ITALY:A tense standoff between Italian police and locals in Naples who were blocking access to a garbage dump ended peacefully yesterday when the government said it would announce a "radical" solution to a waste emergency.
Rubbish has piled up shoulder-high through the streets in the southern port city after refuse collection ceased two weeks ago when almost all waste dumps were declared full to capacity.
The army was sent in to clear festering piles of waste from around schools yesterday, but many children did not return after the Christmas holidays because of health fears.
A proposed stop-gap solution - to reopen a dump on the outskirts of Naples which had been closed after reaching capacity 11 years ago - outraged residents who blocked several kilometres of roads and briefly clashed with police.
Prime minister Romano Prodi held emergency talks yesterday and called a cabinet meeting for today.
Mr Prodi's spokesman said there would be a "radical solution" proposed soon.
To cheers of the thousands of protesters at the waste dump in Pianura, a Naples suburb, police withdrew, allowing the protesters to occupy the defunct landfill site.
A priest held Mass there on Sunday for the protesters who were gathered there.
"We have done all this for our future, for all the people who are suffering," said Daniela Caianiello, a 20-year-old bank worker.
Local residents believe higher-than-average levels of cancer are caused by contamination from the waste dump.
"They are the killers - those [ politicians] who promised that there will be no more dumping here," said a 42-year-old protester named Luciano, who declined to give his surname.
The stand-off in Pianura is the latest episode in Naples's long failure to deal with its pressing environmental problem.
Political inefficiency, corruption and the influence of organised crime are blamed for causing a 14-year public emergency during which the soil, water and air of large areas around the base of Mount Vesuvius have been contaminated by illegal waste disposal.
A massive incinerator which was supposed to open at the end of 2007 is not ready.
Some 110,000 tonnes of garbage have accumulated in the Campania region, of which Naples is the capital, local media reported on Monday.
Environment minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio suggested wider use of the army for rubbish cleanup and emergency stockpiling.
Near yesterday's protests, stray dogs picked through rotting trash on the semi-deserted streets, the stench of rotting food heavy in the air.
Hundreds of piles of rubbish have been set alight by residents, prompting fears of high levels of cancer-causing dioxin emissions.
Part of Naples's problem is that organised crime groups have made illegal waste disposal an industry that was worth €5.8 billion euros in 2006, according to a study by conservation group Legambiente.
The Camorra, the Naples brand of the Italian Mafia, is heavily involved in the transport and disposal of waste.
Local authorities say it has benefited from the continuing crisis and may have actively tried to prolong it. - (Additional reporting Reuters)