Powerful quake kills 4 in Italy cheese region

A magnitude-6.0 earthquake shook several small towns in northeast Italy Sunday, killing four people, knocking down a clock tower and other centuries-old buildings and causing millions in losses to the region known for making Parmesan cheese. (more…)

Bomb kills 1 student, wounds 7 in Italy

A bomb exploded on Saturday outside an Italian high school named after the wife of an assassinated anti-Mafia prosecutor, killing one student and wounding at least seven others, officials said.
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Mediterranean organizations kick off algae research project

The American University of Beirut recently announced it has partnered with researchers from the Lebanese Association for Energy Savings and for Environment (ALMEE) and researchers from Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta and Egypt to study the possibility of producing algae-based biodiesel. (more…)

9 EU countries downgraded on black Friday 13th

Standard & Poor’s downgraded the credit ratings of nine euro zone countries, stripping France and Austria of their coveted triple-A status but not EU paymaster Germany, in a Black Friday 13th for the troubled single currency area. (more…)

Bomb wounds French UN peacekeepers in South Lebanon

A roadside bomb wounded five French peacekeepers in southern Lebanon on Friday, in the third attack this year on United Nations forces deployed near the frontier with Israel.

The blast hit a jeep carrying French UNIFIL troops (more…)

Mario Monti Tapped to Lead Italy Out of Debt Crisis

A day after accepting the resignation of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s president on Sunday asked Mario Monti, a former European Commissioner, to form a government charged with helping defend Italy from Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. (more…)

Berlusconi Steps Down, and Italy Pulses With Change

With his country swept up in Europe’s debt crisis and his once-mighty political capital spent, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned on Saturday, punctuating a tumultuous week and ending an era in Italian politics.
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Berlusconi to resign, says Italy’s President

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has told President Giorgio Napolitano that he will resign after the new budget law currently making its way through parliament is approved, the head of state’s office said in a statement on Tuesday. (more…)

Italy complicit in masking Sadr’s disappearance, report

During an exclusive interview with NOW Lebanon on the day the Lebanese Supreme Court heard the plaintiffs in the case of the disappearance of Imam Moussa Sadr in open court for the first time, Chibli Mallat—the lawyer representing the families of Imam Moussa Sadr, Sheikh Muhammad Yaqub and Journalist Abbas Badreddin, who disappeared in Libya in 1978—said that new evidence showed Italy had been complicit in masking the role that embattled Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi had in the incident. (more…)

Italy recalls its ambasador from Syria, urges EU to follow suit

Italy’s foreign ministry recalled its ambassador for consultations, citing Damascus’ “horrible repression against the civilian population”. (more…)