Italy's government is a Parliamentary Republic, which means, the government leader, called the prime minister, is always a member of Parliament.Which makes Italy, different from the United States, which keeps Congress and the president in separate branches of government.
To vote for president, you must be 18 years of age, universal. (except in sensational elections, where minimum age is 25.
Italy's current leader is Sergio Mattarella. In 2011, he became an elected judge on the Constitutional Court.He was elected on January 31, 2015 by parliament to be the 12th Italian President.
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ROME — With shouts of “Bravo!” and rounds of applause, rescue workers pulled a frigid but buoyant boy from the snow-covered rubble of an Italian hotel on Friday, one of at least 10 survivors found two days after an avalanche destroyed the building, officials said.
The boy, dressed in blue snow pants and a fleece shirt, appeared alert and able to walk on his own as rescuers workers tussled his hair, helped him to a stretcher and then set about retrieving his mother.
“They were so happy,” one rescue worker, Marco Bini, told Sky TG24 about the pair. “Their faces lit up.”
Despair turned to hope on Friday morning when at least 10 people were found alive, including four children, at the site of the isolated hotel in the Apennine Mountains that was destroyed by the avalanche on Wednesday. By evening, several people had been pulled from the wreckage, but additional known survivors remained trapped beneath several tons of snow.
Two people, members of the Hotel Rigopiano staff, were found dead in the building’s wreckage and around 20 others were thought to remain missing.
Images of the woman and her son being pulled by rescuers from a hole cut through several feet of snow, debris and a concrete ceiling, was broadcast around the world. A third member of the family, the boy’s sister, was rescued later in the day.
The woman, Adriana Parete, and her son, Gianfilippo, were found in an area above the hotel’s kitchen. “In one room, there was a mother and her son; in the room next door, there were four people, but it was more difficult to reach them,” Luca Cari, a spokesman for the Fire Department, said by telephone.
Mr. Bini, the rescuer, said the mother and son “didn’t have a lot of space, and there was debris around them, but they were alive, they hung on, they were fortunate.”
The pair were taken to a hospital in Pescara, where doctors said they were in satisfactory condition.
“They were a little dehydrated, but the situation is tranquil,” Dr. Tullio Spina, director of the hospital’s intensive care unit, said at a televised news conference. He said they survived because they were warmly dressed and “had no direct contact with the snow.”
Ms. Parete and her children are relatives of one of the two people who escaped seconds before the snowslide buried the hotel.
Four other rescued survivors, including two children, were identified as guests of the building. The main building was torn off its foundations by an avalanche.
CreditItalian Fire and Rescue Service, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe Rigopiano, a four-star hotel, had 43 rooms. It was not clear how many guests were staying there at the time of the avalanche, although most estimates put the number at about 30.
The avalanche was believed to have been caused by a series of strong earthquakes in the region on Wednesday, but Italian prosecutors said they had opened a criminal investigation into an unnamed individual or individuals.
“We have to understand if there are people who are responsible for the deaths,” said Cristina Tedeschini, a Pescara prosecutor, in an interview.
I think this article is important because it explains about how the government came to help the citizens in a crisis. This evidence shows that the government is concerned about it's populations safety. The Fire Rescue took several careful searching days to uncover all the citizens in the hotel and under the snow. They respected all the victims and made sure they were cared for. This may be part of their job, but it showed true bravery to go and search for people and risk their lives to help injured or maybe even dead citizens. I think this article supports letting Italy into the European Union because it represents the consideration the country has for the citizens and the hotel. The rescue searched under lots of debris and snow risking their lives each day because they wanted to make sure that they had found each body or survivor.