Pasquale Kevin Bruzzese, originally from Mintuo, in the Lazio province of Latina, was killed a day after his 65th birthday.

His death was aounced by his nephew, Vincenzo Fidele, on Facebook.

The businessman had lived in Ecuador for several years. According to the latest official figures, 413 people were killed, although the search for survivors continues.

Aerial view of Pedeales, one of Ecuador's worst-hit towns. Photo: Pablo Cozzaglio/AFP

On Monday night, six people - including a three-year-old girl and baby of nine months - were rescued from the ruins of a hotel near Manta, a coastal town.

The earthquake, which also injured some 2,500 people, is the worst tragedy to have affected Ecuador in seven decades, the country’s President Rafael Correa said, adding that rebuild costs would run into billions of dollars.

Italian cinema great Marco Bellochio, 76, saw his latest film "Fai Bei Sogni" (Sweet Dreams) chosen to open the increasingly prized sidebar competition, after being snubbed in the Palme d'Or selection.

The film about a boy coping with the death of his mother is his first to be shown at Caes since "Vincere" (To Win) was shown in the main competition in 2009.

The other two Italian films are "Fiore" by Claudio Giovaesi, set in a juvenile detention centre, and "La Pazza Gioia" (Like Crazy) - about two patients who escape a mental institution.

They are among 18 feature films chosen for the Director's Fortnight, which often offers up some of the most raved about films during Caes.

"This year there is a mixture of the veterans, Jodorowsky, Bellochio, and the youth," said Director's Fortnight artistic director Edouard Waintrop.

Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky, 87, will present his autobiographical feature "Poesia sin Fin" (Endless Poetry).

Another film initially slated to be included in the main competition that ended up in the Director's Fortnight is "L'Economie du Couple", a tale of a divorced couple who continue to live under the same roof for economic reasons, by Belgian director Joachim Lafosse.

Chilean director Pablo Larrain's "Neruda", starring Gael Garcia Beal as an inspector hunting for poet Pablo Neruda, who became a wanted man in Chile in the late '40s for his communist sympathies, also got the nod.

Indian director Anurag Kashyap - who directed the acclaimed psychological thriller "Ugly", shown at Caes in 2013 - retus to the genre with "Psycho Raman" about a serial killer terrorising Mumbai in the '60s.

American director Laura Poitras, who won an Oscar for "Citizenfour" about fugitive US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden, will be showing her latest documentary "Risk" focusing on Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

The independent competition will end with "Dog Eat Dog" by Paul Schrader, director of the 1980 crime drama American Gigolo and author of numerous screenplays for Martin Scorsese films, including "Taxi Driver".

Starring Nicolas Cage and Willem Dafoe, "Dog Eat Dog" follows three ex-cons trying to adapt to life outside bars.

The traditional animated film entry will this year be Claude Barras' debut "Ma Vie de Courgette" (My Life as a Courgette) about a nine-year-old boy making it in a foster home after his mother's sudden death.

The commission, the EU's executive arm, is empowered to apply strict limits on public deficit and debt levels in the European Union, but the auditors said Brussels went too easy on offenders.

The commission "must be more strict," Milan Martin Cvikl, the member of the Court of Auditors responsible for the report, said in a press statement.

"It is not sufficiently aware of what is happening on the ground and it is not applying the rules consistently," he said.

Since the debt crisis, the EU has been empowered to slap penalities on countries that violate pre-agreed deficit or debt targets, but the commission has yet to apply these newly-acquired measures to the rule breakers.

The 120-page report said that even though "detailed procedures and guidelines" on budgetary discipline exist, "there are problems with the commission's implementation of these tasks.

"This is because the Commission did not make full use of its powers to enforce" compliance by member states in applying the rules.

The report also cites a lack of resources and "poor record-keeping" from the commission's teams.

The report was based on studies of the work between 2009 and 2015 with six EU countries: Italy, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Cyprus and Malta.

Italy and France have consistently come in the cross-hairs of the European Commission for repeated violation of public spending targets.

But the countries, two of the most powerful members of the EU, have eluded punitive measures by the commission, which has drawn criticism that Brussels will not dare challenge govements on so sensitive an issue.

As an example, the auditors said last year's recommendation to grant France another reprieve "did not contain data in support of the baseline scenario... or any detail of additional discretionary revenue measures" France had promised in retu for the delay.

At a news briefing, Commission spokeswoman Aika Breidthardt said the EU welcomed the court's work, "which can contribute positively to our own continuous effort to improve the functioning of the ... process".

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said earlier this month that the country would keep its pledge to reduce its debt ratio in 2016 for the first time in eight years.

The economy grew by 0.8 percent in 2015 after three consecutive years of contraction. But growth has been sluggish since, with forecasts for the first and second quarter of this year at 0.3 percent.

Growth would need to pick up speed in the second half of the year in order to reach the 1.2 percent target for 2016, down from the previous forecast of 1.6 percent.

In a sensational report on Tuesday, the German daily, Bild, said that jihadists were plaing to pose as refreshment sellers at beach resorts in the three countries, before detonating suicide vests and bombs planted beneath sun loungers.

The newspaper claimed the information came from Italian and German secret agents, with the alleged attacks plaed at resorts in southe France, Spain’s Costa del Sol, and uamed Italian beaches.

Bild also quoted Seck Pouye, the chief of police in Senegal, who said that the terrorists, from the Boko Haram Islamist group in Nigeria which allies itself with Isis, plaed to radicalize regular travellers between Senegal and Europe to carry out the attacks.

But the report has been denied by the Italian intelligence services, with a source quoted by Ansa as saying it was "groundless" and that "there is no specific terror alert on Italian beaches".

A source at Italy’s anti-terrorism department also dismissed the report when contacted by The Local.

In a process that also involved the inteational police corporation, Interpol, the life of a Chinese girl, studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Verona, Italy, was saved.

The girl had threatened to kill herself during an online group chat with friends, Italian police said in a statement.

One of the friends, a Chinese student in the UK, became conceed and so decided to send an email to police in Verona, telling them her friend was seriously depressed and had threatened to take her own life.

But the friend instead emailed police in Verona, New Jersey, by mistake.

The force is led by police chief Michael Ste, who picked up the emailed shortly after 5pm last Thursday, 40 minutes after it had been sent.

Although the station frequently receives messages and calls from people trying to contact the authorities in Italy's Verona, Ste said he couldn't ignore the message.

“I wasn't going to let someone who was sick or ill go to the wayside,” he told Buzzfeed news. “I felt it was my responsibility."

Ste leaped into action, frantically trying to contact Verona police – but he couldn't find any contact details online.

He also tried the Italian Embassy in the US, but it was already closed for the evening.

Ste finally contacted Interpol, which got in touch with police in Verona and a squad was dispatched to the girl's apartment.

Police arrived less than two hours after Ste read the message, at about 1.10pm CET, and found the girl next to an empty bottle of antidepressants with her wrists partially cut.

She was immediately taken to hospital and is reportedly in a stable condition. "We saved a life half a world a way,” Ste said.

Verona police in Italy added: "The rapid transfer of information inteationally and the prompt action of Verona police force saved the life of the young student."

Police in Verona declined to provide more details about the incident when contacted by The Local.

Over 10,000 refugees and migrants are currently residing in a makeshift refugee camp in the northe Greek town of Idomeni after Macedonia closed the border earlier this year.

Austria - who strongly advocated for the closure of the west Balkan migrant route - recently started to build a border checkpoint and a road barrier at the Breer pass between Austria and Italy.

The country's defence minister Hans Peter Doskozil (SPÖ) also waed last week that Austria is prepared close the border point with Italy in extreme conditions.

The measures are part of a national effort from Austria to prepare for what authorities expect will be a repeat of last summer’s wave of refugees and migrants making their way to Europe seeking protection and a better life.

German politician and head of the European People’s Party Group Manfred Weber said yesterday that Breer could become a “second Idomeni” if the area ended up being cordoned off by Austria’s border controls, causing a backlog of people on the Italian side of the border.

Speaking to joualists whilst inspecting the site, Weber called on Austria to only introduce the plaed measures in “extraordinary circumstances” and for the two countries to sit down together to discuss the matter.

The visit was welcomed by Austrian politician Othmar Karas (ÖVP), who has criticised the waings from Doskozil about possibly closing the border.

“Whoever wants to close the Breer has leaed nothing from history, neither Austrian nor European history,” said Karas, quoted in the ORF.

“Fences inside Europe are the symbols of a failed collaboration. If all countries implemented and applied the jointly agreed EU agreement, there [would be] no need for border fortifications inside the EU."

Austria's foreign minister Sebastian Kurz defended the measures, however, saying that there was much historical awareness in Austria "but also realism".

"No-one closes Breer, if you introduce border controls. The free movement of people and goods continues - and yes, in an ideal case there are no border controls," he said, adding that it became necessary after Austria was "left alone" to deal with the crisis.

Italy sees spike in boat crossings

Just last Friday, Italy insisted it was not facing an “invasion” after a spike in migrant boat crossings from Libya exacerbated fears the country is on the verge of becoming the main entry point for people trying to reach Europe.

Nearly 6,000 mostly African migrants have landed at southe Italian ports since Tuesday but Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said the overall trend this year was broadly in line with the 2015 patte.

Yesterday hundreds of migrants died after their boat capsized in the sea between Libya and Italy. Survivors said they believed up to 500 people died, although the coastguard has not yet confirmed the figure

In a statement on the first aiversary of a disaster in which up to 800 migrants are feared to have perished, the navy said the salvage operation was behind schedule because of poor sea conditions in the area off Libya where the boat went down on the night of April 18th -19th, 2015.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has vowed to give every one of the victims a decent burial.

Only 28 people survived the disaster, which occurred after the overcrowded trawler collided with a large cargo ship that had gone to help it.

The sinking is thought to have been the deadliest of the current migrant crisis and the worst to have occurred in the Mediterranean in decades.

The boat sank to a depth of 380 metres. Italian divers have recovered 169 bodies from around it and seen hundreds more trapped inside.

Once raised, the boat is to be towed to the port of Augusta in Sicily where attempts will be made to identify the victims from any documents not destroyed by the water and with the help of DNA experts.

The paintings were smuggled out of Prince Felix of Bourbon-Parma's plush villa in Camaiore, a city within Lucca province, and subsequently taken to Dosburg castle in north-easte Bolzano, where the head of the SS in Italy, General Karl Wolff, had set up his headquarters.

Felix, the son of the deposed Duke of Parma, married Luxemburg's monarch, the Grand Dutchess Charlotte in 1919.

During the war, Allied soldiers even raided the castle, filled with stolen art, in order to recapture some of the works - events which formed the basis for George Clooney's 2014 film 'Monuments Men'.

The prince's stolen paintings were never found, with the Italian state compensating him in 1945 for the value of the stolen pieces after he filed a post-war damages claim against the govement.

But in December 2014, the first of the three paintings - a portrait of the Madoa and child by Renaissance painter Giai Battista Cima - was found by police in the Monza home of a Milan-based family.

The painting, found among the family's collection during a routine investigation into art documentation, was said to have been inherited from a deceased art-dealing relative, but it is not known how the painting come into the relative's possession.

The stolen picture of the Madoa and child, by Giai Battista Cima. Photo: Caribinieri

During subsequent investigations, two more stolen artworks came to light: a tempera on wood panel showing the Holy Trinity by early Renaissance painter Alessio Baldovinetti and a painting showing Jesus at the temple by Girolamo dai Libri.

The paintings were seized by police and have now been entrusted to the Brera Art Gallery in Milan, where they were presented to the press on Monday.

The three Muslim families are being housed temporarily by the Saint'Egidio religious community in the Rome district of Trastevere while they await longer-term accommodation being prepared for them in the Vatican, community spokesman Maximiliano Signifredi told AFP.

"Yesterday they had their first Italian lessons. They have been going for walks around Trastevere, a new life is opening up in front of them," Signifredi said.

"Each of the three families has been assigned a small flat with everything they need while they are awaiting the more spacious apartments the Vatican is getting ready for them."

In a dramatic gesture designed to highlight the plight of hundreds of thousands of refugees arriving on the southe shores of Europe, Francis on Sunday flew back from Lesbos with the 12 Syrians.

The three couples, who have six children between them, were plucked from a detention camp on the Greek island to start new lives, more than 1,400 miles (nearly 2,300 kilometres) from their homes in Damascus and Deir Ezzor, a city in easte Syria controlled by the Islamic State group.

Francis said on the plane back from Lesbos that the families had been chosen out of some 3,000 people at the camp simply because their paperwork was sufficiently in order to rapidly conclude an accord on their transfer with the Greek and Italian govements.

"I didn't make a choice between Christians and Muslims. All refugees are children of God," Francis told reporters.

The families are expected to seek asylum in Italy rather than through the tiny Vatican city state.

One of the Syrians, a 51-year-old teacher from Deir Ezzor, has said the families, who had plaed to try and get to Germany via Greece, do not know what awaits them.

"We don't know whether we will start over in Europe or whether, one day, we will be able to retu to a Syria free of war and violence," the teacher, identified only as Ramy, told Italian media at the weekend.

The Vatican was already housing two Syrian families in line with Francis's instruction to every Catholic parish in Europe to take in at least one.

The St Egidio community is very active on migration issues and has organized flights to Rome for dozens of Syrian refugees who are housed in the same building as the families brought back by the Pope.

Mariafrancesca Garritano was sacked unfairly in 2012, the Court of Cassation concluded in a definitive ruling on a case that tued the spotlight on eating disorders in the high-pressure world of professional ballet.

Now 37, Garritano has told Italian media she is ready for a retu to the stage - even if that looks unlikely to be at La Scala, which has been stonewalling requests for comment on the written court order since it was issued on Friday.

"All I am waiting for is a call from La Scala," Garritano said in an interview with Milan daily Il Gioo, while acknowledging there had been no contact from the company about a ruling which confirms an October 2014 appeal court victory.

"Already in 2014, I expected to be rehired after two years of interruption. Now I expect the same thing," said Garritano, who dances under the stage name Mary Garrett.

"I never stopped working on my physical condition to be in the best condition possible when the moment came."

The dancer was dismissed for bringing the name of the company into disrepute with claims made in a book about her experiences and in related interviews.

One of the interviews which got her sacked was with Britain's Observer in December 2011.

"When I was training as a teenager, the instructors would call me 'mozzarella' and 'Chinese dumpling' in front of everyone," she told the Sunday newspaper.

"I reduced my eating so much that my period stopped for a year and a half when I was 16 and 17, and I dropped to 43 kilos (94 pounds)."

Garritano said 70 percent of dancers who were with her at La Scala's dance school had eaten so little their periods had stopped and linked her own recurring stomach pains and frequent bone fractures to extreme dieting.

The majority of the migrants were from Somalia, with others coming from Eritrea and Ethiophia.

The news was broken on Sunday night by BBC Arabic, citing the Somali Ambassador to Egypt.

Rescuers were reportedly able to save just 29 people.

The tragedy comes exactly a year after more than 700 migrants drowned in a shipwreck off Sicily.

More details to follow.

Bicchierai, who works at the Pizzeria La Gusto in Sausset les Pins, just outside Marseilles, scooped top prize late last week after wowing judges with the unconventional seafood pizza at the 25th edition of the Pizza World Championships in Parma.

The pizza was topped with tomatoes, bream carpaccio, mozzarella, courgette flowers, prawns and Tabasco sauce - flavours the Frenchman says were inspired by Provençal cuisine.

“This is the second time I've taken part in the competition, but this year I thought I'd use the traditional French fish soup as my inspiration,” he said.

In order to get his hands on the prestigious pizza gong, not to mention a voucher for 1000kg of free flour, Bicchierai had to beat off competition from 650 pizza-makers from 35 different countries around the globe.

Non-Italians have only managed to scoop top prize in the contest twice before - in 2011 and 2015 – but nobody was begrudging the Frenchman his victory.

“Even though pizza is an Italian icon, it's always a pleasure for us to see foreigners walk away with the prize from time to time,” event spokesperson Patrizio Carrer told The Local.

While Italy missed out on first prize this year, second and third places were taken by two Sicilians, Alfio Russo and Niccolo Cusumano, from Siracusa and Messsina, respectively.

The Frenchman's victory came a week after an outcry was prompted by a French carbonara recipe video, which offended Italian viewers with its liberal interpretation of the authentic dish.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi also faed the flames of the two countries' food rivalry last week, by insisting that Italian wines had overtaken French ones in terms of quality.

For now at least, the French can lay claim to the world's best pizza-maker.

Pitting environmentalists against the govement and big industry, the referendum was seen a key challenge for Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD) after two years in office during which he has pushed through a string of pro-business and political reforms.

About 90 minutes after polls closed at 11:00 pm (2100 GMT), the interior ministry said near-complete figures showed tuout stood at around 32 percent.

Under Italy's referendum law, a referendum is only valid if more than 50 percent of the country's nearly 47 million registered electors cast their vote.

The result will be savoured by Renzi, who had openly called on Italians to shun the ballot in the hopes of sinking the referendum, a stance that frustrated the opposition and deepened a rift within his own camp.

The referendum centred around whether Italians wanted to repeal a new law about drilling near the country's coast.

The current legislation, passed in January, says existing concessions within 12 miles (19 kilometres) of the coast should remain valid until the fields are depleted - to the dismay of campaigners for renewable energy.

Environmentalists claim platforms near the shore present risks to health and protected habitats.

They argued that reversing the law would send a clear signal the country wants to go green and stop what they call "dirty deals" that benefit oil companies, in the wake of a recent scandal that saw a top minister resign over alleged favours to French oil giant Total.

But Renzi dismissed the referendum as "a hoax" this week and said a win for the "Yes" camp - backed by environmentalists and opposition parties - would lead to rig closures and massive job losses.

The referendum also fuelled a bitter inteal battle within Renzi's party, with some PD members saying it was unacceptable for the premier to be the head of the pro-abstention campaign.

"Those who wanted to settle accounts at all costs have lost. The wiers are the 11,000 people whose jobs were at risk," Renzi said in a speech after the polls closed.

'Greenest country'

He added that he was ready to continue the dialogue about the country's energy policies and that he wanted Italy to become "the greenest country in Europe".

A "Yes" victory would have been a heavy blow to the premier ahead of a constitutional reforms referendum in October, on which the 41-year-old has bet his political career.

As for the energy companies, it would mean that the 92 platforms within the 12-mile limit would have to start closing from 2018, with the last in 2034.

Observers had said ahead of the vote that the referendum outcome would have little effect on govement income.

Concessions within the 12-mile band brought in a relatively modest €38 million ($43 million) in royalties in 2015, according to official data.

Opponents had waed that if the referendum failed, the door would be flung open to underhand dealings.

"The biggest favour to oil and gas - extending extraction indefinitely - allows them to avoid shelling out money to dismantle the platforms once the concessions have expired," said Michele Emiliano, president of the Puglia region.

The "Yes" camp had argued that far fewer than 11,000 jobs were at risk, as many of the 92 platforms in question are unmaed.

They were also furious that Renzi refused to hold the referendum on the same day as local elections later this year, a decision which will cost the taxpayer €300 million ($338 million), according to the regions and environmentalists.

Genoa Mayor Marco Doria said it was "outrageous" they had been kept separate in the hope Italians would head to the beach instead of voting.

Words like ”home” and ”nationality” become ambiguous when you live, work, and study in not just multiple cities, but different countries with distinct and varied cultures.

“I was bo in St. Petersburg, I grew up largely in the UK, and now I live in Paris,” says Maria Kuts. “My life has always been very inteational.”

Kuts studied in Russia and moved up the career ladder very quickly. But she wanted more.

For one, she had her eye on broader horizons – perhaps working in Europe after many years in St. Petersburg.

But primarily, Kuts wanted to grow. She wasn't satisfied with the skills and knowledge she had, even after her fast-track, hard-working career.

“Doing business management in Russia for six years, I realized that I was seriously lacking financial knowledge,” she says. “I would tell colleagues, 'We need to do something like this' – and they would tell me that those structures already existed. I just didn't know anything about it.”

So she started doing her research. And the solution was clear, basically from the begiing.

“I decided to enrol in Executive IMBA at the Inteational School of Management,” she says.

Photo: Krystal Keedy

The Inteational School of Management (ISM) was founded in the United States in the 1990s – but it's been global from day one.

“Our founder, Jack Forget, really believed that business schools should be urban campuses, located in financial hubs around the world,” says Alison Knight, General Director at ISM. “And not just one location– business schools should provide options to study in various countries.”

That's why ISM has programmes in Paris, New York, Shanghai, New Deli, Sao Paulo, and Cape Town – and that's one reason why the school has attracted students from more than 100 countries.

“The maximum class size is 25, and in that group there will typically be some 10-15 nationalities represented,” Knight says.

For Kuts, the inteational nature of the school was a critical deciding factor.

“I knew my education had to be inteational – because I am inteational,” she says. “Most of my life I have lived between different cities.”

She's not alone. Knight notes that the school is a natural choice for expats.

“It's a perfect fit for expats in Europe,” she says.

“On a simple level, most of us working at ISM are expats in Europe. Our staff understand the practicalities of studying outside of your home country, and our professors are experts in the nuances of inteational business. But also, the education is very individualized and customized.”

Photo: Sylvain Gripoix

The school offers inteational MBA, DBA, and PhD programmes, all of which are designed for ambitious professionals who want to study without putting their careers on hold.

“I couldn't take a break in my career,” Kuts says. “Things move very quickly in Russia. I had my BA when I was 20, my Masters at 22, and was in a top position by 25, and I couldn't pause that and come back. So I needed something flexible.”

Students can set their own pace and work from various locations as well as doing seminars online.

“It’s almost completely customizable,” Knight explains. “Each student has control over where they are studying and when. This is a very new and iovative way of completing a degree programme, and a trend that ISM is leading.”

Seminars are primarily given over three-day periods in Paris, but the IMBA degree also requires two weeks of study in New York.

“New York was amazing,” Kuts remarks. “We got a really American approach, and the professors were all business executives. The students were totally engaged.”

Find out more about the Inteational School of Management

Students also have the option of completing an intensive two-week seminar period in some of the world's emerging economies and up-and-coming business hubs, including Shanghai, New Delhi, Sau Paulo, and Cape Town.

“Some students come to Paris one-two times a year, then do two weeks in the summer in New York, and then go to Sao Paulo or Cape Town the following year,” Knight says. “They can make it fit however they like depending on their own schedules.”

Kuts says it's a true highlight of the programme.

“At ISM you really get the knowledge that you're searching for, since you can choose your own courses and pace,” she says.

Of course, the open-ended nature of the programme can also be a challenge.

“You do need a lot of discipline and self-motivation,” Knight says. “At ISM you don't follow a fixed plan that has already been set up. All the courses and resources are available, but you have to do the work yourself.”

Photo: Sylvain Gripoix

For Kuts all the hard work certainly paid off. She just so happened to meet her husband in her ISM class – but she also became much better at her job.

“I’m much more organized and can calmly manage things step by step in situations where I used to overreact.”

Thanks to her inteational education she has also become better at multinational deals – a key part of her career.

“Now if our company does a deal between France and Russia, I know how to make their tax people happy, and ours happy, too,” she laughs.

But above all, the IMBA at ISM opened the world to Kuts in a way that her previous education never could.

“Getting this degree is what allowed me to succeed in Europe,” says Kuts, who now lives and works in Paris.

“It really does make a difference. With my degrees from St. Petersburg I would have had to go through extremely complicated recognition processes and I may not have been able to work.”

Even for someone like Kuts, who has country-hopped almost since birth, an inteational education is priceless, she says.

“You might have a brilliant education from one university, but if that's it, you will still be culturally centralised somewhere,” she explains.

“Once you have this inteational experience and education you look at the world, and business, differently. And these days it's almost impossible to succeed without that inteational perspective.”

This article was produced by The Local and sponsored by the Inteational School of Management

Italian courts are bogged down with cases, many dragging on for years and years. Is it any wonder when magistrates are left to resolve the likes of these?

Earlier in the week we wrote about the 50-year-old Italian woman who spent 11 years of her life trying to extract €50,000 from her ex-husband. Why? Because he failed to satisfy her sexually.

She even presented the court with a certificate from her doctor, attesting to the fact she was 'essentially a virgin', but magistrates dismissed her claims, finally ruling that there was no way to prove the man had ever refused her sex.

The case got us thinking about equally bizarre rulings that have gone as far as Italy's top court, the Court of Cassation.

Here are just a few of the gems:

You can’t tell a man ‘you have no balls’

Photo: Kurt Bauschardt

In 2012, the court ruled it’s a crime to tell a man ‘you have no balls’. Why? Because it hurts a man’s pride. The case was brought by a man who felt hurt by his cousin’s insult, uttered during a heated exchange. In its ruling, the court said that not only was the expression vulgar, referring to the target’s lack of virility, but it also implied “his weakness of character”.

Repeatedly winking at someone is sexual harassment

Photo: Chris Wilson

In the same year another odd case reached the high court as a man, protesting his iocence for years, attempted to clear his name when a lower court ruled that he molested a woman – by repeatedly winking at her. Even though he didn’t ‘stalk’ the woman, and there was no violence towards her, the persistent winking, allegedly to the chest area, was enough for the lower court to fine him €200. Unrelenting, he pursued his quest to have the blight on his otherwise clean criminal record removed, only for the top court to agree with the earlier verdict.

...but it’s OK to grope your staff

In February, a Sicilian court ruled that a 65-year-old boss was not guilty of groping female staff because he was “driven by an immature sense of humour” rather than a desire for sexual gratification. Needless to say, the ruling was widely condemned, with commentator Massimo Gramellini writing in La Stampa that the Palermo court’s decision “is worthy of lawmakers in Saudi Arabia”.

Father must carry on paying child support for 41-year-old daughter

Photo: Dan Moyle

Here’s another one that added to the court of cassation’s workload in 2012: a 41-year-old mature student won the right for her father to carry on supporting her. In a legal battle that waged for six years, the court said that age, or the fact her her father had separated from her mother, didn't mean he could relinquish financial responsibility. In fact, the court ruled that unless he could prove his offspring was financially independent, then he must carry on paying to support her. The daughter had argued that since her parents' separation, she suffered depression and was unable to find a job to sustain herself.

It’s OK to divorce if your husband is too much of a ‘mummy’s boy’

In 2014, the court of cassation upheld the aulment of a marriage in Mantua because the husband was too dependent on his mother and did not pay enough attention to his wife.

It’s OK to call your daughter Andrea

Did you know the Italian Register Law forbids parents to give a boy a female name, and vice versa? In Italy, the name Andrea – a female name in many other countries – is well and truly a male name. So when a couple in Florence decided to name their daughter Andrea they well and truly set the cat among the pigeons. So much so, the Florence appeals court changed the child's name to Giulia. The couple challenged this in the supreme court, which delivered a landmark ruling in 2012, saying that the name Andrea is no longer reserved for males.

“The name ‘Andrea’, taking also into account its lexical peculiarity, caot be deemed ridiculous nor disgraceful when given to a female, nor can it bring about any measure of ambiguity in the person’s sexual recognition,” the court said.

It’s OK to watch po during your lunch break...but not OK to smoke caabis

Last October the court of cassation ruled that an employee of Fiat did nothing wrong when he watched po films during his lunch break, and so could not be sacked. The man had argued that his po viewing was limited to merely “catching a glimpse” of a film during his lunch break. As there was no evidence of the habit seeping into his normal working hours, the court ruled he did nothing wrong. But there was victory for Fiat in a separate case on the same day, with the top court ruling that the company was within its rights to sack a worker who smoked caabis during his lunch break.

Making a school child write ‘humiliating’ lines is a crime

We’ve all been there: writing lines at school after getting into trouble. It’s usually seen as a harmless punishment, causing only mild shame and an aching wrist to the offender. But in 2012 a teacher was sentenced to 15 days in jail for making an 11-year-old write ‘I’m an idiot’ 100 times after the child allegedly bullied a classmate. Instead, the top court ruled that it was, in fact, the teacher who was doing the bullying, having “humiliated” the child, and so sent her to jail.

Playing loud music in your car is a crime

In February, the court of cassation upheld a November 2014 judgement by a court in Messina, ordering a man to pay a €300 fine as well as €1,000 in legal costs after he was caught playing music too loudly in his car. The court said that the Sicilian man, said to have had a ‘monster’ car stereo, had “risked disturbing peoples’ sleep” as he drove around the city late one night.

It’s legal to grow caabis so long as it isn’t ripe

Photo: Martin Vincent

In 2009, a caabis plant-grower escaped a conviction after the top court ruled that he did nothing wrong – because the caabis in question was not ripe, and so therefore did not contain the ingredients for it to be classified as a drug. Instead, the police were wrong to seize a caabis plant before it reached maturity, the court said. “Investigators must pick the right moment to seize ‘do it yourself’ caabis plants’,” the court advised. “If you do it too early, and they are not ripe, then there will be no offence”. Then again, the court added, if the police arrive too late, then they run the risk of “not finding anything”.

Roberto Manganiello, 35, a boss in Naples' notorious Camorra mafia, had been on the run since 2013.

He was listed as "one of Italy's 100 most dangerous criminals" for an alleged double homicide in 2004 that sparked a bloody gang war in Naples.

Manganiello was arrested on Saturday evening as he watched Napoli play Inter Milan, when the fake delivery boys knocked on his door at an apartment in Orta di Atella where he ran a drugs and extortion business, police said.

A 30-year-old Neapolitan woman was arrested with him. Manganiello offered no resistance to the police, they said.

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano hailed the arrest, describing it as a "success due to top-level investigative work."

Adding to Manganiello's humiliation, Milan defeated his home team 2-0, all but crushing Naples' hopes of a first Serie A title in 26 years.

In a hugely symbolic move seen as a lesson in solidarity for Europe, Francis, who is himself the son of Italian migrants in Argentina, on Saturday took 12 Syrians from three families -- all Muslims -- home with him from Lesbos to the Vatican.

"All refugees are children of God," the 79-year-old pope said on the flight back to Rome referring to their religion, adding that though his gesture was "a drop in the ocean" he hoped "the ocean will never be the same again".

In an interview with Italian daily La Stampa, the families, who spent their first night in Rome at a Catholic charity, expressed their gratitude to the pontiff for his "gesture of hope".

"We saw friends and relatives die in the rubble, we fled Syria because we no longer had any hope," said Hasan, an engineer from Damascus, who arrived in Italy with his wife Nour and two-year-old son.

After fleeing to Turkey, Hasan and his family joined the migrant trail to Europe, piling into a rubber dinghy that set out from the Turkish coast for Greece. "But it was overloaded," said Hasan, recalling the pitch black of the sea at night and the waves rocking the vessel.

"In Lesbos, we understood that we were stuck in a place that we could not leave, (we were) in a trap, a prison", he said describing the pope as "our saviour" for whisking them off the island, where thousands of migrants risk being sent back to Turkey under a new EU-Turkey deportation deal.

Wafa, who was also on the papal flight from Lesbos with her husband Osama, eight-year-old daughter Masa and six-year-old son Omar, together with her husband, described the "constant bombardments" in recent months around their home.

"Since then (my son) has barely spoken... he is locked in an impenetrable silence," she said. "Even today, he wakes up every night crying and we caot get him to play with his sister."

Wafa said she and her husband, who are from Damascus suburb of Zamalka, had opted to cut ties with the past.

"But we know we took the right decision," she said. After their stay on Lesbos, which seemed interminable, "Francis gave us a new life," she said.

Ramy, a 51-year-old teacher from the easte Islamic State-occupied city of Deir Ezzor, fled Syria with his wife Suhila and three children -- sons Rashid, 18 and Abdelmajid, 16, and seven-year-old daughter Al Quds -- after their home was destroyed in the war.

"We discuss a lot and find it hard to imagine what life will be like in the future: we don't know whether we will start over in Europe or whether, one day, we will be able to retu to a Syria free of war and violence," he told La Stampa.

"We are grateful to the pope, we will prove ourselves worthy of this opportunity and the gift he gave us," he told La Stampa, while adding he did not know whether he would remain in Europe for the long-term or "one day, retu to a Syria that is free of war and violence."

The three families, who had initially set their sights on reaching Germany or another European country, are now expected to seek asylum in Italy.

Their arrival brings to around 20 the number of refugees living in the Vatican, which has under 1,000 inhabitants.

A similar intake across Europe would see six million people given asylum on the continent of 300 million.

Last year, the pope had appealed to every Catholic diocese in Europe to take in a refugee family -- an appeal that fell on deaf ears in most parts of the continent.

Migrant arrivals in Greece have drastically fallen since Turkey agreed to take back all irregular migrants landing on the Greek islands in retu for billions in EU cash and other concessions.

Over 1.1 million people have crossed clandestinely from Turkey to Greece since the start of 2015, with hundreds drowning en route.

The Syrian refugees were chosen from amongst those who were already present in the refugee camp on Lesbos before the recent deal was signed between the EU and Turkey.

According to Vatican Radio, the Director of the Holy See’s Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, said the Pope had wished to make a gesture of welcome and solidarity on behalf of the refugees and the initiative had been organized and made possible during discussions between the (Vatican) Secretariat of State and the relevant Greek and Italian authorities.

All the members of the three Syrian refugee families are Muslims. Two of the families come from Damascus and the third one comes from Deir Azzor which is located in an area controlled by the so-called Isis group.

The homes of all three families were destroyed by shelling. The Vatican will be taking care of the costs involved in housing and taking care of the refugees. Father Lombardi said the Sant’Egidio community will be providing the initial shelter for them.

The aouncement capped a brief one-day trip by the pope to Greece that again placed the plight of migrants at the centre of his papacy.

“We have come to call the attention of the world to this grave humanitarian crisis and to plead for its resolution,” Francis said during a lunchtime visit to the Moria refugee camp on Lesbos, where he was joined by leaders of Easte Orthodox Christian churches.