- Latest Popular Stories, Instablogs Community by Gianluca-baracchi

Sicilian prefers prison to house arrest with wife

Gianluca — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:51:47 +0000

A Sicilian builder transferred from prison to house arrest tried to get himself locked up again to escape arguments with his wife at home, Italian media reported...

Another fury as Berlusconi judge filmed

Gianluca — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:51:20 +0000

Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi has come under fire after a TV channel he owns secretly filmed a judge who ruled against him in a bribery case.

Mr Berlusconi’s Canale 5 channel aired footage of the judge taking a walk, smoking and visiting a barber shop.

A lawyers’ association reported the incident to Italy’s privacy watchdog and declared a “state of protest”.

Earlier this month, Judge Raimondo Mesiano found Mr Berlusconi “co-responsible” of bribing legal officers.

In the hidden camera footage - which was aired on Thursday - the narrator calls the judge’s behaviour “eccentric”.

He points to him smoking the “umpteenth” cigarette, and calls his turquoise socks “strange”.

Women move to the front ranks of the mafia

Gianluca — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:39:36 +0000

It may sound like a plot line from the 1988 Hollywood comedy Married to the Mob, but the reality is chillingly different, with women gang leaders reputed to be as determined and ruthless as the men.

Just as their male counterparts celebrate their notoriety with nicknames such as “Midnight Fatty” and “The Tractor”, so their wives and girlfriends are given monikers like “Fat Cat” and “Tomboy” – the latter the name for a woman who was shot in the face during a clan feud.

Anti-mafia campaigns in Naples Camorra chieftans have put dozens of mobsters in prison.

Carabinieri arrested 11 women for drug trafficking in a raid on Naples’ Sarno crime clan in July. A mother and her two adult daughters were arrested on organised-crime charges, including extortion.

“There is a growing number of women who hold executive roles,” said Gen Gaetano Maruccia, commander of the Carabinieri paramilitary police in the Naples area.

A Sip Too Far: Italy Starts Cracking Down on Underage Drinking

Gianluca — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:45:26 +0000

Roman pub manager Leonardo Leuci has noticed an increasingly popular request from young people who step up to the bar to order a drink: “Make me something strong.” Leuci spent a decade working at watering holes abroad, from France to Florida to the Bahamas, before coming back home last year to manage a locale in Rome’s bustling Trastevere neighborhood. Right away, he was surprised to be seeing — and serving — so many young people whose only goal was to get sloshed. “In Italy, we don’t have a drinking culture,” Leuci says. “Lots of young people don’t even know what they’re drinking ... They just [want] to get drunk.”

Mozzarellas reputation takes a hit from trash crisis in Naples

Gianluca — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 10:54:20 +0000

Italians often minimize what afflicts them with this philosophy: Without the bad, no one would appreciate what is good.

The question now on the table, almost literally, is whether their passion for food - and the money it makes - will finally force action against the lawlessness that is hurting the name of one of Italy’s most revered delicacies: mozzarella made with buffalo milk.

In the last few months, sales of buffalo mozzarella have dropped 40 percent, the product’s trade association says. The problem makes for a near-perfect morality play about modern Italy: For years, the paralyzed political class has done little to halt huge-scale illegal dumping of trash, some of it toxic, around Naples. That area happens to produce some of the best mozzarella.