Italy

ROME, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Sunday that she may water down plans to make it easier to settle small payments with cash rather than cards, following talks with the European Commission over the issue.

Meloni's right-wing government has presented a 2023 budget that scraps fines for retailers who refuse cards for payments under 60 euros ($63.23), in a move seen as going against the spirit of commitments taken with the EU.

02 Dec 2022; MEMO: Migrant deaths in the Mediterranean are "unacceptable and almost always avoidable," Pope Francis said on Friday, renewing a call for policymakers across the region to address the issue in a manner "beneficial to all", Reuters reports.

The 85-year-old Pontiff, son of Italian immigrants to Argentina, often speaks up for the rights of migrants, and has repeatedly denounced how the Mediterranean has turned into a "vast cemetery".

MILAN (AP) — Search teams pulled the body of a young girl from her family home on Sunday as they dug through mud for a second day in the search for people still missing after an enormous landslide on the Italian resort island of Ischia.

The Naples prefect confirmed that the death toll in the tragedy had risen to two, following also the recovery of the body of a 31-year-old woman from the island on Saturday.

A further 10 people remained missing in the port town of Casamicciola, feared buried under mud and debris.

MILAN (AP) — Rescuers dug through mud for a second day Sunday in the search for people lost in an enormous landslide on the Italian resort island of Ischia.

One body was recovered on Saturday and about a dozen people, including children, were reported missing in the port town of Casamicciola, feared buried under mud and debris that firefighters said was six meters (20 feet) deep in some places. Small bulldozers were being used to clear debris, and Italian media said digging was continuing by hand in some places and that teams of divers had been brought in.

ROME, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- Under the motto "Blue is the new Black," a two-day event of The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) took place in the lagoon city of Venice in Italy on Friday and Saturday, aimed at promoting oceans protection and responsible shopping behaviors.

The "Blue Friday" initiative was launched by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO to raise awareness on the protection of seas and oceans exactly during the "Black Friday" weekend, and to provide an alternative to it.

MILAN (AP) — Heavy rainfall triggered landslides early Saturday on the southern Italian island of Ischia that collapsed buildings and left as many as 12 people missing.

Italy’s interior minister said no deaths had yet been confirmed, appearing to contradict an early announcement by another senior politician.

“At the moment there are no confirmed deaths,” said Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, speaking from the firefighters emergency coordination center.

ROME, Nov 20 (Reuters) - The United Nations' Security Council needs to take "significant measures" in response to the latest intercontinental ballistic missile launch by North Korea, foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) major industrialised nations said on Sunday.

The Security Council is set to discuss North Korea in a meeting on Monday at the request of the United States, following the latest in a series of missile test launches this year.

ROME, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Italy believes it does not make much difference if the missile that caused a deadly explosion in Poland was not Russian, because Moscow is still to blame for attacking infrastructure in Ukraine, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Wednesday.

Talking to reporters at the G20 summit in Bali, Meloni said she spoke to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

"The possibility that the missile falling on Poland was not a Russian missile but a Ukrainian one changes very little," she said.

ROME (AP) — A European humanitarian group said Wednesday its migrant rescue ship was heading toward the French island of Corsica in hopes that France will offer its 234 passengers a safe port, after Italy backed down and allowed migrants from three other rescue ships to disembark on Italian soil.

France still had not publicly offered the Ocean Viking a safe port, but spokesman Francesco Creazzo of the SOS Mediterranee group said the Norwegian-flagged ship was hoping it would eventually do so, and the mayor of Marseille said the port city would gladly take them in.

ROME, November 7. /TASS/: The US and NATO think that launching peace talks on Ukraine would be possible if Kiev takes back Kherson with the battle for it having both strategic and diplomatic significance, La Repubblica wrote on Monday.

According to the paper, Washington is in constant contact with Brussels and its allies on this issue as well as instilling this idea into the mind of the Kiev regime.