United Nations experts warned in Rome on Wednesday of a worsening locust crisis in Mauritania, Mali and Niger as huge swarms of the insects cut a swathe through the West African countries. North-moving swarms are threatening crops and vegetation in Mauritania, where the situation is expected to worsen.
Police in Rome have identified up to 6 000 potential targets of a terrorist attack, which are being kept under close surveillance by security forces, the city’s police chief was quoted as saying on Wednesday, as a terror group’s August 15 deadline neared for Italy to withdraw its troops from Iraq.
Italian police revealed summer holiday plans of British Prime Minister Tony Blair by inadvertently sending a memo on security measures to Italian media outlets, news agency Ansa reported on Tuesday. Blair’s wife and children will from Thursday spend a few vacation days at the estate of Prince Guicciardini Strozzi.
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) warned on Tuesday over the effects of an oil and gas project on the ”critically endangered” western grey whale. The IWC adopted a resolution that ”strongly recommends” that subsidiaries of Exxon, Royal Dutch Shell and BP halt seismic exploration activity.
Japan fails to get secret whaling vote
Pro-whaling Japan narrowly failed on Monday in a bold attempt to ensure that voting at the International Whaling Commission is carried out in secret. Japan said secret balloting would allow small nations to vote without fear of economic or political pressure from foreign governments or anti-whaling organisations.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=118949">Dark clouds on anti-whaling horizon</a>
Pro- and anti-whaling nations began a four-day meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Sorrento, Italy, on Monday amid growing support for an end to an 18-year moratorium on commercial whaling. Japan has welcomed growing support for its call for a return to commercial whaling.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Wednesday his coalition has averted a full-blown government crisis and vowed to remain in power until the next general election. Berlusconi was speaking in the Senate after holding days of emergency talks with his centre-right allies.
Several mortars were fired on Thursday at the Italian embassy in Baghdad, causing some Iraqi deaths, the Foreign Ministry in Rome said. No Italians were hurt in the attack, it said. The attack came hours before the arrival in Italy of United States President George Bush for talks with Premier Silvio Berlusconi.
A 102-year-old Italian woman survived unscathed a fall from the fourth floor of her Turin retirement home, Italian newspapers said on Tuesday. Her fall was broken by a plastic playground house destined for a neighbouring preschool that had been temporarily placed alongside her building by workers.
Islamic extremists had planned a bomb attack on Milan’s main railway station similar to that which rocked Madrid on March 11, Italian media reports said on Thursday. The daily Corriere della Sera newspaper said the attacks were planned between 1997 and 2001.
Pope John Paul II does not consider Mel Gibson’s controversial movie The Passion of the Christ anti-Semitic, Vatican spokesperson Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in an interview published on Thursday. Navarro-Valls said the Vatican would not issue an official statement distancing itself from the biblical epic about Christ’s crucifixion.
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/ 12 February 2004
Italian prosecutors have formally notified 14 officials of eight international and local banks that they are under investigation in the €14,3-billion collapse of the dairy group Parmalat, the daily La Repubblica reported on Tuesday. Formal notification is the first step in a judicial process leading to charges being laid.
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/ 12 January 2004
Former Parmalat chairperson Calisto Tanzi, being investigated for alleged fraud at the food giant, has implicated the head of a leading Italian bank in several acquisitions, a newspaper alleged on Monday. Tanzi had alleged that he paid too much for a company under pressure from Capitalia because he owed the bank money, the report said.
The group atop Parmalat’s collapsed dairy empire went bankrupt on Thursday as investigators pursued revelations that are shaking the Italian establishment. Parmalat meanwhile severed all links with international accountants Grant Thornton, for years the auditors of various group divisions.
The Parmalat scandal deepened on Tuesday with Dutch regulators probing three subsidiaries and an investigator suggesting that the size of the bankrupt food group’s financial black hole was ”without limit”. The scandal now involves litigation in the United States and Italy.
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/ 30 December 2003
Parmalat founder Calisto Tanzi has admitted to fraud of €500-million, press reports alleged on Tuesday as investigators hunted for billions of euros missing from the insolvent giant Italian food company’s accounts. Tanzi was arrested on Saturday after returning to Italy.
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/ 29 December 2003
Italian prosecutors are accusing Calisto Tanzi, the founder of insolvent Italian food giant Parmalat, of stealing €800-million from the company for his own use, Italian press reports alleged on Monday. Tanzi, arrested in Milan in the north of the country on Saturday, was interrogated at length in prison on Sunday.
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/ 11 December 2003
It takes a jet plane to beat Michael Schumacher. An Italian air force fighter jet defeated Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari 2-1 on Thursday in three races down a military airport’s rain-soaked runways, though Schumacher’s Ferrari F2003-GA proved to be a nose faster than the Eurofighter Typhoon in the first race of 600m.
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/ 2 December 2003
Global warming is threatening the livelihood of many low-altitude ski resorts in central Europe, North America and Australia, according to the results of a United Nations study published on Tuesday. Many low-altitude ski resorts around the world will face economic hardship and even ruin as snow falls become unpredictable.
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/ 12 November 2003
At least 16 Italians were killed in a bomb attack on an Italian base in Iraq on Wednesday, the country’s defence minister said. Hospital officials said seven Iraqi civilians also lost their lives. Italian intelligence services blamed supporters of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein for the attack.
European leaders are divided on several issues as they start 10 weeks of final negotiations on Saturday for the European Union’s first constitution, a blueprint meant to ready the bloc for expansion next year. Some countries, including Austria and Finland, have demanded major revisions of the constitution.
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/ 29 September 2003
Several parts of Italy were still without electricity early on Monday well over a day after the worst blackout in the country’s history, as debate raged over who was to blame for the devastating power failure. The cut left 50-million of Italy’s 57-million inhabitants without power.
The use of therapeutic vaccines was the major topic at the Immune Reconstitution and Control of HIV meeting in Italy last week.
Thousands of music fans converged on the Franco-Italian border on Thursday for Teknival 2002, billed as the summer’s largest rave, which is being held in Italy to skirt a French crackdown.