you couldn't make it up dept. no.110: Rutland lives

The Italian government's threatened abolition of 36 Provinces (roughly the equivalent of counties) and of all local authorities of less than 1000 inhabitants, as part of the recent emergency expenditure-cutting budget, has predictably caused an uproar. Filettino, a village in the mountains east of Rome, has actually declared independence as the "Principality of Filettino" and is already printing its own money. It also threatens to slap a tax on the water from its reservoir, which feeds most of the city of Rome.