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Navi Pillay said Tel Aviv's two-week onslaught on Gaza - which has cost more than 650 Palestinians lives - would be thoroughly investigated. Ms Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the attacks have destroyed houses and hospitals and killed civilians. "These are just a few examples where there seems to be a strong possibility that international humanitarian law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes. "Every one of these incidents must be properly and independently investigated." According to Gaza officials, 475 houses have been destroyed and 2,644 damaged, while 46 schools, 56 mosques...

GENEVA, July 23 (Reuters) - The United Nations on Wednesday launched an international inquiry into human rights violations and crimes that may have been committed by Israel during its military offensive in the Gaza Strip. The U.N. Human Rights Council condemned the Israeli assault which it said had involved "disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks", including aerial bombing of civilian areas, collective punishment, and the killing of more than 650 Palestinians. At the end of an emergency session, the 47-member forum adopted a resolution presented by Palestinians by a vote of 29 states in favor, 1 against (the United States) with 17...

Beretta U.S.A. announced Tuesday that company concerns over a strict gun-control law enacted in Maryland last year have made it necessary to move its weapons making out of the state to Tennessee. The well-known gun maker said it will move to a new production facility it is building in the Nashville suburb of Gallatin that is set to open in mid-2015. Beretta general manager Jeff Cooper said that a sweeping gun-control measure that was passed last year initially contained provisions that would have prohibited the Italian gun maker from being able to produce, store or even import into Maryland the...

As world leaders demand answers on the alleged shooting down of a jet plane over eastern Ukraine, commentators examine how the tragedy could affect foreign minister Federica Mogherini’s already fragile path to becoming EU foreign policy chief. The disaster, which left 298 people dead, is going to “put a huge amount of pressure, not only on Russia, but on people who have been soft on Russia,” Edward Lucas, a British journalist and author, told The Local. He was referring to Federica Mogherini, whose chances of getting the EU foreign policy job already took a battering this week when she was...

Milan (AFP) - An Italian appeals court on Friday cleared Silvio Berlusconi of having sex with an underage prostitute and abuse of power in a surprise ruling that will strengthen the former prime minister on the political scene. "The defendant is acquitted," presiding judge Enrico Tranfa said, requesting silence after gasps from the courtroom. The effectively scraps Berlusconi's seven-year sentence and lifelong ban from holding public office. The judge said there was "no crime" on the abuse of power charge and that Berlusconi's actions "did not constitute a crime" on the prostitution one, promising to publish a detailed explanation within...

Over the centuries, they’ve been scorned, persecuted and marginalized. But it was an example of modern-day disdain towards redheads that prompted an Italian photographer’s mission to safeguard their diversity, The Local has learned. Let’s face it, redheads get a tough time, especially in the early years of their life. I should know, because I am one. But more on that later. Marina Rosso, a 29-year-old fine art photographer and researcher from Udine, is not a redhead as the English translation of her surname might suggest. But after hearing in 2011 that flame-haired men were being rejected from the world’s largest...

Abortion may be legal in Catholic Italy but more and more doctors are refusing to terminate pregnancies, with many women now having to resort to procedures carried out in secret, The Local's Angela Giuffrida discovers. Ever since a Benito Mussolini-era ban on abortions as a “crime against the purity of the Italian race” was wiped out in 1978, thanks to a group of determined women, including the former foreign minister Emma Bonino, women in Italy are, by law, entitled to terminate a pregnancy within the first three months. After 90 days, abortions are only allowed if the foetus is badly...

The Pope's visit to the church is likely to be 'extremely quick' (CNS) Pope Francis will pay a brief “private visit� to the Italian church of a Pentecostal pastor he knew from Argentina, a Vatican spokesman has said.The visit to the Evangelical Church of Reconciliation in Caserta, about 130 miles south of Rome, “is under study and likely would take place July 26″, said Fr Federico Lombardi.Fr Lombardi said the Pope knew the church’s pastor, Giovanni Traettino, from Buenos Aires, where the Pentecostal pastor participated in ecumenical events with Catholics, especially Catholics belonging to the charismatic renewal movement. The then-Cardinal...

Twelve EU countries have warned investors not to do business with Israeli settler entities, amid a security crisis in Israel and Palestine. The group includes: Austria; Belgium; Croatia; Denmark; Finland; Greece; Ireland; Luxembourg; Malta; Portugal; Slovakia; and Slovenia. Portugal published its statement on Wednesday (2 July) and the others came out on Thursday. France, Italy, and Spain put out similar communiques earlier this week. Germany and the UK already did it months ago. Poland is expected to publish a warning shortly. The Irish foreign ministry said the action “has been coordinated at EU level”. …

SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria launched naval manoeuvres in the Black Sea on Friday with six other NATO countries including the United States, in the latest demonstration of the alliance's resolve to support its eastern European members in light of the Ukraine crisis. Bulgaria's defence ministry said the 10-day war games, dubbed BREEZE 2014, were designed to boost NATO solidarity and regional readiness, though it added they had been scheduled before Russia annexed Ukraine's Black Sea region of Crimea in March. Vessels from Bulgaria and its Black Sea neighbours Romania and Turkey and also from Greece, Italy, Britain and the United...

This is the fourth and final part of the article by Italian journalist Alessandra Nucci. Here are the first three parts: The Looting of ItalyHow the EU and the Left Ruined ItalyEU-Imposed Immigration Is Destroying Italy's EconomyAlso read Italy Invented Banks by Enza Ferreri ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Attack Begins In Earnest2011 is when they began in earnest to train their guns on us, with the military aggression that started with the Nato attack on Libya culminating in half-truths calculated to stampede investors away from Italy in the direction of presumably safe bonds. And what bonds can be safer than Germany’s?...

This is the third part of the article by Italian journalist Alessandra Nucci. Here are the first two parts: The Looting of ItalyHow the EU and the Left Ruined Italy ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A Never-ending Flow of Illegal Immigrants Overburdens Italian WelfareVery little is ever said about the immigration load, which together with bureaucracy is largely responsible for the burgeoning debt. It is routinely downplayed, while Italy gets lectured to for supposedly not living up to impossible standards that are provably not expected of any other country. The Italian Coastguard and Carabinieri have saved countless lives and generous Italian welfare, including...

Milan - Again the Catholic Church has been a target of sacrilege. The scene of the crime was the Holy Cross Church of San Giorgio su Legnano, in Lombardy. Unknown vandals broke the tabernacle and threw the consecrated Hosts on the floor and smeared it with human excrement, with which they also defiled the altar. The statue of Our Lady of Sorrows they blackened with the soot of candles and hot wax was poured over her head. The face of suffering Jesus and the large cross was blackened, which is venerated in the church, and gave it its name. The...

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed leader of the 'Islamic State' stretching across Iraq and Syria, has vowed to lead the conquest of Rome as he called on Muslims to immigrate to his new land to fight under its banner around the globe.

This is the second part of the article "The Looting of Italy" by Italian journalist Alessandra Nucci. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ How the Looting WorksI will venture to suggest that there must be a blue-print out there on how to manage a country after a revolutionary takeover, such as what has been done to Italy (and to Venezuela? Cuba? China? Russia?) I would say that basically, after A) overwhelming the system (the Cloward-Piven strategy), the revolutionary leader will aim at B) impoverishing the middle class in order to prevent its every chance of rebelling. This can be done in various ways, which...

This is an article that was written and sent to me by Alessandra Nucci, an Italian journalist and friend. It describes what the European Union has done to Italy. Since it's a very long article, I've broken it down in 4 parts. Here is the first part. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ How would you feel if for years you had been picking up shipwrecked penniless migrants from Africa, dumped by criminal agents all over the Mediterranean, ferrying them to your shores and taking them in by the thousands, only to see yourself made the butt of sarcasm, reproaches and even pecuniary fines...

The president of a court in southern Italy has become so aghast at people parading around the palace of justice "dressed indecently" that he has banned skimpy summer wear. In an official letter sent to the security team at the Brindisi court, President Francesco Giardino laments the “unpleasant situations” that have arisen as high temperatures has given way to plunging necklines and rising hems. “To avoid a repeat of unpleasant situations at the entrance of the court, we inform you that entrance will not be permitted to people dressed indecently,” Giardino wrote in the letter, published on Monday by Ansa....

There were fewer than 200,000 weddings in Italy last year, the lowest level since records began, national statistics agency Istat said on Thursday. There were 197,091 marriages in Italy last year, amounting to 3.3 per thousand and “the lowest ever documented in Italian history”m according to Istat. The figure fell by around 10,000 on the previous year - to 207,138 - and was far from the 246,611 happy couples tying the knot in 2008. Marriage was still, however, proving popular in southern Italy, with a rate of 3.9 per thousand compared to 2.9 in the north. Wedding vows were at...

The first gay marriage will be registered in Naples on Monday after the city’s mayor made it obligatory for his administration to record the marriages of same-sex couples who wed abroad. Roberto, from Naples, and Manuel, a Spaniard, will register their marriage at the city council on Monday after attending Naples Gay Pride this weekend, La Repubblica reported. Two other couples are preparing to register their marriages after the controversial measure was introduced by mayor Luigi De Magistris earlier this month. De Magistris said the move not only had a symbolic value, but also a legal one, and that it...

A gang threw excrement at the office of a gay organization in Rome, while shouting death threats against people inside, Italian media reported on Friday. \Di Gay Project (DGP) in southern Rome was attacked on Wednesday night, with the crime being reported to police on Friday, Corriere della Sera said. A mob threw excrement and other items, such as wooden boxes and vegetables, at the organization’s office, as people were rehearsing a theatre performance inside. Members of the gang, estimated to be aged between 15 and 40, also shouted threats such as “We’ll set you alight” and “you deserve to...

It’s a scene straight out of fiction. Refugees from North Africa, packed like sardines in small boats are streaming in droves across the Med to Italy. “According to Italian interior ministry figures given to the Guardian, 59,880 migrants and refugees have landed on the country’s coast this year – almost as many as in the whole of 2011, which holds the record. The situation is unprecedented. Sicily, which has received more than 53,000 of the new arrivals, is bearing the brunt and struggling to cope. And summer – historically the peak time for boat landings – has only just begun.”...

Pope Francis has declared a sort of holy war on the Mafia. And it's not unreasonable to believe that the Mafia may fight back. On Saturday, the pope traveled to Calabria, the heartland of one of Italy's biggest organized crime enterprises, the 'Ndrangheta, and, in front of a crowd of more than 100,000, blasted the 'Ndrangheta as example of "the adoration of evil and contempt of the common good." Then he dropped the hammer: Those who in their lives follow this path of evil, as mafiosi do, are not in communion with God. They are excommunicated. [Pope Francis] This is...

Estonian researchers believe they may have finally discovered the whereabouts of “Dracula’s” grave, which is in Italy and not the Romanian Transylvanian Alps as first thought. The inspiration behind Bram Stoker’s 1897 gothic novel “Dracula” is thought to be Vlad III, the 15th century Prince of Wallachia in Eastern Europe. Known posthumously as Vlad the Impaler, the ruler was known for his brand of cruelty across Europe, which included impaling his enemies. Vlad’s ultimate enemy were the Ottomans. Depictions of his endless cruelty made history books, securing his reputation as one of the biggest villains in Turkey’s collective consciousness, as...

The Italian unit of the frozen food company, Findus, has produced what is thought to be the first TV commercial in Italy that touches on the subject of homosexuality. Thousands join Rome's Gay Pride march (08 Jun 14) Ten months after the chairman of the Italian pasta giant, Barilla, said during an interview that the company would never feature gay people in its adverts, Findus Italia has produced a commercial in which a man is seen “coming out” to his mother over a meal. The advert below features Luca, who hosts a dinner party for his mum at the home...

“Num nums!” Perhaps surprisingly, Antonio Cassano has never played a single minute of World Cup football, with his inclusion in Italy’s 2014 squad being the Parma striker’s first ever call-up to an Azzurri World Cup squad. Now aged 31, Cassano has admitted that he thought his chance to appear at a World Cup had passed, but thanks to a serious show of dedication he was able to persuade coach Cesare Prandelli that he was worth taking to Brazil – largely due to him scoring 12 goals and dropping 10kg over the course of the 2013/14 season. As a reward for...

Europe's most active volcano, Mount Etna, erupts sending columns of lava and ash high into the air. The spectacular visual display was accompanied by loud explosions. Airport authorities at Catania in Sicily closed the airport to avoid the hazardous ash clouds caused by the eruption

Responding to overwhelming vote from 5 Star Movement members to join UKIP in the Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group in the European Parliament, UKIP leader Nigel Farage said: “I am extremely pleased with this result. I look forward to working with 5 Star Movement very much to provide a genuine voice of opposition in the European Parliament. This gives a great confidence boost to those other delegation members who are coming to sign up to our common Group next week. This feeds into a process of solidifying what should be a big group. We will be the peoples’ voice....

An Italian man who had a sex change to become a woman is challenging the Italian state's refusal to allow him to stay married to his wife. Alessandro Bernaroli, a bank employee now known as Alessandra, insists that he and his wife of nine years are still very much in love and want to remain married, despite the fact that he switched gender. His wife, also called Alessandra, says she too wants to stay married despite now finding herself living with a woman. The couple got married in 2005 after a long courtship but Alessandro says that he hid the...

Rome this week is celebrating the 70th anniversary since the city was liberated from the Nazis, on June 4th 1944, a moment described by Mayor Ignazio Marino as one of "uncontrollable joy" in the Italian capital. Allied troops marched into Rome 70 years ago today, and were greeted by crowds of cheering citizens as Nazi forces retreated north. The long-awaited liberation came more than four months after the Allies landed on the banks of Anzio, south-west of Rome, where they battled against Nazi troops at a cost of thousands of lives. Speaking at a ceremony to mark the “fundamental date...

Just when you thought that Italy’s crazy government couldn’t get any more insane, it hit on a gimmick for improving the international perception of its economy. Just include the black market in its GDP. Never mind that the black market isn’t taxable, difficult to estimate and not exactly a good thing. Italy is changing how it calculates its gross domestic product, a measurement of the overall economy, to include black market activity — everything from prostitution to illegal drug sales to smuggling and arms trafficking. Economists predict illegal sales will add 1.3 percentage points to GDP this year.Hey, it’s one...

Istat, Italy’s national statistics office, will include estimated dealings from drugs, arms trafficking and prostitution in its GDP figures from now on. […] This move should increase Italy’s economy by at least 1.3 percent in the first year, helping it to comply with EU rules on indebtedness, which limit member countries to spending no more than 3 percent of their GDP. […] Eurostat, the EU’s stats body, says if all illegal activity is included in GDP figures, European economies would have a growth rate closer to 2.4 percent. The agency says the UK’s GDP figure could be three or four...

because there were no qurans or books about Islam on the shelves In Busalla, a small town of 5,700 inhabitants, in the province of Genes, in Liguria, a 24-year-old Senegalese Muslim man went to the town’s public library looking for the Quran and books about Islamic culture but found none. So he went mad and started beating up the two staff members, a 43-year-old woman and a 64-year-old man. Then he ransacked the library, knocking over shelves and throwing down all the books, while shouting “ALLAHU AKHBAR!” (Senegalese Muslims are among the hordes of North African boat people who keep...

Luna was actually born and raised in Holland, of Italian parentage-  More at Reaganite Republican...

(Reuters) Rome - Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi repeated accusations on Wednesday that he was forced out of office at the height of the euro zone crisis in 2011 as the result of a "plot" by European Union officials. Berlusconi's comments followed the publication in Italy of extracts from a new book by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner which suggested that EU officials had approached the U.S. government with a project to force Berlusconi to resign. "They wanted us to refuse to back IMF loans to Italy as long as he refused to go," Geithner's book "Stress Test:...

A justice of the peace in Messina, Italy has fined three girls an amount of approximately $3,500 each for wearing what is considered common beach wear in Italy, based upon the supposed offense to the sensitivities it created for some Saudi Arabian tourists who were also at the private resort of Taormina. It has become common place for Muslims to make demands upon others to adhere to their standards, so it should not come as too great of a surprise that they filed their complaint. What is surprising is that the Italian court concurred and fined their citizens for engaging...

In an unprecedented speech outlining his vision for Europe, Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi called for courageous leaders to work towards a United States of Europe. “For my children’s future I dream, think and work for the United States of Europe,” Renzi said, speaking at the State of the Union in Florence, launching an appeal to convince European leaders to show “not in the cold language of technocracy, that a stronger and more cohesive Europe is the only solution to the solve the problems of our time.” […] The only effective response, according to the prime minister, is to offer...

The appellate court in Florence on Tuesday issued a 337-page explanation for its January guilty verdicts against the American and her former boyfriend Rafaelle Sollecito. American beauty Amanda Knox slit her roommate’s throat with a knife in a fit of rage over being accused of stealing money, the Italian court that convicted her explained Tuesday. The former exchange student from Seattle delivered the fatal slash as cohorts restrained victim Meredith Kercher during a 2007 drug-fueled get together, the judicial panel in Florence asserted in a 337-page document. In their lengthy dissertation explaining the “motivation” behind their guilty verdict, the judges...

An Italian man was crushed to death on Thursday by a giant crucifix dedicated to the late Pope John Paul II, just days before the Polish pontiff will be made a saint in a ceremony at the Vatican. In a bizarre coincidence, the 21-year-old man was reported to have been living in a street named after Pope John XXIII – who will also be canonised in the ceremony on Sunday, in an event that is unprecedented in the 2,000 year history of the Catholic Church. The man, named as Marco Gusmini, was posing for a photograph with a group of...

A man has been crushed to death after a giant crucifix dedicated to Pope John Paul II collapsed, just days before a historic Papal canonisation in Rome. The 30-metre-high (98ft) wooden and concrete cross fell during a ceremony in the Italian Alpine village of Cevo, near Brescia. Another man was taken to hospital. The structure was dedicated to John Paul II on his visit to the region in 1998. In a strange co-incidence, the 21-year-old man named as Marco Gusmini by local media, was reported to live in a street named after Pope John XXIII – who will also be...

<p>Just two days before the canonization of Pope John Paul II, a giant crucifix erected in his honor collapsed in Italy, crushing a young man and killing him, according to ANSA.</p> <p>A piece of the 30-meter (98-foot) high wooden crucifix fell down during an event near the village of Cevo, in northern Italy, instantly killing the 21-year-old man. The Jesus Christ figure attached to the cross is six meters high and weighs 600 kg, according to AFP.</p>

Many believe the world is run by a secret organization like the Illuminati, and the people we think are in power are nothing but stooges. It sounds implausible, but is it really a crazy idea? Yes. Yes, it is. And yet there have been secret organizations that created the world as we know it. 10The Carbonari After Napoleon’s defeat in 1814, the European powers had to decide what to do with the territory that he’d ruled as part of the First French Empire. The borders of Europe were redrawn at the Congress of Vienna, mainly decided by Great Britain, Russia,...

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just completed a series of landmark reports that chronicle an update to the current state of consensus science on climate change. Its conclusion: On our current path, climate change could pose an irreversible, existential risk to civilization as we know it, but we can still fix it if we decide to work together. But in addition to the call for cooperation, the reports also shared an alarming new trend: Climate change is already destabilizing nations and leading to wars. That finding was highlighted in last week's premiere of Showtime's climate change docu-drama...

Global military spending dropped by nearly two percent in 2013, led by the United States which dropped it’s spending by 7.8 percent. By contrast, the military industrial complexes in Russia and China are bustling; seeing a 4.8 and 7.4 percent increase, respectively. "For the first time since 2003, Russia spent a larger percentage of it’s Gross Domestic Product on military expenses than the United States… " The U.S. dropped spending from roughly $690 Billion in 2012, to $640 Billion in 2013, shrinking to 3.8 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. The reduction is noted in real terms, which means the...

There is new real state to be seen in the Pompeii, Italy, archaeological site, with three restored houses open to the public. In time for Easter tourists, three additional houses in the ancient city of Pompeii, Italy, buried in a volcano eruption in 79 A.D., were opened Thursday. Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini inaugurated the three restored houses, or domus, in a ceremony at the celebrated archeological site. The houses were formerly occupied by the families of Marcus Lucretius Fronto, Romulus and Remus and Trittolemo, the office of Pompeii’s archeological superintendent said. Superintendent Massimo Osanna described them as “aristocratic houses.”...

Though officials at the World Health Organization are feverishly working to stop the spread of the Ebola virus in what is now seven African nations, their efforts may be for naught. In Guinea, a hot spot for the deadly contagion, government health officials have said that the outbreak is nearly under control. Yet, Reuters reports that the government “planned to stop publicly releasing the death toll to avoid causing unnecessary panic.” But panic may be in order. Despite the best efforts of emergency health workers it appears that virus may have crossed out of Africa into Europe.

Austrian Soldier, Eastern Europe, 1915 German troops in Berlin, 1914 Ambulances in Palestine, 1918 French trenches, 1916 Senegalese troops, France, 1917 Dead Italian soldiers, Italy, 1915

Easter often is associated with the candy aisle, and its tempting display of rainbow-hued jelly beans, foil-wrapped chocolate eggs and bright-yellow marshmallow Peeps. For an 85-year-old cheese company in Verona, the 40-day Lenten season is punctuated not by sweets but by an unusual cheese product that for two days each week leading up to Easter puts its small staff into curd-making overdrive. And no, it's not the ricotta on which the family has built its name over three generations. It's called basket cheese, and it's been an Easter tradition at Lamagna Cheese Co. for as long as anyone can remember...

ROME, April 16, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A court in the Tuscan city of Grosseto has ordered the city council to accept the “marriage� of two men, the first time such a union has been given juridical recognition in Italy. Giancarlo Cerrelli, vice president of the Catholic Lawyer’s Guild, says the ruling is a “creative judgment that takes no account of the Civil Code and the jurisprudence of the European Union.� Two homosexual men, Giuseppe Chigiotti and Stefano Bucci, contracted a legal “marriage� ceremony in New York in December last year, then returned to Italy and filed a suit against the...

Astronomers may have solved the puzzle of what it was that brought so much devastation to a remote region of Siberia almost a century ago. The asteroid was probably a pile of space rubble - like Mathilde In the early morning of 30 June, 1908, witnesses told of a gigantic explosion and blinding flash. Thousands of square kilometres of trees were burned and flattened. Scientists have always suspected that an incoming comet or asteroid lay behind the event - but no impact crater was ever discovered and no expedition to the area has ever found any large fragments of an ...

Australian pizza is now officially the best in the world. Well, sort of. Judges at last weekend's Campionato Mondiale Della Pizza (Pizza World Championship) held in Parma, Italy, awarded the world's top margherita pizza title to Australian chef Johnny Di Francesco, owner of the 400 Gradi restaurant in Brunswick, a Melbourne suburb. Di Francesco, 36, beat more than 600 competitors from 35 countries to take home the Specialita Traditionale Garantita pizza prize in the annual competition. The win and subsequent publicity has made the small restaurant he owns in his hometown an overnight sensation. "It's been an amazing reaction," Di...