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(ANSA) - Milan, November 3 - Police in Milan on Tuesday arrested 17 people, some of them well-known entrepreneurs, while breaking up a protection racket run by Calabria's 'Ndrangheta mafia.

Police said the crime ring muscled business people in construction and real estate into paying protection money.

Some of the victims reportedly appealed to the crime ring for help cutting red tape and elbowing out competition.

(ANSA) - Trapani, November 3 - Two women were among ten suspected mafiosi arrested Tuesday in the western Sicilian town of Alcamo.

Police said they had broken up a long turf war between rival clans fighting for control of rackets in the city midway between Palermo and Trapani, a port on Sicily's north-west tip.

One of the women is accused of collecting protection money and the other of counting and keeping it.

The clans are linked to Trapani superboss Matteo Messina Denaro, police said.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 2 - Criminal lawyers, inmates groups and opposition politicians sounded the alarm over conditions in Italian jails on Monday, following two recent prison deaths and a probe into violence by staff.

A high-profile prisoner convicted of terrorism, Diana Blefari Melazzi, hung herself on Saturday evening, nine days after another inmate, Stefano Cucchi, died in a prison hospital with broken bones.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 2 - An Italian chapter of the American white supremacist group Ku Klux Klan (KKK) has launched a membership drive via internet, an Italian daily reported Monday.

According to the Rome daily La Repubblica, an Italian ''realm'' of the Michigan-based United Northern and Southern Knights of the KKK has posted ads on extremist web pages and blogs seeking ''good, Christian people ready to win back what we've lost''.

(updates previous). (ANSA) - Milan, November 2 - Italian poet Alda Merini is to receive a state funeral in her native Milan, Mayor Letizia Moratti said Monday.

Wednesday's funeral in the Duomo would pay tribute to a writer whose importance was both local and national, the mayor said.

''Alda Merini charted a course through the history and culture of our city, providing important reflections for the rest of the country,'' Moratti said.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 2 - A new treatment center for Web addicts opened its doors on Monday at a hospital in Rome, administrators said.

According to psychiatrist Federico Tonioni, the new outpatient program helps people diagnosed with Internet Addiction Disorder to get their obsessive web surfing under control.

''Pathological use of the Internet can lead to symptoms very similar to what drug addicts experience on withdrawal,'' Tonioni said.

(ANSA) - Turin, November 2 - A man who shot his pit bull terrier after it attacked his wife has been reported by the Italian association for the protection of animals (ENPA).

''This is the umpteenth absurd episode in which the animal is the victim,'' said ENPA Turin chief Giovanni Pallotti.

The man, an undertaker, put the dog down after it bit his wife at their home near Turin in the latest of a string of aggressive incidents.

''What I'd like to know is whether the man ever turned to the veterinary services about the animal's behaviour,'' Pallotti said.

(ANSA) - Milan, November 2 - Italian poet Alda Merini is to get a state funeral in her native Milan, Mayor Letizia Moratti said Monday.

Wednesday's funeral in the Duomo would pay tribute to a writer whose importance was both local and national, the mayor said.

''Alda Merini charted a course through the history and culture of our city, providing important reflections for the rest of the country,'' Moratti said.

Merini, 78, died in Milan Sunday at the age of 78.

(ANSA) - Avellino, November 2 - A family near Naples has been caught falsely claiming invalidity benefits, police said Monday.

The five will be charged with benefit fraud dating back several years.

They have reportedly been getting government payments for various ailments plus cheques for carers who were never in fact needed.

The family of five are related to a clan in the Camorra, the Neapolitan crime syndicate.

(ANSA) - Reggio Calabria, November 2 - Police on Monday found a huge weapons cache near the southern Italian port of Gioia Tauro including several missile launchers.

Calabrian 'Ndrangheta mafia clans have for years been battling over contracts and trafficking stemming from the port, one of Europe's biggest container sites.

The 'Ndrangheta is now reckoned to be the most powerful of Italy's mafias, its ranks and influence swelled by massive drugs profits. photo: Gioia Tauro

(ANSA) - Rome, October 30 - Nearly seven out of ten wealthy families in Italy live in the country's industrial north, a recent study said Friday.

Published by the Italian Private Banking Association and consulting firm Prometeia, the report said 68% of households claiming financial assets of 500,000 euros or more were located in the north.

Lombardy, the region around Milan, led Italy for wealthy households claiming close to one third of the total.

(ANSA) - Capri, October 30 - Some 700 residents of Capri tied up road and pedestrian traffic on the idyllic island to protest against a main power plant which they claim has been polluting the tourist resort for years.

The protestors had been authorised to stage a demonstration in the port town of Marina Grande, where the plant is located, but instead they headed up to the main town of Capri and attempted to enter a hotel which is hosting the annual meeting of the industrial employers association Confindustria.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 30 - Rome prosecutors on Friday announced that they had opened a formal investigation into a man who died of injuries after eight days in police custody.

Stefano Cucchi, 31, was arrested on October 16 for drugs possession and died last Friday in a prison infirmary.

Cucchi's parents said he was in perfectly good health the day he was arrested, but appeared at a court hearing the next day with black eyes and his face covered with bruises.

(ANSA) - Messina, October 30 - A man in Sicily on Friday was accused of forging the will of his late boss on his German shepherd's dog collar and trying to use it to gain his inheritance.

Giovanni Russo, a wealthy businessman in a small town in Sicily, died in 2004 leaving his estate to his sisters and ex-wife.

Months after his death, however, a local court received a new piece of evidence, a dog tag belonging to Russo's beloved German shepherd, Delos, with an alternative will scratched on the back.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 30 - Controversy raged in Italy on Friday over a man who died of injuries after eight days in police custody.

Stefano Cucchi, 31, was arrested on October 16 for possession of a small amount of drugs and jailed in Rome's Regina Coeli prison.

Cucchi's parents said he was in perfectly good health the day he was arrested, but appeared at a court hearing the next day with black eyes and his face covered with bruises.