Italy shows how to tackle the virus – This week, the international media covering Italy have focused their coverage on the spread of coronavirus. However, aside from health bulletins, there is no shortage of positive articles. Bloomberg, for example, in an editorial, declares: “Italy shows how to tackle the coronavirus impact,” emphasizing that “the country’s fiscal measures make sense,” appearing “timely and proportionate” (March 2 – Italy Shows How to Tackle the Coronavirus Impact*). Le Monde, on the other hand, covers the letter that the headmaster of Milan’s “prestigious liceo Volta secondary school” sent to students, “appealing to the country’s cultural heritage, rich with evocations of the Plague, to warn against the psychosis born from the epidemic’s spread in Lombardy” (March 1 – La littérature italienne, comme antidote aux peurs liées au coronavirus*).
The show (and business) must go on – Attention to the virus’s spread does not halt news about the economy, or fashion, lifestyle, and show business. While Reuters analyzes Banco BPM’s new strategic plan that promises increased dividends (March 3 – Banco BPM lifts payout, bets on fees under new business plan), El Mundo reports on the investment by the Spanish group Keraben in Italy, where it has purchased Ascot Ceramiche (March 3 – El grupo propietario de Keraben se afianza en Italia con la segunda azulejera transalpina Ascot Ceramiche). Relations between Italy and Tunisia are spotlighted in an article in the newspaper La Presse, dedicated to cooperation for municipal projects in the North African country (March 3 – Coopération tuniso-italienne: Appui aux projets municipaux).
Fashion is also covered, with Valentino’s offerings at Paris Fashion Week (The New York Times, March 1 – Valentino Goes Back to Black at Paris Fashion Week*), as is cinema, with a profile dedicated by El Pais’s magazine Icon to Sofia Loren. The actress’s return to the big screen, the article explains, presents an “opportunity to recall the famous phrases and moments in the life of the last diva from the Golden Age of Hollywood” (March 3 – 16 grandes frases de Sofia Loren (y una todavía mejor, pero que ella no dijo nunca). Lastly, Italian life style is represented by its culinary offerings: Der Standard, in its cooking blog, offers the Tuscan recipe for “polpette di pelliccia” – meatballs with poultry and potatoes (March 3 – Polpette di Pelliccia: Kartoffel-Fleisch-Bällchen nach toskanischer Art).
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