Italy

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Tuesday, September 16, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday, September 16, 2013

Salvaging the Costa RobFordia

Mayor Rob Ford didn’t make it to any screenings at the Toronto Film Festival this week, but he is starring in a new release.

The 2:41 minute short was released online by Mr. Ford’s office Friday morning, about the same it began playing on a continuous loop from his staff’s office on the second floor of city hall.

Mr. Ford’s critics were quick to point out that the video only tells half of the story of a summer filled with controversy for Toronto’s civic leader, including allegations that the mayor was caught on video smoking crack cocaine. Videos of the mayor wandering up Greenwood Avenue late on Friday evening during the Taste of the Danforth festival asking “where’s the party?” also went viral in August.

“He’s plugging a certain narrative,” said Councillor Joe Mihevc. “There are clearly some people buying into that narrative and then there is another narrative that’s out there and certainly when I’m talking to folks they’re wondering what’s going on in the city and who is in charge of the ship.” (Source: The Globe & Mail)

Meanwhile, Salvage officials have begun the mammoth task of righting the crippled Costa Concordia as jacks hoist it off rocks near the Tuscany coast.

The operation was delayed by about three hours due to bad weather, and began at 9am.

“At 9 o’clock all the checks were completed and the operation began,” Sergio Girotto, a senior engineer.

“Everything is going smoothly, the operators are now working from the control room.

“There are a team of engineers who will follow the operation until the end.”

The rescue effort will see the giant ship gradually rotated and rolled upright. It is expected to last up to 12 hours, taking it into Monday evening. Engineers say the lifting can continue after darkness falls. (Source: Sky News)

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Tuesday May 8, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday May 8, 2012

Merkel readies for fight

Angela Merkel is under pressure to defeat the popular backlash against austerity to save her political skin and preserve Germany’s dominance in the eurozone.

Over the next four weeks, the German chancellor will face the fight of her political life on all fronts, domestic and European, at a moment when one slip could sink her government and tear down the European Union’s single currency.

Merkel must take the lead in trying to find an answer for the crisis in Greece, after three-fifths of Greek voters rejected EU austerity measures. Ger-man taxpayers have put $275 billion on the line to bail out countries such as Greece, and Germany’s patience is running out with countries that reject the prescribed economic medicine of debt reduction while continuing to demand the handouts.

To appease her highly taxed voters, who are worried that EU bailouts have breached Germany’s constitution, Merkel has made German economic aid conditional on all eurozone countries signing the “fiskalpakt”.

The treaty, signed by 25 EU countries, gives Brussels officials the right to block bud-gets that break spending rules which are enshrined in national constitutions, as is the case in Germany.

The measures, the chancellor assured German voters, would prevent eurozone countries going bust and leaving Ger-many holding bailout bills.

Merkel on Monday insisted Greece had to stick to the austerity program so resoundingly rejected by voters and that the reforms to the Greek economy were of “utmost importance”(Source: Vancouver Sun)

 

Thursday January 19, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday January 19, 2012

Italian cruise disaster

A stricken Italian cruise liner shifted on its rocky resting place Monday as worsening weather disrupted an increasingly despairing hunt for survivors and authorities raised their estimate of the number missing to 29 people.

As the Costa Concordia’s owners blamed their captain for veering shorewards on Friday in a bravura “salute” to residents of a Tuscan island, the giant ship slid a little, threatening to plunge its whole carcass and 2,300 tonnes of fuel below the Mediterranean waters of the surrounding nature reserve.

The slippage forced rescuers to suspend for a few hours their efforts to find anyone still alive after three days in the capsized hull, resting on a jagged slope near the island of Giglio. Firefighters said the search would resume at daybreak.

Six bodies have been found since the ship foundered after striking a rock Friday night. Italian coast guard officials on Monday revised the number of people missing up to 29 — 25 passengers and four staff members — from 16.

Environment Minister Corrado Clini said he would declare a state of emergency because of the risk that the ship’s fuel would leak into the Tuscan Archipelago National Park. No fuel spillage has been detected so far, he told an Italian TV show.

The father of the ship’s head waiter said his son telephoned him before the accident to say the crew would salute him by blowing the ship’s whistle as they passed close by Giglio, where both the waiter, Antonello Tievoli, and his father Giuseppe live. “The ship obviously came too close,” the elder Tievoli said. “I don’t know if Antonello asked the captain to come near, but the responsibility is always the captain’s.” (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

Tuesday November 8, 2011

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 8, 2011

Berlusconi’s future bleak as crucial vote looms

The future of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi looked increasingly bleak after his main political ally, the Northern League, asked him to step down just ahead of a crucial vote that could bring down the government and inject yet more uncertainty into the massive Italian debt market.

“We have asked the prime minister to step aside,” Umberto Bossi, leader of the Northern League party, told reporters Tuesday.

The withdrawal of the Northern League’s support makes it unlikely that Mr. Berlusconi will muster enough support to survive a routine vote on last year’s budget accounts Tuesday afternoon in Rome. If he does lose the vote in the Chamber of Deputies, he will almost certainly face a confidence vote, though not necessarily immediately.

The Northern League has not always been a dependable ally. The party brought down Mr. Berlusconi’s first government, in 1994.

Mr. Berlusconi has won more than 50 confidence votes since 2008, when he was elected for a third time since the 1990s. A series of defections, however, are tilting the odds against him. In recent days, three party members joined the opposition and six others called for him to quit. Mr. Berlusconi needs 316 votes in the 630-seat chamber to claim victory.

The market didn’t react strongly to the Northern League defection and the strong chance that Mr. Berlusconi would go down in flames Wednesday. Yields on Italian bonds initially rose, setting a new record, then slipped slightly to about 6.62 per cent in the early afternoon, Rome time. That’s still firmly in crisis territory. (Source: Globe & Mail)