Rome  - Former Argentine striker Abel Balbo Wednesday walked out on Treviso just minutes after starting his first coaching session with the Serie B minnows, Italian media reported.

The club from north-eastern Italy lie last in the league and hired Balbo, 42, on Tuesday to replace Luca Gotti on Tuesday. The players however refused to train on Tuesday saying that they wouldn't train due to the absence of the team doctor.

The team showed up Wednesday, but Balbo left the pitch shortly after the start of the training session.

Turin, Italy - Dozens of birds were killed Wednesday at a private zoo in Italy in an arson attack claimed by radical animal rights activists, news reports said.

Several bottles filled with petrol were used to start the fire which killed some 40 hawks, buzzards and owls in an aviary at the Zoom Zoo near the northern city of Turin.

"This is for the imprisoned animals - Animal Liberation Front" was found spray-painted in red near the scene of the early morning attack.

Firefighters prevented flames from spreading to a warden's shed and other buildings, one of them housing several tigers, the reports said.

Bangkok  - Thai police on Wednesday identified a foreigner whose head was found at the weekend hanging by a rope off a Bangkok bridge as an Italian tourist who committed suicide after being evicted from his guesthouse for not paying the rent.

General Jongrak Chuthanont, deputy police commissioner, identified the decapitated man as Maurizio Tosadori, 54, an architect from Verona, Italy.

Rome  - The Italian Tazzari group is planning a production version of the Tazzari Zero electric vehicle for all major European markets by the end of 2009, the company has announced.

Customers will find a car fitted with a 15kW asynchronous centrally mounted engine, driving the rear wheels with maximum torque of 150 Nm. The lightweight construction gives it a weight of only 542 kilogrammes, enabling acceleration from zero to 50 kilometres an hour in five seconds.

One full six-hour charge of the Li-ion Fe battery unit gives it a range of up to 140 kilometres. The top speed is listed at 90 km/h.

Sofi

Milan, Italy  - Former Ferrari engineer Nigel Stepney is still facing action over the spying scandal that rocked Formula One two years ago, an Italian newspaper reported Tuesday.

Gazzetta dello Sport said that prosecutor Guiseppe Tibis said he is hoping to wrap up by March a probe against Stepney.

Earlier, Italian authorities ended legal action against McLaren's former chief designer Mike Coughlan and three of the British Formula One team's current technicians, after ordering them to pay fines related to a spying case involving rival team Ferrari.