Genoa, Italy  - An attempt by Italian atheists to emulate like-minded campaigners in Britain and Spain by placing ads on buses denying the existence of God, suffered a setback Friday when their proposal was rejected in the northern city of Genoa.

IGPDecaux, an agency which sells advertising space on behalf of Genoa's municipal transport company decided not to run the ads, the Union of Atheists, Rationalists and Agnostics (UAAR), said.

Genoa, Italy - A group of gay rights activists in Italy staged Wednesday a protest against the Vatican's refusal to endorse a proposed United Nations resolution calling on governments to de- criminalize homosexuality.

The demonstrators, numbering around 20, unfurled a banner reading "The Vatican is an accomplice in our martyrdom," in front of the offices of the archdiocese of Genoa, the ANSA news agency reported.

The north-western port city is scheduled to host Italy's national Gay Pride celebrations in 2009.

Genoa, Italy  - A court in Italy has ordered a parish to pay some 60,000 euros (87,800 dollars) to a woman who claims that the loud pealing of bells at her neighbourhood church caused her "moral" and "physical" damage over a 23-year-long period, news reports said Tuesday.

The woman, a retired teacher from Lavagna near the north-western city of Genoa began her legal battle against the Madonna del Carmine parish in 2003, the ANSA news agency reported.

Judge Pasquale Grasso, ruling in the woman's favour, also ordered the parish to lower the volume of the bells at the Church of Santo Stefano.