The New York Times - USA (2020-08-03)

A14 N THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALMONDAY, AUGUST 3, 2020

GENOA, Italy — Since the dra-
matic and deadly collapse of the
Morandi bridge over the Italian
port of Genoa two years ago,
builders have worked around the
clock, through a judicial investiga-
tion and the coronavirus pan-
demic, so a new bridge could open
on time.
Designed by a native son of the
city, the architect Renzo Piano,
and built in a record 15 months,
the new Genoa San Giorgio
bridge, whose inauguration is
Monday, has become a matter of
pride for Genoa and all of Italy, a
symbol of their can-do spirit.
Yet residents and business own-
ers say the accomplishment will
hardly cure the pains of the city,
which was shrinking — economi-
cally, demographically and cultur-
ally — even before the collapse,
which killed 43 people on Aug. 14,
2018.
The loss of one of the city’s main
arteries and its fastest east-west
connection compounded all those
problems, devastating businesses
and paralyzing life. Today many in
Genoa are still suffering and la-
ment that the new bridge will not
be enough to overcome the ab-
sence of a broad, long-term vision
to revive their city.
Though the government and
the company that manages the
bridge, Autostrade per l’Italia, or
Highways for Italy, gave aid to
dozens of businesses in the area to
help them stay afloat, many had to
relocate or remained cut off from
the rest of Genoa.
“I lost 50 percent of my busi-
ness with the collapse; my pa-
tients who lived across the bridge
could no longer get here,” said Dr.
Fabio Bertoldi, a veterinarian
whose office is about 300 yards
north of the bridge.
“Now I even bike to work,” said
Dr. Bertoldi, who lives about 15
miles away. If he drove, he added,
“It would take me three hours to
get here with the construction on
the highway.”
A surge of long-overdue infra-
structure work has further
snarled traffic. For many of those
who live in Genoa, then, the open-
ing of the new bridge is at best bit-
tersweet.
“We are glad for the new bridge,
built so fast, and the maintenance
on the highways, but it all also
leaves us a bitter feeling,” said
Egle Possetti, spokeswoman for a
group of the victims’ families.
“Had they done it before, our rela-
tives might have been alive.” Ms.
Possetti’s sister, brother-in-law,
young nephew and niece were
killed when the bridge fell.
Genoa’s unique location —
wedged between mountains and
sea in Italy’s northeast — makes it
hard to reach and even harder to
navigate. It takes five hours to
reach Genoa by fast train from
Rome, almost twice the time it
takes to go from Rome to Milan,
which is only about 40 miles far-
ther north.
As high-speed trains near the
port city, they must switch to old-
er, slower two-way tracks, which

are often flooded by the region’s

violent thunderstorms.

In recent months, dozens of

new maintenance sites have

forced officials to limit road traffic.

Drivers endure traffic jams, ac-

companied by the metallic sound

of drilling, that wind along the

city’s picturesque highways, an

overlapping series of viaducts

with stunning sea views.

After the vault of a tunnel north-

west of Genoa partly collapsed

last year, Italy’s Transportation

Ministry ordered a thorough in-

spection of the region’s over-

passes and bridges. Nearly all had

safety problems and had to be re-

paired.

“We are prioritizing security,”

Placido Migliorino, the engineer

in charge of highway inspections

at the ministry, said in a phone in-

terview.

In the past four months, Mr.

Migliorino has traveled weekly to

Genoa to monitor the progress of

the maintenance work.

“About 50 of the galleries are

around Genoa, and in some the

problems couldn’t be fixed

overnight,” Mr. Migliorino said,

referring to the area’s tunnels.

“That’s why cars and trucks have

limited circulation.”

Mr. Migliorino has also been ex-

amining viaducts and says they,

too, have been poorly maintained.

Emanuele Piccardo, an archi-

tecture critic, said, “For a country

that tends to work in emergency

mode, constant maintenance is

difficult, from the local to the na-

tional level.”

“You can build the long bypass,

or a new bridge,” said Mr. Pic-

cardo, the curator of “The Col-

lapse of Modernity,” a coming

book on the consequences of the

Morandi disaster. “But if you don’t

rethink mobility in this narrow

valley to make it based on rails in-

stead of wheels, it’s a waste of

time.”

Even with the new bridge’s

opening, Mr. Piccardo expects the

outlying Polcevera River valley to

remain greatly disconnected from

the city center because of the

heavy traffic.

“Building a bridge is an oppor-

tunity, but the valley won’t im-

prove just because of this new in-

frastructure,” he said.

The valley’s Certosa district,

just north of the Morandi viaduct,

was among the hardest hit by the

bridge collapse. These days, its

residents mingle in the mornings

under trees in the cobblestone pi-

azzas. By midday, the streets are

almost empty as the elderly go in-

doors to nap.

The area, once home to the

working class of Genoa’s industri-

al port, is an urban sprawl divided

by the river that the viaduct

crossed. Large department stores

and industries line one bank of the

river, the port’s containers and

residential neighborhoods the

other.

Certosa residents say that the

new bridge will hardly bring them

any closer to the city center. Even

Marco Bucci, Genoa’s mayor, ad-

mitted after the tragedy that he

had never been to the district be-

fore.

Residents do not expect the

area to be reshaped much, despite

a subway stop and the introduc-

tion of a park with a memorial for

the victims of the bridge collapse,

designed by the famed Italian ar-

chitect Stefano Boeri.

“I don’t blame anyone,” said

Paolo Lecca, 68, a retiree, as he

looked at the new bridge’s huge

working site, where his friends

used to live. “But we don’t even

have a hospital here. We need to

get to Genoa.”

Christian Giannini, 48, who

owns a bike store in Certosa, said:

“This new bridge is beautiful. I

just hope they make what is un-

derneath nice, too.”

Mr. Giannini signed his shop’s

lease four days before the Moran-

di viaduct collapsed. His store

overlooks the large boulevard that

ran under it, which was closed for

eight months. Children once

played soccer where cars are now

parked.

“It was somewhat charming,”

he smiled. “It reminded me of my

childhood when we drove here to

buy the best clothes in town.”

While some businesses relo-

cated during the reconstruction,

others closed for good.

“I open my store every day, but

if people leave here, how are we

supposed to make business?”

asked Marianna Correnti, 61, the

owner of a flower shop in the Cer-

tosa district. “I had many clients

in the apartment buildings that

were demolished, and of course

they are gone.”

Gian Battista Cassano owns a

large scrap center under the

bridge and to the west. His cam-

eras recorded the Morandi falling,

and he was among those to relo-

cate. Mr. Cassano’s company navi-

gated the red tape to move to a

space half as large, and to install

solar panels there. But it strug-

gled to pay bills and salaries.

“We were left alone,” he said.

Because of the congestion,

some Polcevera Valley residents

don’t drive anymore.

“People need to wake up at

night to travel with no traffic,” said

Teresa Altovino, 49, a health

worker shopping at the local mar-

ket in Certosa. “I even stopped go-

ing to the beach.”

Ms. Altovino, who was working

in the area when the bridge col-

lapsed, said she walked out of the

building that day to see what had

happened. She can still hear the

people screaming that morning

two years ago.

“The new bridge looks solid, but

I won’t take it,” she said. “I am too

scared.”

Genoa Applauds Its New Bridge While Lamenting the City’s Challenges

The Genoa San Giorgio bridge, designed by the architect Renzo Piano, opens Monday. It replaces the Morandi bridge that collapsed in August 2018, killing 43 people.

LUCA ZENNARO/EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK

By GAIA PIANIGIANI

Long-overdue road

work has cut access to

some communities.

TEL AVIV — An Israeli court on
Sunday ordered Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu’s older son
to stop harassing three people
helping to lead protests against
his father’s administration after
he tweeted out their home ad-
dresses and cellphone numbers.
Judge Dorit Feinstein of the Je-
rusalem Magistrates Court also
ordered the son, Yair Netanyahu,
to delete the tweet, which called
on his more than 88,000 followers
to demonstrate in front of the
homes of the protest leaders.
“I instruct him to refrain for the
next six months from harassing
the petitioners in every shape,
way and form,” Judge Feinstein
wrote in her decision.
Large crowds of protesters
across the country on Saturday
demanded Mr. Netanyahu’s oust-
er, criticizing his handling of the
economic and health problems
stemming from the coronavirus
and arguing that he should not be
permitted to serve as prime min-
ister while under indictment on
corruption charges.
The judge said in her decision
that she was concerned the prime
minister’s son would continue to
harass the petitioners and in-
fringe on their privacy, adding
that he did not rebuke calls for vio-
lence that were posted in re-
sponse to his tweet.
One of the protest leaders,
Yitzhak Ben Gonen, who repre-
sented himself and the two other
petitioners, said that Yair Netan-
yahu’s tweet prompted incessant
phone calls, and that each of the
three received death threats from
callers.
“We are very happy about this
legal victory, but the threats keep
coming,” said Mr. Ben Gonen, a
member of A New Contract, an
anti-Netanyahu group popularly
known as “Crime Minister.” The
group says Mr. Netanyahu should
not be able to serve as prime min-
ister while on trial for bribery,
fraud and breach of trust. The trial
began in May and is still in its ini-
tial stages.

Later Sunday, the younger Mr.

Netanyahu deleted the tweet, but

in a series of other social media

posts, he strongly criticized the

court’s ruling, calling it Kafka-

esque.

He also contended that courts

in Israel would one day ban Is-

raelis from voting for his father’s

Likud party and order all those on

the political right placed in “re-ed-

ucation camps.”

“For a long time, Israel hasn’t

been a democratic state,” he wrote

in another post, remarking that a

petitioner, Haim Shadmi, had

been recorded speaking about

hurling a firebomb at the prime

minister’s official residence but

that Mr. Shadmi was still permit-

ted to protest near it. “There’s a

law for right-wingers and another

law for left-wingers,” the Face-

book post said.

Yair Netanyahu, 29, is a fierce

defender of his father and has a

history of stoking controversy

through his social media posts,

some of which even the prime

minister has condemned.

In December 2018, the son

wrote on Facebook that he wished

the deaths of two Israeli soldiers

shot by a Palestinian gunman in

the West Bank would be

“avenged,” adding, “There will

never be peace with the monsters

in human form known since 1964

as ‘Palestinians.’ ” In a separate

post at the time, he wrote that he

would prefer an Israel without

Muslim residents.

Facebook removed those posts

after a flurry of complaints. It said

they included hate speech and vio-

lated its community standards.

In February, Yair Netanyahu

posted on Twitter a picture of a

young Israeli, Dana Cassidy, who

had been photographed earlier

with Benny Gantz, the leader of

the Blue and White party. He also

posted unsubstantiated accusa-

tions that Mr. Gantz engaged in

extramarital affairs.

The posts prompted some of the

son’s followers to spread unfound-

ed rumors that Ms. Cassidy and

Mr. Gantz were having an affair.

Mr. Gantz has repeatedly

clashed with the prime minister

even though they are now coali-

tion partners.

And in a tweet in May, the prime

minister’s son questioned how

Dana Weiss, an Israeli journalist,

got her job at Channel 12, a major

Israeli television outlet. That

tweet led some of Yair Netanya-

hu’s followers to make unsubstan-

tiated allegations that Ms. Weiss

had sexual relations with her

bosses to get her position.

The son apologized for that

tweet — after Ms. Weiss and

Channel 12 threatened to sue him.

Mr. Ben Gonen, the lawyer rep-

resenting his fellow protest lead-

ers, said he sensed that the pro-

tests were gaining momentum.

“We see young people, who are

very angry about the situation in

Israel and determined to change

it,” he said. “It’s too early to deter-

mine if we will change everything,

but I feel that something impor-

tant and new is happening.”

Son of Netanyahu Ordered to Stop Harassing Protesters

By ADAM RASGON

Yair Netanyahu, center, Benjamin Netanyahu’s older son, posted protest leaders’ home addresses.

ABIR SULTAN/EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK

A Conservative lawmaker in

Britain was arrested this weekend

after a former parliamentary em-

ployee accused him of raping her,

according to British news reports.

The lawmaker, who is said to

have once held a government

leadership position, has not been

publicly identified. He was re-

leased on bail after being taken

into custody on Saturday in an

East London police station, police

officials said.

The arrest posed problems for

the government of Prime Minister

Boris Johnson of Britain, creating

pressure on him to suspend the

lawmaker from the Conservative

Party and forcing the government

to account for when it learned of

the allegations.

The Sunday Times, the British

newspaper that first reported the

arrest, said that the allegations

were previously raised with two

senior members of Mr. Johnson’s

government. But officials said on

Sunday that the lawmaker would

remain in the Conservative Party

and that they would review the de-

cision only once the police fin-

ished their investigation.

The police in London said that

they arrested a man in his 50s on

Saturday on suspicion of rape as

part of an investigation into four

episodes between July 2019 and

January involving accusations of

sexual offenses and assault.

The police did not release the

suspect’s name or confirm his oc-

cupation.

The former parliamentary em-

ployee who accused the lawmaker

of rape and assault said that she

was so traumatized that she had

to go to a hospital, The Sunday

Times reported.

The newspaper reported that

another Conservative lawmaker

spoke to the woman a month ago

and then discussed the allegations

with two members of Mr. John-

son’s government: Mark Spencer,

the chief whip, whose job it is to

wrangle lawmakers before votes,

and Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader

of the House of Commons.

The woman also spoke directly

with Mr. Spencer, the newspaper

reported.

Mr. Spencer’s office said in a

statement that he “takes all alle-

gations of harassment and abuse

extremely seriously and has

strongly encouraged anybody

who has approached him to con-

tact the appropriate authorities,

including Parliament’s independ-

ent complaints and grievance

scheme.”

The Conservative Party also

said it took “all allegations of this

nature extremely seriously.”

Complaints about bullying,

abuse and sexual harassment in

Parliament have circulated for

years, and scrutiny of that culture

has increased since the beginning

of the #MeToo movement.

After a number of lawmakers

were accused of sexual har-

assment in 2017, a new system

was set up in Parliament for staff

members to report inappropriate

behavior. Before that, complaints

were taken to the party whips.

The Sunday Times said the for-

mer parliamentary employee

filed a complaint this year against

the Conservative lawmaker using

the new complaints system and

then recently reported the

episodes to the police.

One of the lawmakers accused

in 2017 of sexual offenses, Charlie

Elphicke, was convicted last week

on three charges of sexual assault

stemming from 2007 and 2016.

One woman said that Mr. Elphicke

forced her onto a sofa and groped

her before chasing her while he

chanted, “I’m a naughty Tory.”

The government of Mr. John-

son’s predecessor, Theresa May,

suspended Mr. Elphicke from the

Conservative Party after the alle-

gations were made public, but he

regained his membership in 2018,

just before a crucial vote of no-

confidence in Mrs. May’s leader-

ship. Mr. Elphicke was suspended

again last year, after he was

charged, and did not run again in

the December general election.

Conservative U.K. Lawmaker

Is Arrested in Rape Accusation

By BENJAMIN MUELLER