Italian News 24th May

The think tank Eurispes has published estimated accounts for the ‘ndrangheta, the Calabrian organised crime syndicate, showing annual income of 44 billion euros, equivalent to around 3% of Italy’s GDP, or the entire GDP of Estonia and Slovenia combined. It is made up of drugs (27bn), industrial corruption (5.7bn), usury (5bn), arms trafficking (2.9bn) and prostitution (2.9bn). No figure given for taxes paid.

Other organised crime syndicates include the Mafia (Sicily), Camorra (Campania) and Sacra Corona Unita (Puglia).

In the last ten years the Italian home mortgage market has increased fivefold but is still low at less than 20% of GDP compared to a European average of 50%. Italians have the highest rate of home ownership but traditionally they have owned their houses outright.

On average a person’s income doubles on becoming an MP in Italy. Italian MPs incomes have risen 6 times faster than the Italian average.

Italy has no university in the world top 100 and Southern Italy doesn’t have one in the top 300.

An estimated 3% of Italians are believed to have hepatitis C, some 1.8 million people, the highest percentage in Europe. In some African countries, like Egypt, 20% of the population has the disease. 14,000 people in Italy died from hepatitis C in 2003 compared to 447 who died from AIDS.

The Ponte dell'Accademia, one of just four bridges across Venice's Grand Canal, will be made into a permanent structure. The current bridge, made of wood and iron and opened in 1933, was only ever intended as a temporary measure.

A Milanese pensioner was stabbed in the face after a fight broke out in a shopping centre restaurant over who got the last slice of cake.

Police in Pescara have discovered that the owner of a local factory has falsely sold 400,000 jars of preserves to the United States, under the Fiordifrutta label (which belongs to another company). He had also illegally attached labels to the jars certifying that the jam was kosher.

Tuscany is marking the 80th anniversary of the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover by opening up the Villa Mirenda at Scandicci where D.H. Lawrence wrote the novel. There will be a series of lectures and films. The book was not published in England until 1960.

An association of Padre Pio devotees has said it will press charges against the Capuchin friars of San Giovanni Rotondo for desecration, in that they allegedly opened up the tomb to take an early peek.

Italians will not in general buy agricultural produce from other countries, the exception being apples. According to the Farmers’ Union, there are 1,800 varieties of apples in Europe, but around 80% of Italian demand for the fruit was fulfilled by just four types: Red Delicious and Golden Delicious from America, Granny Smith from Australia and Gala from New Zealand. Producers of English Russets should take note.

Italy banned nuclear power after a referendum following the Chernobyl disaster, but following energy shortages in recent years, industry Minister Claudio Scajola has confirmed that Italy will begin construction on new generation plants in the current legislature

Special 'anti-Mafia' pasta will be on sale from Sunday. The plan is to sell 100,000 packets of spaghetti produced by a youth cooperative using wheat grown on lands seized from the Mafia around the Sicilian town of Corleone.

Exports of Tuscan red wine to The United Kingdom were up 20% in value and 18% in quantity for 2007 with respect the previous year.

‘Open Cellars’ marks its 16th year with some 800 vineyards opening their cellars to the public. Well over a million people are expected to be drawn to the countryside to see where and how wine is made and discover what it tastes like at its source. There are currently around five million practising wine tourists, also known as 'wine-nauts', in Italy.

Much of Italy's 3,700 kilometres of beach been conceded to private businesses who charge people for entrance as well as other facilities. In Liguria, only 19 km out of 135 km of beaches are free of charge. However the 10 metres next to the sea on any beach is, by law, public property, so if you don’t cross the private part but swim in you can use the most exclusive private beach free of charge.

Tiscali founder Renato Soru has bought the Communist newspaper l’Unità. Founded by Antonio Gramsci in 1924 it was the official mouthpiece of the Italian Communist Party until 1991. Former editors include Walter Veltroni, now leader of the Democratic Party. Soru said the paper was ''an asset to culture and democracy''.

Following restrictive legislation, about 600,000 Italians have given up smoking in the last year. However, the number getting through more than one packet a day has risen to 36%, an increase of 4% on 2007. Some 26% of all Italian men and 18% of women smoke - a total of 11.2 million people. Most smokers have their first cigarette at the age of 17.

Most Italian trains are given names, but hitherto there has been no name for the commuter trains. After a poll of primary school children it has been decided to call them ‘dingoes’. The other winning names included, for Italy's new generation of high-speed trains, Cheetah and Gazelle. Existing names include Tortoise (obviously) and Crocodile.

According to a survey conducted by Il Giornale, almost seven out of 10 Italians said they wanted immigrants to be fingerprinted and DNA tested.

With a new government, plans to build the world's longest suspension bridge to link Sicily and the Italian mainland are back on track and the bridge may open as early as 2016, they say. A Sicilian spokesman in dark glasses said the slightly costly structure would be ''an asset to culture and democracy''.