Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

CORRUPTION

Italy moves to battle rampant corruption

Italy made progress towards tackling rampant corruption on Thursday after approving a bill that will see tougher action against those convicted of fraud.

Published: 22 May 2015 08:46 CEST
Italy moves to battle rampant corruption
The bill follows scandals surrounding Italy's public works, including the Mose flood barrier project in Venice (pictured). Photo: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP

The bill, which also makes accounting fraud a criminal offense, won strong approval in Italy’s Lower House, with 280 voting in support, 53 voting against and 11 abstaining.

Those convicted of accounting fraud, which was decriminalized in 2002 by Silvio Berlusconi’s government, will face jail terms of up to ten years

The law will also see those convicted of corruption, including bribery and public contract rigging, jailed for up to ten years.

The anti-corruption bill follows a wave of scandals surrounding Italy’s public works, including the high-profile Expo trade show in Milan and Venice’s flood barrier project, Moses.

Corruption severely taints Italy’s image abroad, with the country ranking 69th in Transparency International’s 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index, and is often cited by foreign investors as a major deterrent.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi celebrated with a tweet, vowing to “change the country at whatever cost”.

 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

ACCIDENT

German tourists among 13 dead in Italy cable car accident

Thirteen people, including German tourists, have been killed after a cable car disconnected and fell near the summit of the Mottarone mountain near Lake Maggiore in northern Italy.

Published: 23 May 2021 14:15 CEST
Updated: 23 May 2021 16:46 CEST
German tourists among 13 dead in Italy cable car accident
The local emergency services published this photograph of the wreckage. Photo: Vigili del Fuoco

The accident was announced by Italy’s national fire and rescue service, Vigili del Fuoco, at 13.50 on Sunday, with the agency saying over Twitter that a helicopter from the nearby town of Varese was on the scene. 

Italy’s National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps confirmed that there were 13 victims and two seriously injured people.

Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that German tourists were among the 13 victims.

According to their report, there were 15 passengers inside the car — which can hold 35 people — at the time a cable snapped, sending it tumbling into the forest below. Two seriously injured children, aged nine and five, were airlifted to hospital in Turin. 

The cable car takes tourists and locals from Stresa, a resort town on Lake Maggiore up to a panoramic peak on the Mottarone mountain, reaching some 1,500m above sea level. 

According to the newspaper, the car had been on its way from the lake to the mountain when the accident happened, with rescue operations complicated by the remote forest location where the car landed. 

The cable car had reopened on April 24th after the end of the second lockdown, and had undergone extensive renovations and refurbishments in 2016, which involved the cable undergoing magnetic particle inspection (MPI) to search for any defects. 

Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Twitter that he expressed his “condolences to the families of the victims, with special thoughts for the seriously injured children and their families”.

Infrastructure Minister Enrico Giovannini told Italy’s Tg1 a commission of inquiry would be established, according to Corriere della Sera: “Our thoughts go out to those involved. The Ministry has initiated procedures to set up a commission and initiate checks on the controls carried out on the infrastructure.”

“Tomorrow morning I will be in Stresa on Lake Maggiore to meet the prefect and other authorities to decide what to do,” he said.

SHOW COMMENTS