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Airwaves run 'more than news'
Rome: Radio transmitters operated by the Vatican are being officially investigated over claims that electromagnetic pollution is causing cancer among local residents.
Vatican Radio programs are broadcast all over the world from a forest of antennae at Santa Maria di Galera, near Cesano, a northern suburb of Rome.
Residents have reported the complex to magistrates and doctors who examined the cause of 7,500 deaths over six years in Cesano and found the incidence of tumours was 30 per cent above the national average. A separate inquiry found electromagnetic energy in the area was almost three times the legal limit.
The director general of Italy's Legambiente (environmental league), Mr Francesco Ferrante, said people living near the antennae found their computers switched on by themselves, telephone conversations were "invaded" by radio transmissions and watching television was impossible.
The Legambiente claimed 60 per cent of deaths in the area in 1996 were due to cancer.
It was reported this week that official paperwork sent by the investigating magistrates to three Vatican representatives had been returned on the grounds that the antennae complex had extra-territorial status, leaving it immune from judicial sanctions.
Lawyers acting for the Vatican pointed out that under the Lateran Pact those exercising Vatican activities are not punishable under Italian law.
A 1951 accord also recognises the extraterritoriality of the complex. But a local councillor insisted: "The privilege of extra-territoriality is not valid. The constitutional right to people's health has to be respected."
Magistrates have now asked Italy's foreign ministry to intervene to prevent diplomatic deadlock over the case.
The Telegraph, London
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