March 11th, 2010
Tens of thousands of protesters gathered Saturday in Rome to express their exasperation with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is on trial on corruption charges and who was politically bruised this year by scandals involving younger women. Many of those who gathered after a call on Facebook to demonstrate expressed indignation ...Read more »
March 10th, 2010
Italy will be holding regional elections on March 28, so you’d think that, like in other Western democracies, political journalists would be at their busiest and the TV schedules dominated by debates on the most pertinent issues of the elections. Well, no. Quite the opposite. The government has pushed through rules which ...Read more »
March 9th, 2010
The Italian government’s approval rating slumped by four percentage points ahead of this month’s regional elections due to chaos surrounding the registration of its candidates in two key regions, a poll showed yesterday. The survey by pollsters Ispo conducted on March 3-4, published in Corriere della Sera newspaper, showed the government’s ...Read more »
March 8th, 2010
Italy began testing airport body scanners on Thursday in a move to enhance security measures following the failed Christmas Day bomb attack on a U.S. flight. Government officials inaugurated the first scanners at Rome's Fiumicino international airport, reassuring passengers and citizens that the devices were both safe and convenient, state television ...Read more »
March 5th, 2010
Italy managed to acquire EUR9.1 billion from tax avoiders last year, a 32% increase from the ERU6.9 billion raised in 2008, a top revenue official said Tuesday. The improved performance reflected a 17% increase in tax receipts following formal audits, and a 72% increase in direct deposits from those with tax ...Read more »
March 4th, 2010
Italians are increasingly critical of the government's handling of the country's economic problems but the ruling coalition retains its poll lead before this month's regional elections, according to a survey on Mar. 2. The Ipsos poll published in Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper showed the percentage of Italians who approved of ...Read more »
March 3rd, 2010
Italy’s inflation rate rose in February for a seventh consecutive month, Rome-based statistics institute Istat said. Consumer prices based on European Union measurements gained 1.1 percent from a year earlier and were unchanged from the previous month, Istat said in a preliminary report today. Based on Italian methodology, prices rose 0.1 percent ...Read more »
March 2nd, 2010
Italy’s unemployment rate rose in January for the eighth straight month as job losses kept mounting after the $2.3 trillion economy contracted in the fourth quarter. Unemployment climbed to a seasonally adjusted 8.6 percent from 8.5 percent in December, Italy’s statistics office Istat said today. The rate matched the median forecast ...Read more »
March 1st, 2010
Rentalo.com, a leading lodging and vacation rental web site, recently conducted a trend analysis on its database of 7,853 opted-in travelers searching for hotels, bed and breakfasts, and vacation rentals in Italy’s top vacation spots from July 2008 to January 2010. The lodging directory is making these findings available to ...Read more »
February 26th, 2010
As Europe comes to grips with its debt problems, investors are taking a closer look at Italy’s situation and they don’t seem too pleased. It’s led to jittery investors selling off Italy’s exchange traded fund (ETF), lest they get caught in the maelstrom. After the brouhaha with Greece’s rather large deficit ...Read more »
