Filippo Cavazzuti, former Italian senator and economist at the University of Bologna, believes Bersani will be forced to maintain Monti's policies under the European fiscal compact.

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At the EGU, Stefano Tinti from the University of Bologna, Italy, said the EU collectively had put only about 8m euros into tsunami research over the last five years.

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According to the European Environment Agency, 200 tsunamis were recorded over the last 500 years around the Mediterranean and the University of Bologna indicated recently that on average in the last four centuries Italy has been hit by 15 tsunamis every 100 years.

UNESCO: Indigenous Peoples

The son of a mechanic, he studied philosophy and wrote his thesis on Pope Gregory I at Bologna University, according to his campaign website.

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