Focus::Daily News
NEWSLINE
ANSA. Mafia bosses in this southern Sicilian city planned to kill its mayor because of his anti-Mafia drives, police said Friday. The top clan in Gela, irked by Rosario Crocetta's clampdown on rackets and his anti-Mob press campaigns, were reportedly poised to carry out their assassination attempt when police moved in. (Read the article)
CHICAGO TRIBUNE. Never underestimate the power of the petition. Wednesday, United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk announced that the U.S. would delay imposing a number of additional duties on European Union products, including a 100-percent tariff on Italian mineral water. That tariff, scheduled to be implemented Thursday, was the subject of protest among owners of Italian restaurants. Earlier this week, the Italian American Chamber of Commerce-Midwest sent Kirk a petition signed by more than 60 Chicago-area restaurant owners, protesting the tariff. (Read the Article)
MSNBC. The director of The Cleveland Museum of Art says museum officials are prepared to hand over 14 art works to Italian authorities. Timothy Rub says the transfer of the art, which includes ancient pieces looted or smuggled out of Italy, will take place Wednesday, according to The Plain Dealer newspaper. (Read the Article)
BLOOMBERG. COM. Italy approved an 8 billion-euro ($10.4 billion) plan for emergency aid and for reconstruction in the region of Abruzzo, hit this month by an earthquake that left more than 60,000 people homeless. “We are making 8 billion euros available to spend in the next three years to bring L’Aquila and the surrounding villages to conditions of normality,” Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told reporters after the Cabinet met today in L’Aquila, the region’s capital. (Read the Article by Lorenzo Totaro)
NEW YORK TIMES. Italy agreed Sunday to evacuate about 140 migrants from the deck of a Turkish-owned cargo ship that had rescued them in the Mediterranean Sea, breaking four days of diplomatic gridlock with Malta over who should take responsibility. Franco Frattini, Italy’s foreign minister, said that his country had agreed to accept the migrants on humanitarian grounds after the European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, intervened with the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and his Maltese counterpart, Lawrence Gonzi. (Read the Article)
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. The Vatican will help restore paintings, statues and other artworks damaged in the earthquake that devastated central earlier this month. Francesco Buranelli, a top culture official at the Holy See, said experts from the Vatican museums will directly restore some of the works. Italy's culture minister has estimated restoration works will cost at least euro50 million ($65million). (Read the Article)
DALLAS NEWS. Mexican drug traffickers are funneling cocaine to Italian organized crime, and some shipments are moving through Dallas. "We've got some of the major cartel members established here dealing their wares in Europe," said James Capra, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Dallas office. Places like Houston and Dallas are where these criminal organizations are most likely to invest their money," said Antonio Nicaso, an internationally recognized author and lecturer on Italian organized crime. "This is the right time, with the recession going on." (Read the Article by Jason Trahan)
CHICAGO TRIBUNE. More than 60 Italian restaurants in Chicago are joining in a protest against a punitive tariff that's about to double the price of Italian mineral waters. The tariff is a 100 percent import duty that will effectively double the price of such beverages as San Pellegrino, Acqua Panna and Sole. The double duty is part of a U.S. payback for the European Union's ban on American beef containing hormones, and the U.S. has slapped tariffs on dozens of EU imports, not just Italian mineral water. But Italian water is a higher-visibility, higher-volume consumer product than the chestnuts, frozen meats and Roquefort cheese that have been targeted previously. And this latest tariff hits Italy—which the Chamber of Commerce says exports 40 percent of its mineral water to the U.S.—particularly hard. (Read the Article)
NEW YORK TIMES. Is it or isn’t it a Michelangelo? That is the question being pondered by art experts after the Italian state spent 3.3 million euros, or $4.2 million, last year to buy a small wooden crucifix attributed to that Renaissance genius. Works by Michelangelo don’t come up for sale often, but the occasional drawing has nabbed as much as $20 million at auction. By comparison, the linden wood crucifix, which was sold by the Turin antiques dealer Giancarlo Gallino, is a bargain.
But there’s the rub. If it isn’t a Michelangelo, as some critics charge, then the state may have squandered its dwindling resources to buy a minor work — albeit an attractive one — in the middle of an economic crisis, when more than one billion euros have been cut from the Culture Ministry’s projected budget for the next three years. (Read the Article)
ATLANTA BUSINESS CRONICLE. Italy will reopen its honorary consulate in Atlanta, but upgraded to an Honorary Consulate General. Angela Della Costanza Turner will serve as Honorary Consul General of Italy for Georgia. (Read the article)