Interesting news from Italy

Fiat 500 Soft Top about to be released in New Zealand

The reincarnated Fiat Bambina is about to reveal its softer-roofed side in New Zealand.  It will probably be THE hottest automotive fashion statement of the approaching summer and orders are being taken now!  The Fiat 500C will be available in two versions, both of which will use the 1.4 litre 74kW petrol engine, with a choice of manual or DuaLogic gearboxes.  Deliveries will begin in early January and pricing will start at $37,990 for the manual and $39,990 for the DuaLogic.

The 500C was launched in time for this year's European summer and the demand has run well ahead of supply and with only limited numbers coming to New Zealand, it is expected that interest in the car will run ahead of supply here too - hence the need for forward orders.

Europeans opt for holidays in own backyard

(NZ Herald) - Venice, August 8 - To anyone crammed in a water taxi on a hot August day, Venice seems as full of tourists as ever. This year many of them are speaking Italian.

Summer in Europe is traditionally a time of holiday and travel - but the continent's famous tourist destinations have a decidedly more provincial air these days.

Increasingly, Europeans are taking holidays in their home country, a result of the recession and a problem for industries that depend on international travel, such as airlines, whose woes could be deepened if fears of a wider swine flu outbreak materialise.

International tourism arrivals in Europe were down 10 per cent in the first four months of the year. If early signs of economic recovery hold, the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) forecasts that to improve slightly to a drop of between 5 per cent and 8 per cent - reflecting drops in such top destinations as France, Spain and Greece.

France, the world's No 1 tourist destination, had a decrease of 4 per cent in foreign visitors last month and that is expected to be about 30 per cent when July and August numbers are tallied.

Work on Messina Bridge 'Could being this year'

(ANSA) - Rome, February 25 - A project to build a bridge to join Sicily to the Italian mainland could get under way this year, Public Works Minister Altero Matteoli said on Wednesday.
During an interveiw with Italian radio, Matteoli said a decision on the bridge and various other infrastructure projects could be made by the government`s inter-ministerial economic committee CIPE on Friday.  Matteoli dismissed concerns by a Rome University engineering professor, Remo Calzone, who has claimed the project is flawed both by its high costs and structural vulnerability to the wind.
"The theory of the engineer is very isolated. It`s true that it costs six billion (euros), but this is the project and we`re not going back on it," Matteoli said.
He admitted that the bridge would be "useless" if infrastructure were not also improved in Sicily and Calabria, the mainland region on the other side of the bridge.  "The bridge will oblige us to improve railway and motorway infrastructure as well as the ports. It`s an enormous amount of work that will also increase tourism," he said.
The Messina bridge project was originally presented by Berlusconi`s 2001-2006 government, when it had been a key campaign promise in the 2001 general election, but was shelved during the two-year centre-left government headed by Romano Prodi.
The Messina bridge has been hailed as a huge job-creation scheme that would give Italy`s image a major boost while bringing Sicily closer to the mainland in both physical and social terms.
But it has been opposed by environmentalists and dogged by concerns over its safety and fears of potential Mafia involvement.
When and if completed, the bridge would replace slow ferry services between Sicily and the mainland.
The 3,690-metre-long bridge has been designed to be able to handle 4,500 cars an hour and 200 trains a day.

Roman Forum to get Makeover

(ANSA) - Rome, January 7 - The glories of Ancient Rome are to get a total makeover over the next two years, officials said this week.
The famed architectural sights will then be illuminated by a new lighting system, they said.
Sites set for ``a complete clean-up`` include the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill, the Roman and Imperial Forums and Nero`s Golden House, said Heritage Undersecretary Francesco Giro.
Long-awaited projects such as an underpass linking the forums and a new walkway up to the Palatine are part of the scheme which aims to restore Rome`s ancient splendour by the spring of 2011.
Unsightly scaffolding, rusty fences and open digs will be cleared away ``so that the central archaeological area regains all its sumptuous beauty,`` Giro said.
The ``crowning touch,`` he said, would be an ``integrated`` illumination system for the entire area. Giro said the culture ministry hoped to have the lights in place for the 2,764th anniversary of Rome`s traditional founding date, April 21 753 BC.

Crime Drops 20% in Rome

(ANSA) - Rome, December 29 - The number of reported crimes in Rome fell 20% in 2008 over the previous year with even sharper drops for car theft and purse snatching, the city`s police chief said on Monday.
In his end-of-the-year meeting with the press, Giuseppe Caruso added that ``the results of this year are more than satisfying. We saw car thefts decline by more than 25% and purse snatchings plummet by 43% over 2007``.
This year also saw a 20% fall in bank robbberies and Caruso explained that ``this was in large part due to closed- circuit video surveillance which has proved to be a fundamental deterrent``.
Evidence of this, he added, was the 15% rise in robberies at post offices ``where there is still no video surveillance and thus robbers run a lesser risk of being identified``. Post office robberies were the only crimes to have increased in 2008.
This past year saw a total of 41 homicides and police were able to identify those responsible for them in 50% of the cases.
There was also an increase this year in the number of women who reported being victims of crime, ``evidence of a growing confidence in law enforcement,`` the Rome police chief observed.

Dogs Given Place on Trains

(ANSA) - Rome, November 18 - Italian dogs of all sizes will continue to be allowed to ride on Italian trains but will have to travel outside the morning rush hour, Welfare Undersecretary Francesca Martini said Tuesday.
Under new rules negotiated with Italian rail company Trenitalia that come into force on December 1, dogs will be banned from rail travel between 7.00 and 9.00, while during the rest of the day they must ride in the last compartment of the last carriage of trains.  Dogs must still be muzzled and on a lead, as is currently the case, and dangerous breeds will not be admitted.
Animals will still be banned from high-speed Eurostar trains, but small dogs, cats and other small pets will now be allowed to ride free on all other types of trains.
The government stepped in to negotiate the new rules following a public furore over plans by Trenitalia to ban `big` dogs - or those weighing over six kilogrammes - from travelling on trains altogether.
Trenitalia said they had decided to crack down on medium-sized and large dogs in September after efforts to clean up carriages failed to stop passengers from being bitten by parasites aboard trains.
But the train company quickly buckled under pressure from the government, animal rights activists and pet lovers, who were furious that dogs were being made the scapegoats for Trenitalia`s bug troubles.  Martini stressed that bedbugs, rather than dog fleas, were responsible for biting passengers.
Animal rights organisations on Tuesday greeted the new rules as a positive step forward from the ban on big dogs but said Italy was still a long way behind countries such as the United Kingdom where there were no restrictions on access, even to high-speed trains.
LAV president Gianluca Felicetti said the rules recognised that the 170,000 people who travel with pets each year ``cannot be considered second class``.
Bug problems on Italian trains are infrequent but well publicised.  A 62-year-old female passenger started legal proceedings against the company in September after allegedly being bitten on a Rome-Agrigento train, while in October last year three women sued the company after discovering their compartment was ``hopping with lice`` on a night train between southern Italy and Rome.

FIAT WEATHERS EUROPEAN MARKET SLUMP

(ANSA) - November, 14 - European new car sales fell in October for the seventh month in a row and while all marques were effected byt the slump, Fiat in part weathered the storm by increasing its market share.  New cars sales in Europe last month fell by an average of 14.5%, over October of 2007, with drops of as much as 40% adn 23%, in Spain and Britain respectively, while sales tumbled 18.8% in Italy, 7.4% in France and 8.2% in Germany.  In this bleak picture Fiat was able to increase its market share in Europe to 8.6%, compared to 7.9% a year earlier and 7.7% in September.
This put Fiat level in fourth place with Renault in terms of value of new car sales, while the Italian automaker topped its French rival in regard to volume.
Inside the Fiat group, the market share for Fiat marque cars in October rose to 6.8%, from 6.2% a year earlier, while Lancia saw its share rise from 0.7% to 0.9% and Alfa Romeo was stable at 0.8%, compared to 0.9% in October 2007.
Fiat's Panda and 500 were the best selling car in Europe last month in the Segment A category, which include sub-compact or city cars.


NZ Herald, 8 November 2008

Gladiators come to life

Ever wonder how a gladiator fight looked like from the front row of the Colosseum?

Rewind Rome, a 3D simulation presented in a theatre a few steps from the ruined arena will offer visitors the chance to experience daily life in the ancient capital.

 Visitors will see the simulation on a giant screen and animated characters will guide them through the streets of Rome in AD310.

The show opens to the public on November 20, with earphones available in eight languages.

Some of the reconstructed monuments include the Forum, ancient Rome's centre of power and the Temple of Vesta, where visitors will spy on a secret rite dedicated to the goddess.

While the setting is based on archaeological evidence, commercial developers jazzed up the simulation by adding characters such as the Emperor Maxentius, who governed Rome at the time, and a host of lions and gladiators battling to the death at the Colosseum.

NZ Herald, 18 October 2008

Rugby ground's ancient trophy

Archaeologists tell of a vast Roman cemetery found beneath stadium

ROME: Workers rennovating a rugby stadium uncovered a vast complex of tombs beneath Rome that mimicked the houses, blocks and streets of a city, officials said as they unveiled a series of new finds.
Culture Ministry officials said medieval pottery shards in the city of the dead, or necropolis, showed the area might have been inhabited by the living during the Dark Ages after being used for centuries for burials during the Roman period.
It is not yet clear who was buried in the ancient cemetery, but archaeologists at the still partially excavated site believe at least some of the dead were freed slaves of Greek origin.
"It's a matter of a few weeks to discover what is down there," said archaeologist Marina Piranomonte. "But it's something big; it looks like a neighbourhood."
A separate dig in the north of the city has turned up the tomb of a nobleman who led Rome's legions in the second century AD.
The mausoleum was covered in mud during a flood of the river Tiber, which collapsed most of the monument but helped preserve exquisite decorations, marble columns and inscriptions from plunderers and the ravages of time.
Writings at the site led experts to identify the tomb as belonging to Marcus Nonius Macrimus, one of the closest aides and generals of the Emporer Marcus Aurelius during his campaigns against Germanic tribes in northern Europe.
Other spectacular discoveries were also unveiled by the Culture Ministry.
Archaeologists restoring the imperial residences on the Palatine Hill, in the heart of ancient Rome, believe they have discovered the underground passageway in which the despotic Emperor Caligula was murdered by his own guards.
Separately, experts working in Castel di Guido on the outskirts of Rome had enlarged their dig at a previously known complex of country villas owned by Rome's rich and powerful, uncovering fountains, baths and a cistern, the Ministry said.