Italian voters said no more. They rejected Mario Monti's extremism. He represents unelected technocrat government. They did so overwhelmingly.

By Marianne Arens - 8 February 2013

Italy’s former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, used the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, to praise the fascist “Duce” Benito Mussolini. Mussolini had “done a great deal of good”, notwithstanding the racial laws that were “his worst mistake...”

By Martin Kreickenbaum - 28 January 2013

A report by Human Rights Watch documents the way in which Italian border police are deporting groups of asylum seekers to Greece without any attempt to examine their grounds for asylum...In the second half of 2012, Human Rights Watch interviewed 29 refugees deported from Italy to Greece. All testified to human rights violations and abuses committed by the Italian and Greek security authorities.

By Martin Kreickenbaum - 28 January 2013

A report by Human Rights Watch documents the way in which Italian border police are deporting groups of asylum seekers to Greece without any attempt to examine their grounds for asylum...In the second half of 2012, Human Rights Watch interviewed 29 refugees deported from Italy to Greece. All testified to human rights violations and abuses committed by the Italian and Greek security authorities.

Tuesday, 22 May 2012 - Ainfos

On the 11th of May Roberto Adinolfi, CEO of an Italian state controlled nuclear engineering company, was shot and wounded. A cell of the insurrectionist Informal Anarchist Federation have claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement...Previous acts claimed by Informal Anarchist Federation cells include sending a letter bomb to the Italian tax collection office, almost blinding a worker at the office and risking the lives of the postal and clerical workers who unwittingly carried the bomb.

By Mike Jobson - WSWS

Article 18 is an important conquest of the working class in the post-war period, providing job security for workers in firms with over 15 employees. It requires such firms to rehire, and not simply compensate, workers found to have been dismissed “without just cause”...If the bill is signed by the parliament, companies will not be obliged to reinstate workers...This will allow companies to lay off workers, without proving there are compelling “economic” reasons for doing so, in exchange for what would effectively be a minimal severance package.

In Germany, rulers and ruled agree: “We” have built a solid economy, lowered wages for over a decade in exemplary fashion, and strengthened the competitiveness of “our” economy. We have solid growth and our debts are under control. Now “we” must rescue the lazy Greeks, Portuguese, Irish, and who knows who else with new loans, because they have been “living beyond their means.” Even if the self-righteous German view has recently triumphed in Brussels and gains approval from the rest of Europe – not a single word in it is true.

By Mark Weisbrot - November 11, 2011

Some of us have been warning for months about the crisis scenario that is accelerating today in Europe. In particular, I have noted that the European authorities were pushing Italy down a dangerous path, in similar fashion to what they did to Greece. The formula is deadly: force budget tightening on an economy that is already shrinking or on the edge of recession. This shrinks the economy further, causing government revenue to fall and making still further tightening necessary to meet the target budget deficit.

06 September 2011 - Al Jazeera

Italy's largest trade union has mounted a general strike in opposition to government plans to tackle an austerity crisis...The eight-hour action called by CGIL, which represents 6 million workers, disrupted public transport and air traffic, and most government offices closed for the day..."These austerity measures are also irresponsible, they are measures that dump on the worker, on the public workers, all the costs of this crisis and this difficult financial situation..."

Sunday, August 14, 2011 - Common Dreams

Italy's second austerity package in less than a month met with a chorus of criticism a day after becoming law, with the largest union federation threatening a general strike over the "injustice" of the measures...CGIL union confederation leader Susanna Camusso [said]...the package "hits only those who already pay their taxes," adding that the date of a general strike would be decided at an emergency union meeting on August 23.

By MICHAEL LEONARDI - Counterpunch Weekend Edition

The reality of Genova is that the global economic powers decided to draw their line and strike back forcefully against the rapidly expanding movement for economic, social and environmental justice. Our cockiness in thinking that the world's leaders would only be able to meet in very remote locations or on the international space station were quickly and violently squashed...Ten years later the disaster of the global economy is more evident than any of us could have imagined and the truths of the resistance movement ring truer than ever...

By Conn Hallinan - Znet

...[T]he barbarians are back, only this time they are not tribes with scary names like Goths, Huns and Lombards. Today the brutes have bland sounding labels like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Union (EU) and Moody’s. And some of the worst are homegrown: Silvio Berlusconi...

By MICHAEL LEONARDI - June 3-5, 2011

Italy is in crisis with skyrocketing unemployment among young people, stagnant wages, a censured national media and a public education system that has been slashed by the right wing government. The center left...has offered little to contrast the Berlusconi government's neo-liberal policies...Now there is hope for change and a large and ever growing part of the population is in motion to ensure that this change is realized.

Friday, January 08, 2010 - Al Jazeera

Riots involving hundreds of immigrants have broken out in southern Italy, in protest against an attack on African farm workers by a gang of local youths...The rioters, shouting "we are not animals" and holding signs accusing Italians of racism, clashed with riot police, leading to seven arrests.

Friday 03 July 2009 - Morning Star

Italy's parliament has given final approval to frightening legislation that allows vigilante-style citizen patrols to operate in the alleged fight against illegal immigration..."The Berlusconi government, using security as a pretext, has imposed laws the like of which we have not seen in this country since the passing of the fascist Race Law..."