(ANSA) - Rome, May 1 - Rome rocked Tuesday at the 21st
annual Labour Day concert offered free by trade unions in the
city's traditional leftwing stamping ground, Piazza San
Giovanni.
Organisers said that, despite the threat of showers, some
300,000 young people crammed into the iconic square to hear the
likes of Elisa, Subsonica, Stomp, Eugenio Finardi, Noemi,
Afterhours, Almamegretta, Marina Rei, Nina Zilli and many others
including the only band from abroad, Californian outfit Young
the Giant.
(ANSA) - Rome, April 27 - Italians are expected to pay an
extra 2,200 euros in household expenses this year after the
latest hike in electricity fees, consumer groups
Federconsumatori and Adusbef said Friday.
The report looked at "dramatic" rising taxes and costs of
fuel, energy, food, banking and public transportation, which
altogether will cost the average Italian family an extra 2,201
euros in 2012.
(ANSA) - Rome, April 27 - The foreign population in Italy has
almost tripled over the past 10 years, from 1,334,889 to
3,769,518, Istat said in provisional census data Friday.
Foreigners accounted for 6.34% of the overall population as
of last October compared to 2.34% in 2001, the statistics agency
said.
Istat said foreigners had lent a "decisive" contribution to
the overall population rise.
(ANSA) - Bari, April 26 - Immigrants held at a reception
center in the southern Italian town of Bari said on Thursday
that they were treated "worse than animals" by authorities at
the structure.
The center for identification and expulsion, with a
capacity of 119 people, is currently occupied by 196 foreigners
awaiting deportation, the immigrants said.
(ANSA) - Palermo, April 26 - Half of young Italians think the
mafia is stronger than the Italian State, according to a survey
out Thursday.
Asked the question, "who is stronger'", 49.9% answered the
mafia and only 14.27% the State.
Only 23.7% of the respondents said the mafia could be beaten
while 37.19% thought it couldn't.
The sixth annual survey of perceptions of the mafia, by the
Pio La Torre centre in Palermo, gave questionnaires to 1,409
students between the ages of 16 and 18.
(ANSA) - Cagliari, April 26 - A dog in a small town near
Cagliari in Sardinia has made visiting the graveyard part of his
daily ritual after his owner suddenly died of a heart attack in
February, says the newspaper L'Unione Sarda.
As in the film Hachi starring Richard Gere in which a dog
returned daily for 10 years to the train station where his owner
habitually arrived, the honey-colored mixed breed slips in
behind the security guard's mother each day when she opens the
gate and sits by his dead owner's tomb.
(ANSA) - Rome, April 25 - Deaths and accidents in the
workplace dropped in 2011 to an all-time low, the Italian work
accident insurance agency INAIL said Wednesday.
The accident rate was down 6.4%, from 776,000 in 2010 to
726,000 last year.
Deaths were also down, from 973 to 930, a 4.4% drop.
(ANSA) - Roma, April 23 - Italians will be vacationing
closer to home this summer and will be 7-10% fewer than last
year, said the Italian tourism association Trademark on Monday.
An estimated 36 million travellers, slightly less than
2011's summer vacationers, will take shorter holidays and less
than half of those will leave the country.
(ANSA) - Rome, April 13 - Italia police on Friday unmasked a
woman who had falsely been claiming benefits for blindness since
1979 worth some 110,000 euros.
The woman, 71, was arrested after police filmed her going
about her business without assistance.
A rash of similar cases have come to light in the last few
months.
(ANSA) - Rome, April 12 - Costumed centurions got into a
scuffle with police Thursday after officers removed two of the
fake warriors who had scaled the Colosseum in protest against
being banned from working there.
Two men climbed up to the second tier of the 2,000-year-old
structure asking the city to "let us work at the Colosseum, give
us certain rules and let us stay here".
As police carried them away, fellow costumed supporters
intervened to free them, leading to pushing and swinging on both
sides, witnesses said.
(ANSA), Rome, April 11 - The economic crisis gripping Italy
is feeding the businesses of loan sharks in the country's
capital, said Luigi Ciatti from Rome's municipal anti-usury
office.
During the first months of 2012, there were 20% more
requests for legal assistance by those who have turned to
racketeers for loans and now feel that they are in threatening
situations as compared to 2010, said Ciatti.
Those most vulnerable to unauthorized moneylenders are
pensioners, employees with fixed incomes and single parents.
(ANSA) - Rome, October 19 - The photographic archive of
Italian news agency ANSA is an important part of the country's
heritage, President Giorgio Napolitano said on Wednesday.
"ANSA's photographic archive is a unique asset, an asset for
the whole country and we must value it and hold it in high
regard for the history of Italy," Napolitano said.
