ANSA. The Vatican is to receive condoms in the post from subscribers to a Facebook group protesting Pope Benedict XVI's recent comments against the use of condoms to combat AIDS in Africa. Organisers of the Italian group on the social networking website said 60,000 subscribers will send a condom to the Vatican on Friday. (Read the article)

ANSA. he Vatican on Friday rapped the teachings of a medieval Christian mystic cited three times by Barack Obama as someone who wanted a better world. ''Few of those who expound on Gioacchino da Fiore (Joachim of Fiore, 1130-1202 AD) on the Internet know, or go to the trouble of finding out, what this character really said,'' said Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher to the Pontifical Household. (Read the article)

ANSA. Venice is continuing its drive to help save the city's art heritage by receiving SMS and Internet funding.
The campaign, launched last year, is dubbed SMS, which also stands for Save St Mark's. (Read the article)

THE TELEGRAPH.  Mr Berlusconi was responding to questions from journalists about his stewardship of the Italian economy, which has lurched into recession despite his assurances that the country is well-placed to weather the world crisis. "I'm paler [than Mr Obama], because it's been so long since I went sunbathing. He's more handsome, younger and taller," quipped the media mogul, who is renowned for his gaffes. Mr Berlusconi, 72, was accused of racism in November when he hailed then President-elect Obama as "handsome, young and also suntanned". (Read the article by Nick Squires)

THE NEW YORK TIMES. A number of neighbors in Bay Ridge -- including many senior citizens of Italian descent whose families settled here over a century ago -- signed a petition protesting the service cuts decided by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and scheduled to go into effect this summer.
Unless Albany intervenes, the MTA’s financial crisis will interrupt 145 years of mass transit history. An electric streetcar started running on Third Avenue in 1893; before that, there was a steam-powered streetcar; and before that, in the 1860s, there was a horse-drawn stagecoach providing access to the 39th Street ferry.
If the State Legislature doesn’t bail out the transportation authority, the New York Times wirtes, hundreds of people will suffer, "including those who depend on public transportation to get them to physical therapy or to the Lutheran Medical Center on56th Street or to the Food Town down on 92nd that everyone treks to for good, affordable meat." (Read the article by Susan Dominus)

VOA NEWS. In 2000, with years of experience as a professional photographer behind her, Susanna Lucia Lamaina decided to begin an annual pilgrimage to Garaguso to capture life there on film. She found it fascinating.  "Antiquity and modernity live side by side," she marvels. "You can see a 45-year-old man herding a group of sheep, and on the other side of the road, a man of the same age is driving a BMW." (Read the Article by Jean di Marino)
 

AFP.  Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Friday kicked off a long-expected party congress consolidating right-wing forces under his increasingly dominant leadership. "A great dream is coming true, the official birth of the People of Freedom (PDL)," Berlusconi said at the congress where his 15-year-old Forza Italia party will formally merge with the older National Alliance. (Read the article)

AFP. Reigning champions Italy and 2006 runners-up France can train their thoughts firmly on reaching the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa if successful in qualifiers in the next few days. (Read the article)