Author tries to explain why Sicily can't rid itself of Mob

Palermo, March 11 - Everything you ever wanted to know about the Sicilian Mafia but were afraid to ask is the subject of a new book written especially for tourists that has hit the shelves in Italy this week.

The 55-page pocket guide, entitled 'Mafia For Tourists', is available in Japanese, German, English, Spanish and French and gives the low-down on the risks of walking the streets in Sicily, what a Mafioso looks like, and whether it's true that the Mafia won't kill women, children or priests.

''For years I've been accompanying groups of tourists who choose to come here with the aim of understanding our land and our problems,'' said Palermo-based author and Mafia scholar Augusto Cavadi.

ROME - The Palermo-New York drug trade was just one of the businesses Sicilian Mafia clans were looking to run with the families who had “fled” to the United States.

Relations with the Inzerillos, broken off in the 1980s by order of Totò Riina’s Corleonesi family, had been stitched back together by Brooklyn-based Franky Boy Calì and emerging gangsters Gianni Nicchi and Nicola Mandalà in the common cause of “enterprise creation”.

Operation “Old Bridge” went into action at dawn, coordinated by the director of the police special operational centre (SCO), Francesco Gratteri. Officers burst into houses at Brancaccio, Pagliarelli and Villagrazia to drag gang members from their beds. In the United States, FBI agents carried out a coordinated action reminiscent of the “Pizza Connection” arrests in the 1980s. Television cameras portrayed Filippo Casamento, 82, being hustled into a blue FBI van and filmed the arrest of his associates, the Gambinos. By the end of the operation, seventy-seven arrests had been made, twenty-three in Italy and fifty-four in America.

February 8 - Christopher Columbus wasn't responsible for the spread of lice in the New World, according to US and French researchers.

Teams in Marseilles and Florida have separately examined two lice-ridden Peruvian mummies dating back to the early 11th century - almost 500 years before the Italian explorer arrived in the Caribbean.

''The DNA from these parasites showed that the animals predated the arrival of Columbus by hundreds of years,'' said David L. Reed of the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Reed said that his studies, combined with those of the French Institute for Infectious Diseases in Marseilles, ''showed that these parasites had been feeding off pre-Colombian peoples for at least 10,000 years''.

"Blacks, Muslims and Communists" comment sparks outrage. Controversial ex-minister Roberto Calderoli was at the centre of a fresh storm on Tuesday after making derogatory comments about France's national soccer team.

In a statement issued Monday in celebration of Italy's World Cup defeat of France, deputy Senate speaker Calderoli said the French team was made up of "blacks, Muslims and Communists", sparking protests from the French Embassy .

Calderoli is a leading member of the regionalist Northern League, one of the four parties in the centre-right opposition headed by former premier Silvio Berlusconi .

He was forced to resign from the Berlusconi government earlier this year after he appeared on television wearing a T-shirt printed with cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.

Supertenor had pancreas lump removed in New York - Luciano Pavarotti is making a strong recovery after an operation to remove a tumour from his pancreas, his manager said on Friday.

His doctors found the tumour last week while the 70-year-old semi-retired supertenor was preparing to leave New York for London, Terri Robson said .

"Fortunately they were able to completely remove the mass," Robson said .

She said his doctors were "encouraged by his physical and emotional resilience". The operation is believed to have taken place in an unspecified New York hospital earlier this week .

Pavarotti is believed to be recovering at the hospital.

With less than a week to go before general elections, the second televised face-to-face debate between Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his challenger, Romano Prodi, came off as a serenade to the undecided electorate, whose vote is likely to decide the winner in a tight race.

Gaddo della Gherardesca belongs to the old Tuscan aristocracy of Longobard origins. Since the 13th century his family has been firmly established in the southern part of the region, growing in power and prestige in Pisa and surroundings.

At the heart of Ferrari lies passion. It is passion that has been instilled through decades of romance and the mysterious aura that comes from Enzo Ferrari, the car-maker’s founder who died 15 years ago.

Ferrari was a very curious man. He made some of the greatest racing cars ever seen in Formula One and sports car racing. Yet he never attended a race meeting bar the annual Friday practice session of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. He also destroyed most of the Ferrari race cars and rare road cars that littered the Maranello factory and, amongst many mechanical acts of barbarism, not one of the famous Ferrari shark nose Grand Prix cars that carried all before them in 1961 exists. Ferrari had them all broken up for scrap. If they had survived they would be worth maybe US$3 million each today and would have given immense pleasure to future generations of race fans.

Milan, June 23 2000. Enrico Cuccia, honorary chairman of investment bank Mediobanca SpA, and the most prominent Italian financier in the post-war era, died this morning in a Milan heart clinic. He was 92 years old. The news of the death was confirmed by the Fondazione Monzino cardiac center, where Cuccia died of heart failure.

Of Europe's 10 most influential businessmen of the 20th century only one is still living – 92-year-old Italian Enrico Cuccia, who some would argue was the most influential of all.

Greatness can be achieved by living a long time and by delaying retirement. By looking at the fragile frame of the 92-year-old Enrico Cuccia, it seems remarkable to imagine that this is the man who was still Italy's most powerful businessman and had been since the Second World War. His influence has been felt since 1946 when he became head of merchant bank Mediobanca, undeniably Italy's most influential organisation.

Mediobanca dominates Italian business, much to the chagrin of just about everyone who has to pay its boss Enrico Cuccia more than lip service. Recently he was challenged three times in some of the biggest business deals Italy has ever seen. Three times he not only beat off the challenge but absolutely destroyed the challengers. Today Cuccia is honorary chairman of the bank, leaving operational control in the hands of the 61-year-old Vincenzo Maranghi and his star protégé Matteo Arpe.

NEW ITALIANS REJECT THE PAST

Massimo Brunelli is one of a new breed of young Italians thrusting their older colleagues aside at the top

Timeline: 12/01/2000

Some people think Italian business has been stuck in a time warp for the last 50 years. In 1999 that started to look very different. A former state monopoly was taken over in a hostile bid and Enrico Cuccia, the 92-year old banker, was almost overthrown as four of the top Italian banks announced they were to merge. Cuccia prevailed but the seeds of disruption and change were indelibly sown so deep that not even Cuccia could erase them.

A revolution is happening within Italian corporations as a new breed of young executives is nurtured and encouraged to help bring much-needed reforms to Italian corporations. Careers are being made and broken as company after company faces up to radical restructuring that was sparked when Olivetti bid for Telecom Italia.