Italy’s new Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the highly respected former head of the European Central Bank, is tasked with fixing festering systemic failures.
Author: Alessio Perrone
Alessio Perrone is a freelance journalist based in Milan, Italy.
Vaccines are slowly arriving, but many of the shifts COVID has created will be lasting. These reverberations are much deeper than just working from home or increased digitization — society’s priorities have evolved. Thanks to the pandemic, people all over the world are completely rewiring their lives. They’re leaving once-vibrant cultural metropolises for serene greenery […]
Italy, as everyone knows, is the place for pasta. And so it goes without saying that visitors to the country often head home with a package or two in their duffels or suitcases. The woman in this story was no exception, in that regard. And yet, there was something about her that must have puzzled […]
Of Italy’s 58 prime ministers since World War II, you probably don’t remember the name Lamberto Dini. He took office on Jan. 13, 1995, several months after uncertain general election results, as the country grappled with an ongoing corruption scandal and billionaire businessman Silvio Berlusconi“s recent entry into politics. The Italian establishment had turned to […]
ROME — The story began grimly, with an all too familiar ring: another Italian grandmother had tested positive for COVID-19. At the age of 98, Nonna Maria was at particularly high risk in one of countries hit hardest by the pandemic — and though she had only developed light symptoms, doctors told her to remain […]
The basic precepts of democracy, recently on the line in Washington, have long been discarded by Europe Union member country Hungary. But is anyone pure on such questions these days?
MILAN — The first day of Joe Biden’s presidency bore clear traces of some of the recent wounds inflicted on the United States. After being sworn in, Biden arrived at the White House protected by thousands of troops and barricades just two weeks since deadly violence engulfed the Capitol. Thousands of flags stood in for […]
At 6 p.m. local time Wednesday in Rome, while much of the world was transfixed on Washington, D.C., Italian reporters were huddled in a vast room of the nation’s Parliament to witness another political crisis unfolding. Former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced that his minor party would pull out of the government, plunging Italian […]
Social media platforms like Facebook have turned new attention to the Italian region’s long tradition of Catholic-themed mysteries and miracles.
Essential? That’s what Italy has labeled healthcare workers, but, like many of their peers around the world, they are receiving subordinate treatment, low wages and no protection from state or employers.
Over the past decade, as Italy has become one of Europe’s prime destinations for immigrants, stereotypes spread about those arriving from foreign lands. It’s a story that has come full circle.
PARIS — A threshold has been crossed this week as the first vaccinations have been administered, in the UK and Russia, with announcements of others to follow in additional countries in the coming days and weeks. It all sets the stage for the biggest vaccination campaign in world history. But even if the obvious logistical […]
Britain’s race to be the first deploy the vaccine may be an attempt to whitewash their initial disastrous handling of this pandemic — not to mention the debacle of leaving the European Union.
The COVID-19 pandemic has reached every corner of the planet, and we remember those we lost from more than 20 different countries.
Brazilian local elections can be fun to watch. Candidates come from every walk of life, and are notably allowed to use nicknames on the campaign trail — and there have been some true gems over the years: a loud man with thick sideburns and bushy hair campaigned as “Geraldo Wolverine”; an elderly man in army […]
PARIS — It was touted last spring as the silver lining of the coronavirus crisis: the lockdowns and travel bans might wind up being a boon for the environment. Air pollution numbers were down, urban birds could be heard chirping and photos circulated of blue skies above some of the typically smoggiest cities in the […]
The COVID-19 economic crisis has pushed the top Italian club to ask for tax payments to be deferred. It needs to pay coach Antonio Conte’s salary of 1 million euros … per month!
-Analysis- MILAN — Now that Pfizer and Moderna appear to have viable COVID-19 vaccines, a range of legitimate questions are being posed — cost, supply, logistics — in order to carry out what we hope would become the fastest and widest vaccination effort in history. But three days ago on Facebook, Italian Parliament member and […]
Authorities in Belgium say that regardless of how Brexit negotiations unfold, fishers from Bruges have ‘royal privilege’ to continue operating in British waters.
La Stampa Editor-in-Chief Massimo Giannini spent a week in ICU with severe effects of COVID-19. Still in quarantine, he’s back following the news — and less than impressed.
Most Tunisian men in the Sicilian port town of Mazara del Vallo work in the fishing industry. But while they’re out at sea, their wives stay home, where the rules of tradition leave little room for integration.
In the midst of America’s election limbo, our Milan-based writer looks back on the first U.S. campaign he followed — from up close — and wonders what comes next.
It’s said to be cultural differences, but what separates the success of countries in East Asian and Oceania is above all a question of policy choices.
For a Milanese writer, this is how his family lunch looks right now.
Rafaela Dutra was working in Rio de Janeiro’s tourism industry and studying to become a nurse when the coronavirus arrived. A resident of the sprawling low-income favelas in the city’s Zona Norte, she had worked in one of Copacabana’s shiny, high-rise hotels, earning up to twice the region’s minimum monthly wage of 1,200 reais ($220). […]
Italy was hit particularly hard and early by the first wave when northern region of Lombardy became the first epicenter of the virus in the West. Now all eyes are on the less developed, more vulnerable southern regions.
The European Court of Justice has squashed the law that forced George Soros and his Central European University (CEU) to leave Budapest. It brought up ghosts from near and distant pasts.
Every U.S. election carries consequences beyond America’s borders. But Nov. 3 stands out for multiple reasons: a lethal pandemic has killed more than one million people across the world, once thriving economies are in tatters, U.S. isolationism has created an international power vacuum that is allowing right-wing autocrats to thrive across continents. And then, there’s […]
“Zeitgeist,” “Kindergarten,” “Wanderlust” have long since made it into international speak. Since we found out that U.S. President Donald Trump was infected with coronavirus, another popular German word has been spreading.
Categories
Systemic Racism, Italian Style
Simply condemning the recent racist violence in Italy falls short in confronting a colonial past and an ‘unconscious’ racism that permeates European countries like Italy.
The news that Donald Trump has been infected with COVID-19 echoed around the world, making front pages and prompting a gush of wishes from leaders in all continents — and snark from many corners. In the night between Oct. 1 and 2, U.S. Eastern Time, the U.S. president confirmed on Twitter that he and his […]
Ahead of the Nov. 3 election, this is an October Surprise that has four full weeks to play out.
Italian populist party leader Matteo Salvini’s disappointing results in regional elections is being blamed on his erratic handling of the health crisis in one of the worst-hit countries.
An indigenous tribe in Brazil’s Amazon region has seen plenty of coronavirus cases, but zero deaths.
Our Italian columnist has a chuckle at those wagging their social media fingers at the new movie that pokes fun at quarantine life.
In southern France, a family asked the local elementary school to call their child a new name.
A recent speech by former ECB chief Mario Draghi hit close to home in his native country.
Testimony from Afghan and Somali migrants, as well as locals on Greek island of Lesbos, where Europe’s largest migrant camp has burned to the ground, leaving 13,000 migrants without shelter.
TURIN — Two months from election day, we can leave no doubt: Donald Trump is taking the Republican Party for a ride toward the Apocalypse. The Republic convention was a frantic exercise in stoking of fear, violence and social unrest in the U.S. — a country already burning, scared, angry and almost never so divided. […]
MILAN — I recently spent a weekend at the Lago d’Iseo, a picturesque area of Lombardy at the foot of the Alps east of Milan, the city where I live. The air was hot and still, resting damp and heavy like a warm towel placed over your face. Dark clouds loomed all day across the […]