Italy

We spoke to John Dickie, Professor of Italian Studies at University College London and author of a number of books on the mafia.

On the streets of the Sicilian capital Palermo, police officers were clapped and cheered as word spread that the person they were arresting was none other than Matteo Messina Denaro – Italy’s most wanted mafia boss.

In this episode from August 2021, Antonello Guerrera reflects on whether recent sporting triumphs represent redemption for the country.

Antonello Guerrera, a journalist for the Italian newspaper la Repubblica, talks about Italy’s collective Covid trauma.

He starred in ‘Death in Venice’ and was feted worldwide as “the most beautiful boy in the world” at the age of just 15.

The number of cases in Italy continues to rise, especially in the northern Lombardy region which has seen more than 4,000 deaths to date.

Earlier I spoke to Italy’s Ambassador to the UK, Raffaele Trombetta. I started by asking him how things were in his country at this critical moment…

I spoke to Professor Giacomo Grasselli a senior Italian government health official who is coordinating the network of intensive care units in Lombardy.

It’s a lockdown in a European country of a type not seen since times of war.

Italy has almost ten thousand cases, making it the second worst after China

The number of people who have died from coronavirus in Italy has jumped a hundred and thirty three in a single day, taking the death toll there to 366.

Elvis was one of the last migrants to make it to Italy – after his arrival the country’s new populist coalition government decided to block any further migrant ships from docking at its ports.

Italy’s controversial new interior minister has hit back at criticism of his migrants policy by the French government after he refused to allow 629 people on a charity ship to come ashore in Sicily. Matteo Salvini accused France of turning back 10,000 migrants on its border with Italy. The migrant ship Aquarius is now headed…

Giulia Lagana is from a foundation which lobbies the EU on migration rights. She was previously migration adviser to the president of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and served on the UN Committee for Refugees.

Immigration has, of course, played heavily in the politics of Italy for the last few years. Today two parties who’ve campaigned on the issue formed a new coalition government, led by a political novice, with a pledge to move millions of Italians out of poverty.