Traditionally, mozzarella, that bouncy, grassy-fresh ball of a cheese, is made with the milk of the water buffalo in the Campania region of Southern Italy.

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"You know that if you fire those three or four key members of staff the company would shut down immediately, and all the workers would lose their jobs, including those who have no links, " says Gianpaolo Capasso, the head of the agency in the Campania region.

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He was set to win in the northern region of Lombardy, as well as the central region of Campania and Sicily.

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The region of Campania is one of the critical regions, after Lombardy and Sicily, in determining how parties fare in the Senate.

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But Calabria remains firmly in the grip of the 'Ndrangheta, and Naples and its surrounding region of Campania are still in thrall to the Camorra (see article).

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Wracked by internal dissent, the outgoing government limped from crisis to crisis, the last and most toxically symbolic of which was last December's refuse-collection crisis in Naples and the region of Campania.

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Since 1892, scientists have recorded at least 1, 173 serious landslides in Campania and in another almost equally shaky southern region, Calabria.

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