incident, with the boat's 117 passengers and six crew members all managing to disembark the craft safely, Ansa reported.

The incident happened at around 4pm when the vessel, named 'Massaccio', came in to moor at the island's main harbour.

Strong winds caused the docking manoeuver to go badly wrong and the boat slammed into a concrete pier.

The coastguard, police and port authorities intervened to safely evacuate the passengers and crew from the stricken vessel, but could do nothing to stop the Massaccio's prow from sinking into the shallow waters around the pier. 

A video of the rescue operation can be seen below.

The Massaccio ran passenger services between Stromboli and the Aeolian islands of Lipari and Milazzo and will be salvaged from the water on Friday.

The incident was caused by the violent sirocco winds – which blow over Sicily from the Sahara desert. The hot winds have also also fuelled the spread of wildfires on Wednesday night and Thursday.

Player haircuts

Italy

Italy are missing Mario Balotelli's magic up top this year. Photo Vincenzo Pito /AFP

As you might expect from the Italians, the squad is an impeccably well-groomed bunch, but this year's crop of talent (pun intended) is lacking some flair.

With Andrea Pirlo's lush locks and beard combination missing from the midfield and Mario Balotelli's postmode pattes of headshaving not leading the line up front, the squad is composed of almost exclusively of unimaginative short-back-and sides hairdos.

Score: 5/10

Sweden

Lush locks in a neat manbun: Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT

A glance at the Sweden line-up from their most recent game against the Republic of Ireland doesn’t exactly suggest a wealth of creativity in the grooming department. Whether it’s Andreas Isaksson’s short back and sides, the shaved heads of Marcus Berg and Victor Lindelöf, or the schoolboy side partings of Kim Källström and Oscar Lewicki, most of Erik Hamrén’s troop are about as run-of-the-mill looking as it gets.

Fortunately, as is so often the case for Sweden, Zlatan Ibrahimovic saves the day. The striker’s man bun with a beard combination may not be the most original in the world, but to his credit, he has been sporting it for five years or so now, beating plenty of hipsters to the punch. At least he stands out from the crowd, and saves a point for his country.

Score: 1/10

Food and Drink

Italy

Italian food is famous the world over, and rightly so. The country is full to the brim of of great pizza and pasta dishes, but that's just scratching the surface of Italian cuisine.

The food is based around simple, fresh ingredients and is incredibly varied, delicious and healthy.

On the drink front, Prosecco now outsells champagne and Chianti and Pino Grigio are among the most quaffed wines worldwide.

The only thing letting Italy down is its lack of decent beer, but it more than makes up for that with its coffee. While the Swedes are walking to work in the dark, knocking back huge vats of dirty dishwater coffee, the Italians are sitting down and sipping tiny thimbles of delicious, intense espresso in a sunny piazza.

Score: 10/10

Sweden

Sweden’s food doesn’t carry the same prestige as Italy’s, but there’s plenty to love about the country’s cuisine. If you’re a seafood fan, the west coast in particular is a delight, with lobster, oysters and mussels plentiful, while the variety of pickled herring eaten at pretty much every major celebration can be surprisingly good.

If you’re feeling more adventurous, there’s also the two Michelin starred Fäviken Magasinet in Järpen, which was the subject of an episode of Netflix documentary Chef’s Table, and recently named among the top 50 best restaurants in the world.

As for the drinks, the Swedish beer of years gone by could be a touch on the gassy side, but with an abundance of microbreweries popping up in the country as of late, most needs should be more than catered for. IPA (Indian Pale Ale) in particular is plentiful and popular at the moment.

Wine isn’t Sweden’s strong point, but when it comes to the harder stuff, the northeers know a thing or two about drinking. Snaps, the powerful alcoholic drink consumed at festivities, comes in hundreds of different varieties and quite often comes accompanied with a song, and what’s not to love about that?

Score: 5/10

Ice Hotels:

Italy

Italy: not a good place for building an ice hotel. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP

Due to average summer temperatures above 20 degrees ice hotels haven't really caught on, which is a shame.

Perhaps there are parts of the Italian Alps which get cold enough to build an ice hotel during the winter, but given the extremely low tolerance to cold most Italians seem to share it might be a hard sell.

In central Rome, there is a bar made from sculpted ice, which offers sweet refuge from the infeal temperatures reached in the city during the summer, but that's about it.

Score: 1/10

Sweden

The Jukkasjärvi ice hotel. Photo: Daniel Rosenbaum and Dylan Pillemer.

Sorry Italy, but unsurprisingly given that Sweden has a lot of, well, ice, it also has a pretty impressive Ice hotel – probably the most impressive of them all. First made in 1989, each year the structure is redesigned and rebuilt in Jukkasjärvi, 200km north of the Arctic Circle, and includes an ice church, ice bar, and ice sculpting studio. On top of that there are two heated restaurants for the faint hearted, as well as two wildeess camps for the more resilient guests.

As for Rome’s ice bar, Stockholm has one of those too, but that’s really small fry when you can stay in an entire building sculpted out of frozen water now isn’t it?

Score: 8/10

Fashion

Italy

Italy has been leading the way in fashion design since the 11th century and over the years 'Made in Italy' has become a byword for quality and style.

The country boasts some of the biggest names in the industry and Milan's two annual fashion weeks are among the most important dates on the annual fashion calendar.

That said, the Italian dominance of mainstream fashion trends tends to stop alteative styles like punk or grunge from emerging, which then tend to arrive five years too late.

Score 7/10

Sweden

Swedish fashion is sleek, refined, and carries none of the snobbery of its Italian counterparts. Whether it’s affordable, high street brands like H&M or designer marks like Acne and Filippa K, the country more than punches above its weight when it comes to clothing.

“Less is more” is the key for Swedes, and with their products generally discreet looking but also effortlessly cool, there’s something for everyone. Scandi style is in at the moment, and Sweden is a huge part of that.

Score: 6/10

Industry

Italy

Italy is probably not considered 'an industrial powerhouse' in the same way that many northe European countries routinely are, however it is the fourth largest economy in Europe in no small part thanks to its impressive industrial output.

Five percent of Italian industry is based around the production of cars and car parts.

From icons like the Fiat 500 to Ferrari and Vespa Italian cars might not be as safe or as reliable as a Volvo, but they are so much cooler.

There's more than just cars too, an Italian company Olivetti even designed the world's first personal computer: the P101.

Both countries are famous for their elaborate glassware, but the glassmaker's art spread from the Venetian island of Murano, which for centuries has produced some of the finest glass in the world.

8/10

Sweden

With a population around a sixth of the size of Italy’s, Sweden doesn’t command anything like the same scale of work force as the Mediterranean nation, but what it loses in size it more than makes up for in creativity.

Start-ups and technology are key, with household names like Spotify, Skype, and Candy Crush producers King all coming from Swedish roots. If you have a young child, meanwhile, the chances are he or she will have played Minecraft, the hit game from Swedish developer Mojang.

On a per capita basis, Stockholm is the second most prolific tech hub in the world, helping Sweden to become the most competitive economy in the EU in 2016. Sweden has its own car giant too in the form of Volvo, but why focus too much on the present when you can look to the future?

Score: 9/10

Nudists

Italy

The Italians are embracing nudity like never before. Photo: Joe Joe/Flickr

Italy is not really associated with public nudity and until 2006 nudist sites were officially illegal.

Although Italians tend to embarrass easily there is a growing number of socially liberal Italians who love getting naked together.

Statistics from one Italian nudist association suggest that more than 600,000 Italians frequent the country's now legal nudist sites – and who can blame them?

Italy's 7,600 km includes loads of nudist beaches, whose azure waters and yellow sands make them the perfect places to spend the day in the buff.

Score: 6/10

Sweden

The Swedes love stripping off. Photo TT

Nudity isn’t a big deal for Swedes, who have some of the most liberal attitudes in the world to the subject. A 2014 survey by Expedia showed that more than a quarter of Swedish women have sunbathed topless, while there are a whole host of nudist beaches dotted across the country.

The Swedes love a sauna meanwhile, and if you’re thinking of indulging in a steam session, it’s worth keeping in mind that clothes off is the standard rule. It’s hard not to feel like these northeers are more forward-thinking than most of us when it comes to the human body, in fact, they probably have to drop a few points simply because they care so little.

Score:8/10

Verdict

Italy: 37/60 Sweden 37/60

A dead heat! 

There's plenty to love about both Italy and Sweden, but it looks like bragging rights will be decided by the outcome of the match. 

Raggi, a 37-year-old lawyer and local councillor, has leapt from anonymity to become one of the best-known faces in Italian politics in the space of only a few months on the campaign trail.

The telegenic brunette is the rising star of the populist Five Star movement (M5S), the anti-establishment party founded by comedian Beppe Grillo.

It has emerged as the best-supported opposition to the centre left, Democratic Party (PD)-led coalition of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and the stakes are extremely high for a movement that was only founded in 2009.

With the ebullient Renzi's star waning slightly, success in Rome could provide a platform for a tilt at national power in general elections due in 2018.

"We are witnessing a historic moment," Raggi said after the June 5th first round of voting, from which she emerged with 35 percent of the vote, well ahead of her run-off rival, Roberto Giachetti (24 percent).

It was a remarkable achievement for a party with a very limited organizational apparatus and also for a woman who only entered politics five years ago.

That was a move, she recently told AFP, triggered by the birth of her son Matteo and her determination that he should not grow up in a city beset by the intertwined problems of failing public services and endemic corruption.

Years of sleaze

Opposition to Italy's endemic cronyism and sleaze is the foundation of M5S's appeal to voters and the Roman electorate have had their fill of those in recent years.

Dozens of local businessmen, officials and politicians are currently on trial for their involvement in a criminal network that ripped off the city to the tune of tens if not hundreds of millions.

From stealing the funds allocated to get ethnic Roma children to school from isolated camps, to paving the city's streets with wafer-thin surfaces, scams abounded for years, according to prosecutors in what is known as the Mafia Capitale scandal.

One of the defendants was caught on a police wiretap boasting how siphoning off funds meant to feed and house often-traumatised asylum-seekers was more lucrative than dealing drugs.

The former mayor, the PD's Ignazio Marino, helped expose the criminal activity that has contributed to these kind of abuses and the city having €12 billion of debts.

This has had crippling knock-on effects on public transport and other essential services, from refuse collection to road repairs.

But Marino also paid a price for the revelations emerging on his watch. Unpopular with many ordinary Romans and perceived by his own party hierarchy to be floundering, he was forced to quit last October after it emerged he had submitted several inaccurate expenses claims.

Exclusive club

Rome's bid to host the 2024 Olympics - against competition from Paris, Los Angeles and Budapest - has come up frequently during the campaign, but Raggi has made it clear she has other priorities.

"No Roman has asked me whether I back the Olympics," she said in a televised debate on Wednesday. "They talk to me about transport, they talk to me about schools. (The Olympics) are not a priority, they're really not a priority."

Where Marino, a liver surgeon from Genoa, was seen as an aloof outsider, Raggi has capitalized on her pure-bred Roman pedigree.

And as her momentum has grown, she has acquired the confidence and popular touch of a seasoned political operator.

Despite her lack of experience in running anything, the intellectual property expert is confident she has the local knowledge, character and inventiveness needed to restore Rome's flagging morale and reputation.

"I was a curious young girl, interested in many things, but very focused, as I am today," she told AFP. "Determination never failed me."

If she wins on Sunday, Raggi will join a select group of women who run major cities including Barcelona, Cape Town, Madrid, Paris and Santiago, Chile.

The vote in Rome is part of a nationwide election which will see a string of major cities choose new mayors.

The fires, which affected the provinces of Palermo, Agrigento, Trapani and Messina, broke out at the same time, suggesting a criminal motive, investigators told Ansa.

Sicily President Rosario Crocetta told La Repubblica that he believed organized crime was behind the fires.

“How do you explain a blazing fire in Cefalù last night (Wednesday), when the temperature was 24 degrees?”, he said.

“Of course, the heat and wind then play their part. I do not have proof, but I suspect criminals were responsible because they always affect the most valuable areas around Palermo."

More details to follow.

The girl was rescued from the home in Poggio Maria, near the coastal town of Cefalù, a popular tourist area where other homes and hotels are reported to have been damaged by the wildfires, brought on by a sirocco, a hot Mediterranean wind that originates from the Sahara and can reach hurricane speeds.

Fifty nursery school children were also hospitalized on Thursday moing, suffering from smoke inhalation, as the fires spread across the Palermo area. Their condition was not serious and they were later discharged.

The nursery, in Monreale, was evacuated, as were other buildings and hotels in the affected areas.

The town's mayor, Piero Capizzi, said the situation is now under control.

"But this moing there were moments of fear," he added.

Dozens of fires have spread across the island, affecting the provinces of Palermo, Agrigento, Trapani and Messina, according to the latest reports.

The A20 motorway between Palermo and Messina and a highway that runs from Lascari to Cefalù were also closed as the fires spread.

"We’re facing a dramatic situation," said Lapunzina Rosario, mayor of the coastal town of Cefalù, adding that the flames developed in the Lascari area.

The lower areas of the Madonie mountain range were among the worst affected, with homes and schools being evacuated.

“We are overwhelmed with calls,” a firefighter told La Repubblica.

The roof of a home in Cefalù can be seen on fire in the Tweet below.

Some Canadair water planes were launched but the operation had to be stopped because the winds, bringing temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius, were too strong, Giampiero Boscaino said. 

The video below, of fires in Lascari, was posted on YouReporter.it.

The Italian Health Ministry has long approved the use of the chemical “to wash frozen and fresh mollusks and cephalopods,” meaning squid and certain shellfish are routinely rinsed in hydrogen peroxide solution, La Stampa reported.

Although hydrogen peroxide solutions are perfectly safe for human consumption, the chemical acts as a bleaching agent which makes certain fish seem whiter and more attractive to the customer.

The EU has told Italy to end the bleaching, which is in flagrant violation of EU law.

“Hydrogen peroxide is not a substance which the EU authorizes for use with certain foodstuffs,” read a note sent to the Italian Health Ministry.

“We therefore ask Italy to provide producers with clear information about which solutions can and can't be used to wash seafood.”

For the EU, the ban on hydrogen peroxide is to prevent producers from exploiting its bleaching action to make older seafood seem much fresher than it is - a trick it is almost impossible for consumers to detect.

The ban on the use of peroxide aims at combating the growing phenomenon of seafood fraud, which sees consumers duped into paying over the odds for falsely labelled fish.

A recent survey by inteational ocean advocacy group, Oceana, revealed that one in three fish dishes sold in the restaurants of the Belgian capital Brussels, which hosts the European Commision, were fraudulently labelled on the menu.

"We need to make sure these rules are implemented in Italy and across all EU-member states to stop H202 from reaching our fridges," Renata Briano, an MEP from Italy's Democratic Party, told the paper.