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CHINA VIEW. Italian Senate Speaker Renato Schifani on Thursday called for action to wipe out sexual discrimination, as a new report shows Italian women hold far fewer key decision-making posts than their European sisters. Speaking ahead of International Women's Day, Schifani said the festival should not just be a "ritual celebration," but should also give pause for thought. "We should look at how much still remains to be done to ensure not just formal equality -- recognized with great foresight by the drafters of the Italian constitution in Article 3, which places sexual equality as first among all the fundamental equalities -- but also concrete and effective equality," the speaker said. (Read the Article)
MONSTERS AND CRITICS. Long a pet project of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian government revived Friday a plan to build the world's largest suspension bridge linking Sicily to Italy's mainland. The cabinet meeting in Rome approved a 17.8-billion-euro (22.4 billion dollar) public works programme including new rail links, motorways and tunnels. Some 1.3 billion euros have been earmarked for the bridge project which is estimated to be worth a total of 6.1 billion euros. (Read the Article)
AHN. Rome's couturiers are cash-strapped and the Italian government just might save them. Italy is planning a financial bailout for the struggling fashion industry. The Italian clothing industry began looking for a government bailout amidst a financial crisis where even the super-rich have cut back on their haute fashion. Now, the Italian minister of economic development Claudio Scajola says help is on the way. (Read the Article by Anthony Jones)
ROME. A concert being held in the Italian capital, Rome, on Saturday ahead of International Women's Day has sold out, according to its organisers. Italy's Moroccan Women's Association sold over 1,000 tickets for the 'Thousand and One Women' concert in just two days (Read the article)
ANSA. Chiara Zurzolo, an associate professor in applied biology at Naples University, gained the front cover of the journal Nature Cell Biology thanks to her discovery. She has made an advance in the study of human mad cow disease, finding out how the disease-causing agent called a prion finds its way from the stomach to the human brain. (Read the article)
TheatherMania. Laughter masks a wealth of pain in Frank Ingrasciotta's tonally unbalanced one-man show Blood Type: RAGU, now playing at the Actors Playhouse, in which he takes audiences on a whirlwind tour of his troubled life with Italian immigrant parents in Brooklyn in the 1960s and 1970s. (Read the article by Andy Propst)
ASSOCIATED PRESS. Italian director Salvatore Samperi, best known for erotic comedies that challenged the morals of Italy's middle class, has died at age 64, his family said Thursday. Samperi died Wednesday, said his brother Jadran Samperi, declining to give the cause of the death. The director died in his house on Lake Bracciano, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Rome, according to the ANSA news agency. Among his most succesful movies, "Grazie, Zia" (Thank you, Aunt) and "Malizia" (Malice). (Read the Article)
REUTERS. Libyan coastguards rescued 300 migrants, including many women and children, when the rickety boat carrying them to Italy broke down off the coastal town of Tajura, near Tripoli, the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday. Libya, a popular departure point for African migrants trying to reach Europe, signed a new accord with Italy last month to strengthen their efforts to stem the flow of illegal migration to southern Europe (Read the Article by Lamine Ghamni)
ASSOCIATED PRESS. Vatican Radio said Wednesday that a 1943 document found in a Rome convent bolsters church contentions that Pope Pius XII tried to save Jews from Nazis in World War II. Vatican Radio reported the discovery of a note, kept in a cloistered monastery near the Colosseum, which lists the names of 24 people who were taken in by the nuns "in accordance with Pius' desire." (Read the Article)
NEW YORK TIMES. Children in Englewood’s Reggio Emilia-based prekindergarten use art studio as a laboratory to investigate ideas together with their teachers. The approach encourages children to explore and test new ideas that are expressed through different vocabularies, including language (both oral and written), clay, paint, dance, wood and music. Reggio Emilia teachers use observation and conversation with children to develop and deepen curriculum. (Read the Article)