Berlusconi decamps to Naples for immigration talks

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi used his first full cabinet meeting in Naples on Wednesday to focus on a stinking garbage crisis there and draw up tough new controls on illegal immigration.

Topping the agenda for Italy's new conservative government is a crackdown on illegal immigrants, especially Roma people portrayed by government right-wingers and much of the media as a criminal problem. Rights groups and Italy's European Union partners warn this will foment racism.

The 71-year-old media billionaire, who secured a third term as premier by beating the centre left in April's election, will also announce tax cuts to help Italians weather an impending recession in the euro zone's third largest economy.

But locals in Naples were looking for urgent solutions to a refuse-collection crisis going back more than a decade that has peaked in recent months, choking the streets, fouling the air, making children ill and scaring away tourists. Waist-high piles of rubbish sacks have been set on fire by locals fed up with authorities' inability to clear the streets.

The problem is complicated further by the involvement of the "Camorra" or local mafia in illegal disposal of toxic waste. As ministers gathered in central Naples, architect Raffaele Rusciani sipped coffee nearby and doubted they could provide a miracle cure, beyond the quick clean-up of the city centre in readiness for the government guests.

"Our problems can't be fixed from one day to the next. We've been dealing with this garbage for the last 15 years and I don't expect anything to change in any real way soon," he said.

EUROPEAN WARNINGS

Naples has also been the focus of a violent backlash against illegal Roma camps depicted by right-wingers in Berlusconi's new government as dens of criminality. Police evacuated one camp after people set fire to shacks over news reports of an apparent attempted kidnapping of an Italian baby by a Roma girl.

A similar case of attempted baby- snatching was reported in Sicily this week, with a young Roma couple arrested. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, from the anti-immigrant Northern League party allied to Berlusconi's People of Freedom, will present the cabinet with measures that could include making illegal immigration a jailable offence, tougher sentences for immigrants who commit crimes and tough new border controls.

A draft seen by Reuters included measures apparently aimed specifically at the Roma such as making it a crime to make children beg, punishable by up to three years in prison.

A leading European human rights watchdog expressed concern about discrimination in Italy on Tuesday and European Employment Commissioner Vladimir Spidla said Brussels would scrutinise the new laws, warning against "any type of racism or xenophobia". The government is expected to push through some measures by decree and submit others to parliament, where Berlusconi has a comfortable majority unlike his predecessor Romano Prodi, whose coalition collapsed in January after just 20 months in office.