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Italy's Labor Heads To Debate Strike After Aide's Killing
ROME (AP)--Italy's three main labor leaders planned to meet Wednesday to discuss whether to go ahead with a general strike following the killing of a key adviser to Labor Minister Roberto Maroni. Two gunmen on a motorcycle killed Marco Biagi as he bicycled home from work in Bologna Tuesday.
Italy's main labor leaders all denounced the attack. "The murder of professor Marco Biagi is nothing more than a barbaric act of terrorism that aims to alter the rules of democracy," said Sergio Cofferati, chief of Italy's largest union, CGIL.
Biagi was an author and promoter of controversial labor reforms that have angered Italy's leftist opposition and prompted major unions to threaten a general strike for next month.
Two gunmen approached the 52-year-old Biagi outside his home and fired four shots, two of which hit him, news reports said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
The conservative government's top anti-terrorism officials rushed to the northern city of Bologna, where police scoured the area outside Biagi's home, which was splattered with blood and littered with four spent bullet cartridges.
Premier Silvio Berlusconi said the killing "fills all Italians with pain."
"Terrorism has shown yet again ... that it poses a danger that needs to be fought with all our power," he said in a statement.
Interior Minister Claudio Scajola - in charge of domestic security - ended a visit to the U.S. and flew immediately home, saying he would report to parliament Wednesday on the killing.