Italy has formally notified China of its withdrawal from Beijing’s ambitious belt and road infrastructure initiative (BRI), a significant trade and infrastructure project, according to two government sources. The decision, which had been expected for some time, was reportedly communicated to Beijing three days ago, although no official communication has been released by either side. The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has long been critical of the project and had expressed her intention to withdraw from the deal, seen by many as an effort by China to buy political influence…
Tag: Italy
Venice gondola capsizes after tourists refuse to sit down and stop taking selfies
A group of tourists fell into a murky, cold canal in Venice when the gondola in which they were travelling capsized after they failed to heed an order to stop taking selfies and sit down. The gondolier, who had been attempting a tricky manoeuvre as he navigated the vessel under a bridge close to the area of St Mark’s Square, also ended up in the water before scrambling to rescue his passengers. According to reports in the local press, the group from China had been shifting around the gondola and…
Weather tracker: Hurricane Idalia leaves trail of damage in Florida
Hurricane Idalia struck northern Florida on Wednesday, bringing damaging winds and torrential rain. It made landfall near Keaton Beach on Florida’s Big Bend during the morning as a high-end category 3 hurricane, bringing sustained winds speeds near 125mph (200km/h) and a storm surge of 16ft along Florida’s north-west coastline. Due to very warm sea surface temperatures, the storm strengthened rapidly over the Gulf of Mexico to category 4 status, before weakening to category 3 as it made landfall. It brought extensive flooding as it passed through and damaged power lines,…
Italy seeking to leave ‘atrocious’ China Belt and Road plan without harming ties – minister
Joining China’s vast Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was an “atrocious” decision, Italy’s defence minister has said, and the issue was how to leave it without damaging ties with Beijing. Guido Crosetto said in an interview published on Sunday that the move made four years ago under a previous government had done little to boost exports, while Chinese exports to Italy had soared. Italy signed up to the BRI in 2019, becoming the only major western member. Crosetto is part of an administration that is considering how to break free…
Brutal heat and heavy rain: a week of extreme weather
52.2C in China A remote township in the north-western region of Xinjiang set a Chinese record of 52.2C (125.9F) on Sunday – in a country that was battling -50C weather six months ago. Sanbao is in the Turpan Depression, an arid basin of sand dunes and dried-up lakes where 50.3C was recorded in 2015. Beijing topped its record for high-temperature days in a year on Tuesday, with 27 days above 35C. The temperature in its southern suburbs soared even higher on Wednesday to 36.3C. 53.3C in the US Temperatures at…
Weather tracker: records fall but worst of Europe’s heatwave may yet to come
Extreme heat has lingered over southern Europe throughout the past week, with all-time records broken in a number of locations. Just a few places that recorded their highest ever temperature on 19 July include: Decimomannu in Sardinia at 46.2C, Malaga airport in Spain at 44.2C, and Durrës in Albania at 40.4C. The World Meteorological Organization confirmed that the highest temperature ever recorded in Europe was 48.8C in Sicily in 2021, possibly spurred on by the risk of this week’s heatwave breaking records. Throughout the coming week much of Spain and…
From Kawasaki to Phoenix: tracking a day of extreme heat around the world
20 July 2023 10.30am: Kawasaki, Japan Shota Nagasaki, 30, a builder laying concrete I’ve been doing this work for 12 years – since I left high school – and it’s got hotter even over that time. This year is kind of crazy. I mean, there are years that are not so hot, but over time the temperatures are rising. I don’t live nearby the work site so I picked the truck from the company as usual and drove here; with the air conditioning on of course. But I don’t like…
Extreme heat: a warning shot from nature | podcast
“People do look tired, they look exhausted, as if they’re kind of wilting,” the Guardian’s Rome correspondent, Angela Giuffrida, tells Michael Safi. Italy, like many other countries, has been experiencing record-breaking heat. The Guardian’s environment editor, Damian Carrington, explains why we’re seeing these temperatures now and what we can expect in the future if we do not address the climate emergency. “This is the kind of heat that takes the breath out of you,” the Guardian US’s extreme weather correspondent, Gabrielle Canon, says. Canon has been reporting from Phoenix, Arizona,…
Extreme temperatures recorded across northern hemisphere
Temperatures continued to reach extreme highs across many parts of the northern hemisphere on Monday, with the mercury in parts of Italy poised to hit 45C on Tuesday and wildfires raging in Greece and Spain signalling the latest fierce warning of the effects of the climate crisis. In Italy, where temperatures later in the week could push close to the European record of 48.8C, set in the Sicilian town of Floridia in August 2021, Italians were warned to brace themselves for “the most intense heatwave of the summer and also…
China bridles as EU states prepare to scale up Covid monitoring
European countries are preparing to scale up the monitoring of potential new coronavirus variants from China, as Spain becomes the second EU state to bring back mandatory testing at airports in response to Beijing’s rapid rollback of anti-infection measures. Spain on Friday followed Italy’s lead by requiring arrivals from China to show a negative test result, though unlike Rome it makes exceptions for those who can prove they are fully vaccinated. At a press conference announcing the new measures, the Spanish health minister Carolina Darias also said she was pushing…