Italians say "basta" to Mafia squeeze on business
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When the Sicilian Mafia first tried to  shake down restaurateur Vincenzo Conticello for 500 euros ($716  US) a month, he quoted his grandmother Ermelinda at them:  "Don't start paying up or you will always be a servant, never a  free man."
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Smokers and restaurant owners in Italy were fuming in a rather different way on Monday after a tough new law that bans smoking in public places - one of the strictest in Europe - went into effect.
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Italy's politicians united in lamenting the lot of the nation's women on Thursday but some also said women could do more to defend their rights.Comment
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VENICE, Italy - Robert De Niro dismissed accusations that his Mafia roles have smeared the image of Italian-Americans, arguing that he plays realistic characters including many who could not be construed as stereotypes.    De Niro's defense Friday came after the Order Sons of Italy in America, a fraternal organization of Americans of Italian heritage, wrote a letter to the Italian government, urging it to cancel its plan to award the actor honorary citizenship...
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U.S., Italian authorities round up mob figures, including leaders of notorious Gambino family.
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Money seized from organised criminals is to be used to expand two crimefighting units.
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Michael Franzese, a former mobster who used athletesâ gambling debts to entrap them, addressed young N.B.A. players about the dangers of gambling on Thursday.
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A dead Sicilian Mafia boss who once helped lead a drug ring out of New York pizza parlors may get the last laugh back home in Italy.
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Police broke up an Italian-Canadian mafia clan that ran drug trafficking and money laundering operations, arresting 12 people on Tuesday and seizing millions of dollars in assets, officials said.
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Italian Labor Minister Roberto Maronion Saturday defended his view that businesses should employ jobless Italians rather than immigrants, adding that Italy has enough immigrant workers.
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Members of organised crime are joining financial firms to commit fraud, a new report by the industry watchdog reveals.
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NEW YORK, Feb. 7 -- U.S. and Italian law enforcement officials Thursday rounded up dozens of organized crime figures, including the top leadership of New York's notorious Gambino family, in what was described by authorities here as the biggest takedown of the Mafia in recent memory.
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A gang that had intended to smuggle weapons to Iraq has been broken up, Italian police say.
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An Italian cement firm says it is pulling out of Sicily as a sign of its refusal to submit to Mafia extortion.
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Scores of suspects were being arrested in a crackdown on organized crime clans whose feud is believed to have led to the shooting deaths of six Italians in Germany this month, Italian police said Thursday.
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Italian police arrested 45 people Tuesday in an anti-Mafia crackdown in Sicily, including top mobsters who had allegedly been in contact with Bernardo Provenzano, the reputed No. 1 boss apprehended earlier this year.
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An Italian aid worker held hostage last month in Iraq said guerrillas there were right to fight U.S.-led forces and their Iraqi "puppet government." In comments that were bound to annoy Prime Minister Silvio ...