A nativity scene featuring a dark-skinned Jesus, Mary and Joseph that has gone on display in a Verona courthouse has created heated debate in a city with strong links to Italy’s anti-immigration Northern League party. The nativity’s appearance coincides with the League’s controversial “White Christmas” operation, a two-month sweep ending on 25 December to ferret out foreigners... 

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was punched in the face at the end of a rally on Sunday by a man holding a small statue in his hand, leaving the 73-year-old media mogul with a bloodied mouth and looking stunned, police said. The 42-year-old man accused of attacking Berlusconi in Milan as he signed autographs was immediately taken into custody. TV showed the leader with blood under his nose, on... 

150 Gypsies, almost all of them Romanian citizens occupied on November 21 a church in Milan, Italy after they have been evacuated from a nomadic camp. In the morning of November 19 almost 200 gypsies have been evacuated from a building that they have illegally occupied in Rubattino from Milan. Amnesty International has opposed the evacuation of the nomadic camp by sending a petition to Milan’s... 

Italian feminist and former far right-wing MP Daniela Santanche has sparked a controversy after calling the Prophet Mohammed a “a polygamist and paedophile” during a TV debate. Santanche appeared on a television programme aired on the commercial channel, Canale 5 with the president of Milan’s Islamic centre, Ali Abu Schwaima, on Sunday. “Mohammed was a polygamist and a paedophile... 

On Facebook, the group ‘Let’s invade Zingonia and kill them all’ has gathered 700 members. Volunteer teacher Miriam talks about how spiralling anti-immigrant rhetoric is making life difficult for Italy’s new arrivals. ‘What’s Zingonia?’ Miriam Franchina lives five kilometres from Italy’s most notorious ghetto, and it’s not a question she’s asked too often. ‘It’s a place forgotten... 

Do they have a fourth of July in Italy? That’s not a trick question. This July 4th, Italians plan to gather in Vicenza to take nonviolent action aimed at freeing Italy from U.S. occupation and opposing the proposed construction of an enormous new U.S. military base in a town already swarming with U.S. troops stationed at existing bases. For years now, a major campaign organized by local residents... 

The conservative/anti-immigration People of Freedom party 29 seats, while it’s coalition ally the far-right secessionist League of the North took 8. The centrist UDC took 5 seats. A group of leftists parties had joined forces to create the new Italian Democrtic Party. This party hoped to ride the wave of world-wide media vilification of the Italian People of Freedom. Despite a months long international...