Fashion’s biggest names have some gorgeous new fragrances launching this month. Rachel Marie Walsh reports.

The Irish Naval Service made a record 771 migrant rescues in one day in the Mediterranean yesterday, following several operations which began at 6.40am.

Italian authorities have arrested 11 people in a probe of corruption linked to the Sicilian Mafia and construction contracts for Milan's Expo 15 fair.

Claudio Ranieri has always been a modest man, as well as a family man.

Perfume is a classic Christmas present and while taste is subjective, there are some fragrances that just can’t be resisted. Rachel Marie Walsh suggests some options you won’t need to box up with gift receipts.

ENGLAND:

Italy’s coast guard and navy joined forces with tugs and other commercial vessels to rescue migrants in at least 16 boats yesterday, saving hundreds and recovering 10 bodies as smugglers took advantage of calm seas to send packed vessels across the Mediterranean.

Prosecutors have blamed the Tunisian captain of a fishing boat for causing the deaths of hundreds of migrants locked below decks when his vessel capsized in the Mediterranean in the weekend shipwreck that has shocked Europe.

In Italy new legalisation is on the way that will see inmates earn a maximum of 48 days off a year for reading books.

Helena Attlee

Mafia Republic Italy’s Criminal Curse:Cosa Nostra, Camorra and ’Ndrangheta from 1946 to the present

Italian police say they have broken up an insurance fraud run by a crime syndicate that counted on the collusion of doctors, lawyers and car repair shop owners.

Once the boss of a fearsome mafia clan, Marisa Merico took refuge in Britain and ended up in prison with Rosemary West. She tells Beatrice Borromeo about her time at the top of the ‘Ndrangheta and her new life as a stay-at-home mother

Italian police have arrested 63 people in raids in the southern Calabria region aimed at the ’ndrangheta organised crime gang.

An explosive device has gone off in southern Italy outside a centre for young migrants that is headed by a crusading anti-mafia priest.

The leader of a mob that killed six people in Duisburg, Germany, in 2007, that shed international light on the ’ndrangheta organised crime syndicate, has been jailed for life today.

AN ITALIAN film portrays a flashy politician who loves easy sex and hates justice, but with the real prime minister embroiled in a prostitution scandal, critics say political reality is looking stranger than fiction.

A speeding car has ploughed into a group of cyclists in southern Italy and killed at least seven of them, police said today.

A MAFIA informant who disappeared nearly a year ago was tortured and her body dissolved in acid by her former partner and other family members angry that she had cooperated with authorities, Italian police said last night.

A bombing today in southern Italy damaged the apartment house of a magistrate investigating the 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate.

THOUSANDS of Italian police took part in a huge operation against a powerful crime syndicate yesterday, arresting 300 people including top bosses and seizing millions in property.

Thousands of Italian police took part in a huge operation against a powerful crime syndicate today, arresting 300 people including top bosses and seizing millions in property.

Some 300 people were arrested today as Italian police carried out a major crackdown on a powerful crime gang in a pre-dawn swoop, news reports said.

A VETERAN mobster was arrested after 17 years on the run, but a sympathetic crowd cheered him yesterday as he was escorted out of a police barracks and taken to jail.

A gunman accused of carrying out the 2007 Mafia shootings known as the Duisburg Massacre went on trial today in Italy.

PREMIER Silvio Berlusconi faces a significant test in regional voting to be held across Italy tomorrow and on Monday — and danger is all around him.

Hundreds of immigrant workers rioted through a southern Italian town after two of them were shot in what they claim was a racist attack.

A hitman wanted for killing six people in a bloody feud between Mafia clans was arrested today near Amsterdam.

ITALIAN authorities said yesterday they had crushed a bid to revive the Sicilian mafia after making around 100 arrests in a series of raids, nearly three years on from the capture of the cosa nostra’s supremo.

Italian police today arrested a wanted gang leader believed to be part of an organised crime clan involved in the massacre of six people in Germany last summer.

Arrest warrants for more than 50 people were issued today in a Mafia sweep across Italy targeting drug trafficking and extortion rackets, news reports said.

Italian and German police arrested four suspected members of organised crime clans today believed to be involved in the killing of six Italians in Germany.

Revenue from organised crime in Italy adds up to €85bn or about 7% of the country's gross domestic product, a small business lobby said.

POLICE arrested 32 suspected mafiosi yesterday and were hunting for eight others linked to a mob feud blamed for the execution-style killings of six Italians in Germany.

The bodies of three of the six victims of last week’s Mafia killings in Germany have arrived in Italy, as authorities debated how to handle security at the funerals amid fears of new mob violence.

ITALIAN police arrested 14 people in raids against a human trafficking ring that brought in illegal immigrants from Africa then abducted some of them for ransom, officials said today.

Italian police arrested 14 people across the country in raids against a human trafficking ring that brought in illegal immigrants from Africa then abducted some of them for ransom, officials said today.

A CARGO ship and a commuter hydrofoil collided near the entrance to the Sicilian port of Messina yesterday evening, injuring about 55 people, at least three of them seriously, officials said.

Rats in Naples and cats in Milan, unlicensed nurses and expired medicine are among the horrors that emerged from nationwide police inspections of Italian hospitals that left more than 100 people facing possible investigation, health officials said Thursday.