ROME, May 28 (Reuters) – Juventus coach Antonio Conte is
under investigation and Lazio captain Stefano Mauri has been
arrested as part of an Italian police probe into a widening
match-fixing scandal, officials said on Monday.

Italy defender Domenico Criscito, left out of the squad for
Euro 2012 in Ukraine and Poland which starts in less than two
weeks, has also been targeted in the investigation.

ROME, May 25 (Reuters) – Italy’s parliamentarians staged a
rare revolt this month that could overhaul the way the
government appoints members of the telecoms and media regulator
that oversees a sector long dominated by former Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi.

The nomination of the president of the Agcom and its four
commission members for seven-year terms, usually decided after a
backroom deal between the main parties, has been delayed
following demands by deputies for a more transparent appointment
process.

ROME (Reuters) – Italy risks falling back into the kind of political violence that scarred the country during the 1970s, President Giorgio Napolitano said on Wednesday at a commemoration for anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone who was murdered 20 years ago.

Speaking days after a deadly bomb attack on a school named after Falcone’s wife, who died with him in a huge explosion set off by mafia killers on May 23, 1992, Napolitano said Italy faced a deadly threat to its future.

BRINDISI (Reuters) – A bomb attack which killed a teenage girl and wounded 10 others in southern Italy was probably carried out by a lone individual, a senior official said on Sunday, playing down initial suspicions of mafia involvement.

Saturday’s attack on the Francesca Morvillo Falcone school, a vocational training institute named after the wife of a famed anti-mafia judge in the town of Brindisi, horrified Italy and sparked speculation it was the work of organized crime gangs.

BRINDISI, Italy (Reuters) – The bomb attack which killed a teenaged girl and wounded 10 others in the southern Italian town of Brindisi was probably done by an individual with no links to the mafia, a senior official said on Sunday.

The attack on the Francesca Morvillo Falcone school, a vocational training institute offering courses in fashion, tourism and social services, has horrified Italy.

ROME (Reuters) – Italy acted on Thursday to step up security against a resurgence of politically inspired violence driven by its economic crisis and Prime Minister Mario Monti voiced “unconditional support” to tax officials who have come under repeated attack.

The measures underscore the growing attention Italian authorities are paying to the threat of violence, either from individuals struggling to make ends meet or from radical groups seeking to exploit a spreading mood of discontent.

ROME (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund urged Prime Minister Mario Monti on Wednesday to press ahead with economic reforms to boost growth, saying Italy was on the right track and could not afford to veer off it.

Speaking after the fund’s regular annual survey of the Italian economy, Europe department head Reza Moghadam gave strong backing to Monti, who has pushed European leaders hard to add growth policies to the austerity imposed to fight the crisis.

ROME/AMMAN (Reuters) – The splintered opposition Syrian National Council re-elected liberal Burhan Ghalioun as president on Tuesday, two sources at the meeting said, in an apparent move to build on his reputation as a consensus-builder with some international support.

Ghalioun, a secular academic, has led the opposition in exile since the SNC’s creation in August 2011. Some fellow activists have accused him of being out of touch with dissidents inside Syria and of failing to unify the movement.

FLORENCE, Italy/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Italy pressed for a relaxation of German policy orthodoxy on Wednesday as Prime Minister Mario Monti and a senior central banker urged Europe to go beyond the rigid focus on budget discipline demanded by Berlin in the financial crisis.

Monti, who has taken a leading part in urging more emphasis on growth, repeated his calls for adjustments to budget rules to allow more investment spending by governments and said he believed jointly issued eurobonds would come eventually.

FLORENCE, Italy/FRANKFURT, May 9 (Reuters) – A senior Bank
of Italy official called on Wednesday for the European Central
Bank to be more active in fighting the euro zone crisis, a rare
push by one of the bloc’s central bankers that quickly ran into
resistance from Germany’s Bundesbank.

Bank of Italy Director General Fabrizio Saccomanni said the
ECB has shown it can take unconventional policy measures. He
also singled out its ability to address financial market
stability.