It's Nikola Tesla's doomsday device (Death Ray) in action.
What's happening in Italy is exactly what Tesla said his
DDV would do.
If you know his story and all the power politics that were
going on against him...plus the missing papers thing after
he died in that cheap seedy hotel (Hotel New Yorker) in
Manhattan, the Italian weirdness isn't so weird or devil-borne.
If you are a reader and want to be enlightened, or better yet
freaked out, there is good info here on Tesla
http://www.netsense.net/tesla/questions.html