Matteo Salvini

Italy prepared to say farewell to former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi Wednesday, with thousands of people expected at the billionaire tycoon's state funeral in Milan.

The ceremony for Berlusconi, who died Monday aged 86, will be held in the city's Gothic Duomo cathedral and shown live on big screens in the square.

The ministers responsible for transport in Greece and Italy hope to hold a face-to-face meeting in the near future, following a call between them on Friday.

During the discussion, Giorgos Gerapetritis and Matteo Salvini confirmed the common will to strengthen interstate relations in the field of transport, state-run news agency AMNA said.

Italy is often plagued by drought during the summer months, and last year a "state of emergency" was declared in several regions due to the worst drought that has hit the country in the last 70 years, reports Euractiv.
This year, the situation is expected to worsen as the country experienced extremely low rainfall during the winter.

But a police raid on our newsroom was not exactly what I was expecting. None of my colleagues were. 

A 'surreal' raid

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni attends an EU Summit in Brussels, Belgium, March 23, 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE/OLIVIER HOSLET

ROME - Serbian Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Goran Vesic met with Italian Deputy PM and Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Matteo Salvini in Rome on Tuesday.

After the meeting, Vesic said that, in the period to come, the two countries would work together on abolishing transit permits.

Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni was named Italian prime minister on Oct. 21, becoming the first woman to head a government in Italy.

The conservative bloc includes Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, Matteo Salvini’s League & Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia

"Prime Minister Viktor Orban discussed the creation of a new European political grouping in a video conference with Matteo Salvini, leader of the Italian Lega party, and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, vice-president of the Law and Justice party (PiS)," Bertalan Havasi, the prime minister's press chief, announced on Wednesday.

Fifteen boats packed with hundreds of migrants landed on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa on Sunday and officials said they were expecting numbers to increase as the weather improved, news wires reported.

A judge in Sicily on Saturday ordered former interior minister Matteo Salvini to stand trial for having refused to let a Spanish migrant rescue ship dock in an Italian port in 2019, keeping the people at sea for days.

Judge Lorenzo Iannelli set September 15 as the trial date during a hearing in the Palermo bunker courtroom, the LaPresse news agency reported.