The Local

Prosecutors were investigating allegations that Italian snipers may have paid the Bosnian Serb army during the 1990s siege of Sarajevo to be allowed to shoot civilians for sport, local media reported. ...

New rules limiting tourist parties to a maximum of 25 people and baing the use of loudspeakers came into force in Venice on Thursday under plans to lessen the impact of crowds on the city's fragile infrastructure. ...

Italy and the United States are drawing up a plan to exchange a small number of refugees in a reported bid to deter illegal migration, an Italian govement source said on Friday. ...

The European Union has committed to resettling nearly 61,000 refugees in some of its member countries over the next two years. Around 20 percent of world's refugees have been welcomed by the bloc over the last three years. ...

Italian Interior Minister Marco Miiti. Photo: AFP Up to 10,000 people stranded in refugee camps and detention centres in Libya could be relocated to Europe in 2018, the Italian govement said on Sunday. The initiative would be part of an attempt by EU countries to address the deteriorating conditions in Libya, where thousands of people are held captive in inhumane conditions. "In 2018, up to 10,000 refugees will be able to come to Europe without risk, through humanitarian corridors," Italian Interior Minister Marco Miiti said in an interview with the newspaper La Repubblica. The aouncement comes after a group of 162 "vulnerable" people, from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Som...

Italy Interior Minister Marco Miiti. Photo: AFP A group of 162 "vulnerable" refugees were flown directly from Libya to Italy on Friday for the first time, a day hailed as "historic" by Interior Minister Marco Miiti. "For the first time a humanitarian corridor has been opened from Libya to Europe. It's a start," Miiti said, adding: "Today is a historic day." Those evacuated came from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen. They comprised families, single mothers, unaccompanied children and handicapped people, who were flown on a military jet. Vincent Cochetel, the UNHCR's special envoy for the central Mediterranean, said: "For the first time, we have been able to ev...

This file photo taken on November 1st, 1938 shows Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini (R) and King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy (L). Photo: France Presse Voir/AFP The body of Italy's controversial king Victor Emmanuel III retued to Italy on Sunday, amid a row over where the monarch who abetted dictator Benito Mussolini should be buried. Victor Emmanuel, who ruled from 1900 until his abdication on May 9th, 1946, died in exile in Egypt. Permission for his body to be brought back was granted to the House of Savoy by the president, and his remains were flown in from Egypt on Sunday, historian Aldo Mola told AFP. The king will be buried in the family's mausoleum,...

Pope Francis arrived in Bangladesh from Myanmar on Thursday for the second stage of a visit that has been overshadowed by the plight of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees. PHOTO: MUNIR UZ ZAMA Pope Francis on Saturday said he wept hearing the plight first-hand of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, adding that this meeting was a condition set for his trip to Myanmar and Bangladesh. The Rohingya meeting was a highly symbolic gesture of solidarity with the Muslim minority fleeing violence in Myanmar, and the pontiff told joualists on his plane flying back to Rome that the refugees cried as well. "I knew that I was going to meet the Rohingyas but I did ...

Italian motorcycling ace Valentino Rossi has revealed he is afraid to stop racing and intends to tu to cars when his career on two wheels ends. The 38-year-old nine-time world champion -- who is driving a Ford Fiesta in Milan this weekend as he bids for a record sixth win at the Monza Rally Show -- said his dream was to race the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race in France."I'm afraid of stopping. After the end of my career in MotoGP, I will have another ten years in the automobile sport," Rossi told Italy's Radio Deejay on Friday."I'll keep going as long as I'm competitive and feel like it, of course I'm a bit scared of normal life," continued Rossi, adding he has no time fo...

Rohingya refugees near Bangladesh's border with Myanmar. Photo: Fred Dufour/AFP Pope Francis will meet Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar in Dhaka when he visits the Bangladeshi capital next week, a Vatican spokesman said on Wednesday. ...

Junventus' chairman Andrea Agnelli pictured last year. Photo: Marco Bertorello/AFP Juventus president Andrea Agnelli has been baed for a year for his role in the sale of tickets to fan groups, the Italian Football Federation said on Monday. Agnelli was also fined 20,000 euros ($23,770) while champions Juventus copped a fine of 300,000 euros ($356,000).Agnelli was accused of helping sell...

John Keats, by William Hilton/National Portrait Gallery. In Rome, the Keats-Shelley house where the British Romantic poets once lived hosted an art workshop for refugees, artists, and volunteers, to discuss what it means to leave one country for another. They discovered surprising parallels between Keats' jouey and their own, writes Dr Amanda Frances Johnson. The great sensualist Roman...

Italian police have arrested two men in Calabria, southe Italy over claims they paid farm workers according to their skin colour. The pair, who are brothers, face charges of labour exploitation aggravated by racial discrimination. According to investigators, the farm owners hired immigrants to work illegally on their farm in Amantea in Cosenza province. Between five and eight peopl...

A volunteer welcomes a man and baby after disembarking from a MOAS ship. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFPA Maltese charity which was the first to launch privately-funded migrant rescue missions in the Mediterranean said on Monday it was transferring its resources to help persecuted Rohingya in South East Asia. MOAS launched its lifeline for those attempting the perilous sea crossing from North Africa to ...

Ai Weiwei, pictured here in 2016. Photo: Patrick Kovarik/AFPAn impatient toddler chides his mother for not being quick enough in getting him into his pair of newly-acquired boots. Finally they're on and he wriggles free to put the new footwear to good use: kicking his siblings and friends on the shins. He might be a refugee, detained in a transit camp with the rest of his family, waiting to hear w...

Amatrice in August 2017, a year after an earthquake killed nearly 300 people. Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFPEuropean MEPs on Wednesday approved aid worth €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) to help repair damage caused by a series of deadly earthquakes in Italy this year and last. The Budget Committee of the European Parliament overwhelmingly approved thepayment from the EU Solidarity Fund, which helps me...

Italy is set to issue new guidelines on refugee evictions after the UN criticised the ousting of hundreds of people from a Rome building last week, local media reported Saturday. The unexpected eviction -- carried out when Rome is virtually deserted at the height of the holiday season -- was seen by commenters as a sign of hardening attitudes in Italy towards asylum seekers. On the moing of Augu...

A Spanish migrant aid group said Tuesday that one of its rescue boats had been effectively detained by Libyan coastguard for nearly two hours in inteational waters. Proactiva Open Arms said its vessel, the Golfo Azzurro, was some 24nautical miles (44.5 kilometres) away from the Libyan coast at th...

Project Director Rebecca Benefiel uses an iPad to take a photograph of a drawing in Herculaneum. Photo: Ancient Graffiti ProjectNo site in the world has been continually excavated for so long as Pompeii, the city that lay buried after being destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted, until its accidental...

Smoke rises from the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. Photo: Eliano Imperato/AFPItalian mafia expert and writer Roberto Saviano on Wednesday evening blamed "criminal organizations" for the huge fire which has spread over the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, as the Italian army were deployed to tackle the blaze. S...