"Am I therefore become your enemy,because I TELL YOU THE TRUTH...?"
(Galatians 4:16)

Riots Break Out in Naples Over Plan for New Garbage Dumps

NAPLES, Italy-The police clashed with demonstrators in a poor quarter of Naples on Saturday over the Italian government’s attempt to end the chronic garbage problem by opening dumps against locals’ wishes.Witnesses said two police officers and two protesters were hurt when the police tried to remove a bus used as a barricade to block access to a landfill site at a quarry in the Chiaiano neighborhood, on the outskirts of Naples. The police said protesters had thrown a gasoline bomb.The government had tried to keep the location of the new dumps secret, but clashes erupted Friday night in Chiaiano after an official said the quarry there would be used to dispose of some of the trash piling up in the streets of Naples since last year. Almost all dumps were declared full then.Silvio Berlusconi, elected prime minister for the third time last month, has made the crisis a top priority. He passed a decree last week allowing new landfill sites and making them military zones, to dissuade protests.He held a cabinet meeting in Naples, Italy’s primary southern port, on Wednesday to highlight the trash crisis, which he has vowed to treat “exactly as if it were an emergency caused by an earthquake or volcano eruption.”Politicians from the right and the left said they understood locals’ sentiments but said landfills were more hygienic than leaving trash to rot or burn in plastic sacks in the street. The dumps are a temporary move while new waste incinerators are built.“The mayors of towns where dumps will be opened must make people see that more damage is done to the environment and their health by rubbish left on the street and set on fire,” said Maurizio Gasparri, from Mr. Berlusconi’s conservative Forza Italia Party.

As in the days of Noah...