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I’m spending a week in Frascati, the small town outside Rome which you might know, if you have heard of it at all, as the source of the golden-coloured, broad-flavoured white wine which fills the Italian capital’s carafes. In truth the wine, for serious wine buffs at least, is nothing to write home about: it lacks a sharply defined taste profile, just a hint of almonds, something honeyed, though the wine is dry.

MILAN -- An Italian court on Friday convicted former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of tax evasion and sentenced him to four years in prison.

But the verdict did not mean that Berlusconi will go to prison anytime soon.

Giovanni Rana, a 50-year old Italian pasta company, will open its first restaurant on Monday, a combination pasta store and dining room in the Chelsea Market, with its own entrance on Ninth Avenue. The company, headquartered near Verona in Northern Italy, specializes in filled pastas, made with extra thin wrappers so the fillings almost show through the gossamer dough. That pinkish color you see in the ravioli is lobster.

The Italian Army — as it readies its new Aster missile-based air defense capability — says it is looking to give the system a role in knocking out tactical ballistic missiles as well as aircraft. Known as the Surface-to-Air Missile Platform/Terrain (SAMP/T), the MBDA-built system should reach initial operating capability with the Italian Army’s 4th Air Defense Regiment by the end of this year and full operating capability by the end of 2013.