Scroll to the top

{{ subpage.title }}

FILE PHOTO: Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni attends her end-of-year press conference in Rome, Italy, January 4, 2024.

REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane/File Photo

Hard Numbers: Meloni suffers Sardinian blow, Russia jails another critic, Japan’s baby bust continues, Big Oil pumps Big Money

0.4: The rugged island of Sardinia has dealt rightwing Italian PM Giorgia Meloni the first serious electoral blow she’s suffered since taking office in 2022. In local presidential elections (Sardinia has special autonomy from Rome, and its own president) a candidate from the left-leaning anti-establishment 5-Star Movement beat the Meloni-backed candidate by a mere 0.4 points. Alessandra Todde will now become not only Sardinia’s first female leader, but the first 5-Star member to head any of Italy’s 20 regions.

Read moreShow less

Spain, Girona, 24/02/06. Several hundred farmers gather on the highway to protest against bureaucracy, Europe and water management.

Alexandre Bre / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect

Brussels bows to farmers on green goals

On Tuesday, the European Commission scrapped a plan to limit pesticide use and excluded agriculture from its roadmap to cut greenhouse gasses as the ruling coalition attempts to quell bloc-wide protests by farmers.

Read moreShow less

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni

Guido Calamosca/LaPresse/Sipa USA via Reuters

Italy aims to export migrant crisis to Albania

Can Albania accept migrants deported by Italy? A court in Tirana is deciding on the legality of an agreement with the Italian government, in which Rome can send EU asylum-seekers to the Balkan country.

The Albanian courts technically have until March 6 to make a decision, but their verdict is expected to come sooner because both sides have something important to gain. Under the deal, which has been tacitly endorsed by the EU, up to 36,000 migrants a year would wait in Albania while Italy rules on their asylum claims. In exchange, Italy has pledged to support Albania’s bid to join the EU. Italy would fund and run the migrant facilities, but the land would remain in Albania’s hands.

Read moreShow less

Leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni waves to the people

REUTERS/Alberto Lingria

Ciao Ciao China!

All belts are off now in Italy. On Wednesday, Rome officially withdrew from China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing’s signature global infrastructure, trade, and investment scheme.

Flashback: In 2019, Italy – then governed by a strongly euroskeptic coalition– became the only G7 country to officially join BRI. For China, it was a coup to bring aboard Europe’s third-largest and the world’s seventh-largest economy. Rome, for its part, hoped for a bonanza of trade and inbound investment from Beijing.

Read moreShow less

Meloni during a rally as part of the campaign for general elections.

(Photo by Nicolò Campo/Sipa USA)

How Tolkien’s hobbits got political

What do Italian conservatives and American hippies have in common? A love for The Lord of the Rings. Though JRR Tolkien insisted his books were apolitical, his fantasy epic has fueled movements across the political spectrum and around the world.

Giorgia Meloni, a huge Tolkien fan, became Italy’s first female prime minister and its most conservative since World War II last year. At her final campaign rally, Pino Insegno – the voice of Aragorn in the Italian-dubbed version of “The Lord of the Rings” – introduced her by invoking Middle Earth’s Kingdom of Men with “Sons of Rohan, my brothers, people of Rome … the day of defeat may come, but it is not this day!”

Now, Insegno’s voice can be heard throughout Italy’s new Tolkien exhibit, a €250,000 traveling exhibition funded by Italy's culture ministry and opened by Meloni herself last week in Rome. Meloni, who considers the trilogy sacred texts, said that “Tolkien could say better than us what conservatives believe in.”

Meloni’s tribute to Tolkien is no coincidence. “The Lord of the Rings” has influenced Italy's conservative movement since the fall of Mussolini.

Read moreShow less

Hundreds of Muslim activists gather to protest in solidarity in the wake of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip outside the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on October 20, 2023

Zahim Mohd/NurPhoto via Reuters

Hard Numbers: Malaysia backs Hamas, Democrats win key races, fighting in Ethiopia's Amhara region, South Africa’s highway terror, Europe invests in space

77 billion: Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim jeopardized his country’s $77 billion trade relationship with the United States this week by coming out hard in support of Hamas, with which Malaysia has long maintained ties. Anwar, who compared the group to Nelson Mandela, could run afoul of the Hamas International Financing Prevention Act and invite US sanctions on his country — but the rise of the Islamist PAS party and the fragility of his multi-ethnic coalition are pushing him to appeal to such sentiment despite his reputation as a liberal reformer.

Read moreShow less

Police close Lincoln Street leading to Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant after deadly mass shootings in Lewiston, Maine, U.S. October 26, 2023.

REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi

Hard Numbers: Mass shooter kills in Maine, Mexico slammed by sudden hurricane, UAW makes deal with Ford, South African miners resurface, and Meloni takes a breakup break

16: A man in Lewiston, Maine, killed at least 16 people and injured dozens more in two mass shootings last night at a restaurant and bowling alley. The killer remains at large, and authorities urge all residents to shelter in place.

Read moreShow less

The flags of Russia and North Korea.

IMAGO/Christian Ohde via Reuters

Hard Numbers: North Korean arms to Russia, terror in Brussels, Meloni eyes tax cuts, pro-Russian Georgian politicking, Palestinian-American boy murdered

1,000: White House officials say North Korea has sent up to 1,000 shipping containers of “equipment and munitions” to Russia recently. Satellite images purportedly show clear evidence of Russian ships linked to military transport networks collecting the cargo – signs that Pyongyang is aiding Moscow’s war efforts.

Read moreShow less

Subscribe to our free newsletter, GZERO Daily

Latest