Rome  - Italy's Roman Catholic bishops on Friday called on Italian dioceses to set aside a day on which the faithful will fast in solidarity with Christians in India who have been targeted in recent attacks.

The Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) said it was taking up an appeal launched by Pope Benedict XVI who on August 27 urged an immediate end to acts of violence against Christians in the Indian state of Orissa.

Brussels  - The European Commission on Thursday cleared controversial plans by Italy to fingerprint its Roma residents after the government agreed to make changes enabling them to comply with European Union rules.

A spokesman for the EU's top justice official, Jacques Barrot, said good cooperation between the European Commission and the Italian government had made it possible to "correct any debatable measures or provisions."

In June, the centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi proposed fingerprinting ethnic Roma, including children, as part of efforts to obtain more reliable information about their numbers, schooling arrangements and living conditions.

Genoa, Italy  - A court in Italy has ordered a parish to pay some 60,000 euros (87,800 dollars) to a woman who claims that the loud pealing of bells at her neighbourhood church caused her "moral" and "physical" damage over a 23-year-long period, news reports said Tuesday.

The woman, a retired teacher from Lavagna near the north-western city of Genoa began her legal battle against the Madonna del Carmine parish in 2003, the ANSA news agency reported.

Judge Pasquale Grasso, ruling in the woman's favour, also ordered the parish to lower the volume of the bells at the Church of Santo Stefano.

Castel Gandolfo, Italy - Pope Benedict XVI on Monday received former hostage Ingrid Betancourt, who since she was liberated in July, had expressed a desire to thank the pontiff in person for his support.

The Franco-Colombian Betancourt, accompanied by her mother, Yolanda Pulecio, met Benedict for private talks at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome.

Pulecio had met Benedict in January when the pontiff made one of his several appeals for the release of hostages in Colombia where leftist FARC rebels kept Betancourt captive for over six years.

Rome - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced on Saturday that his country is to invest five billion dollars over the next 25 years as part of a compensation deal for years of colonial rule over the North African state.

Speaking during a visit to the coastal city of Benghazi, Berlusconi said the accord between Italy and Libya "will provide for 200 million dollars a year over the next 25 years through investment projects in Libya."

London, Aug. 30 : The Vatican has said that "Christianophobia" must be fought with the same determination as anti-Semitism or Islamophobia.

The Mirror quoted Vatican Foreign Minister Archbishop Dominique Mamberti as saying that the deaths of 13 people in Orissa, India, there is a need for promoting religious freedom as a vital part of international relations and human dignity.

"In order to promote this dignity in an integral way, so-called ''Christianophobia'' should be combated as decisively as ''Islamophobia'' and anti-Semitism," he said.