Great rundown. Must be frontpaged. The situation is closely watched in Italy by the Anomolous Wave movement. Their Uniriot site has daily coverage with an report in English also (from edu-factory.org). (Uniriot is one of the main groups within the movement.)

The violence is precisely what the Italian student movement is seeking to avoid at all costs while what has happened in Greece is exactly what former president Cossiga would like to occur in Italy: Let the students go on a rampage and destroy property without police intervention so as to turn public opinion against them.

There will be a general strike on December 12th throughout Italy by the largest labour union CGIL and the student movement. The other unions have chosen not to participate. They prefer negotiating with the rightwing government- or more correctly, caveing into government diktats. The rightwing government has once again succeeded in dividing the labour union front with promises just as in the 2002-2005 period.