Italy

The refusal of Italy's official agencies to acknowledge the extent of racist crime in the country reinforces the damage inflicted on its victims, says Judith Sunderland.

For years the majority of Italians tolerated the misbehaviour and legalised theft of their parliamentarians because they hoped to benefit from it as well. But no longer.

It is a month since Italy's long-term prime minister resigned. But his pervasive influence on Italy's public life and the infirmity of the country's political class mean that it is too early to call this the post-Berlusconi era, says Geoff Andrews.

During the past few weeks, Mr. Monti has named many reforms that need to be made, not including a new electoral law. But if it is true that we have lost a great deal of sovereignty, we Italians did it willingly, a long time ago, and Mr. Monti has little to do with it.

The Catholic Church is seizing the advantage offered by the debacle suffered by almost all the Italian political parties, and therefore appears set to play a growing role in Italy’s political life, ending up as the principal, though perhaps occult, arbiter of future decisions and orientations.

On the day of his resignation, many in Italy held up signs saying "game over for Berlusconi". On the contrary, this is where the game begins, says Andrea Teti.

Riots overshadowing the "Occupy Rome" protests last Saturday showed how utterly unprepared both organisers and the police were for a predictable hijacking of the protests, while the government continues to turn a blind eye to the root causes of the discontent.

Italy's opposition has not gained in prestige due to Berlusconi's decline and the economic, political and social crisis afflicting the country. Into this political void the Roman Catholic church has stepped.

The Norwegian massacre and the gun attack on a US congresswoman were both dismissed as the work of deranged loners. But instead of signifying nothing, they were extraordinarily expressive of current political life. The author trawls through a host of supposedly pathological murders in the richest societies of the West to find deep and recurring patterns.

The simultaneous fall of the Murdoch and Berlusconi media empires – symbolic of an epoch – is not a coincidence but part of a deep global change in which the exponential growth of horizontal communication networks plays a central role. In this global epoch, despite the thin line between new democratic opportunities and the old threats of control, unforeseen democratic movements are demanding a new kind of democracy.

For all those who are afraid or suspicious, I invite them to go to the streets of Syria. One main defect with academic writing is that it avoids bombast. Hence, it doesn’t say that those young men and women who have been protesting in the streets of Syria for more than five months are heroes.

Italy has just passed yet another austerity measure, enduring another batch of strikes and protests. Given the failure of the preceding cuts, Italians are asking whether these measures are actually preventing growth, rather than encouraging it.

As Silvio Berlusconi wins another confidence vote to implement austerity measures within a faltering government, his winning slogan, – ‘don't let Government dip its hands in Italian pockets’ – has caved in. There is no plausible replacement strategy.

The myths of monetary policy, the dangers of austerity, the need for a reconstruction of the real economy - these have to be understood. Also, the failure of Europe’s political vision.

A picture poem on Gaddafi's fall

Europe’s crisis is a crisis of democracy. The ‘democracy of the experts’ cannot deliver: representative democracy is incapable of channelling demands in the political system. More participatory and deliberative democracy is needed, as argued in Europe’s public spaces by the movements of ‘ indignados’.

What do the mountains of debt of a west that used to be rich have in common? Were errors made in the construction and constitution of the European Union? If so, how do we mend them?

Yes, European leaders could all agree when it came to imposing austerity on Athens, Dublin, Lisbon and Rome, ‘reassuring’ financial markets, saving creditor banks, increasing countries’ financial burdens and putting public enterprises on the market at sale prices. But such policies make exiting the crisis impossible.

Silvio Berlusconi's position in Italy seems weaker then ever. The Vatican however has renewed its dogmatic stance towards Italian politics and will step into the vacuum, increasing its influence and demanding a price for its blessing of the party that will take over from Berlusconi

Mexico City to Barcelona flight forced to return to Mexico because Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar, en route to Italy, is prohibited from passing through US airspace