25th April was Liberation Day, the 63rd anniversary of the liberation of Italy from the Germans, marking the end of the Resistance War between September 1943 and April 1945.
Liberazione is one of only three Civil Public Holidays in Italy, the others being Festival of Work (when no one works) on 1st May and Republic Day on 2nd June. There are a further eight religious or semi religious official national holidays making a total of 11, compared to 8 in the UK
With the May Day holiday (Festa di Lavoro) next week some 5.25 million Italians are expected to make a ‘ponte’ or bridge through to Monday 5th May. Most go to the seaside; 25% of those travelling stay in their own holiday home. Italians will spend an average of 329 euros a day on the 10 day break.
Liberation Day was also the occasion of Beppe Grillo’s V-2 Day (F*** off Day 2). He held a rally of 45,000 in Turin and in 400 other locations throughout Italy it is thought that 140,000 have signed his referendum petitions against ‘information fascism’.
There are three referendum petitions: for cancelling the Gasparri Law which regulates the media and permits Berlusconi to control TV channels; abolishing the state controlled union of journalists; stopping state funding of the press, believed to be 1 billion euros a year.
With perhaps a hint of tautology, Grillo described his movement as the ''start of a new Renaissance''. Grillo has been banned from the airwaves since 1987 for upsetting the then leader Bettino Craxi - six years before the late Socialist leader's downfall for corruption.
Liberazione is one of only three Civil Public Holidays in Italy, the others being Festival of Work (when no one works) on 1st May and Republic Day on 2nd June. There are a further eight religious or semi religious official national holidays making a total of 11, compared to 8 in the UK
With the May Day holiday (Festa di Lavoro) next week some 5.25 million Italians are expected to make a ‘ponte’ or bridge through to Monday 5th May. Most go to the seaside; 25% of those travelling stay in their own holiday home. Italians will spend an average of 329 euros a day on the 10 day break.
Liberation Day was also the occasion of Beppe Grillo’s V-2 Day (F*** off Day 2). He held a rally of 45,000 in Turin and in 400 other locations throughout Italy it is thought that 140,000 have signed his referendum petitions against ‘information fascism’.
There are three referendum petitions: for cancelling the Gasparri Law which regulates the media and permits Berlusconi to control TV channels; abolishing the state controlled union of journalists; stopping state funding of the press, believed to be 1 billion euros a year.
With perhaps a hint of tautology, Grillo described his movement as the ''start of a new Renaissance''. Grillo has been banned from the airwaves since 1987 for upsetting the then leader Bettino Craxi - six years before the late Socialist leader's downfall for corruption.
In 2005, American magazine Time named Grillo one of its European heroes of the year.
The comedian received a bad press in the traditional media, il Giornale running an exposé of his sex life. Il Giornale is owned by Berlusconi’s brother. ‘The sewer rats are leaving the sinking ship’ he said. ‘To find the truth, look at the foreign media and the internet.’ Grillo’s blog is one of the 20 most read in the world.
San Giovanni Rotondo, Puglia: more than 700,000 people have already registered to shuffle past the exhumed and embalmed body of Padre Pio, who died 40 years ago and was canonised in 2002. Padre Pio is even now an enormously popular figure in Italy; his image is displayed in homes, shops, garages, vehicles and piazzas throughout the country. He was said to have stigmata on his hands and feet, although these are apparently not visible on the corpse, to be able to tell the future and to appear in two places at the same time.
Padre Pio is big business in Puglia, worth perhaps 100 million euros per year, employing 7,000 people and involving 140 buildings to receive the 7 million faithful who visit his tomb each year.
‘This is not state aid’, said a spokesman as he confirmed that the State had aided Alitalia by granting it a 300 million euro loan, when its banks refused to lend any more. Ryan Air have made a formal complaint to the EU
Silvio Berlusconi is to resign as the president of Milan next month when he begins his third spell as prime minister of Italy.
He has nearly picked the names of his cabinet, two weeks after the election.
A severed horse’s head and two bullets had been left on the staircase of the office of Vincenzo Pomes, deputy mayor of Ostuni, Puglia. He said he could not explain why such a thing could happen..
The final run off to the elections for Rome’s mayor takes place this Sunday and Monday. In the primary election the centre left candidate Francesco Rutelli (nicknamed ‘Cicciobello’, the name of a popular baby doll) had a modest lead over the Centre Right candidate Gianni Allemanno but insufficient to prevent a second contest. If Alemanno wins it will be the first tie since the war that Rome has not had a left-wing government.
The priceless marble head of Roman Empress Faustina the Elder, adoptive mother of Marcus Aurelius, is among pieces that went on show in Rome on Thursday as part of an annual exhibition dedicated to stolen works recovered by Italian art police. Around 100 valuable paintings, statues and manuscripts including a letter by 19th-century Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi and a drawing by Vincent Van Gogh are on display at Castel Sant'Angelo.
A series of graffiti portraits of fugitive Mafia head Matteo Messina Denaro have appeared on a back wall of Palermo cathedral. The four portraits were in the style of Andy Warhol’s portraits of Marilyn Monroe.
The comedian received a bad press in the traditional media, il Giornale running an exposé of his sex life. Il Giornale is owned by Berlusconi’s brother. ‘The sewer rats are leaving the sinking ship’ he said. ‘To find the truth, look at the foreign media and the internet.’ Grillo’s blog is one of the 20 most read in the world.
San Giovanni Rotondo, Puglia: more than 700,000 people have already registered to shuffle past the exhumed and embalmed body of Padre Pio, who died 40 years ago and was canonised in 2002. Padre Pio is even now an enormously popular figure in Italy; his image is displayed in homes, shops, garages, vehicles and piazzas throughout the country. He was said to have stigmata on his hands and feet, although these are apparently not visible on the corpse, to be able to tell the future and to appear in two places at the same time.
Padre Pio is big business in Puglia, worth perhaps 100 million euros per year, employing 7,000 people and involving 140 buildings to receive the 7 million faithful who visit his tomb each year.
‘This is not state aid’, said a spokesman as he confirmed that the State had aided Alitalia by granting it a 300 million euro loan, when its banks refused to lend any more. Ryan Air have made a formal complaint to the EU
Silvio Berlusconi is to resign as the president of Milan next month when he begins his third spell as prime minister of Italy.
He has nearly picked the names of his cabinet, two weeks after the election.
A severed horse’s head and two bullets had been left on the staircase of the office of Vincenzo Pomes, deputy mayor of Ostuni, Puglia. He said he could not explain why such a thing could happen..
The final run off to the elections for Rome’s mayor takes place this Sunday and Monday. In the primary election the centre left candidate Francesco Rutelli (nicknamed ‘Cicciobello’, the name of a popular baby doll) had a modest lead over the Centre Right candidate Gianni Allemanno but insufficient to prevent a second contest. If Alemanno wins it will be the first tie since the war that Rome has not had a left-wing government.
The priceless marble head of Roman Empress Faustina the Elder, adoptive mother of Marcus Aurelius, is among pieces that went on show in Rome on Thursday as part of an annual exhibition dedicated to stolen works recovered by Italian art police. Around 100 valuable paintings, statues and manuscripts including a letter by 19th-century Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi and a drawing by Vincent Van Gogh are on display at Castel Sant'Angelo.
A series of graffiti portraits of fugitive Mafia head Matteo Messina Denaro have appeared on a back wall of Palermo cathedral. The four portraits were in the style of Andy Warhol’s portraits of Marilyn Monroe.
The Isle of Capri will host its first Cow Parade exhibition of contemporary art. A total of 26 life-sized fibreglass cows will be strategically placed by emerging artists, especially from the Campania region.
Scientists hunting ‘dark matter’, an invisible substance that holds galaxies together, claim to have found it underneath the Gran Sasso mountain in Italy, together with the rest of Berlusconi’s cabinet.
Scientists hunting ‘dark matter’, an invisible substance that holds galaxies together, claim to have found it underneath the Gran Sasso mountain in Italy, together with the rest of Berlusconi’s cabinet.
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