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Europe Round-Up
Venice going under: Rising water levels are bad enough, but if current trends continue La Serenissima will soon face a shortage of Venetians. High prices and lack of basic shopping have driven locals off the islands, leaving many properties to rich foreigners.
Mafia splash the cash: Things are changing at the other end of Italy, too. The three biggest mafia clans control interests worth over ten percent of Italy's GDP - add the drugs trade, and you could double this sum.
Up to recently, the millionaires behind this trade have lived relatively modestly, but now a new breed of Mafioso Playboy has emerged, with more in common with rap megastars than their fathers (and godfathers). A planned bridge linking Sicily to the Italian mainland has led experts to predict a feeding frenzy for organised crime.
We'll pay you to go: As Spain's property boom turns to crash, thousands of immigrant workers are left kicking their heels. The government has come up with a novel solution: Pay them unemployment benefit to get out and stay out, at least for a couple of years until the property market sorts itself out. An estimated 100,000 could benefit from the payout, but the authorities expect only a small percentage to take up the offer.
