ROME (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti says the country should try to get through the financial crisis, which has sent its borrowing costs spiralling, without the help of bailouts from its European partners.

The euro zone’s third-largest economy is on the right track to meet targets to rein in the public deficit this year and next, Monti said on Friday, but he urged lawmakers to keep up the pace of reforms to ensure the country can solve its problems on its own.

ROME (Reuters) – World farm commodity prices will edge higher in the next decade, and oilseeds are set to outperform wheat and other cereals, both trends fuelled by demand in emerging economies, the OECD said on Wednesday, presenting a joint report with the UN’s food agency.

Prices have eased from record highs hit in February last year and have stabilised as farmers boost output, but burgeoning demand for food, feed and fuel will keep prices firmly underpinned in coming years, the two bodies said.

ROME (Reuters) – High borrowing costs are dangerous for Italy and Spain and the EU must tackle them quickly by establishing a system that supports countries which are making reforms, OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria said in an interview on Wednesday.

Gurria said the European Stability Mechanism rescue fund, or ESM, needed to become operational as soon as possible so it could start intervening on bond markets, and that it should be strengthened to send a clear signal to markets.

ROME (Reuters) – World farm commodity prices will keep rising in the next decade, and oilseeds are set to outperform wheat and other cereals, both trends fuelled by strong demand in emerging economies, the OECD said on Wednesday in a joint report with the UN’s food agency.

High income growth in developing countries will boost global demand for food and fuel, while stocks and output growth will struggle to keep up, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Food and Agriculture Organisation said.

ROME (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti hit back at the increasingly critical employers lobby Confindustria on Sunday, saying that its complaints about the government were helping to push up Italian borrowing costs and damaging companies.

Confindustria’s new leader Giorgio Squinzi has branded the government’s labor reform inadequate, warned that recession is deepening and called for more help for small firms since he took over in May.

ROME (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti scored a hard-fought victory for his landmark labor reform on Wednesday, bolstering his position for a European Union summit where he will ask for more growth policies and a mechanism to stem borrowing costs.

The lower house in Rome voted overwhelmingly in favor of the law in the last of four confidence ballots held to accelerate the approval process ahead of Thursday’s negotiations in Brussels on the future of the euro.

ROME, May 18 (Reuters) – Salvage crews will employ huge
cranes and air tanks to refloat the half-submerged Costa
Concordia cruise liner in the largest ever operation of its
kind, according to a plan unveiled on Friday.

Estimated to cost at least $300 million, the work is
expected to begin within a few days and last about a year, said
the ship’s operator Costa Cruises, owned by Carnival Corp & Plc.

ROME (Reuters) – Governments are failing to fund projects to improve access to toilets and other sanitation services in poor countries because the subject remains “taboo”, a director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said on Monday.

“Who wants to talk about shit?” asked Frank Rijsberman, Director of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene at the $34 billion charitable foundation, during an interview with Reuters on Monday.

ROME (Reuters) – India’s economic growth and political stability are at stake in coming years if it does not change its approach to water management, a member of its natural resources planning commission told Reuters on Monday.

Mihir Shah, who has been asked by India’s government to come up with a new water resource strategy, said the sector needed to become more sustainable, efficient and focused on how water is used and how it reaches people.

ROME, April 11 (Reuters) – Italy will scale back financial
incentives for solar and other renewable energy that have
inflated consumer power bills more than expected, and also will
raise national renewable energy targets for 2020, two ministers
said on Wednesday.

Italy’s green power industry has boomed in recent years as
investors from around the world ranging from banks and private
equity funds to utilities poured billions of euros into the
sector, lured by generous support measures.