"Italy strikes as race to pass austerity starts"

from swiss info.........

"Workers across Italy went on strike on Tuesday as the centre-right government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi rushed to secure parliamentary backing for austerity measures vital to keep European Central Bank support.

The eight-hour strike called by the CGIL, Italy's largest union with 6 million members, disrupted public transport including air traffic, underlining a sense of emergency in the euro zone's third largest economy.

Federico Ghizzoni, chief executive of Unicredit, Italy's biggest bank said Europe needed to decide whether it wanted to retain the single currency or "give up"............READ MORE