Italy

As expected, the Italian presidential election will enter the fifth round on Friday (11 am). The more than 1,000 parliamentarians and regional representatives failed to elect a new president for the fourth day in a row on Thursday.   Both the centre-left and centre-right blocs have insufficient votes to allow their own candidate to emerge as the winner. The parties needed each other to break the deadlock, but a deal was no longer expected before the fourth round of voting. As a result, many blank votes were again submitted on Thursday. Since Thursday, a candidate only needs an absolute majority of the votes to win the election. A two-thirds majority was required in the three previous rounds. Current President Sergio Mattarella's term ends in February after seven years. Although he...

Italian prosecutors have new suspects in the picture in the investigation into the deadly cable car disaster in the country's north. The number of suspects has risen to fourteen. Earlier, three managers of the company that manages the cable car were arrested.   Among the new suspects are employees of the South Tyrolean cable car manufacturer Leitner. The manufacturer is said to have carried out work and checks at the cable car in Italy. Fourteen people died on May 23 when the cabin they were in crashed. The cable car in question takes passengers from the village of Stresa to the 1500-meter high Mottarone mountain. Unfortunately, a cabin crashed near the top due to a cable break, the cause of which is not yet known. The emergency brake should have prevented the accident, but the ma...

Justice in the northern Italian region of Piedmont has seized a batch of nearly 400,000 AstraZeneca vaccines in an investigation into a man's death.   57-year-old music teacher Sandro Tognatti died on the weekend shortly after he was vaccinated. It has not been clarified why, and that is why the judiciary proceeded to the seizure. The Piedmont region shut down the use of the vaccine on Sunday. Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Iceland have done the same.

Italy is threatening lawsuits against pharmaceutical giant Pfizer over delayed deliveries of the corona vaccine that the American company Pfizer makes with the German BioNTech.   The unique 'corona commissioner' in Italy, Domenico Arcuri, does not accept the delay and wants to start civil and criminal cases against the vaccine manufacturer. Arcuri said that "protecting the health of the Italians is non-negotiable." The vaccine manufacturers have announced that there are delays in the delivery of vaccines this week. According to the Italian 'corona commissioner', only 71 percent of the promised doses have been delivered this week. According to him, the vaccination campaign cannot be delayed. So far 1.2 of the 60 million Italians have been vaccinated. Arcuri did not explain exactly...

The former leader of Rome's criminal underworld Massimo Carminati and his most essential henchmen are about 27 million euros poorer.   The police have permanently seized valuable property of the criminals following a ruling by the Italian Supreme Court. The police confiscated cars, real estate and precious works of art, among other things. Carminati, a former far-right terrorist, lost about 10 million euros. He lost his villa outside of Rome and works of art. 62-year-old Carminati, also known as the 'one-eyed one', was arrested in 2014 along with several accomplices. In 2017 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in a sensational corruption trial against the so-called 'Mafia Capitale' (capital mafia). The 'Mafia Capitale' is said to have won lucrative contracts for his companies w...

Italy has a record number of new corona infections. In the past 24 hours, 21,994 cases have been registered, and that did not even occur during the first corona wave earlier this year.   For a time, Italy was the hardest hit European country. In the past 24 hours, 221 people have died from the corona. It is the first time since mid-May that more than 200 corona deaths have been reported in one day. In total, 37,700 people in Italy have died of the dreaded lung disease so far. The latest Italian measures to stem the spread of the virus are met with growing resistance. In recent days, it has been partly violent demonstrations in several cities.

More than three days after his admission to a hospital in Milan, the corona virus-infected Silvio Berlusconi is doing better.   The 83-year-old former prime minister of Italy was admitted on Friday with mild inflammation of both lungs. His overall clinical condition appears to be improving, said Dr Alberto Zangrillo of San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, who is also Berlusconi's personal physician. He had already said on Friday that there was no cause for concern. Berlusconi's health has been fragile for years. The politician and media mogul underwent open-heart surgery in 2016 and went under the knife last year for a hernia and intestinal problems.

The Italian police have rounded up a gang that widely forged euros. Counterfeiters made over 3 million counterfeit euro notes, worth over 233 million, a quarter of all fake euros discovered since the currency was introduced in 2002.   The Italian police arrested 44 suspects on Wednesday and confiscated € 8 million in assets, Europol reported on Friday. According to the international police service, it may be the largest counterfeiting gang in the euro area that has been rolled up. The brain behind the gang has been falsifying banknotes for twenty years. He set up the rolled-up network and arranged the distribution of the counterfeit euros. The case got underway in October 2017 with the seizure of 50 euro notes in the area of Benevento, southern Italy.