Posted By: Data_Junkie
Date: Saturday, 17 March 2001, 3:16 a.m.

AP International
Minister Issues Warning to Vatican

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- An Italian Cabinet minister raised the stakes Friday in a legal battle with the Vatican, threatening to cut off electricity to its radio station if it continues to allegedly fill the air with electromagnetic waves.

Environment Minister Willer Bordon said he could order the Italian electric company to pull the plug within 15 days if the Vatican keeps ignoring Italian demands.

''It's an extreme decision I hope I won't have to take,'' Bordon told reporters.

An Italian prosecutor has accused three top Vatican Radio officials of violating Italy's very strict standards on electromagnetic fields emitted by radio stations and telephone transmitters. They were to have gone on trial Monday, but a judge put off the case until the fall.

The Vatican has argued that the radio station is shielded from Italian law under a 1929 pact with Italy that established Vatican City as an independent city-state.

It also contends the transmissions meet international standards and questions claims by local health officials, who initiated the complaint, that they pose a risk.

Vatican Radio said it was ''astonished'' by Bordon's threat and that it didn't contribute to the ''calm climate'' needed to resolve the dispute.

Vatican Radio beams the pope's words around the world from a forest of antennas on the northern outskirts of Rome. When the facility opened in 1951, the area was sparsely populated. Today some 100,000 people live in the nearby suburbs.

In recent years, people living near the complex have complained that the transmissions interfere with their home appliances, telephones and television reception, while environmental groups allege the electromagnetic waves cause cancer.

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