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ROME, Aug. 5-- Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte's cabinet won a confidence vote in senate on Monday, which ensured definitive approval to a security decree mainly concerning immigrants, refugees and related activities of charities. The provision -- strongly advocated by hard-line Interior Minister Matteo Salvini -- toughened measures on migrants and asylum-seekers in the country and on ships of aid groups operating rescue missions at sea. The upper house voted 160 for the cabinet and 57 against it, granting the passage of the text despite strong opposition from center-left and leftists parties, humanitarian groups, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In case of a negative response to the confidence vote, the government would have been forced to step down. TEST FOR RULING COALITION Interior Minister Salvini hailed the result of the voting. "(With) the new security decree made law, more powers to police, more supervision on borders, more men to arrest mobsters," he wrote on Facebook. The confidence procedure went positive for the cabinet despite some senators from the Five Star Movement (M5F) -- the populist ally of Salvini's far-right League in the cabinet -- voting against. Overall, there were 289 participating senators in the 315-seat assembly during the proceedings, and 238 cast their ballot, while all lawmakers from center-right Forza Italia party of former premier Silvio Berlusconi refused to vote, and the rest did not attend. | 
