In Italy it's tradition to fire into the air on New Year's Eve. A custom that left one man dead this year when a 25-year-old was accidentally shot in the head. A Naples journalist was reporting the celebrations on Sunday. The scene is quite comical. See the video...

With his bald head, flowing beard and rough brown robe, Brother Cesare certainly looks the part of the archetypical Capuchin monk. But when he grabs a mike and starts to sing, it's a whole other story: in his powerful gravelly voice, Brother Cesare belts out Heavy Metal tunes of his own composition. Read more and watch a video of one of his concerts...

The Italian government has sent soldiers out into the streets of the country's major cities in an attempt to curb crime and prevent terrorist attacks. A tactic usually employed in war time, the deployment has given rise to mixed reactions. Read more...

UPDATE (23.07.08 - 5pm): We contacted the Naples journalist who took the photos. He thinks that the affair has been blown out of proportion.

Two girls of Roma origin drowned at a beach in Naples on Saturday. Photos of their dead bodies, lying a few metres from indifferent sunbathers, have revived the controversy over Italian attitudes towards the minority gypsy community. Read more...

One of our Observers for Italy recently alerted us to the news that as part of a major clampdown on "gypsy" communities the government plans to compile a fingerprint database of the country's entire Roma population, including children. Read more...

Italian comedian Beppe Grillo called on the Italian electorate to boycott yesterday's parliamentary elections. On his blog, considered by Technorati as one of the world's top ten most popular, he slates the corruption of Italian politicians and the dependency of the media. Here, he comments on the elections for the Observers. Read more...

Four years ago, young people from Palermo launched a website called Adio Pizzo to condemn illegal taxes imposed on Sicilian traders. Today, they have convinced almost 200 shopkeepers to break the silence and refuse to pay the ‘Pizzo' mafia tax. One of the scheme's organisers, Chloe Tucciarelli, and a local businessman, Riccardo Agnello, tell us about their fight against the Cosa Nostra.Read more...

A company owner who refused to pay taxes to the mafia had his property burnt down, 19 August 2007

Photo Sebastiano Sacco, via Dario Salvelli's blog- 9 January 2008

We published a post on the 'trash crisis' in Naples, Italy, Saturday. The problem is far from over and the Neapolitans continue to confront the police force. Images of these riots have been circulating across the world, but there’s a lack of information on the context and the twists in this particularly complicated, internecine crisis. Why is Naples unable to manage its garbage disposal like other European cities? Our observer, Alessia Storia, worked for a public sector waste management company. She details the responsibilities of the local authorities and the might of the Camorra, the dreaded Sicilian mafia, in this crisis. Read more...

As the days crawl by, Neapolitans watch the rubbish pile up outside their doors. . Two thousand tonnes of refuse now fills the city's streets. Firemen have been on high alert since New Year's Day when residents started setting fire to the waste. Our Observers in the town describe the situation, and condemn the mafia's role in the situation. Read more...