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US warning on Nato's Afghan role ... Minister-elect Silvio Berlusconi is expected to announce his cabinet line-up, after weeks of wrangling between political allies.
The media mogul is meeting the president in Rome, where he will be given the formal mandate to govern.
April's snap poll strengthened the anti-immigrant Northern League, which wants extensive regional autonomy.
Analysts predict that the cabinet could represent the country's most right-wing post-war government.
The Senate leader of Mr Berlusconi's People of Freedom party - a merger between his Forza Italia party and the post-fascist National Alliance - said the birth of the new government was "hours away".
"Either this evening or tomorrow we will announce Berlusconi's executive," Maurizio Gasparri is quoted as saying by Italy's Corriere newspaper.
Both the Northern League and the National Alliance (AN) are expecting key portfolios in his new government, Italy's 62nd since World War II.
Echoes
AN's Altero Matteoli, a 67-year-old former minister, is predicted to get a new super-ministry which will merge the infrastructure, transport and environment portfolios.
"Clearly if we want the welfare ministry and don't get it, we'll have to be compensated," he said.
The League's firebrand leader Umberto Bossi, who brought down Mr Berlusconi's first administration after just seven months, is tipped to be put in charge of institutional reform.
His party colleague Roberto Calderoli, whose provocative comments on Islam have sparked anger, is predicted to be made minister of "Legislative Simplification".
Mr Berlusconi will also bring back ministers from his second term in office, when he held power between 2001 and 2006, and became the first premier in more than half a century to last a full term in office.
Giulio Tremonti is expected to be named as economy minister and faces the task of reviving the country's ailing economy, with zero growth forecast for the coming year.
European Commissioner Franco Frattini is set to return to the role of foreign minister.
(BBC)
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