Milan - AC Milan and lawyers for David Beckham were set to begin negotiations Thursday for the loan of the English star to the Serie A powerhouse.

The ANSA news agency quoted Milan vice president Adriano Galliani as saying that representatives of the 33-year-old midfielder advanced the date of a meeting originally scheduled for next week.

"We are kicking off the negotiation," Galliani said. "I don't know if it will have a positive ending or not, but I hope it will."

Munich  - Several leading Italian clubs are interested in signing Bayern Munich's Bastian Schweinsteiger, but club manager Uli Hoeness said Thursday he was confident of keeping the midfielder at the German champions.

The 24-year-old Germany international's current contract expires at the end of the season and Hoeness said Inter Milan, AC Milan and Juventus had shown an interest in the player.

However Hoeness said Bayern "would come up with something" to keep Schweinsteiger at the club he has played for since joining as a youth team player.

Hoeness said Bayern would also be offering midfielder Ze Roberto a new contract although the 34-year-old Brazilian has said he wants to leave at the end of the season.

Rome - Italy "probably helped save" Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi's life when it warned Libya of a 1986 US air strike, Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalgam said Thursday.

Shalgam's claim, made at a conference in Rome, referred to an April 15, 1986 operation in which the then US president, Ronald Reagan, ordered several attacks against Libya, the ANSA news agency reported.

Shalgam, who was Libya's ambassador to Rome at the time, said he was personally warned of the US intentions a day before the raids took place by "mutual friend" sent by Italy's then prime minister, Bettino Craxi.

Rome - Libyan President Moamer Gaddafi is welcome to visit Italy where he would be received as a friend, Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini said Thursday, according to news reports.

"If the leader of the Libyan revolution desires to visit Italy we will greet him with friendship, as one would with a friend," Frattini was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency.

The Italian foreign minister, made the remarks on the margins of a conference in Rome examining a friendship agreement signed in August by Gaddafi and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, in Benghazi, Libya.

Rome - Schools in Italy remained closed Thursday as teachers went on strike over controversial education reforms adopted by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government.

Thousands of students, parents and teachers joined protest marches organized by the country's major labour unions in several cities.

Leaders of the centre-left opposition which is supporting the strike also joined the protest marches.

Around mid-morning, a crowd began moving from Rome's Piazza Repubblica square towards the central Piazza del Popolo square where the protest was set to culminate with speeches by leaders of the main CGIL, CISL and UIl unions.

Milan - A fan of Juventus was in intensive care in a Bologna hospital Thursday with a skull trauma suffered in a clash with hooligans.