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POPE BENEDICT XVI has thanked the Carabinieri police who maintain Vatican security for their “humble yet indispensable work”.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have found the skeleton of a warrior from up to 5,000 years ago floating in a tomb filled with sea water on a beach near Rome.

ITALIAN police arrested scores of suspected mobsters yesterday, including three top fugitives believed linked to the gangland-style slaying of six African immigrants near Naples, authorities said.

Rats in Naples and cats in Milan, unlicensed nurses and expired medicine are among the horrors that emerged from nationwide police inspections of Italian hospitals that left more than 100 people facing possible investigation, health officials said Thursday.

Newlyweds Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes jetted off on honeymoon to the Maldives today after a fairytale wedding in a 15th century castle in Italy.

An explosives attack on an Italian military patrol in southern Iraq killed one soldier and wounded four others tonight, reports in Rome said.

The head of Nestle, the world’s biggest food company, today apologised to Italian Health Minister Francesco Storace for a “memory lapse” in a dispute over the recall of baby milk, but Storace said the apology was insufficient and threatened legal action.

Authorities have recovered works of art worth €1.5m that had been stolen from churches, castles and private homes throughout northern Italy since 1990, the Carabinieri paramilitary police said today.

Authorities in the southern tip of Italy arrested a feared fugitive mobster as he was attending a dinner to celebrate the baptism of a friend’s son.

POLICE stormed a house in northern Italy early yesterday to detain a gunman who had killed three and injured eight by shooting from the home with a hunting rifle.

A gunman hiding in his family’s home in a small town in northern Italy sprayed gunfire on passing cars and police, killing at least three people, including an officer, the Carabinieri paramilitary police said.

Italian police arrested 48 people in pre-dawn raids today as part of efforts to crack down on a crime syndicate in the Naples area, crippling two rival clans, police said.

Two small handmade explosive devices detonated in Milan near Carabinieri paramilitary police barracks on Tuesday night, an official said.

Hundreds of Italian police were arresting dozens of people around Naples today as part of a fight against a bloody mob turf war which has terrified the southern Italian city, police said.

A 10-DAY manhunt for the suspected killer of a policeman ended in bloodshed before tourists in Rome where the fugitive, nicknamed The Wolf, grabbed a Frenchwoman at gunpoint before he was fatally wounded in a shootout.

Italian police captured the suspected killer of a policeman in a shoot-out today in which a young woman was briefly held hostage near Rome’s Circus Maximus.

A manhunt is underway in Italy today for the killer of a police officer gunned down during a document check.

Italy’s president called for the US-led coalition, the Iraqi Governing Council and the UN to help speed up the process of transferring sovereignty in Iraq to an Iraqi government.

A military transport plane arrived in Rome today carrying the remains of 18 Italans killed in a car bomb attack in southern Iraq.

A state funeral for 18 Italians killed in a suicide bombing in Iraq will be held on Tuesday in a Rome basilica, officials said.

A shaken Italian nation focused on mourning today after 18 Italians were killed and another was left brain dead in Iraq, Italy’s single worst military loss since the Second World War. But a political storm brewed over the country’s policy in the occupied country.

A SUICIDE bomb attack at the headquarters of Italy’s paramilitary police in southern Nasiriyah yesterday killed at least 26 people — including 18 Italians — and possibly left others trapped in the debris.

A suicide bomber devastated the Italian military police headquarters in southern Iraq today, killing at least 24 people – most of them Italians.

At least 12 Italian military policemen and soldiers were killed today when a suicide bomb ripped through their headquarters in southern Iraq.

At least six Italian military policemen were killed when a truck bomb blast tore through their headquarters in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah today.

Six Italians are feared dead from an explosion that rocked the headquarters of the Italian police in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriyah today.

A bomb blast early today in central Rome damaged parked cars and shattered windows near the Interior Ministry. No one was injured.

A family of four have been killed after a racing car driver skidded out of control and into the crowd during an amateur rally in northwest Italy.

Leaders of the world’s major industrialised countries, hoping to regain control of a summit marred by a protester’s death in massive demonstrations, searched today for ways to extend help to poor nations.