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Rome - March 3, 2008 - The remains of Padre Pio, a hugely popular Italian saint whose body is due to go on public display later this year, have been exhumed, officials said Monday.

Bishop Domenico D'Ambrosio, a Vatican-appointed envoy who oversaw the unearthing Sunday night, said the body had been well preserved.

Padre Pio, a mystic Capuchin monk who had an enormous following in Italy and abroad, died in 1968 after living for decades with inexplicable, bleeding wounds on his hands and feet, like the wounds Jesus suffered at crucifixion. Pope John Paul II made him a saint in 2002.

Church officials wanted to exhume the body so the faithful can pray before it this year, the 40th anniversary of his death. They also wanted to take measures to ensure it was well preserved.

D'Ambrosio said there was no sign of the so-called stigmata on his limbs after an initial examination Sunday and Monday. But otherwise, the body had been "conserved well," he said.

"Padre Pio's fingernails are as if he had just had a manicure," D'Ambrosio said.

Padre Pio had a huge public following in life as in death, and his beatification and canonization ceremonies drew hundreds of thousands of people to the Vatican.

For decades, though, many in the Vatican were made uneasy by his popularity and had scorned him, doubting that his inexplicable wounds were real and that his mystical virtues were authentic. He was banned for years from saying Mass in public even as his following grew immensely.

Padre Pio's body will go on display starting in mid-April in San Giovanni Rotondo, a town near the Adriatic in southern Puglia, where he lived.

Rome - March 3, 2008 - From the "No Garbage" party, to the "Don't row against the tide" party, to "Dr. Cirillo's party of existentialist impotents", there will be something for everyone in Italy's general election in April.

177 symbols of political parties, movements, lists, sub-lists, sub-parties and a myriad of other groupings were presented to the Interior Ministry by Sunday's deadline.

Amid the usual forest of symbols with shields and crosses, flags, hammers and sickles, doves, suns, trees and seas, there are some symbols that raise eyebrows more than normal.

The symbol of the "No Monnezza" list takes its name from the Neapolitan slang for "no garbage," and is a sub list of an "animal rights" party of the southern Campania region. The region has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately. Its governor will stand trial in May in connection with the garbage crisis around the city of Naples, where tens of thousands of tonnes of rubbish have piled up in the streets.

There is the "Holy Roman Empire" list, which describes itself as "Liberal-Catholic". The symbol sports the picture of its founder, Mirella Cece, who started the group 21 years ago.

The symbol for "Dr. Cirillo's party of existentialist impotents" (black lettering on a plain white background) gives no hint of whether the good doctor is referring to political or sexual impotence. It is symbol number 132. Dr. Cirillo appears to be a budding political mover and shaker in constant evolution. In past elections, he led the "Good Manners Party" and the "Free Condoms Party".

The hammer and sickle may be disappearing in Russia but no fewer than eight symbols sport it. The one with the longest name is "The Italian Communist Marxist Leninist Party".

Nearly 25 parties made it into the outgoing parliament, where small splinter groupings can often have a disproportionate influence on Italy's coalition politics.

Three parties descended from the now defunct Christian Democrats have symbols with a shield and cross, five far-right parties have a tri-colored flame that was once the symbol of neo-fascists.

There is a florist's shop of roses, carnations, and ivy decorating various symbols.

Those who feel that Italy is in dire economic straits and mired in social stagnation may be drawn to the "S.O.S. Italy Party," which has aligned itself with the center right headed by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The name of Beppe Grillo, a popular comic crusader who has urged Italians to say "F... off" to traditional politics, appears on six symbols, including one saying he should be prime minister and not front runners Berlusconi and Walter Veltroni.

Amid all the noise and haste of large parties, tiny parties, Sicilian and Sardinian separatists, rightists, leftists, and middle-of-the-roaders, perhaps one party will sound seductive to many.

Its symbol merely says: "I don't vote".

Naples - February 29, 2008 - Coffins and hearses ringed Naples town hall on Friday in a protest against problems at the southern city's cemeteries. Center-right opposition politicians, who led the protest, claimed that the city's graveyards had all but ground to a halt.

"Soon there won't be any graves left to put the bodies," said Andrea Santoro of Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party.

Santoro said long delays meant that people were being put into "improvised" graves.

"Before long it will be completely impossible to bury the 60 or so bodies which are the city's daily average," he claimed.

Naples council is meeting to address the cemeteries problem, which comes on top of a severe trash crisis in the city and the surrounding Campania region. The PDL has proposed opening a commission of inquiry into the graveyard woes and setting up a 'guarantor of rights for the deceased'.