The Pope wears fur

Is that real fur Your Holiness?

Pope Benedict XVI will be hoping for a peaceful 80th birthday (16 April), and most importantly one without any lavish fur gifts. The head of the Catholic Church was under the spotlight of Italy’s Anti-Vivisection League over the weekend for wearing fur. The Vatican has not yet responded to requests for a ban based on ethical and religious grounds, the animal rights group said.

 

Cesare Battisti nabbed by the cops

The arrest of Cesare Battisti in Brazil yesterday added another twist to a story that would strain credulity if contained within one of the thriller writer’s own books. Battisti was certainly involved in the ‘years of lead’ - the internicine and complex terrorist fighting of the 1970s. Think Red Brigades, or in Battisti’s case, the PAC (Armed Proletarians for Communism). There’s an interesting wrap of stories on The Guardian’s site.

 

Italian politicians seek to campaign in cyberspace

Italians seeking respite in cyberspace from the surreal world of Italian politics are fighting plans by a minister to build a campaign headquarters in the virtual reality community Second Life.

 

So why is Italy slipping behind?

Italy is slowly, inexorably slipping behind its neighbours. Its economy has been underperforming the EU since the mid-1990s. It has become less competitive than Tunisia. And, in two to four years, Italians are expected to be overtaken by the Spanish in terms of GDP per head. If you do not attach much importance to economic growth, you can consult almost any other measure of progress, from the use of alternative energy to the rate of female employment. Italy will almost certainly be found near the bottom of a table of comparable nations. According to Transparency International, only Greece registers a higher level of perceived corruption among the states of the “old” 15-member EU.

 

Italy in turmoil as Prodi resigns

If as London’s Daily Telegraph reports, Italy is in turmoil, then arguably it has been for the last half century. A political system based on proportional representation has given rise to an increasingly fragmented and polarised party system, and fragile coalitions where factions as much as fully fledged parties can bring down governments. Decades of Italian politics have seen governments come and go in months, while nothing much changes and nothing gets done. Romano Prodi’s attempt to push through unpopular though necessary structural and economic reforms has given his enemies on the right (though within his coalition) the opening they needed.

For more see Martin Kettle in London’s Guardian, and there’s some excellent background on Italian politics from The Economist.