$2.4b in mafia-related assets seized in Italy

ROME • Italian authorities said yesterday they had seized assets worth more than €1.6 billion (S$2.4 billion) from a family of five Sicilian pensioners believed to have links to a prominent mafia clan, investigators said.

The operation was aimed at "known entrepreneurs from the Palermo area, who belong to the Marineo mafia family, linked to the Corleone clan", the anti-mafia department said.

RaiNews reported that the family - aged between 66 and 76 - had all been occasional farm workers in the 1980s before becoming millionaires.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Scientists to count world shark population

MIAMI • Using bait attached to underwater cameras at 400 reefs worldwide, scientists are embarking on their first-ever attempt to count the world's sharks, researchers said.

By 2018, the programme, called Global FinPrint, aims to give a clear picture of where shark populations are healthy and where they are struggling, and how sharks impact the health of coral reefs.

The Global FinPrint project is getting US$4 million (S$5.4 million) in investment from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Vulcan Inc.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE