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Mafia rubbish dumps seized as Berlusconi declares Naples clean
Naples, Italy (AFP) July 18, 2008 Police seized eight mafia-controlled landfill sites around Naples Friday and charged 17 suspects, as Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi travelled to the city to declare the waste crisis over. The 17, some of whom were already in jail convicted of other crimes, have been variously charged with criminal association with the mafia, environmental damage and illegal waste-trafficking, according to an official statement. Tens of thousands of tonnes of untreated waste piled up in Naples and surrounding areas ahead of April's general election, with Berlusconi making a solution a key plank of his campaign. The long-running issue was blamed on a lack of local incinerators, and landfill sites controlled by the local Camorra mafia, some of which were used for illegal dumping of toxic waste. "Today I can proudly announce that there is no longer rubbish in the streets," Berlusconi told farmers' union Coldiretti in Rome before travelling to Naples in person. Berlusconi is expected to use a cabinet meeting specially convened in the city on Friday to announce an end to the crisis -- although according to witnesses on the ground, the situation is far from over. "The historic city centre of Naples and its immediate vicinity is clean. There is no longer any rubbish, but in the outlying areas the situation is catastrophic," an AFP photographer reported. Berlusconi warned on Thursday that the problem would only be definitively solved when a number of new incinerators go into service in 18 months time. Three of the sites seized by police Friday had been opened illegally and the other five contained unauthorised waste from hospitals and industry in the north and central parts of Italy, a police spokesman for the Caserta region said. The eight landfills were managed by the Casalesi, the most powerful clan in the Camorra. Naples and the surrounding region have been placed under a state of emergency for the past 14 years as the problem of untreated waste grew -- earning the city a prosecution in May this year by the European Commission. Related Links Our Polluted World and Cleaning It Up
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