ROME, Dec. 5  -- Researchers at Italy's Bologna University say they've found a way to choose the gender of foals using frozen sperm and egg cells.

Rome - Some 25,000 would-be immigrants attempted to reach Italy illegally by sea in January-September 2008 marking a 107 per cent increase compared to the previous year, according to a senior official of the European Union's border security agency Frontex.

Frontex deputy executive director Gil Arias Fernandez, speaking in Rome on Thursday, also singled out what he said was lack of co-operation by Libya in attempts by the EU to curb illegal immigration across the Mediterranean Sea.

Vatican City - A top Vatican official said Thursday Muslims should be allowed to build new mosques in Italy, where the country's interior minister, citing terrorism fears, is pushing to ban such initiatives.

On Wednesday Interior Minister Roberto Maroni a member of the anti-immigration Northern League party, proposed a moratorium on the building of mosques following the arrest of two Moroccans suspected of planning a series of bomb attacks.

But Monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi who heads the Holy See's culture department, suggested such a ban would be counterproductive.

"A place of worship if used as such, is always a source of communion and dialogue," Ravasi was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency.

Rome - Inter Milan coach Jose Mourinho said Tuesday he would rather one of his own players had won the Ballon d'Or which went to Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo.

"I'd have preferred that one of our players had won it," the Portuguese coach said when asked about the award going to fellow countryman Ronaldo.

Mourinho said Inter's Swedish star Zlatan Ibrahimovic was a player who would have deserved the trophy awarded by French magazine France Football.

Rome - A row intensified in Italy on Monday over the government's proposal to raise value added tax (VAT) on satellite television subscriptions, a move that critics say targets the main competitor to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's media empire.

The provision to double VAT from 10 to 20 per cent was included in a economic crisis package unveiled by the conservative government on Friday.

Opposition leaders say it highlights the "conflict of interest" of Berlusconi, who heads the government while also controlling Italy's largest private television network Mediaset.