The snow covered palm trees, ancient Roman ruins and Baroque churches across the normally mild-weather Italian capital which has only seen one snowfall in the past 15 years in which the snow stayed on the ground for a whole day.

“Avoid moving around unless strictly necessary,” Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno advised residents of the Eternal City on TG1 news channel, as the civil protection agency ordered all emergency services to be on high alert.

Schools and municipal offices have also been closed down and teams of 400 volunteers were driving around the city to help dig snow away from schools, pharmacies and hospitals, as well as aiding cars trapped in the snow.

Like the Colosseum, the Via dei Fori Imperiali was closed off to tourists and some cars could be seen driving around the city in snow chains.

In the Vatican, a smiling Benedict was spotted peering out of his window at the snowflakes.

Temperatures in the Alpine region of Piedmont in northern Italy meanwhile went as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit).

The weather caused flights delays in northern Italy and traffic was backed up on several motorways in central parts of the country. The interior ministry advised drivers to avoid large parts of central Italy if possible.

A bus with 45 elderly passengers was stuck in snow for three hours in a mountain town near Naples and had to be evacuated by emergency workers.

“In April we will have our own jewellery workshop and in May will will open our boutique in the same building,” Carcelle said during the inauguration of the “Maison Rome Etoile,” Louis Vuitton’s new shop in the eternal city.

The triple Olympic champion will headline the third Diamond League meeting of the season ahead of the defence of his titles in London. The Jamaican won last year’s meeting in 9.91 seconds before sensationally false starting in the final at the World Championships in Daegu.

Italy’s interior ministry announced the decision Thursday, and Prefect Giuseppe Pecoraro said 130 officers and detectives will be added to the capital’s force.

Police say the killings occurred Wednesday night when robbers confronted a Chinese immigrant, his wife and daughter, and demanded receipts from the family’s business.

When the father refused, the robbers stabbed and wounded the wife, and fired gunshots that pierced the child’s skull and struck the father’s heart.

Last year, Rome was alarmed by several bold slayings by gunmen in the streets, apparently carried out by suspected mobsters.

The chunk of volcanic rock fell from one of the iconic arches of the nearly 2,000-year-old structure just two days after a similar incident reported by a group of concerned tourists on Christmas Day put local staff on alert.

The Colosseum — a 50,000-seat amphitheater that was completed in 80 AD and used for gladiator contests and mock sea battles — is at the center of a busy traffic junction and is inundated with thousands of tourists every day.

Officials at the Equitalia agency said the blast shattered a glass desktop, causing hand and eye injuries to director Marco Cuccagna.

Police said the package also contained a leaflet signed by the Italian anarchist group FAI.

The FAI has said it sent a letter bomb on Wednesday to the headquarters of Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, Germany.

The Italian capital, due to its infamous traffic congestion and extraordinarily good weather, has exceeded the air safety limits 56 times already this year.

As a result, the municipal government must take emergency measures. They are using partial blocks of vehicles and pedestrian weekends to push air pollution levels back down to normal.

A few shoppers were pushed to the floor near a cell phone display and several fights erupted about 12:01 a.m. after shoppers were let into the electronics department at the Walmart at 5815 Rome Taberg Road, sheriff’s officials said.

Acknowledging the weight of the eurozone on his shoulders, the 68-year-old economics professor took on the additional responsibility of running the finance ministry in a slimmed-down 17-member cabinet.

He also appointed Corrado Passera, head of Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s largest retail bank, as head of a “super ministry” combining industry and infrastructure that reflects the new government’s emphasis on reforms to lift Italy’s stagnating economy.

“All this will, I trust, translate into a calming of that part of the market difficulty which concerns our country,” Mr Monti said.

Mr Monti has already won considerable support from the Italian public and enthusiastic backing from outside Italy.

“We finally have a competent government, not one of dwarves and ballerinas,” declared Antonio di Pietro, former anti-graft magistrate and head of the Italy of Values party.

Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor who had a particularly difficult time dealing with Silvio Berlusconi, the departing prime minister, said she valued Mr Monti highly and looked forward to meeting him soon.

“The weeks ahead will be decisive,” Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, told Mr Monti in a letter. “Together we will succeed. I am convinced that the implementation of new measures on top of those already adopted will restore confidence and allow the return of stability and growth.”

Mr Monti will present his government’s as yet unexplained economic programme to the senate on Thursday for a vote of confidence, with the procedure expected to be repeated in the lower house on Friday.

The film stars Ricardo Durin as a lonely hardware store owner whose life is upturned by the appearance of a young Chinese man.

France’s Guillaume Canet won the festival’s best actor prize for his performance, widely applauded in the Italian press, in “A Better Life” directed by Cedric Kahn.