ROME, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Former mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano was admitted to a Milan hospital amid tight security for an operation on his thyroid gland, the daily Repubblica reported Thursday.

Two prison officers were even kitted up to attend the operation on Provenzano, 74, at the San Paolo hospital on Tuesday, the paper reported.

The operation on the former head of the Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia, went off well and Provenzano is expected to be well enough to return to his high-security cell at Novare, near Milan, by the end of the week.

ROME, Oct 15, 2007 (AFP) - The state prosecutor in Palermo called for an eight-year prison sentence Monday for the President of Sicily, Salvatore Cuffaro, who is accused of complicity with the mafia, the news agency ANSA reported.

Cuffaro is standing trial accused of leaking confidential information about police investigations to mafia chiefs. Several officers have also been charged.

Cuffaro, a rightwing politician who was re-elected Sicilian president in 2006, is on trial for aiding and abetting the Cosa Nostra.

ROME, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - A dawn operation Tuesday against a Mafia clan in Sicily resulted in 25 arrests of suspects accused of extortion and drug-trafficking, authorities in the island's eastern Catania region said.

Some 200 police officers took part in the sweep dubbed 'Archangel' targetting the Santapaola clan whose former leader Angelo Santapaola was found dead on September 30.

ROME, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - The best-selling Sicilian writer Andrea Camilleri has based his latest book, published Wednesday, on the hand-written notes with which top Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano communicated during his 43 years on the run.

It is the first time that Camilleri, one of Italy's most popular authors for his detective creation Montalbano, has delved into the world of the Mafia.

The title of the book is 'You Don't Know: Friends, enemies, the Mafia -- the world of the 'pizzini' of Bernardo Provenzano'.

ROME, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - A top Mafia boss known as the 'pizzo king' was arrested overnight in Sicily, police said Tuesday, using the slang for protection money.

Interior Minister Giuliano Amato, in a communique, hailed the 'brilliant operation that led to the arrest of the 'pizzo king',' Enrico Scalavino, 36.

Wanted since May 2007, the clan leader was also accused of drug trafficking.

'Enrico Scalavino's role was mainly to collect and manage pizzo, a task he continued to carry out while he was on the run,' the interior ministry communique said.

ROME, Sept 21, 2007 (AFP) - Sicilian journalist and author Lirio Abbate has no intention of abandoning his Mafia beat despite death threats and the fact that eight journalists have been killed on the island since 1960.

'They want to gag me, but I won't give in,' Abbate, 37, said during a recent stay in Rome.

'I'm neither a hero nor a symbol, but a journalist like so many others in Palermo,' he told AFP.

ROME, Sept 20, 2007 (AFP) - Jailed former Mafia supremo Bernardo Provenzano used an elaborate Bible-based code to communicate with others, a theologian has determined, disputing an FBI conclusion to the contrary, a press report said Thursday.

Provenzano's Bible, seized during his arrest last year after 43 years on the lam, is filled with notations, underlinings and movable stickers bearing arrows, numbers and letters, as well as handwritten notes stuck inside the pages.

ROME, Sept 19, 2007 (AFP) - A powerful Mafia kingpin close to the jailed former don of the Cosa Nostra, Bernardo Provenzano, was arrested near Palermo in Sicily on Wednesday, police said.

Giuseppe Lipari, 72, was the alleged 'administrator' of the infamous Corleonian Mafia, police told AFP.

He was arrested at the request of a prosecutor on suspicion of Mafia association, and some three million euros (4.2 million dollars) worth of goods were seized.

ROME, Sept 19, 2007 (AFP) - A powerful mafia kingpin close to the jailed former don of the Cosa Nostra, Bernardo Provenzano, was arrested early Wednesday near Palermo in Sicily, police said.

Giuseppe Lipari, 72, was the alleged 'administrator' of the infamous Corleonian mafia, a police source told AFP.

He was arrested at the request of a prosecutor on suspicion of mafia association, and some three million euros (4.2 million dollars) worth of goods were seized.

ROME, Sept 17, 2007 (AFP) - The Italian army should send troops to Sicily to help authorities protect business owners from the mafia, famed Sicilian mystery writer Andrea Camilleri said in an interview published Monday.

'There is nothing dramatic about soldiers patrolling the streets in support of law enforcement for a temporary period,' the author of 'The Patience of the Spider' told Corriere della Sera newspaper.

He spoke of Sicilian employers' recent vow to stand up to the mafia by refusing to pay the 'pizzo' tax demanded by the mobsters.

SYDNEY, Sept 14, 2007 (AFP) - Corrupt police officers were linked with a bloody gangland war which raged for years in the country's second largest city, Australian police confirmed Friday.

Victoria state's deputy police commissioner, Simon Overland, who formerly headed an investigation into gangland violence in Melbourne, said detectives recently uncovered evidence of police involvement in two separate gang-related matters.

'We've got specific information now that says there is a direct link between police corruption and gangland murders,' he said.

ROME, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - Some 500 people took part in a march on Saturday in Palermo, Sicily in support of a journalist under police protection since receiving death threats from the mafia, the news agency ANSA reported.

'I would like to thank everyone for their solidarity and affection displayed on my behalf, in particular my colleagues who report every day, like me, on events that occur in Palermo and Sicily,' said Lirio Abbate, 37, an ANSA correspondent in Palermo.

ROME, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - Italian police foiled a murder attempt against a journalist who had written a book about the associates of notorious imprisoned Sicilian mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano, the journalist and his employers said Wednesday.

Lirio Abbate, correspondent for Italy's ANSA agency in Sicily and for La Stampa daily, has been under police protection since receiving death threats following the publication last spring of his co-authored book on the associates of the Sicilian Mafia boss.

ROME, Sept 3, 2007 (AFP) - Italy commemorated the 25th anniversary of the mafia murder of General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa Monday, noting the Sicily police chief's dedication to fighting organised crime and the Red Brigades.

'He was an example of determination in the fight against the mafia,' said Interior Minister Giuliano Amato.

Fausto Bertinnotti, head of the Italian chamber of deputies, also remembered the 'rigour which marked his difficult work against terrorism and the mafia'.

ROME, Sept 2, 2007 (AFP) - Faced with the soaring cost of protection money, Sicilian employers have vowed to stand up to the mafia by refusing to pay the 'pizzo' demanded by the mobsters.

An extraordinary meeting of the Sicilian branch of Cofindustria, the employers' federation, in Caltanissetta in central Sicily on Saturday voted unanimously to expel any member from their ranks who paid the mafia tax.

ROME, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) - Italy is preparing a package of measures aimed at modernising the country's anti-mafia law after the murder of six Italians in Germany last week, its justice minister said in an interview Sunday.

'We are in the process of drawing up new standards, new preventive measures, on the confiscation of goods and monitoring illicit funds,' Justice Minister Clemente Mastella told the Italian daily Il Messaggero.

The measures come after the murder of six Italians last Wednesday in the western city of Duisburg, Germany.

ROME, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) - Italy is preparing a package of measures aimed at modernising the country's anti-mafia law after the murder of six Italians in Germany last week, its justice minister said in an interview Sunday.

'We are in the process of drawing up new standards, new preventive measures, on the confiscation of goods and monitoring illicit funds,' Justice Minister Clemente Mastella told the Italian daily Il Messaggero.

The measures come after the murder of six Italians last Wednesday in the western city of Duisburg, Germany.

ROME, Aug 18, 2007 (AFP) - The mother of the youngest victim in the cold-blooded shooting of six Italians in Duisburg forgave her son's killers and called for an end to the vendetta in an interview published Saturday.

'I know my son and my brother (both victims). They have only callouses on their hands. They (the killers) have killed innocent people,' Teresa, the mother of 16-year-old Francesco, told the Corriere della Sera.

ROME, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - Six Italians found shot dead in Germany Wednesday were the victims of a vendetta between families in the powerful Calabrian mafia from southern Italy, Interior Minister Giuliano Amato said Wednesday.

Speaking in a televised press conference, Amato expressed the fear of further reprisals in the ongoing feud within the criminal organisation known as the 'Ndrangheta, centred on the Calabrian village of San Luca.

ROME, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - Six Italians found shot dead in Germany on Wednesday were the victims of a vendetta between families in the Calabrian mafia from southern Italy, Interior Minister Giuliano Amato said Wednesday.

Speaking on television, Amato expressed the fear of futher reprisals in the ongoing feud within the criminal organisation known as the 'Ndrangheta, centred on the Calabrian village of San Luca.

The bodies of the Italians were found in two vehicles near a train station in Duisburg, western Germany. German police said they were aged from 16 to 39.

ROME, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - Six Italians found shot dead in Germany on Wednesday all had links with the 'Ndrangheta -- the Calabrian mafia from southern Italy, the Ansa news agency said, citing police sources.

According to the sources, the Calabrian police, working with Interpol and German police in Duisburg where the bodies were found, had established that the six men belonged to one of 'Ndrangheta's crime families.

The Italians were found shot dead in an execution-style killing near a train station. German police said they were aged from 16 to 39.

ROME, Aug 9, 2007 (AFP) - Fourteen people including two businessmen and a mayor were arrested overnight in and around Palermo in a sweep against the Sicilian Mafia, justice and police authorities said Thursday.

'Several important members' of the Mafia controlling the Palermo suburb of Boccadifalco were arrested, a justice source told AFP.

Salvatore Lo Piccolo, one of the bosses who succeeded supremo Bernardo Provenzano after his arrest in April last year and who has been at large since 1983, is closely linked to the group.

ROME, Aug 2, 2007 (AFP) - Italian police said Thursday they had arrested one of the country's most wanted men, alleged mafia boss Franco Franzese, in Sicily.

The 43-year-old had already been sentenced to life by a Sicilian court for homicides and has been on the run. He had also been convicted for mafia connections.

Franzese was arrested by police near Palermo. Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, cited by ANSA news agency, called the arrest 'a new success in the battle against criminality'.