In Italy, particularly in the southern city of Naples, it might make sense swapping the greeting “buon anno” – happy new year – for “lucky new year” or “safe new year”, as the ritual, idiotic use of DIY fireworks brings an avalanche of serious burns, mutilations and general chaos.

Silvio Berlusconi has agreed to pay his estranged wife Veronica Lario the equivalent of £30m a year to avoid a messy courtroom divorce battle.

It's not just the Vatican treasury that's spending its pennies more wisely this year. Citizens of the world's tiniest state have been enjoying a last-minute Christmas shopping splurge at knockdown prices in the Holy See's own department store.

Mario Monti, who resigned the Italian premiership on Friday, will not run in the February general elections, but is prepared to become an unelected prime minister for a second time in order to push his reform agenda.

Photos of the prosecutor Ilda Boccassini appear in the weekly magazine Chi, with captions apparently intended to belittle the magistrate

The UN is appealing for $1.5bn (£920m) to fund relief efforts  for those affected by the conflict  in Syria.

The Vatican has received a generous early Christmas present from European Union chiefs with the announcement that illegal tax exemption from 2006 to 2011, which saved the Catholic Church billions of euros, will not have to be paid back.

The world's great sopranos are not the only prima donnas at La Scala. In the latest fit of pique among its performers, ballerinas in the opera house's latest production of Romeo and Juliet have gone on strike after management refused to pay them more for dancing on a sloping floor.

The world's great sopranos are not the only prima donnas at La Scala. In the latest fit of pique among its performers, ballerinas in the celebrated opera house's latest production of Roméo et Juliette have gone on strike after management refused to pay them more for dancing on a sloping floor.

Their establishment is as much a part of the Venice myth as the canals, gondolas and the Rialto Bridge. But now last orders have come for the Cipriani family, who have run Harry's Bar in Venice for 81 years.