EU curbs FAO spending as Chinese DG sidelines crocodile burger romeo

JAN FILIPOWICZ

 ROME – FAO donors spearheaded by European Union countries have frozen funds for as many as 200 professional positions at the FAO because of disgruntlement with the way the Chinese Communist Director General Qu Dongyu is spending donor funds profligately as he launches a campaign for an unconstitutional third term of office and a salary increase, diplomatic sources say.

U.N., Embassy Row
20 Dec 2024

At least 20 migrants dead in Tunisian shipwreck

INSIDER NEWSDESK

 ROME — At least 20 migrants drowned in a shipwreck off the Tunisian coast Wednesday night, judicial sources said. 

 Tunisian authorities said they had rescued five survivors, all of subsaharan origin. Recovery operations were still ongoing, they said. 

 The migrants' boat set out from Chebba, a small port city, just before midnight Wednesday. Their ship sank 13 nautical miles off the coast of La Louza, just south of their push-off point, a spokesman for the Tunisian National Guard said. 

 

 

jlb

World, Italy
19 Dec 2024
Read More

Trapped spelunker rescued after four days in cave

INSIDER NEWSDESK

 ROME — A spelunking misstep last weekend left Ottavia Piana, 32, injured and trapped 585 metres deep in a Lombardy cave. Wednesday morning, eighty-odd hours after her fall, a 159-man rescue team lifted Piana out. 

 Piana sustained trauma to her vertebrae and ribs, Il Fatto Quotidiano reported, and fractured facial bones and one knee. On her release she was airlifted to a Bergamo hospital.

 Lombardy emergency services spent two days freeing Piana from the same cave in July 2023, after a fall in which the caver broke her leg. 

Italy
18 Dec 2024
Read More

Fifty-three arrested in Camorra maxi blitz

INSIDER NEWSDESK

ROME — Naples' Anti-Mafia Directorate (DIA) arrested 53 alleged Camorristi in a maxi blitz Tuesday morning, judicial sources said. 

 The DIA's investigation is still ongoing, it said. But it said its Tuesday raid targeted members of the Amato-Pagano family. 

 Charges for the arrested suspects include mafia-style association and extortion. 

 

 

jlb

Italy
17 Dec 2024
Read More

NGO senior officials, diplomats 'dodge Insider subscription fee'

INSIDER NEWSDESK

 ROME --  Ilje Betlem, FAO chief for elections, Dr Helena Wright, Policy Director at 70trn @FAIRRInitiative, Chimimba David Phiri, the FAO Special Adviser to the Assistant DirectorGeneral for Regional Office for Africa , senior economist Paolo Lourenco Dias Nunes and senior executives of the WFP, FAO, IFAD and UNESCO are among NGO senior managers, UN agency executives and diplomats who have failed to upgrade their subscriptions to the Italian Insider's modest diplomatic\ins

U.N., Embassy Row
11 Dec 2024