tagged w/ Gianni Alemanno
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Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama arrived Sunday in Rome to be made honorary citizen of the Italian capital, said airport news agency Telenews.Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama arrived Sunday in Rome to be made... more
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"One said he was lost and 'needed to ask directions to get home'. Others claimed to have stopped because they thought the mini-skirted woman on the street corner was a relative, a friend or even an old classmate from school. Yet another thought a close encounter with a prostitute was a reasonable way to relieve the stress of a hard day at work and one man even claimed it was good for his health. Men who use prostitutes have a vivid imagination, at least in Rome. Perhaps they didn’t need one quite so much before the new by-law came into force, and with it a fine of 200 euros, but for the past few days, they have been dreaming up some ingenious, and on occasion amusing, excuses to avoid being fined.
The by-law promoted by Rome’s mayor, Gianni Alemanno, is aimed at men who use prostitutes, and at the women or transsexuals themselves, if they are dressed indecently with the clear intention of soliciting. Clients have to be caught while negotiating with sex workers, especially on busy or accident-prone roads.
In just a couple of days of patrols, the municipal authorities have issued fines for a total of almost 30,000 euros to prostitutes and their clientele.""One said he was lost and 'needed to ask directions to get home'.... more
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Italy's left accused Rome's right-wing mayor of trying to rewrite history after he declared that racist laws enacted during Italy's fascist era -- rather than fascism itself -- were "absolute evil".
The controversy comes amid a broader debate in Italy over whether the far right's success in elections has fed a climate of xenophobia and intolerance, with a Catholic weekly last month suggesting Italy could be witnessing a rebirth of fascism.
Gianni Alemanno, a former youth leader of a neo-fascist party who became the first right winger to be elected mayor of Rome since the fascists in 1943, in the past has also courted controversy by sporting a far-right symbol around his neck.
"Fascism was a more complex phenomenon," Alemanno told Italy's leading newspaper Corriere della Sera in an interview published on Sunday while on a trip to Jerusalem, adding that he "does not and never has" considered fascism absolute evil.
"Many people joined up in good faith and I don't feel like labeling them with that definition. The racial laws desired under fascism, that spurred its political and cultural end, were absolute evil."
The comments immediately sparked an outcry from leftist lawmakers, who accused him of trying to separate Italy's fascist past under dictator Benito Mussolini from its sins.
Mussolini ruled Italy for more than two decades with an iron fist, allying with Nazi Germany and enacting anti-semitic laws that ousted Jews from schools and public jobs and ultimately led to the death of nearly 6,000 Italian Jews in Nazi camps.
Still, some Italians fondly recall an era characterized by more order and severity than usually seen in Italy today.
But right-wing lawmakers rallied to defend Alemanno, saying the mayor was only trying to talk about a complex chapter in Italy's history without absolving fascism of its sins.
Alemanno often complains that the left tries to tar him with the "fascist" label, despite his efforts to win over the Jewish community that has included visiting monuments to Jewish victims of Nazi occupation and Rome's synagogue.Italy's left accused Rome's right-wing mayor of trying to rewrite history... more
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