LuminosityItalia

Hundreds of thousands of visitors from across the globe arrived Milan last week for the biggest event on the international design calendar, the 56th edition of the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, otherwise known as the Milan furniture fair. Some 343,602 participants from 165 countries attended the six-day event, a 10 percent increase over the previous two editions. Read the rest of the story at our   English-language news portal for Ital y.

Italian Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan, Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano and Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala are headed to a roadshow in London to further promote Milan as a business hub in post-Brexit Europe. In their sights is the headquarters for the European Medicines Agency that will be forced to quit London. Milan is also bidding to become home to the European Bank Authority, the regulator of the EU’s banking system. The effort is part a scramble across the continent to grab large business and administration operations that will no longer have unfettered access from London. Read the rest of the story at our  English-language news portal for Ital y.

With marches underway to support anti-mafia efforts across Italy, police captured a notorious boss in the deadly ’Ndrangheta crime organization wanted for nearly 10 years for his part in a massacre in Germany. Santo Vottari was found hiding in a bunker-like addition to a home in Reggio Calabria, a city on the toe of Italy’s boot across the water from Sicily. The 44-year-old was long sought by authorities after he was found guilty in absentia by an Italian court in 2009 for his part in mafia feud that triggered a shootout in Duisburg, Germany that left six dead. Read the rest of the story at our   English-language news portal for Italy .

Using data from the United Nations, the World Bank and the World Health Organization, the latest annual study by Bloomberg News ranks Italy as the healthiest country on earth. The 2017 Bloomberg Global Health Index of 163 countries said Italy supplanted last year’s top ranked-country Singapore for the No 1 spot as the Asian nation fell to No. 4. Rounding out the top five were Iceland (2), Switzerland (3) and Australia (5). Read the rest of the story at our   English-language news portal for Italy .

On the Piazza Vittoria, one of the premier addresses in Naples for men’s fashion, the historic E. Marinella boutique continues to display the classic elegance born from its pedigree stretching back to 1914. Maurizio Marinella, the third generation of family entrepreneurs, spent a great deal of time in the shop as a boy when it was only a cramped 20 square meters. The same locale is now the E. Marinella maison internationally renowned for its iconic neckties. Today the family business also has boutiques in Milan, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong. Read the rest of the story at our   English-language news portal for Italy .

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Feb. 27 that the intelligence services were working well to counter the threat of terrorism, adding that freedoms will not be sacrificed for security. “You don't respond to a threat by closing up, but by accepting the challenge,” said Gentiloni as he presented the nation’s annual intelligence report. Read the rest of the story at our   English-language news portal for Italy .

Italian wine exports to the United States hit an all-time high of €1.8 billion last year led by a 28.5 percent surge in Prosecco sparkling wines, according to industry analysis company Nomisma Wine Monitor based in Bologna. But without the wildly popular champagne-like vintages, Italian wine imports into America would have grown just 1 percent. “Imports in the main world markets continue to be driven by sparkling wines,” said Denis Pantini, head of Nomisma. Read the rest of the story at our   English-language news portal for Italy .

The world’s oldest nun celebrated her 110th birthday on Feb. 20 with members of her order, the local TV station, a birthday cake and a message from Pope Francis. Born in 1907 to a humble family in Verona as the third of 10 daughters, Sister Candida Bellotti has actually lived through 10 popes including Francis, who she met in 2014 in Rome. Read the rest of the story at our   English-language news portal for Italy .

Italy’s trade surplus hit a record 51.6 billion euros in 2016, according to figures from the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) released on Feb. 16, the highest since it started tracking the figure in 1991, rising from a surplus of 41.8 billion in 2015. If energy imports are excluded, the trade surplus was 78 billion last year, driven by exports to other EU countries, which rose 3 percent. The value of imports into Italy in 2016 fell 1.4 percent from the year previous, ISTAT said. Read the rest of the story at our   English-language news portal for Italy .

The U.S. has not made a formal request for President Donald Trump to have an audience with Pope Francis when he travels to Taormina, Sicily for a G7 summit in May, but widespread reports say back-channel efforts are underway. Trump is reportedly keen to meet with the Pope, but he could have bridges rather than walls to build beforehand. Read the rest of the story at our   English-language news portal for Italy .

Ferrari has shown that status, style and superlative design can power through even stiff economic headwinds. As it approaches its 70th anniversary, the iconic brand announced record profits just a year after it was spun off from Fiat Chrysler. Ferrari posted net profit of 400 million euros in 2016, a 38 percent increase over 2015, on revenues of 3.1 billion euros. It delivered 8,014 cars last year, its most ever. By year’s end, stockholders were no doubt also thrilled with Ferrari’s acceleration. After a share price of €43 at its initial public offering to form the new Ferrari N.V., which is incorporated in the Netherlands, the stock fell 32 percent before rising back to hit €55 a share by year’s end, a 27 percent increase since its launch. Since its low point in late January 2016, the new stock almost doubled in a calendar year, according to the English-language website of Italy’s respected Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper. Read the rest of the story at our   English-language news portal

It isn’t just America struggling with the spread of fake news, or in the most recent parlance, “alternative facts”. On Feb. 2 Italian newspaper publishers called for government help in stopping the spread of fake news following a meeting at the Rome headquarters of their federation. “The government should promote consultation among all professionals in the news and online content production and distribution chain to define a series of guidelines aimed at curbing fake news and placing value on quality information,” Ruben Razzante, a professor of information and communication law at Catholic University of Milan, told the conference. Read the rest of the story at our   English-language news portal for Italy .

Surrounded by some of Europe’s most breathtaking scenery in the Italian Dolomites, and steeped in history and tradition, the Hotel Tyrol in the picture postcard village of Selva di Val Gardena impresses even the most discerning couples.  The sublime, monumental landscapes of the Italian Dolomites have long attracted hosts of travelers. Formed almost 225 million years ago, they are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site due to their intrinsic beauty: a variety of spectacular pinnacles, spires and towers with contrasting ledges, crags and plateaus. Read the rest of the story at our   English-language news portal for Italy .

Italian state police have arrested 18 people for running an immigrant smuggling ring that trafficked refuges into France with the goal of reaching northern Europe. “A squad in Cremona took two years to uncover an organization for human trafficking that operated internationally,” said a statement from the Polizia di Stato. Police said they “found a large and branched criminal association that for payment facilitated the entry of non-EU citizens from Syria, Egypt, Eritrea and Sudan”. Read the rest of the story at our   English-language news portal for Italy .

If Italy were a brand it would be the 9th most valuable in the world. That was the finding of the UK-based business analysis company Brand Finance, which evaluated countries across the globe using a range of metrics to give each a ranking of its overall economic value in 2016. The report, made in conjunction with the FDI Intelligence unit of Britain’s Financial Times, says brand Italy is worth $1.521 trillion, a 21 percent increase over the previous study, as Italy overtook former No 9 Switzerland. Read the rest of the story at our   English-language news portal for Italy .

Police officials in Rome detained and fined a 40-year-old German man for stripping down and dancing naked in the Trevi Fountain. His was the latest in a string of tourist splashes into the iconic fountain, a trend seemingly inspired by Anita Ekberg’s impulsive foray into its waters in the 1960 Federico Fellini film “La Dolce Vita”. Police said the man was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs when arrested. Read the rest of the story at our   English-language news portal for Italy .

Though Italy lags behind other major EU economies in e-commerce, the sector showed strong growth in 2016 will rise even more sharply this year, according a study from Milan’s Polytechnic University. Findings from Eurostat say that only 8 percent of revenues for Italian companies are generated over the Internet compared to 24 percent in Germany and 17 percent in France. Read the rest of the story at our English-language news portal for Italy .

Nearly 25 years after he helped organize bomb attacks that killed famed anti-mafia prosecutors, fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro will be tried in absentia in Caltanissetta, Sicily beginning March 13. Long one of Interpol’s most wanted men, Denaro has not been seen in public for more than two decades. Read the rest of the story at our English-language news portal for Italy .

Rescue teams are still digging through the ruins of a luxury hotel and compacted snow after an avalanche swept down a steep mountainside at 100 km/h on Jan 20 and buried clients and hotel staff inside. At last report, five bodies had been recovered, 23 people remain missing and 11 have been pulled from the shattered building alive, though none in the past 24 hours. Read the rest of the story at our English-language news portal for Italy .

Soon after Europe’s most wanted man, the terrorist Anis Amri, was fatally shot by a rookie Italian policeman during a routine ID check, investigators found an intriguing connection. Hunted across Europe, Amri met his demise in the working-class Milan suburb of Sesto San Giovanni, just a few kilometers from where the truck he used in a Berlin killing spree originated. Had the 24-year-old Tunisian refugee come full circle, returning to a support group of fellow terrorists? The clues were compelling – and possibly alarming. Was the former factory town, once known as “Sestograd” for its Communist Party residents and local government, actually now home to a nest of terrorists? Read the rest of the story at our English-language news portal for Italy .

Protracted negotiations and the final sale of AC Milan to a murky consortium of Chinese buyers will finally reach fruition in mid-February, according to published reports in Italy, drawing to close a two-year saga that left local fans perplexed. Following a deal signed last summer, a varied and mysterious mix of buyers has been reported, all with ties to China in one form or another. Tranches of deposit money and operating capital for the storied football club began arriving in early fall. The €800 million transaction was originally set to conclude on June 15, but as summer turned to autumn and then winter, one deadline after another passed. It is now supposed to be finalized within a month. Current owner Silvio Berlusconi and his team at Fininvest might have considered the sale maddeningly difficult, but it could be just the beginning. The Chinese can be slow, changeable and confusing in their approach to management. Read the rest of the story at our English-language news portal