Sicily

Covid risk increasing in Sicily and Sardinia

Sicily and Sardinia risk turning from low COVID risk white to moderate risk yellow after the two island regions reported ICU and hospital admissions over the thresholds of 10% and…

Read More Here

Sicily reports spike in Covid-19 admissions

Sicily has passed the critical COVID threshold for both ICU occupancy and general ward admissions, the AGENAS health agency said Wednesday. The ICU occupancy by COVID patients has risen 1%…

Read More Here

Malta: Ferry to Augusta delayed due to legal challenge

The launch of the ferry service to Augusta will be delayed due to last-minute legal challenge. The service, which was scheduled to start on Friday, is facing a last-minute legal…

Read More Here

UPDATED: Firemen fight wildfires in Sicilian town of Catania

Firemen in Italy said on Saturday they were battling for a second straight day wildfires in Sicily that reached the town of Catania, forcing people to leave their homes and…

Read More Here

Photo Story: Wildfires in Sicily

A handout photo made available by Vigili del Fuoco (VVF), the Italian National Fire Brigade, shows VVF members conducting extinguishing operations of a forest fire affecting an area between Piana…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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.…

Read More Here

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

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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,…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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.…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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,…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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…

Read More Here

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,…

Read More Here