Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government, which has already put several thousand soldiers on the streets of Italy, was yesterday to legalize vigilante patrols and set out the guidelines under which they can operate.
The plans prompted an outcry from opposition politicians and police unions, but got a mixed reception from Italy’s mayors, who must decide whether they want law enforcement volunteers in their towns. An overwhelming majority of those in favor run cities in the north, where the anti-immigrant Northern League has long argued for wider use of vigilantes.
The interior minister, Roberto Maroni, a member of the Northern League, denied that the plan was to introduce vigilantism to Italy: “The decree does not create [vigilante] patrols; it regulates them.”
After rejecting the scheme, Rome’s mayor, Gianni Alemanno, a former neo-fascist, appears to have embraced it. The head of his council’s security committee, Fabrizio Santori, said vigilantes in fluorescent jackets would be deployed in parks, outside schools and at tourist sites.
Taking advantage of a gap in existing legislation, volunteers have formed groups to carry out patrols in cities including Milan, Padua, Parma and Bologna.
Last month vigilante groups from the left and the right clashed violently in the Tuscan town of Massa Carrara.
The rules will restrict groups such as the Italian National Guard, which is being investigated by a prosecutor in Turin. The Guard, which claims 2,000 members, has a reconnaissance plane and a uniform, complete with armbands, reminiscent of the Nazi SA.
But one of the biggest existing groups, the Milan-based City Angels, which focuses on social work as much as crime prevention, expressed concern that the guidelines would be too restrictive.
The leader of Italy’s biggest opposition group, Dario Franceschini of the Democratic party, called the use of vigilantes “demagogic and dangerous.”
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
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