Italy's high school students start final exams
Half a million students across Italy started their final exams for their high school leaving certificate on Wednesday, national media reported.
The maturità consists of one oral and two written exams that test students' Italian language and critical thinking skills as well as their knowledge of specialist subjects.
Passing the exam is seen as a key rite of passage in Italy, with a person's score having the potential to affect employment prospects years down the line.
For Wednesday's written exam, students were able to choose to write an essay on one of seven possible topics, including a reflection on the meaning of the word "respect", according to Ansa news agency.
Other questions centred on a quote from anti-mafia judge Paolo Borsellino, killed by Sicily's Cosa Nostra in 1992; a poem by writer and director Pier Paolo Pasolini; and an extract from Tommasi di Lampedusa's The Leopard.
Southern Italy set to lose 3.4 million inhabitants by 2050
The south of Italy is on course to lose 3.4 million people by 2050, Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said on Wednesday.
Speaking before a parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the economic and social effects of Italy's demographic transition, Giorgetti said southern Italy was set to lose 7.9 million inhabitants by 2080.
While the fertility rate in central Italy remained stable in 2024, both the north and south of the country saw a decline compared to the previous year, he said.
Italy's plummeting birth rate reached a new low in 2024, according to data released by national statistics office Istat earlier this year.
The country registered 370,000 births over the course of last year – down by 2.6 percent against 2023 figures.
Mediterranean rescuers say 175,000 people saved since 2015
Maritime rescue organisations on Wednesday said they had pulled more than 175,000 people from the Mediterranean over the past 10 years, as waves of migrants sought to use the dangerous sea route to reach Europe.
The group of 21 NGOS active in the region estimated that at least 28,932 people had died while trying to cross the sea since 2015.
The organisations have frequently clashed with authorities over their rescue operations, which were launched as Europe's migration crisis broke out in 2015, when hundreds of thousands headed to the continent, mostly from the Middle East.
In Italy the current government has vowed to end crossings and attacked NGOs for creating a "pull factor" that encourages departures, something migration observers say is unproven.
Giorgia Meloni's hard-right government has passed laws requiring rescue ships to return to a designated port, a measure NGOs say is contrary to maritime law.
With reporting by AFP.
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