Rome  - Serie A footballers Franco Brienza and Salvatore Aronica and the retired Vincenzo Montalbano are under investigation for match-rigging while playing for lower-division Ascoli in 2003, Il Giornale di Sicilia newspaper reported Tuesday.

Police in Palermo could charge them with sports fraud in connection with an investigation on alleged ties between the Mafia and the local football club, the report said.

Buehl, Germany  - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi needs to find alternative accomodation for April's NATO summit in Baden-Baden after the hotel of choice was deemed unfit, a hotel manager disclosed Tuesday.

Due to security concerns, Italy's NATO delegation will not be able to stay, as planned, in the Buehlerhoehe luxury hotel on the edge of town, hotel director Heinz Imhof told German Press Agency dpa.

Pescara, Italy - An Italian man suspected of helping a Swiss gigolo blackmail several rich women, including German BMW car heiress Susanne Klatten, appeared briefly in an Italian court Tuesday where he denied any wrongdoing.

A preliminary hearing involving the 69-year-old Ernano Barretta was postponed until April 9 on a technicality related to the choice of the presiding magistrate.

"What has been said about me are lies," Barretta told reporters as he left a courthouse in the central town of Pescara.

Paestum, Italy - Italy's Cilento region, south of Naples, is a beloved destination of tourists, but not overrun by them. Its attractions include long beaches, extensive vineyards, sleepy villages and mountains about 1,700 metres high.

In 1991, part of the region became Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park. UNESCO, the United Nations' cultural body, added the park - including the archaeological site of Paestum - to its World Heritage list seven years later.

Rome  - Despite declaring in 2007 an income of around a tenth of that of the previous year, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi still easily tops the list of the country's richest government officials, figures released on Monday showed.

Berlusconi's taxable earnings amounted to some 14.5 million euros (19.7 million dollars) compared to 139 million euros he declared in 2006.

Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti declared the second highest income among parliamentarians in 2007 with 4.5 million euros.

Rome - Renzo Ulivieri, the president of the Italian association of football coaches (AIAC), Monday criticized Jose Mourinho for suggesting that some of his colleagues lack dignity and let others choose the players to field.

"(Inter Milan's) Mourinho is an (AIAC) associate and I'm glad he is," the 68-year-old Ulivieri was quoted as saying, "but this time, if I have to choose the words, he was way out of line (in his colourful Italian expression: 'peed out of the vase').