Jo McKenna: Italy Correspondent on European Heatwave

Italy has placed 12 cities under the most severe heat warning as southern Europe records temperatures over 40 degrees, with the worst still to come.

Civil protection services reported 18 calls for help on Monday to douse wildfires that raged in several southern regions.

Italy Correspondent Jo McKenna told Mike Hosking the country oddly faces worsening drought in the South, and heavy storms up North.

She says the feverish conditions have caused rising tension towards tourists.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In Italy, Joe McKenna, very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Good money mate.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
I haven't spoken to you since you went on holiday,
have you have I Oh, that's right, well indeed, and
you haven't spoken to me since I went on holiday,
So it's been God, it's been so long Joe since
we've spoken. How was your holiday? Out of ten?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Way too short? I'd say seven out of ten for Croatia. Yes,
beautiful scenery, fabulous Mediterranean water or Adriatic water, very transparent,
very nice. Food. Was a little bit disappointing, I say,
I think we're still spoilt in Italy.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Oh, good on you, well, very pleased you had a
good time. Now, maloney, tell me about the Poles. First
of all, she seemingly can do no wrong.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
It's incredible when you think about it. I mean, she's
been in office now for a year and a half,
almost two years coming up in October, and her party,
if they had an election tomorrow, would be quite solid
at around twenty nine percent of the vote according to
the latest polls. The nearest rival is the center left
Democratic Party, the main opposition party, at around twenty three.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Okay, and she I saw the eye roll. Has that
gone down well in Italy. The eye roll at NATO look.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
I think generated a lot more interest around the world
than inside Italy. But it's something that she's known for
and when she gets bored or angry or frustrated, she
tends to roll her eyes and it was caught on
camera at the NATO summit, went viral and created all
sorts of interest around the world.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Okay, talk to me about the weather. I got a
daughter in Italy at the moment, she's saying thirty seven
thirty eight around the place.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
That's right, and even more severe in places like Sardinia
and Sicily. Today we've had some fires. Two forty five
year old firefighters lost their lives in southern Italy trying
to save a family from a fire around the Materra area.
For elderly people have died from the intense heat wave.

(01:51):
We've got fourteen cities tomorrow on red alert for the heat,
which is a warning for everyone to just take a
bit more care, and particularly elderly and vulnerable people.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
And what happens that there are droughts and you know,
things like that that we worry about in this country
in the summer when it doesn't rain.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, the odd thing, Mike is we've had storms and
heavy rain in the north of the country and worsening drought,
particularly in Sicily and Colaretti. The National Farmers Organization is
warning more than thirty thousand jobs have been lost between
Sicily and the southern region of Paulia.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Fantastic. I'm reading the other day Barcelona. What they're doing
is standing outside the cafes and they're spraying people with
water water guns for the tourists. They hate the tourists,
and I know that Italy is inundated with tourists at
the moment. Is there angst about the tourists?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Six? There is a bit of angst. Yeah, I'm particularly
with a lack of taxis in Rome. Pickpockets on the
subway out of control more so than usual. One subway
station was shut down last Saturday night when two rival
pickpocket gangs started fighting with tourists. So there is this
wave of tourists that's come in. We've heard about the

(02:59):
chartarge in Venice for day trippers, and even the island
of Cupri has been overrun in recent days with Americans. Apparently.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Daughter's telling me a lot of biggers at So if
you're eating on the street. A lot of biggers. They
just come up and bother you over dinner or lunch
or whatever.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah, I haven't found it so much around my dinner
table at a restaurant, but certainly on the street. It's
quite common now to see beggars in front of you
on the street.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
All right, good catch up, Joe, go well we'll catch
talk next to this. They appreciate it very much, speaking
of itly. By the way, if you've never seen it,
I'm sure I've recommended it about a million times. But
Stanley Tucci did it just an astonishingly good series on
CNN about a year ago, and because it was on
c and N didn't seem to go anywhere else. So
you either got it on CNN or you didn't. It's
turned up on the Living Channel, which is channel what's

(03:47):
the Living Channel, Channel seventeen? I think anyway, s turned
up on the Living Channel on Sky. And I really
think that people are still dialing in channel numbers and
not just going to the on demand thing. And that's
exactly why I said what I see you try and
find that series on demand, and you can't because it
was a C and N product that didn't go on demand,
so it is channel seven, It's channel seventeen on my box.

(04:10):
It look Sammy's nodding and he's a what's the gen
xer Gin wire? A millennial anyway, Standy Tucci, very very
good of you into food and Italy in culture gently.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
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