by Luisa Potenza

Rome--- Italy's cash-strapped government launched its latest effort to crack down on tax evaders.  The Italian government

suffers a loss of up to 150 billion euros a year (US $192 billion) as a result of people avoiding their tax responsibility.

   The social network, comprised of Blogs and Facebook groups, promised to encourage Italians to report shops, restaurants, doctors and dentists who are dodging taxes.  "We decided to help raise the level of integrity," said Eduardo Sera, a 27-year-old consultant who recently launched the website "TASSA II", which translates as "tax them", to report fraud.

   The challenge is a daunting task especially after years of laxity under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's term in office.  He is reported as saying, "If I'm asked for 50 percent, I feel morally obliged to evade taxes".

by Luisa Potenza

Venice -- After a three-year, 2.8 million euro controversial restoration project the Bridge of Sighs has finally been completed.

The project was paid for with a series of advertisements placed over the scaffolding that covered up the Bridge.  The limestone and iron features were restored to their former glory for the first time in a century. Decades of ugly black crust had developed on the 400-year-old Ponte dei Sospiri, while in places parts of it had fallen off and dropped into the murky waters of the canal.

Venice's Mayor Giorgio Orsoni gave details of the restoration work at a press conference in Venice.  The Bridge is one of the reasons why more than 12 million people a year visit Venice. The Bridge of Sighs was originally built to connect the old prison to the interrogation rooms in the Doge's Palace.  The view from the stone-barred windows was the last thing prisoners saw as they were led to their cells.

by Luisa Potenza

Tianjin, China -- The historical town of Florence, Italy has now been recreated in China, featuring colonnades and luxury shopping.

The Chinese who desire to tour Venetian canals, sip a glass of Chianti wine while being serenaded by a string trio can also do just that in the the Florentia Village located in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin.

The recreation was carved out of a corn field in in Wuquing, halfway between the port of Tianjin and the capital city of Beijing.  Thousands of visitors admire the Renaissance-styled architecture.  They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so Italians should be proud that another culture has chosen their "jewel" to be replicated.

by Luisa Potenza

       The barbarians are back!  This time they are not the ancient tribes such as GOTHS, HUNS and LOMBARDS.  These days the brutes have names like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Union (EU) and Moody's.  Others are homegrown - the likes of Silvio Berlusconi and Giullo Tremonti.

       Today, Italy is in deep trouble, though not alone.  Greece, Portugal and Spain share the headlines of late.  Italy has the second highest rate of debt in Europe and one of the lowest growth rates.  Italian bond yields jumped to a nine-year high, and the country's stock market fell.  Italy has the third largest economy in the Euro zone.  A troubled Italy means the Euro, its form of currency, is in trouble as well,  Unlike Portugal, Greece or Ireland, Italy is far too big for a bail out. 

       There are signs that the Italian economy is running off the rails, but the signs are subtle.Visible signs are the locked houses and unkempt grasses.  The locked houses are in the ancient city of Pompeii, where the government no longer has the money to shore up the walls of the 2,000 year-old city.  The Doric temples at Paestum are well-preserved but grass has reclaimed much of the rest of the site. There is no money with which to cut it.

       As in ancient Rome, there is graffiti everywhere.  There are hammers and sickles painted on the walls in Naples, as well as scrawls threatening "death to the Communists."  The left took power here in the last elections and is currently locked in a battle with the local Mafia over corruption.  The streets are chaotic, loud, and anarchic, but clean.  The Mafia's tactic of flooding the city with garbage is not working.

       So far Italy is quiet, but everyone is aware that the coup of capital is being contested in the streets of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Britain, as it will eventually be in Rome, Naples, and Milan.

       Compared to social unrest in Greece, Spain, Britain and Portugal, Italy has been relatively tranquil.  While the Greeks are in open rebellion against the austerity packages of the IMF and the EU, Italian demonstrations have been big but generally quiet.  Giullo Tremonti told the "Financial Times" that Italians are different than the Greeks and would accept austerity, because "The Italian people understand," he said, "their demand is to be serious and rigorous.  People are strongly in favor of this discipline."

       There is nothing to indicate that Italians won't follow the Greeks into the streets once the cuts hit home.  A stencil on a wall in Citta` de Castello shows two stick figures, one firing a gun at the head of the other.  Underneath the picture is one word: "capitalism."