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Pope Francis on Saturday condemned a fatal car-bomb attack outside the Italian Consulate in Cairo, where one person was killed and eight others were injured. According to the Associated Press, the pope sent a telegram to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi calling for “political and religious players at all levels to unite their efforts to combat with ever more determination the plague of terrorism and to promote harmony and solidarity.” The explosion took place in the early-morning hours, causing heavy damage to the building and sparking fears that Islamic militants have begun a fresh round of attacks against foreigners, Reuters...

The blast happened days after Egypt leading prosecutor Hisham Barakat was killed in a car bomb. A huge explosion occurred in front of the Italian consulate in central Cairo on Saturday, wounding two policemen, state news agency MENA said. The cause of the blast was not immediately clear but one security official said it was a car bomb. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. MENA cited a senior security source as saying preliminary investigations indicated that attackers had placed a bomb underneath a car near the consulate and remotely detonated it. MENA earlier cited a security source as saying...

Bresso, near Milan, 07/02/2015New original protest circulate among welcomed immigrants (with the money of the Italians) in the center of the Red Cross, Clerici Street in Bresso. After the violence of June 8, a new challenge was born yesterday afternoon. Illegal came out of their homes and headed, making threatening, to executive offices managed by the provincial Red Cross. They complain about their "poor housing conditions." There are too many mosquitoes and the water is too hot, they want air conditioning in each tent. Hundred refugees staged a protest, this July 2 to complain about their conditions. They were immediately...

Egyptian actor Omar Sharif, best known for his roles in Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago died at age of 83, Egyptian media reported. “He died this afternoon of a heart attack in Cairo,” Steve Kenis told AFP, adding that the actor had been in a hospital for patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Born in a Syrian family and named Michel Demitri Chalhoub in Egypt in 1932, he was brought up as a Roman catholic and earned a college degree in mathematics and physics before he joined his family’s business. Read: Hollywood film legend Omar Sharif suffering from Alzheimer’s disease Omar...

The EU's unity, solidarity and international standing are at risk from Greece's debt, Russia's role in Ukraine, Britain's attempt to change its relationship with the bloc, and Mediterranean migration.

(CNSNews.com) - First lady Michelle Obama traveled to Milan last week as part of the ‘Let’s Move!’ Program to promote a “global dialogue about the future of our food system,” according to the LetsMove.gov blog. Mrs. Obama led the Presidential Delegation to the Milan Expo 2015 with the theme “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life,” where she shared the “successes of Let’s Move! and the efforts happening in the United States to support healthier lifestyles” and “learned from other countries’ leaders about how they are addressing the issue of childhood obesity and raising healthier families.” “That’s why it’s so important...

... The German chancellor’s disapproval helped end the political careers of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and Greek leader George Papandreou. After burning through whatever goodwill he had with Merkel’s lawmakers and the German public, the current Greek premier could be next.... “We are watching the end of the political career of Alexis Tsipras,” Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at Peterson Institute in Washington, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview. “Mr. Tsipras can continue his career on T-shirts for students, replacing Che Guevara.”... Refusing to play ball with Germany didn’t turn out well for Berlusconi, whose premiership had survived...

The remains of one of the most prestigious maritime villas from Roman times are set to reopen July 2 in a small, almost uninhabited island off the Tuscan coast after been locked for 15 years. Commonly known as "Villa Domitia," the imperial complex stood magnificently 2,000 years ago on the island of Giannutri, a rocky crescent about 3 miles long with thick areas of Mediterranean vegetation... The majestic complex marks Giannutri's most glorious time. Today the southernmost island of the Tuscan archipelago is almost empty -- populated by a huge colony of seagulls and, in summer, by a group of...

Pompeii's burial not its first disaster Sid Perkins From Denver, at a meeting of the Geological Society of America Recent excavations reveal that the ancient city of Pompeii, famed for its burial by an eruption of Italy's Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, suffered through several devastating landslides in the centuries preceding its volcanic demise. About three-fourths of Pompeii has been excavated, says Jean-Daniel Stanley of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. However, most of the digs in the city have extended down only to the ground level of dwellings that were standing in the 1st century. In...

Pompeii find shows secrets of the Samnites By Bruce Johnston in Rome (Filed: 05/07/2004) The discovery in Pompeii of a pre-Roman temple is being hailed as evidence that the city was sophisticated and thriving 300 years before Vesuvius erupted. The temple is said to be of Mephitis, a female deity worshipped by the Samnites, a mysterious ancient people who preceded the Romans in Pompeii. The temple complex includes a sanctuary where it is thought girls from good families worked briefly in "sacred prostitution" as a rite of passage to full womanhood. The Samnites were previously thought of as mountain warriors,...

Published: 17th April 2005 11:48 BST+1 Pompei discovery for Swedish archeologists (AFP) Swedish archeologists have discovered a Stone Age settlement covered in ash under the ruins of the ancient city of Pompei, indicating that the volcano Vesuvius engulfed the area in lava more than 3,500 years before the famous 79 AD eruption. The archeologists recently found burnt wood and grains of corn in the earth under Pompei, Anne-Marie Leander Touati, a professor of archeology at Stockholm University who led the team, told AFP. "Carbon dating shows that the finds are from prehistoric times, that is, from 3,500 years BC," Leander...

'Bronze Age Pompeii' Found in Italy Dec. 3 — Italian archaeologists have discovered one of the world's best-preserved prehistoric villages, a "Bronze Age Pompeii" that was buried in volcanic ash near the world-famous Roman city almost 4,000 years ago. The ancient settlement was overwhelmed by volcanic flow when Mount Vesuvius erupted around 1800 B.C., smothering the village near present-day Nola in southern Italy many centuries before Pompeii suffered the same fate. "This is by far the best-preserved prehistoric village in Italy and one of the best in the world. Everyday life in the ancient Bronze Age is preserved there," Giuseppe ...

for 10 years, an Italian team has been beavering away underground to reveal the wonders of Pozzuoli, once the port of ancient Rome, which is buried under a 16th century city. Excavators at Pompeii, entombed in ash and toxic debris by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, were able to remove the volcanic material and expose the city to the open air. But in Pozzuoli, whose beauty was such that the great Roman orator Cicero called it "little Rome," the ancient streets were encased in the foundations of a new city built by the Spanish in the 1500s,...

Nine years, almost to the day, after Roman legionaries destroyed God’s house in Jerusalem, God destroyed the luxurious watering holes of the Roman elite. Was this God’s revenge? That’s not exactly the question I want to raise, however. Rather, did anyone at the time see it that way? Did anyone connect the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 C.E. with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70? First the dates: The Romans destroyed the Second Temple (Herod’s Temple) on the same date that the Babylonians had destroyed the First Temple (Solomon’s Temple) in 586 B.C.E. But the exact date of...

First Pompeii uncoveredSamnites founded city in Third Century BC (ANSA) - Rome, February 1 - The origins of the famed buried city of Pompeii have emerged from years of excavations, an international conference in Rome was told Thursday. The first Pompeii was not built by the Romans or even by the Greeks who preceded them, but by an ancient people called the Samnites, Pompeii heritage Superintendent Piero Guzzo told a packed audience of archaeologists and scholars. Wielding photos of inscriptions, votive offerings and even entire buildings, Guzzo said "a new season of studies has begun". "For the first time we...

At around 1:00 p.m. on Aug. 24, 79 A.D., Pompeii residents saw a pine tree-shaped column of smoke bursting from Vesuvius. Reaching nine miles into the sky, the column began spewing a thick pumice rain. Many residents rushed in the streets, trying to leave the city. "At that moment, Polybius' house was inhabited by 12 people, including a young woman in advanced pregnancy. They decided to remain in the house, most likely because it was safer for the pregnant woman. Given the circumstances, it was the right strategy," Scarpati said... At around 7:00 p.m., by which time the front part...

A pillar has collapsed at one of Pompeii's most well-preserved buildings, officials in Italy said Thursday, the latest in a series of accidents to befall the treasured archaeological site. The collapse took place on an external area of the House of Loreius Tiburtinus - also known as the House of Octavius Quartio - the office of Archaeological Heritage of Naples and Pompeii, said in a statement. Officials were in the process of inspecting the causes and extent of the damage, the statement added. The House of Loreius Tiburtinus is renowned for its artwork and large gardens. In October a portion...

Think Pompeii got hit hard? Worse eruptions lurk By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent Mon Mar 6, 5:03 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The preserved footprints and abandoned homes of villagers who fled a giant eruption of Mount Vesuvius 3,800 years ago show the volcano could destroy modern-day Naples with little warning, Italian and U.S. researchers reported on Monday. The eruption buried entire villages as far as 15 miles (25 kilometres) from the volcano, cooking people as they tried to escape and dumping several feet (metres) of ash and mud. New excavations show far more extensive damage than that...

...The two towns remained largely undisturbed, lost to history, through the rise of Byzantium, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In 1738, Maria Amalia Christine, a nobleman's daughter from Saxony, wed Charles of Bourbon, the King of Naples, and became entranced by classical sculptures displayed in the garden of the royal palace in Naples. A French prince digging in the vicinity of his villa on Mount Vesuvius had discovered the antiquities nearly 30 years earlier, but had never conducted a systematic excavation. So Charles dispatched teams of laborers and engineers equipped with tools and blasting powder to the site of...

It was a milestone month for FCA. For the first time ever, Chrysler has outsold Ford in US retail sales, reports Reuters. Retail sales refers to only cars sold directly to consumers, not counting sales of fleet vehicles to corporate customers. Including fleet sales, Ford moved 223,666 cars and Fiat Chrysler group sold 186,864. General Motors, meanwhile, saw sales slip slightly year over year and sold 265,825 cars. For the industry as a whole, it was another good month as car sales continue to go up. 2015 is expected to see even more growth in car sales, as the market...