Opposition to appeal to president

(ANSA) - Rome, October 7 - The opposition parties have called a press conference at which they will announce that they intend to write to President Sergio Mattarella asking him to intervene over the government's Constitutional reform bill, Senate sources said on Wednesday. The bill, which is currently in the Upper House for its third parliamentary reading, aims to overhaul Italy's slow, costly political machinery and features a controversial transformation of the Senate into a leaner assembly of local-government representatives with limited powers.