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/ 21 November 2006
Rome’s second-largest airport, Ciampino, briefly closed early on Tuesday following an anonymous telephone call claiming that a bomb was on board a cargo plane, airport officials said. Inspections of aircraft found no evidence of a bomb and Ciampino was reopened about an hour later, officials said. Six flights had been rerouted east to the city of Pescara.
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/ 19 November 2006
Actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes were married in a medieval castle near Rome on Saturday in a Scientology ceremony attended by a galaxy of Hollywood stars. With torches burning from the battlements of the 15th-century castle, the couple exchanged vows out of sight of the thousands of onlookers and paparazzi camped outside or perched on window ledges and balconies.
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/ 12 November 2006
AS Roma’s bid for the Serie A title gathered momentum when Francesco Totti scored twice to give them a 2-1 win at AC Milan on Saturday. The Roma captain struck first in the seventh minute when he volleyed crisply past Milan keeper Dida. Cristian Brocchi equalised early in the second half, but in the 83rd minute Totti grabbed the winner, heading in a cross by Brazilian winger Mancini.
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/ 7 November 2006
The fate of a toilet that flushes to the strains of Italy’s national anthem is in the hands of a tribunal following a complaint from a right-wing political party, a museum spokesperson said on Tuesday. The creation was part of an exhibit, titled Group Therapy, that opened at the museum of modern art in Bolzano in September.
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/ 30 October 2006
Retired world champion driver Michael Schumacher is to stay with Ferrari as assistant to new CEO Jean Todt, the Italian outfit announced at Monza on Sunday. The 37-year-old Schumacher retired as a driver after piloting his Ferrari to fourth place in the Brazilian Grand Prix last Sunday. The German won a record seven world titles and was with Ferrari as driver from 1996 until he retired.
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/ 28 October 2006
Juventus had its penalty in the Italian match-fixing scandal reduced by eight points on Friday. The Turin club jumped from 20th place in the second-division standings to 12th. Juventus was stripped of its 2005 and 2006 Serie A titles, demoted to Serie B, and docked 17 points by a sports tribunal in July.
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/ 17 October 2006
A train on Rome’s underground metro system rammed into the back of another at high speed on Tuesday, killing at least one person and injuring 110 others, five seriously, authorities said. Earlier, officials had said two people had been killed. The difference was apparently due to confusion at the scene.
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/ 17 October 2006
Italian filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo, who directed the black-and-white classic The Battle of Algiers, died in Rome on October 12, hospital officials said. He was 86. Pontecorvo died at the Polyclinic Gemelli hospital, said hospital spokesperson Nicola Cerbino. The cause of the death was not given, but reports said he had suffered a heart attack months ago.
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/ 17 October 2006
Two trains on Rome’s underground metro system collided on Tuesday and as many 60 people were reported injured, some of them seriously. One report said some passengers were still trapped underground. Atac, the Rome metro operator, confirmed reports of the crash at Piazza Vittorio underground station in the city centre but could not provide any more details.
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/ 13 October 2006
Maurizio Montalbini is Italy’s least gregarious citizen. The 53-year-old sociologist has distinguished himself by spending almost three years of his life in total on his own and underground. On Thursday Montalbini vanished into a pothole near the eastern Italian town of Ascoli Piceno having instructed his support team that, so long as all went well, he should be left undisturbed for another three years.
The two hijackers of the Turkish Airlines flight that was forced to land in Italy on Tuesday have surrendered and will ask for political asylum, an Italian police official said. ”They have surrendered and are about to get off the airplane,” Brindisi police chief Salvatore De Paolis told Reuters. ”They will request political asylum.”
Hijackers seeking to send a message to Pope Benedict seized control of a Turkish passenger plane flying from the Albanian capital Tirana to Istanbul on Tuesday, and were forced by interceptor jets to land in Italy. ”As far as we know, the hijackers want to talk with Italian authorities to send a message to the Pope,” a spokesperson for Italy’s civil aviation authority Enac told the media.
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/ 25 September 2006
Pope Benedict told Muslim envoys on Monday that Christian and Muslim believers must reject violence, in an audience meant to defuse anger at his use of quotes saying Islam was spread by the sword. The pope expressed his ”esteem and profound respect” for members of the Islamic faith in a meeting with diplomatic envoys from 20 Muslim.
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/ 11 September 2006
AC Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti admitted on Sunday his club’s eight-point penalty for match-fixing makes them rank outsiders for the Serie A title. Milan beat fellow offenders Lazio 2-1 in their first match of the new season to reduce their deficit to minus five points, but they failed to make any ground on title rivals Inter Milan and Roma, who both recorded wins on Saturday.
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/ 10 September 2006
The jury at the Venice Film Festival left critics and journalists perplexed and in some cases vexed when it awarded top prize to China’s Still Life. Jia Zhang-Ke’s picture, about two people searching for their partners as villages and towns are submerged by the giant Three Gorges Dam project in China, was introduced as a surprise entry.
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/ 9 September 2006
Michael Schumacher, the most successful Formula One driver of all time, said on Sunday that he was retiring from the sport at the end of the season. Ferrari announced the German’s decision just minutes after Schumacher won the Italian Grand Prix. ”It has been a really tough decision not to work together at this level but I knew that one day it had to come,” Schumacher told a post-race news conference.
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/ 9 September 2006
Michael Schumacher’s position as a Formula One icon, the most successful driver in the history of the sport, is assured. Whether Ferrari’s seven-times world champion is also the greatest is another question, one guaranteed to trigger endless debate long after the ever-controversial German has finally left the stage.
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/ 7 September 2006
When the first round of Serie A matches kick off on Sunday, the fans will cheer, wave banners and throw firecrackers. Everything will look just as it did four months ago at the end of last season. But if you listen carefully you might hear, under the roar of the crowds, an unfamiliar sound: a collective sigh of relief that — finally — the new season is under way.
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/ 5 September 2006
Italy defender Marco Materazzi has broken his silence over the verbal exchange that led to his violent World Cup final clash with French star Zinedine Zidane. Materazzi was sent crashing to the turf by a Zidane headbutt near the end of extra-time of the July 9 final in Berlin following a verbal altercation.
As a character, he has been rocketing across our screens for half a century, but few remember that the original Superman, George Reeves, died in mysterious circumstances in the bedroom of his Hollywood Hills home at the height of his fame in 1959.
Juventus, who were relegated to Serie B and given a 17-point penalty for the start of the forthcoming season for match-fixing, are considering cancelling their civil court action if the Italian Football Federation reduces their punishment. The Turin club were ready to take their case outside of the sports authorities.
Brian de Palma’s noir movie The Black Dahlia premiered at the 63rd Venice Film Festival to critical acclaim on Wednesday as its 21-year-old star, Scarlett Johansson, paraded down the red carpet. The actor plays a femme fatale in the murder mystery set in 1940s Hollywood and film reviewers emerged from a preview screening acclaiming her on-screen sex appeal.
Juventus have lodged an appeal with a civil court to overturn their relegation for match-fixing despite a threat of extra sanctions from Italy’s football federation, a spokesperson for the club said on Thursday. A soccer tribunal ruling on the match-fixing scandal in July stripped Juve of their last two Italian titles and demoted them to the second division.
A bomb threat scrawled on a sick bag caused a British passenger plane from London to Egypt to be diverted to southern Italy on Friday, but police said it appeared to be a false alarm. ”The alarm has been called off,” said Brindisi border police chief Salvatore de Paolis.
Italian international goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon has said he intends to stay with Juventus despite the club being relegated to the second division for involvement in match-fixing. Buffon told Turin’s La Stampa newspaper that he had no intention of following other top names who have joined other clubs.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic became the latest big name to desert Juventus when he moved to Italian rivals Inter Milan for ,95-million on Thursday. The Sweden striker signed a four-year contract, Inter said on their website after completing the most expensive incoming deal in Italy of the close-season.
Argentina striker Hernan Crespo signed for former club Inter Milan on Monday, leaving English champions Chelsea. ”I’m very happy to be back,” Crespo said. ”I love Italian soccer and the Italian country. Returning to Inter is a personal choice, a return home.” The 31-year-old forward signed a two year-deal on a free transfer.
Madonna staged a mock-crucifixion in the Italian capital on Sunday, ignoring a storm of protest and accusations of blasphemy from the Roman Catholic Church. In a sold-out stadium just over a kilometre from Vatican City, the lapsed-Catholic diva wore a fake crown of thorns as she was raised on a glittery cross during the Rome stop of her worldwide ”Confessions Tour”.
Rome’s Catholic, Muslim and Jewish leaders have united to condemn pop star Madonna’s decision to stage a mock-crucifixion when she performs in the Italian capital on Sunday a stone’s throw away from Vatican City. The lapsed-Catholic diva’s latest irreverent performance sees her wearing a fake crown of thorns and descending cross as part of her worldwide Confessions Tour.
French midfielder Patrick Vieira has sealed his move to Inter Milan from crisis-torn Juventus, the Turin club announced on Wednesday. The transfer will cost Inter €9,5-million, payable over three years, said Juve, who were last week stripped of the Serie A titles they won in 2005-06 and in 2004-05 and relegated to the second division with a 17-point penalty for match-fixing.
Juventus’s relegation from the top-flight of Italian football was confirmed on Tuesday but Lazio and Fiorentina were reinstated after a final appeal into the match-fixing scandal that has rocked Serie A. Fiorentina and Lazio were both restored to the top division, having originally been demoted to Serie B for their part in the scandal.
The four Serie A clubs found guilty of match-fixing will learn later on Tuesday whether their appeals for lighter sentences have proved successful. Juventus, AC Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina have all been found guilty by the Italian football federation of committing sporting fraud in the 2004/05 season.