Finance moves in mysterious ways, and one of them links the Vatican to the island of Malta. It has emerged that in February, through a fund based in Valletta, the Secretariat of State became a partner in Lapo Elkann’s eyewear and “lifestyle products” company, Italia Independent. Another €10 million deal went through on 30 September with Enrico Preziosi, games industrialist and chairman of Genoa. And over €4 million went to finance the production of films such as the latest “Men in Black” and the biography of Elton John, “Rocketman”. These…
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The government will take no lectures from the opposition on debt since it swelled by some 174 billion euros due to the Superbonus green home improvement scheme introduced by a previous government, Premier Giorgia Meloni told parliament at Premier’s Question Time Wednesday.“I always encounter a certain contradiction in the accusations against this government,” she told the Senate. “We are accused on the one hand of implementing austerity measures and on the other reprimanded for the rising debt-to-GDP ratio, but “the debt is growing only thanks to the Superbonus, €174 billion”…
Maldives government spokesman Ahmed Shaam had earlier said that the three Finnish divers would retrieve the bodies, which were lying at a depth of around 60 metres. Finnish divers have recovered the bodies of two of the four remaining Italians who died deep inside an underwater cave in an atoll in the Maldives, an official said on Tuesday. The bodies were located on Monday, when searches resumed after being suspended following the death of a local military diver during a perilous mission to try to reach them. Five Italian divers…
Italy could drop plans to tap the European Union’s SAFE financing scheme on defence without more lenient budget rules on energy-related spending, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in a letter to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The Security Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument is a joint borrowing scheme backed by the EU budget to boost the bloc’s defence capabilities and help member states meet more ambitious NATO spending targets. In a diplomatic escalation with the EU, Meloni stepped up her calls for the Commission to grant member states…
“In this age of artificial intelligence, I encourage everyone to commit themselves to promoting forms of communication that are always respectful of the truth of man to which all technological innovation must be oriented”. So said Pope Leo XIV at the end of the Regina Caeli prayer, after recalling: “Today marks the World Day of Social Communications in various countries, which this year I wanted to dedicate to the theme of preserving human voices and faces”. Yesterday, the Holy See announced the Pope’s go-ahead for the establishment of the Interdicasterial…
Pope Leo XIV was spending the first anniversary of his election to the helm of the Catholic Church by visiting Pompeii and Naples on Friday. The visit started at Pompeii’s Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary, which is close to the archaeological site of the ancient Roman city destroyed by Mt Vesuvius’s 79AD eruption and was founded by Saint Bartolo Longo, a former Satanic priest who converted to Catholicism and who Leo canonized in October. The pope had a meeting with disabled and sick people at the shrine, which…