(ANSA) - Viareggio, July 3 - The death toll from Tuesday`s
gas train explosion in Viareggio rose to 22 on Friday after a
40-year-old woman died in a Pisa hospital.
Two other burns victims died earlier on Friday and four
people remain in extremely critical condition, hospital
sources said.
In Rome, the cabinet on Friday declared the scene of the
gas explosion a national disaster area and said a solemn
funeral would be held for the victims.
It was also decided that a national

(ANSA) - Florence, July 3 - The current population of
Tuscany is not descended from the Etruscans, the people that
lived in the region during the Bronze Age, a new Italian
study has shown.
Researchers at the universities of Florence, Ferrara,
Pisa, Venice and Parma discovered the genealogical
discontinuity by testing samples of mitochondrial DNA from
remains of Etruscans and people who lived in the Middle Ages
(between the 10th and 15th centuries) as well as from people
living in th

(ANSA) - Pisa, July 3 - The toll from Tuesday`s gas train
explosion in Viareggio rose to 22 on Friday after a woman
died in hospital.
Two other burns victims died earlier on Friday and four
people are fighting for their lives.

(ANSA) - Perugia, July 3 - American student Amanda Knox
and her Italian former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito did not
fake a break-in at the house where British student Meredith
Kercher was murdered to mislead police, Sollecito`s lawyers
told a Perugia court on Friday.
Prosecutors claim Knox, Sollecito and a third man, Rudy
Guede, murdered 22-year-old Kercher while forcing her to
participate in ``a perverse group sex game`` in November 2007
and then made it look as if someone had broke

(ANSA) - Rome, July 3 - The cabinet on Friday declared the
scene of Tuesday`s gas train explosion in Viareggio a
national disaster area and said a solemn funeral would be
held for the victims, which currently number 21.
A national day of morning will be observed on the day
of the funeral, the cabinet decided.
The emergency at the site of the disaster in the
seaside Tuscan town will remain in effect until December 31
and the government will allocate funds for this at a later
da

(ANSA) - Viareggio, July 3 - The train station here in
this seaside Tuscan town reopened on Friday, just three days
after a gas train explosion ripped through a neighborhood by
the tracks leaving at least 21 people dead.
Although the station has reopened, rail officials said
delays and cancellations would continue for several days,
given that the Viareggio station was an important hub along
the rail line running up and down Italy`s west coast.
In fact, only one of the eight track

(ANSA) - Rome, July 3 - Bullying in Italian schools is on
the rise, Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini said Friday.
The education ministry`s new anti-bullying hotline was
getting 60 calls a day, Gelmini said.
Officials around Italy reported 302 cases of bullying to
the ministry in the last 12 months, she said.
She said Italy needed ``a joint effort by schools and
families`` to curb the phenomenon.
According to the minister, a recent decision to
reinstate school grade

(ANSA) - Catania, July 3 - One of Italy`s top Mafia
bosses was assassinated Friday.
Raimondo Maugeri, 47, believed to be the lieutenant of
jailed Catania superboss Benedetto (`Nitto`) Santapaola, was
murdered in the Sicilian city by two men on a motorbike.
Maugeri, who had been arrested several times on Mafia
charges, was considered ``a high-calibre element`` in the
Sicilian Mafia, police said.
Catania Chief Prosecutor Vincenzo D`Agata called the
murder ``a high-level crime``.

(ANSA) - Viareggio, July 3 - The death toll from
Tuesday`s gas train explosion in Viareggio rose to 21 Friday
as a young man died from his burns in hospital.
Several patients are critical and the toll, which
currently includes five children, is expected to rise
further.
A probe has been opened into the causes of the blast,
which may have happened when a car derailed when a weak axle
broke.

(ANSA) - Viareggio, July 2 - The toll from Tuesday`s gas
train explosion in the Tuscan town of Viareggio rose to 19
Thursday as a woman died in hospital.
About ten of the burns patients from the disaster are
fighting for their lives, hospitals said.
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said the government was
considering ``changing the rules for the transport of these
tanker cars``.
He did not go into specifics, but promised a
``thoroughgoing`` investigation into the cause of the

(ANSA) - Viareggio, July 2 - The death toll from Tuesday`s
gas train explosion here stood at 18 on Thursday morning with
close to 20 people still in critical condition.
The cabinet will meet in Rome on Friday to declare this
seaside Tuscan town a national disaster area.
Prosecutors on Thursday sealed off a road, via
Ponchielli, by the railroad tracks which suffered the brunt
of the explosion in order to preserve possible evidence.
Two building on via Ponchielli were torn down T

(ANSA) - Rome, July 1 - The death toll from Tuesday`s gas
train explosion in Viareggio rose to 17 Wednesday as two
small children and a man died in hospital.
Transport Minister Altero Matteoli told parliament that
20 of the 31 people injured are in critical condition.
Two children, aged 2 and 3, suffering from burns on 90%
of their bodies, died in hospital.
Four children have now died after a fireball engulfed
homes and streets in the Tuscan seaside town early Tuesday.
Three

(ANSA) - Palermo, July 1 - A Sicilian fugitive has refuted
allegations that he was a leading crime figure and that he
led of life of luxury in South Africa.
Vito Roberto Palazzolo, 62, has received a definitive
nine-year sentence in Italy for `mafia association`. However,
prosecutors were never able to prove the accusation made by
the late anti-Mafia crusading judge Giovanni Falcone that he
was a `treasurer` for former Cosa Nostra super bosses
Salvatore (Toto`) Riina and Bernardo Pro

(ANSA) - Rome, July 1 - The Council of Europe`s Human
Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg on Wednesday reiterated
his criticism of Italy`s controversial policy of returning
migrants intercepted in the Mediterranean to Libya.
The policy ``makes political asylum requests from people
who need to make them practically impossible,`` Hammarberg
told Internet news show KlausCondicio.
The commissioner said that while Italian Premier Silvio
Berlusconi and Interior Minister Roberto Maron

(ANSA) - Viareggio, July 1 - The death toll from
Tuesday`s gas train explosion in Viareggio rose to 17 on
Wednesday when an unidentified man died from his injuries,
hospital sources said here.
Some 20 of the 30 people injured are said to be in
critical condition while three other people are still
missing.