Rome - Romanian President Traian Basescu on Thursday told Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi that Bucharest disapproved of Rome's policies toward the ethnic Roma, including their fingerprinting.

"The Romanian government does not approve, I repeat, does not approve of part of a large part of the measures of the Italian government," Basescu said at news conference with Berlusconi in Rome.

Basescu was referring to a census of ethnic Roma - known colloquially as gypsies - ordered by the Italian government which also involves fingerprinting, including children.

Rome - The government of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced Saturday a nationwide state of emergency in reaction to a stark increase in illegal immigration to the country's south.

The move is to provide local authorities with greater means to deal with the rising tide of wound-be immigrants arriving by boat.

According to the daily La Repubblica, Interior Minister Roberto Maroni plans to build new intake centres throughout the country.

Rome - Italian Reform Minister Umberto Bossi's giving the finger to Italy's national anthem led to an outcry earlier this week, but on Friday it was his supporters who were outraged by Ryanair's running of an advertisement showing the minister making the gesture.

"It is offensive and in bad taste," said Italian parliamentarian, Massimo Polledri, a member of the Bossi-led Northern League party.

Polledri was referring to a photograph of Bossi, middle-finger raised in the insulting gesture, posted under the phrase "Minister Bossi to Italian passengers," on the Italian website of budget airline, Ryanair.

Rome - The tropical root crop cassava could help protect the food and energy security of poor countries now threatened by soaring food and oil prices, a United Nations food agency said Friday.

The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) was referring to an appeal by cassava scientists for greater investment in research and development to boost farmers' yields and explore industrial uses of cassava, including biofuel production.

The scientists meeting at a FAO-sponsored global conference held in Ghent, Belgium, said the world community could not continue to ignore the plight of low-income tropical countries that have been hardest hit by rising oil prices and galloping food price inflation.

Rome, July 25 : The tomb of a woman who died around 2,600 years ago on the eastern Italian coast has helped archaeologists to piece together the vast trade network that once linked this area with the Middle East, North Africa and Greece.

Experts working on the tomb, which was found near the port of Ancona, have said that the site contains over 650 artifacts from the 7th century BC, including numerous items made in other parts of the world.

“This tomb is of extraordinary importance, as it contains the only known funerary finds in the area of Conero dating from this time,”'' said the Archaeology Superintendent for the Marche region, Giuliano de Marinis.

Rome  - A global trend towards abolition of the death penalty continued in 2007 with the number of countries practising capital punishment dropping to 49 from 51 in the previous year, but the number of executions worldwide increased, according to a report released Thursday.

The Rome-based anti-death penalty group, Hands Off Cain, presented its findings in the 2008 edition of its annual report which covers the first six months of the year and
2007.

At least 5,851 executions were carried out in 2007 up from the 5,635 registered in 2006 and 5,494 in 2005, the report said.