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Italian nonna becomes the world’s second oldest person

As of this weekend, 115-year-old Giuseppina Projetto of Italy is the second oldest person alive in the world today.

Published: 23 April 2018 12:00 CEST
Italian nonna becomes the world's second oldest person
The second oldest person alive, Giuseppina Projetto. Photo: Richard Monkey/Wikimedia Commons

Projetto, born to Sicilian parents in Sardinia in 1902, is already the oldest living European after the death of a 116-year-old Spaniard five months ago. 

After Japanese “supercentarian” Nabi Tajima passed away on Saturday at the age of 117, Projetto – who turns 116 on May 30th – now finds herself in global second place. The top spot goes to another Japanese woman, Chiyo Miyako, who is older than Projetto by barely a month.

Another Italian, Maria Giuseppa Robucci, is in fourth place on the official ranking compiled by the international Gerontology Research Group. Nonna Peppa, as she's affectionately known, was born in March 1903 in Apulia, where she still resides today.

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Nonna Pina – that's Projetto's nickname – left her hometown more than 60 years ago for Montelupo Fiorentino in Tuscany, where she lives with her descendants in the family home. 

“Big hugs to Nonna Pina from all of Montelupo,” local mayor Paolo Masetti wrote on Facebook congratulating her on her new record. 

Dubbed “the grandmother of Italy”, Projetto has been the world's oldest Italian since 117-year-old Emma Morano died last April, followed by 115-year-old Canadian-Italian nun Marie-Josephine Clarice Gaudette, who passed away in July.

She is one of tens of thousands of Italians over 100 and still going. Many scientists have sought to identify the key to Italy's extraordinary longevity, with suggestions ranging from a Mediterranean diet to hormones to sex. 

Projetto's family, meanwhile, put her long life down to well-established habits – such as eating chocolate daily – and a certain spirit.

“She has remained fixed in time,” one of her daughters-in-law told a local paper last year. “With resolution, optimism, dignity – and a great love for life.” 

READ ALSO: Cheese, wine and family: the Italian way to live beyond 100
Photo: Sergio Pani/Flickr

 

 

HEALTH

Danish parties agree to raise abortion limit to 18 weeks

Denmark's government has struck a deal with four other parties to raise the point in a pregnancy from which a foetus can be aborted from 12 weeks to 18 weeks, in the first big change to Danish abortion law in 50 years.

Published: 3 May 2024 08:06 CEST
Danish parties agree to raise abortion limit to 18 weeks

The government struck the deal with the Socialist Left Party, the Red Green Alliance, the Social Liberal Party and the Alternative party, last week with the formal announcement made on Monday  

“In terms of health, there is no evidence for the current week limit, nor is there anything to suggest that there will be significantly more or later abortions by moving the week limit,” Sophie Løhde, Denmark’s Minister of the Interior and Health, said in a press release announcing the deal.

The move follows the recommendations of Denmark’s Ethics Council, which in September 2023 proposed raising the term limit, pointing out that Denmark had one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Western Europe. 

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Under the deal, the seven parties, together with the Liberal Alliance and the Conservatives, have also entered into an agreement to replace the five regional abortion bodies with a new national abortion board, which will be based in Aarhus. 

From July 1st, 2025, this new board will be able to grant permission for abortions after the 18th week of pregnancy if there are special considerations to take into account. 

The parties have also agreed to grant 15-17-year-olds the right to have an abortion without parental consent or permission from the abortion board.

Marie Bjerre, Denmark’s minister for Digitalization and Equality, said in the press release that this followed logically from the age of sexual consent, which is 15 years old in Denmark. 

“Choosing whether to have an abortion is a difficult situation, and I hope that young women would get the support of their parents. But if there is disagreement, it must ultimately be the young woman’s own decision whether she wants to be a mother,” she said. 

The bill will be tabled in parliament over the coming year with the changes then coming into force on June 1st, 2025.

The right to free abortion was introduced in Denmark in 1973. 

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