Sicily

Storm alert issued for Sicily

The Italian Civil Protection is on alert after a storm warning was issued. The bad weather is expected to prevail over Central and Southern Italy including Sicily on Sunday. The…

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Italy reports 13 coronavirus deaths on Saturday, 3,121 new cases

Italy reported 13 coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday against 11 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections rose to 3,121 from 2,898. Italy has…

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PN elects Exco, Giglio, Julie Zahra among new faces / Malta News Briefing – Saturday 17 July 2021

Updated 1722 PN elects exco, Giglio, Julie Zahra among new faces Lawyer Joe Giglio received the highest number of votes in the election for the PN's Executive Committee. He is…

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Franco Battiato dies aged 76

The Italian singer-songwriter, composer and filmmaker Franco Battiato has died in Sicily aged 76. Battiato died at his home in Milo where he retired in 2019. Born in 1945, the…

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Italian fishing boat involved in Libyan shootout docks in Sicily

The Sicilian fishing boats involved earlier this week in a shootout with Libyan patrol boats, injuring the captain of one of the Italian vessels, docked in the Sicilian port of…

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Update – Chinese rocket lands in Indian Ocean

UPDATE - Remnants of China’s biggest rocket landed in the Indian Ocean on Sunday, with most of its components destroyed upon re-entry into the atmosphere, ending days of speculation over where the debris would hit but drawing…

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3.3 Earthquake registered in the province of Catania, Sicily

An earthquake was felt around 1411h (local time) in Sicily. The earthquake was particularly felt in the province of Catania and the villages near Etna volcano. According to preliminary data…

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Fear of severe side effects upsets Sicily’s COVID vaccination plans

Sicily will start offering COVID-19 vaccines to people over 50 to speed up its inoculation programme which is being hampered by a reluctant older population who fear potentially severe side…

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First trip abroad for Italian PM Draghi will be Libya

talian Prime Minister Mario Draghi will visit Libya on Tuesday, according to Italian news agency Nova. The trip will mark the first international travel for Draghi since assuming office last…

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300 parish churches in Sicily become vaccination centres

Covid-19 vaccinations started to be administered in the 300 parishes of Sicily. There are 5,867 citizens, aged 69 to 79, who have booked their vaccination following an initiative based on…

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Scandal hits Sicilian authorities on COVID-19 data rigging allegations

3Sicily's regional health counsellor resigned on Tuesday after being placed under investigation suspected of sending rigged COVID-19 data to national authorities to avoid tough lockdown restrictions for the southern Italian region.…

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Photo Story: Spring in Sicily

A general view of the village of Gangi, Sicily, Italy, on the eve of the first day of spring with sun. Photo: EPA-EFE/GIOVANNI FRANCO

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Flurry of seismic activity around Etna in Sicily

A seismic swarm of at least 16 tremors, with a magnitude between 1.1 and 2.8, was recorded on Etna from 5.34 to 11.34 on Sunday by the National Institute of…

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Italy bans a different AstraZeneca batch following two deaths in Sicily: reports

ROME (Reuters/ANSA) - Italian health authorities have ordered the withdrawal of a batch of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine following the deaths of two men in Sicily who had recently been inoculated,…

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Etna latest eruptions covers nearby villages in ash

People look towards Mount Etna volcano while the date was sketched into the ashes on the central squrae in Zafferana Etnea near Catania, Sicily, Italy. A strong rain of lava…

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Malta’s seismic research centre registers 3.6 magnitude earthquake off Sicily

Malta’s seismic research centre has registered a 3.6 magnitude earthquake which occurred off Sicily on Saturday evening. The earthquake took place at 18.54 GMT. No reports of damages or injuries…

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Updated – 3.2 earthquake strikes northern Sicily

As 3.2 earthquake has been registered in the city of Nicosia close to Enna in Northern Sicily. The earthquake was registered at 1738h local time. The earthquake was registered by…

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4.4 tremor strikes off Sicily, felt in Malta – Update

A 4.4 earthquake was registered in southern Sicily late Tuesday evening. The epicenter was in the sea in front of the Ragusano coast, in Marina di Acate, at a depth…

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Pope decrees Italian judge murdered by Mafia can be beatified

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis decreed on Tuesday that Italian judge Rosario Livatino, who was killed by the Mafia in Sicily in 1990, was a martyr for the faith…

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Elderly people mocked and mistreated in Catania nursing home

Italian police are investigating a serious case of mistreatment of elderly residing in the Villa San Camillo retirement home in Aci Sant'Antonio. According to preliminary investigations, the persons were left…

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Series of earth tremors rock Enna in Sicily

A series of earth tremors were recorded in Sicily, in the province of Enna according to the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (Ingv) between Saturday night and Sunday…

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Fake death insurance fraud leads to six arrests in Palermo

Italian police on Wednesday arrested six people in Palermo on charges of filing bogus life insurance claims after falsifying documents to show that claimants were dead, when they were not.…

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Italian coast-guard official dies while saving two boys at sea in Milazzo, Sicily

The lifeless body of Aurelio Visalli, 40, an officer of the Port Authority of Milazzo, who drowned after saving two young men, was found at sea by his colleagues on…

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Big wedding in Sicily fuels coronavirus spread

The Sicilian town of Corleone has ordered schools closed and a limited lockdown after a spate of coronavirus infections were tied to a big wedding there last week. The city…

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Viviana Parisi and Gioele case confirmed as a murder-suicide by scientific police

Viviana Parisi killed her four-year-old son Gioele and after climbing an electricity pylon, threw herself into the void, from a height of 15 meters. The Italian scientific police section has…

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Viviana neither killed her self nor my son – Husband

The husband of a 43-year-old DJ found dead near Messina after a car crash with her four-year-old son said Friday she had not killed herself or the boy. This was…

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Italian woman who returned to Palermo from Malta with Covid-19 in serious condition

The coronavirus pandemic in Malta continues to dominate the Italian headlines as Italian media reported that a woman who returned to Palermo from Malta is in serious condition in intensive…

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Search for missing 4-yr-old son of dead woman continues in Sicily

Rescue workers on Wednesday were continuing for the ninth consecutive day a huge search for the missing four-year-old son of a woman who was found dead in countryside in Sicily…

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Mystery on death of a mother and disappearance of son in Sicily

The searches of Gioele, 4 years old, the son of Viviana Parisi, 43 years old, the DJ found dead in Caronia, who according to investigators was with her in the…

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Sicily confirmed as new the starting point for Giro D’ Italia

Sicily has been confirmed as the replacement start for this year’s Giro d’Italia, after initial plans to begin the race in Hungary were scrapped due to the coronavirus pandemic. Hungary’s capital…

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Two die as heavy thunderstorms hit Palermo, Sicily

The Sicilian island was hit with heavy thunderstorms. The most dramatic situation occurred in Palermo where a flood hit the city on the day of the feast of Santa Rosalia,…

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180 migrants onboard Ocean Viking aid ship will disembark in Sicily

The 180 migrants on the Ocean Viking aid ship will arrive in Porto Empedocle on Monday, where they will be transferred onto another ship, the Moby Zaza, and placed in…

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Mt Etna viewing from Malta

Sicily remains one of the favourite attractions for Maltese going abroad. While waiting for the opening up of borders, Mount Etna seemed to miss the Maltese seeing it and as…

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Sicily had no new coronavirus cases in past 24 hours

Italy recorded 119 new deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic on Saturday against 130 the day before, the Civil Protection Agency said, while the daily tally of new cases rose marginally to…

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The heart that rose from the ashes over Mt Etna

An ash heart rises from Etna, as a sign of encouragement for this beginning of phase 2. A very suggestive image of the Sicilian volcano that was captured by Davide…

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Sicily to subsidise holidays for both domestic and international tourists

The Guardian reports that Sicily’s regional government is offering to subsidise holidays on the island for both domestic and international visitors in an effort to kickstart tourism after the coronavirus…

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Huge arms cache seized in Catania

Italian police on Friday uncovered an arsenal of weapons in two underground water tanks near the seafront in the Sicilian coastal city of Catania. The arsenal included rifles, pistols, a…

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China shows interest in the port of Catania in Sicily

A delegation of Chinese investors has recently visited the Sicilian port of Catania to discuss the possibility of the port developing intermodal capacities for Chinese cargo. ANSA reports that the…

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Medical cannabis to be given for free to specific types of patients Sicily

Sicilian Health Chief Ruggero Razza has signed a decree which states that the regional government will pay for medical-cannabis products for certain types of patients. These are people affected by…

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Unprecedented Italian police anti-mafia operation in Messina

Italian security forces on Wednesday arrested 94 people in the largest ever operation against the mafia clans in and around the Sicilian city of Messina. Over 600 police fanned out…

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Minor earthquake in the Catania

An earthquake of magnitude 3.1 was recorded at 3:24 in Sicily, west of Catania. According to the findings of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), the earthquake had…

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5 dead in fireworks factory blast in Sicily, photos from scene of explosion

Five people have been killed in the blast in the Messina region of Sicily on Wednesday evening. Police said workers at the family-run firework factory may have accidentally set off…

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Sicily on storms red alert

The Italian civil protection department put eastern Sicily on red alert on Friday due violent storms that caused some rail services to be suspended. Italy has been hit by a…

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Autumn in Malta from above and beyond

Astronaut Luca Parmitano experience at the ISS is well visually documented through regular posts on social media. Today's image represents his home island Sicily in what he calls an autumn…

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Etna eruptions cause partial air-space closure

Fresh eruptions on the Etna caused big clouds of volcanic ash on Friday, prompting the authority in charge of Catania airport to close a section of Sicily's air space. As…

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Photo Story: Malta and Sicily from space

A photo taken from from the International Space Station (ISS) of Malta and Sicily by Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano and that he posted on his Facebook page. The Sicilian astronaut…

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Watch: Etna erupts again

Mount Etna has erupted again on Saturday. The phenomenon was preceded and accompanied by a gradual increase in the average amplitude of the volcanic tremor. An intense explosive phase has…

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UPDATED: Etna activity closes Catania airspace in Sicily

UPDATED: Activity at Catania airport resumed on Saturday morning after the eruption from the Etna volcano subsided and the ash in the area above cleared. Earlier, increased activity of…

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27 years since the murder of Paolo Borsellino

On July 19th, Italy marks the 27th anniversary of the murder of one its most prominent anti-mafia heroes, Sicilian magistrate Paolo Borsellino, who was killed along with five members of…

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Sicily suffers from eurozone’s highest rate of youth economic inactivity

The Financial Times gives a detailed look at youth unemployment in Italy with emphasis to the situation in Sicily. One in four Italians aged 15 to 34 is not in…

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Italy: Former Anti-Mafia champion jailed for corruption

A former anti-mafia champion, Antonello Montante, was sentenced to 14 years in jail on Friday for a string of offences including corruption, according to Italian media reports. Montante, who has…

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A new version of Fanta launched in Italy with Sicilian blood oranges

A new version of Fanta was launched in Italy, Fanta Aranciata Rossa Zero Zuccheri with “ Arancia Rossa di Sicilia IGP”, an soft drink with juice of Sicilian blood oranges,…

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3.3 magnitude earthquake felt between Catania and Syracuse

A 3.3 magnitude earthquake was felt on the Ionian coast of Sicily, specifically between Catania and Syracuse. The tremor was distinctly felt by the population of Carlentini, Lentini, Augusta, Giarre…

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Kidnapping charges in SeaWatch standoff

Rome prosecutors have come to the conclusion that there are elements to proceed with kidnapping charges in the case of the SeaWatch 3 migrant rescue ship The ship had…

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27 arrest warrants in probe into secret Masonic lodge in Sicily

Italian security forces on Thursday staged an operation to execute 27 arrest warrants related to a probe into a secret Masonic lodge in the Sicilian town of Castelvetrano. Among the…

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Works on Gas Pipeline connecting Malta to Sicily expected to start in 2021

The Sicilian Region and the Government of Malta are held a meeting in relation to the construction of the submarine gas pipeline that will connect the two islands of the…

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3.3 Earthquake registered in Northern Sicily

An earthquake of magnitude 3.3 was recorded at 4:52 am in the Nebrodi mountains and Madonie, in northern Sicily. According to the surveys of the National Institute of Geophysics and…

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