Rome still buzzing with pilgrims after popes' canonisations

Polish pecial Mass of thanks at St. Peter's

(ANSA) - Vatican City, April 28 - Tens of thousands of pilgrims and tourists continued to "lay siege" to Rome Monday following Sunday's canonisation of popes John XXIII and John Paul II. A big crowd packed St Peter's Square for a second straight day as a Mass of thanks for Saint John Paul II was celebrated by Cardinal Angelo Comastri under partially sunny skies. The service was originally meant to be for Polish faithful inside the basilica, but it was moved to the square outside when the Church authorities realised how many people wanted to take part.

The Archbishop of Kracow, Stanislaw Dziwisz, greeted pilgrims at the start of the Mass, recording that, while he was personal private secretary to John Paul for 40 years, Italy had become the pope's "second home". Later in the day thousands filed past the tomb of the newly sanctified Polish saint inside the Basilica of St Peter's. Pilgrims from John XXIII's home city of Bergamo also filed past the tomb of the new Italian saint. Many pilgrims took time off their devotions to follow other tourist trails, visiting the Vatican Museums, or shopping for souvenirs, clothes or bags. 

Berlusconi unapologetic as death-camp furore escalates

Darker image of ex-premier appears in Bari 'bunga bunga' case

(ANSA) - Rome, April 28 - Former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi on Monday said his claim that Germans still deny the existence of Nazi concentration camps "was extrapolated out of context" by "the European left", and affirmed his "historic friendship with the Jewish people and the State of Israel". Berlusconi, long known for verbal gaffs, refused to apologize and said that he was a victim of political opponents who set a "campaign trap" to ensnare him ahead of European parliamentary elections on May 25. Controversy erupted when, over the weekend, the media magnate and centre-right leader said that "for the Germans, the concentration camps never existed," in a fresh attack on an old foe, Martin Schulz, the German head of the European Parliament and centre-left candidate to become the next European Commission president.

The 77-year-old Berlusconi, who has been smarting after an Italian court upheld his ban on standing for election to the European parliament due to a tax-fraud conviction, had clashed before with Schulz, leader of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. During an angry exchange between the two in June 2003, Berlusconi described Schulz as a guard in a Nazi death camp. On Monday, Berlusconi refused to back down from his comments about Germans, saying he had "no need to apologize either to Holocaust survivors or to German citizens". In an interview for Piazzapulita to be aired Monday evening on the La7 television channel, he said it was "surreal to call me hostile to the German people, my friends".

Instead, Berlusconi said his frustration was with German-led fiscal austerity. "If I'm hostile to something it's counterproductive austerity, and rules and regulations that in my opinion are seriously flawed, which are burdening all of Europe with long-term economic stagnation," he added. Berlusconi sparked a similar storm late last year when he said his adult children had told him they feel they way Jewish families must have felt under Hitler because of the alleged judicial persecution against the ex-premier. The ex-premier was quickly lambasted by prominent members of Italy's Jewish community, who denounced comparisons of his wealthy family with the Jewish people under the persecution of Hitler.

Berlusconi's list of current legal woes is lengthy: the year of community service from his tax-fraud conviction, which also carries a ban from office; he is appealing a six-year sentence for sex with an underage prostitute and abuse of power to cover it up; and he is on trial for allegedly bribing a centre-left Senator to switch sides. Throughout more than 20 legal cases since he first swept to victory in 1994, Berlusconi has said he is the victim of left-wing elements in the judiciary.

Meanwhile, a darker image ex-premier was being presented in a courtroom in the southern Italian city of Bari where magistrates said "a disconcerting picture" of a prostitution ring including Berlusconi had been revealed. The statement was made in a Bari court's explanation of a December 2013 guilty verdict and one-year sentence against lawyer Salvatore Castellaneta for organizing 21 "bunga bunga" sex parties for Berlusconi from September 2008 to May 2009 in which 26 young women were "recruited". Berlusconi is not on trial in that case and says he never paid anyone for sex. 

New shrine found at Pompeii ruins by Neapolitan researchers

Discoveries at buried ancient city to be presented Tuesday

(ANSA) - Pompeii (Naples), April 28 - New discoveries at the ancient Roman ruins of Pompeii including a shrine outside the main city will be made public Tuesday, researchers said Monday. The discoveries were made during recent excavations by archaeologists from the Sister Orsola Benincasa University of Naples.

The discoveries were coordinated by the archaeologist Mario Grimaldi and by Umberto Pappalardo, the director of the Amedeo Maiuri International Centre for Pompeii Studies, the university said. Also to be unveiled to the public Tuesday is a project for the house of Marcus Fabius Rufus.

Top court asked to uphold lower sentences for ThyssenKrupp

CEO initially convicted of homicide in seven deaths in plant

(ANSA) - Rome, April 24 - Italy's Supreme Court of Cassation was asked Friday to uphold the reduced sentences for senior officials with steelmaker ThyssenKrupp who were convicted in the deaths of seven works at a plant fire in 2007. Prosecutors asked the Cassation Court to uphold earlier decisions by an appeal court reducing the original sentences.

In early 2013, an appeal court had reduced the first-degree homicide sentence for Harald Espenhahn, the former chief executive officer (CEO) of the Italian division of Germany's ThyssenKrupp steelmaker. It reduced Espenhahn's sentence to 10 years from 16 and a half years, prompting outraged families of the victims to stage a sit-in. The initial sentences stemmed from a fatal fire in December 2007 at ThyssenKrupp steelworks, marking one of the first times at a workplace death trial in Italy that a senior official was convicted of homicide.

Sentences were also reduced last year for four other ThyssenKrupp managers who were convicted of manslaughter, and initially received jail sentences ranging from 10 years in to prison to 13 and a half years. A fifth employee saw his sentence increased. 

Sailing to 11 countries to 'rewrite' Homer's Odyssey

Italians feature highly in EU literary cruise

(ANSAmed) - CAGLIARI, APRIL 24 - The itinerant social theater project 'Meeting the Odyssey' is set to sail European coasts from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean over the next three years, dropping anchor in 11 European countries. Nine theaters, four theater companies, six festivals and six international institutions will be involved. The initiative and the 34-meter-sailboat were presented in Cagliari by the Cada Die Teatro, with the actors, directors and set designers from across Europe who will be aboard. The boat will visit 20 ports for the purpose of staging performances and workshops and activities will be held in wharves, small boats and sailboats. It will also be a guest at major European festivals. The focus of the project are four large international productions (two each year), which will arrive in Greece in 2016. The works have never been staged before and are inspired by comparisons and exchanges between communities. The 'performance artist-sailors' will be collecting stories, videos and personal accounts in every port to later be used in theater performances. "This is a truly itinerant project inspired by the journey made by Homer's hero, and borders on a modern-day rewriting of the Odyssey with the stories of migrant populations, their fears, and wars. We were initially inspired by Felice Vinci's book, which puts Ulysses' journey in the Baltic Sea," said Giancarlo Biffi from Cada Die Teatro, one of the two Italian companies (alongside Scarlattine and Teatro della Limonaia) awarded a place in the project after a EU-wide call for proposals. About sixty 'sailor-artists' will climb aboard at a time.

"The aim is to collect stories that bring populations together," Biffi added. "To identify shared roots and a sense of belonging in the European community. We want to set a Europe of culture alongside that of the markets." 

DNA test on family could confirm Mona Lisa model's identity

Samples to be taken at Florence church on April 29

(ANSA) - Florence, April 24 - Italian experts on April 29 will be taking DNA samples from the remains of family members of Lisa Gherardini Del Giocondo at a family tomb inside Florence's Santissima Annunziata church to determine whether she was the sitter for Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, local authorities said on Thursday.

The samples will be taken by forensic anthropologists Giorgio Gruppioni and Antonio Moretti together with experts who are testing bones taken at a convent in the Tuscan capital where the wife of wealthy Florentine merchant Francesco Del Giocondo died in the mid-16th century. The family tomb in the Santissima Annunziata church holds the remains of Francesco Del Giocondo and the couple's children.

The tests on bones exhumed in 2012 aim to find out whether they date back to the same period as that of the model who sat for what would become the world's most famous painting, whose enigmatic half-smile thrills visitors to Paris's Louvre museum. The skeleton's DNA will be compared with that about to be taken from the remains of Gherardini's children. If there is a match, the woman portrayed by the Renaissance master, will be identified at last. 

Immigration should be better shared across EU, says Schulz

EP president says parliament must deal with youth joblessness

(ANSA) - La Spezia, April 24 - Member States in the European Union, including Germany, should better share in the distribution of migrants across the continent, Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, said Thursday. He added that his homeland of Germany must also take a greater share of newcomers to Europe.

"On the issue of immigration, we definitely need a European solution," Schulz said on the sidelines of celebrations ahead of Liberation Day, marked in Italy on Friday. "We will have to share distribution in Europe," he said. Germany has taken in refugees, but southern States such as Italy, Spain and Greece, "are in a difficult situation," he said. "I will say to my fellow Germans that Germany must make a contribution".

Immigration is a sensitive issue in Italy, which is on the front lines of waves of illegal migrants fleeing North Africa and the Middle East for Europe and who first arrive on Italy's most southerly shores. Last week, Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said that to date this year, more than 20,500 migrants have already landed on Italy's coasts - an enormous increase over the 2,500 reported during the same period in 2013. Since he spoke, hundreds more have arrived heightening the concerns for Italy about the cost of rescue missions and emergency migrant shelters.

Meanwhile, Schulz also said that next month's European Parliament elections will be an important gauge of the power of euroskeptic forces, adding that he understands why many voters are feeling frustrated by lingering economic weakness and high joblessness. In particular, "youth unemployment is dramatic and we need to do something about it immediately," he said.