Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

CRIME

Italy police get lunch for poor woman ‘forced to steal food’

Italian police took pity on a woman who had been charged with shoplifting, after it emerged that she was unemployed and hadn't had enough money for food for several days.

Published: 29 September 2016 14:30 CEST

Italy police get lunch for poor woman 'forced to steal food'

The stolen goods only amounted to €14. File photo: Pexels

The woman helped herself to food including a packet of biscuits and a tin of tuna, worth a total of €14, from a supermarket shelf – but she was caught red-handed, local paper Cronache Maceratesi reported on Thursday.

After the shop owner reported the woman to police, the 61-year-old broke down in tears. She told officers that after losing her job, she had been unable to find work and struggling to survive as she was still too young to collect a state pension. As a result, she hadn't eaten for several days.

After verifying her story, the kind-hearted officers provided her with a meal.

Police also paid for her bus ticket home, and contacted a religious charity, which gave the woman further supplies They alerted the social services to her situation as well.

The annual poverty report from national statistics agency Istat, released earlier this month, showed that the number of people living in poverty in Italy was at a ten-year high, with 4.6 million in “absolute poverty”.

Italy's Court of Cassation, the highest administrative court, earlier this year acquitted a homeless man for a theft of cheese and sausages, saying the man “acted out of necessity”.

Back in August, Rome police warmed hearts around the world after cooking pasta for a lonely elderly couple. The pair had been crying so loudly that their neighbours alerted police, who cooked the pensioners a simple meal of pasta and parmesan.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

'Extreme' climate blamed for world's worst wine harvest in 62 years

“Extreme environmental conditions” including droughts, fires and other problems with climate were mostly to blame for the drastic fall, said the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) that covers nearly 50 wine producing countries.

Australia and Italy suffered the worst, with 26 and 23 percent drops. Spain lost more than a fifth of its production. Harvests in Chile and South Africa were down by more than 10 percent.

The OIV said the global grape harvest was the worst since 1961, and worse even than its early estimates in November.

In further bad news for winemakers, customers drank three per cent less wine in 2023, the French-based intergovernmental body said.

Director John Barker highlighted “drought, extreme heat and fires, as well as heavy rain causing flooding and fungal diseases across major northern and southern hemisphere wine producing regions.”

Although he said climate problems were not solely to blame for the drastic fall, “the most important challenge that the sector faces is climate change.

“We know that the grapevine, as a long-lived plant cultivated in often vulnerable areas, is strongly affected by climate change,” he added.

France bucked the falling harvest trend, with a four percent rise, making it by far the world’s biggest wine producer.

Wine consumption last year was however at its lowest level since 1996, confirming a fall-off over the last five years, according to the figures.

The trend is partly due to price rises caused by inflation and a sharp fall in wine drinking in China – down a quarter – due to its economic slowdown.

The Portuguese, French and Italians remain the world’s biggest wine drinkers per capita.

Barker said the underlying decrease in consumption is being “driven by demographic and lifestyle changes. But given the very complicated influences on global demand at the moment,” it is difficult to know whether the fall will continue.

“What is clear is that inflation is the dominant factor affecting demand in 2023,” he said.

Land given over to growing grapes to eat or for wine fell for the third consecutive year to 7.2 million hectares (17.7 million acres).

But India became one of the global top 10 grape producers for the first time with a three percent rise in the size of its vineyards.

France, however, has been pruning its vineyards back slightly, with its government paying winemakers to pull up vines or to distil their grapes.

The collapse of the Italian harvest to its lowest level since 1950 does not necessarily mean there will be a similar contraction there, said Barker.

Between floods and hailstones, and damp weather causing mildew in the centre and south of the country, the fall was “clearly linked to meteorological conditions”, he said.

Url copied to clipboard!