Police clash with protesters over Naples trash law

Police said they charged protesters they said were throwing stones at them outside a planned rubbish dump in Chiaiano, on the outskirts of the southern port city. Ten demonstrators were injured.

The angry scenes came after a government official gave details of a plan to open landfills in the Naples region, where trash has been piling up in the streets since the end of last year when almost all dumps were declared full.

Conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi passed the decree on Wednesday at his first full cabinet meeting since winning a landslide election in April.

The cabinet met in Naples, rather than the capital Rome, to emphasise the priority Berlusconi is giving the issue. He vowed to treat it "exactly as if it were an emergency caused by an earthquake or volcano eruption".

Protesters against the dumps, which are usually in poorer areas, say they do not trust politicians to ensure waste will be dealt with safely.

MILITARY ZONES

Under the new law, landfills will be considered military zones, giving the army powers to stop residents from blocking roads and rail lines.

Details of the decree, particularly the location of the new landfills, will remain secret until the law is published in Italy's Official Journal, probably over the weekend.

But Guido Bertolaso, appointed by Berlusconi to oversee the crisis, told a news conference earlier on Friday that a disused quarry in Chiaiano would be in use as a landfill by June - sparking the latest protests.