Free Republic

VENICE (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez arrived in Venice on Monday to attend the world premiere of Oliver Stone's documentary about him and his strained relations with the United States. "South of the Border" is a sympathetic portrait of the leader, casting him as a champion of the poor who has stood up to Washington. Chavez, surrounded by bodyguards, strolled with Stone on the Lido red carpet and signed autographs like a movie star ahead of the premiere at the Venice film festival. "What's happening in Latin America is like a Renaissance," the Venezuelan leader told reporters.

The bustling harbour of Altinum near Venice was one of the richest cities of the Roman empire. But terrified by the impending invasion of the fearsome Germanic Emperor Attila the Hun, its inhabitants cut their losses and fled in AD452, leaving behind a ghost town of theatres, temples and basilicas. Altinum was never reoccupied and gradually sunk into the ground. The city lived on in Venetian folk tales and historical artefacts but its exact position, size and wealth gradually faded into obscurity. Now, using aerial photography of the region, Italian archaeologists have not only located the city, but have produced...

April 2, 2009 Italian authorities carry out raids against "Islamist radicals" across country SNIPPET: "Rome, 2 April (AKI) - Twenty-six foreigners suspected of links to international terrorism as well as aiding and abetting illegal immigration are being investigated by Italian police, after raids carried out on Thursday in various Italian cities. The raids were carried out in properties around the northern cities of Vicenza, Venice, Padova, Brescia, Como, Cuneo and Trento, the central city of Florence and the southern city of Caserta. The anti-terrorism and organised crime investigators in March 2007 began probing alleged Islamic fundamentalists attending the Via Dei...

Italian researchers believe they have found the remains of a female "vampire" in Venice, buried with a brick jammed between her jaws to prevent her feeding on victims of a plague which swept the city in the 16th century. Matteo Borrini, an anthropologist from the University of Florence, said the discovery on the small island of Lazzaretto Nuovo in the Venice lagoon supported the medieval belief that vampires were behind the spread of plagues like the Black Death. "This is the first time that archaeology has succeeded in reconstructing the ritual of exorcism of a vampire," Mr Borrini said. "This...

Historic center of Venice flooded The Associated Press Monday, December 1, 2008 VENICE, Italy: Venice could use a bailout. The city built on water has too much of it. Residents and tourists waded through knee-deep water Monday as they navigated the city's narrow streets and alleys, and its historic St. Mark's Square was inundated. Boxes of tourist merchandise floated inside the flooded shops around the square and even the city's famed pigeons sought refuge on rooftops and windowsills. One of the highest tides in its history brought Venice to a virtual halt, rekindling a debate over a plan to build...

The hidden ruins of an ancient lagoon city that was the ancestor of Venice have been unearthed by scientists using satellite imaging. The outlines are clearly visible about three feet below the earth in what is now open countryside... Paolo Mozzi, a researcher at the University of Padua geography department, said high-definition satellite photographs had revealed the ruins of an extensive town much closer to present day Venice at Altino -- known in Roman times as Altinum -- a little more than seven miles north of the city, close to Marco Polo airport... The newly identified ruins include streets, palaces,...

Venice high and dry Source: Manuel Silvestri, Reuters Published: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 9:10 AEDT A boat lies immobile on mud in a Venice canal after sea levels plunged to a 14-year low on February 19, 2008. The Centro Maree, whose forecasts are vital for organising transport in Venice, said a high-pressure system set off a 'Code White' alert that signals low sea levels. Canals slipped on Monday to 80 centimetres below average sea level, the lowest since 1994.

Democrats continue to chalk up surprising victories in Sarasota County, further eroding the area's reputation as a Republican stronghold. On Tuesday, the Democratic tide rolled into the most unlikely of places: Venice. While the nonpartisan race hinged heavily on the direction of growth and development, both parties say it was still significant that the winning candidates were all Democrats. "The Democrats have a reason to crow," Sarasota Republican Party Chairman Eric Robinson said. "They won. The county is becoming more liberal."

Mass Plague Graves Found on Venice "Quarantine" Island Maria Cristina Valsecchi for National Geographic News August 29, 2007 Ancient mass graves containing more than 1,500 victims of the bubonic plague have been discovered on a small island in Italy's Venetian Lagoon. Workers came across the skeletons while digging the foundation for a new museum on Lazzaretto Vecchio, a small island in the lagoon's south, located a couple of miles from Venice's famed Piazza San Marco (see a map of the Venetian Lagoon). The island is believed to be the world's first lazaret—a quarantine colony intended to help prevent the spread...

LOS ANGELES – In the annals of takeovers, it was among the mellowest. A group calling itself Guerrilla Gay Bar, gay men looking to crash straight hangouts with the intent of turning them predominantly gay for a moment in time, set its sights on Venice Beach one recent Saturday.

Officials in Venice — as well as the handful of actual Italians still living in the lagoon city — have declared themselves fed up with a certain category of tourist: the pot-bellied, bare-chested, food-chomping, trash-spewing hordes that peak from now until autumn. To combat what they see as a scourge, Venice authorities are distributing leaflets and posting posters with a new set of rules. In St. Mark's Square, it is now forbidden to sit or recline under the porticos and on the steps along the Procuratie Nuove and the Ala Napoleonica, the buildings that ring the city's iconic St. Mark's...

A German woman has won a 10-year battle to steer a gondola through Venice - the first woman to do so. Alexandra Hai, 35, successfully challenged the all-male Venice Gondola Association and city authorities. Ms Hai failed the gondola test three times - and was also fined once by police for illegal gondoliering. Ms Hai began her new job on Sunday and will be able to take tourists to small Venetian hotels. But officially she cannot claim the title "gondolier". Ms Hai, the daughter of an Algerian civil servant and a German midwife, moved to Venice from the US in...

Venice and Florence to tax visitors By Malcolm Moore in Rome (Filed: 04/10/2006) Visitors to Venice and Florence will be taxed up to five euros (£3.40) each a day from next year. Every day almost as many people visit Venice as live there. The new tax is the only way to balance the books, says it mayor The cities, which attract 35 million tourists every year, have been given permission by the government to raise the tax to make up for sweeping cuts to their central funding. Massimo Cacciari, the mayor of Venice, said the new tax was the only...

VENICE (Reuters) - Top directors used the Venice Film Festival on Friday to excoriate the Bush administration, the war in Iraq and Hollywood itself, and presented three starkly different movies to express their views. Oliver Stone, in the canal city for the European promotion of "World Trade Center", said he was worried about when, if ever, the "war on terror" would end. "Many of us are concerned that it could get worse," he told reporters after a screening of his film, which has already been released in the United States. "I think things have gotten very dark," he said. "The...

Here we go yet again. This time we were off for a week in Italy - Rome, Venice, and Milan with our Rick Steve's Travel Guides in hand. Of all the places we've been so far, the books paid off handsomely in Italy. And next to the Swedes up in Kiruna, the Italians are some of the nicest Europeans we've met to date. No wonder so many Americans were there at the same time as we were. We land in Rome in the evening and catch a cab to the hotel. What can you say about Italian cab drivers? After...

VATICAN CITY, APR 25, 2006 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed: - Bishop Casimiro Lopez Llorente of Zamora, Spain, as bishop of Segorbe- Castellon de la Plana (area 4,380, population 449,043, Catholics 419,701, priests 282, permanent deacons 4, religious 513), Spain. - Msgr. Frank J. Dewane of the clergy of the diocese of Green Bay, U.S.A., under-secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, as coadjutor of Venice (area 22,685, population 1,766,651, Catholics 218,173, priests 239, permanent deacons 75, religious 202), U.S.A. The bishop-elect was born in Green Bay in 1950 and ordained a priest in 1988. * *...

Tide of opinion turns against Venice dam By Hilary Clarke in Venice (Filed: 29/01/2006) A multi-billion pound project to stop Venice disappearing under water is itself in danger of sinking under the weight of opposition from the city's mayor and the European Commission. Brussels is concerned about the impact the £2.9 billion Moses dam project could have on the environment, while Venice's own council believes the cash would be better spent on maintaining buildings. Water levels in Venice have risen by 32in since the 18th century, when Canaletto painted the lagoon city. Its tourist centre, St Mark's Square, floods more...

Brescia and Naples, 18 Nov. (AKI) - The three Algerians detained on Tuesday in the Italian cities of Brescia and Naples were planning a massive terror attack - "on a ship as big as the Titanic, packed with explosives" - that aimed to kill "at least 10,000 people", as well as an attack on "Italian citizens and interests" in Tunisia, according phone conversations between the three men, which Italian anti-terror police say they intercepted after al-Qaeda's deadly 7 July attacks on London and on the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. In their tapped phone conversations, Yamine Bouhrama, Mohamed...

ROME (AFP) - A steep rise in sea levels swamped part of the historic lagooon city of Venice amid storms and heavy rains that have beaten down on Italy over the past 24 hours. On the other side of the peninsula, at La Spezia, a storm slammed a bulk carrier against a jetty, holing it and dumping thousands of litres of fuel into the harbor, the Italian news agency ANSA said. Venice was hit by a common seasonal phenomenon as winds and tides backed up the Adriatic waters, causing levels in the lagoon to rise. According to the city's flood...

VENICE (Reuters) - Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain," a tale of homosexual love in the wilds of Wyoming, won Venice's Golden Lion on Saturday, beating film festival favorite George Clooney in the race to take the top prize. The latest film by the director of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is adapted from a short story by Annie Proulx and stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as love-struck cowboys whose forbidden affair begins in 1963 and ends 20 years later. Lee describes "Brokeback Mountain" as a story of love against adversity. Independent and low-budget, like several U.S. entries at the festival, it...