NAPLES, Italy, Dec. 4  -- A vendor spokesman in Naples, Italy, says police shut down a shopping area offering nativity figurines, including one of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.

The unidentified spokesman said police shut down the Via San Gregorio Armeno shopping area of the city in an attempt to stop certain open-air vendors who are suspected of operating without authorization, the Italian news agency, ANSA, reported Wednesday.

Among the nativity statue offerings set to be offered by the Christmas vendors were ones featuring the U.S president-elect. Also included in the holiday theme are Inter Milan soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimovic and his coach, Jose Mourinho.

Rome - Some 25,000 would-be immigrants attempted to reach Italy illegally by sea in January-September 2008 marking a 107 per cent increase compared to the previous year, according to a senior official of the European Union's border security agency Frontex.

Frontex deputy executive director Gil Arias Fernandez, speaking in Rome on Thursday, also singled out what he said was lack of co-operation by Libya in attempts by the EU to curb illegal immigration across the Mediterranean Sea.

London, Dec 4 : An Italian masterpiece featuring a semi-naked woman, consigned to an attic for 200 years, has sold for 2.84m pounds at an auction in London.

Giambattista Tiepolo’s artwork, Portrait of a lady as Flora, had been hidden in the attic of a French chateau since the 19th Century, and was expected to sell off for 900,000 pounds at the Christie''s sale.

It has been assumed that the reason the picture was kept hidden in the attic by the seller’s grandparents because it shows a woman baring her naked breast.

PIACENZA, Italy, Dec. 4  -- Police say a counterfeiting ring in Piacenza, Italy, was exposed after lap dancers identified bills shoved into their panties as fakes.

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.

Milan, Italy - Two Morrocan men suspected of links with al-Qaeda have been arrested in Italy for allegedly planning bomb attacks, including one against Milan's Duomo cathedral.

"The plot was uncovered well before those being investigated were able to procure explosives," Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said commenting on Tuesday's arrests.

The 31-year-old Rachid Ilhami, a welder by trade, and his associate Abdelkader Ghafir, 43, a bricklayer, were apprehended in Giussano, a town 25 kilometres north of Milan.