Free Republic

FOR a tycoon whose family owns newspapers, magazines and TV networks and is hailed as a great communicator, Silvio Berlusconi fights with the media a lot. The Italian premier has attacked the domestic and international media for months, suing two left-leaning Italian newspapers for millions of euros and denouncing "scoundrels" in the press. Berlusconi says he wants to protect his image and that of his country, but to critics he just wants to gag the media. A recent press freedom rally in Rome drew tens of thousands of people, some holding signs saying "Now Sue Me, Too!" What makes the...

Pope Invites Tony Blair To Vatican Summit To Discuss Church's Fears That Politics Is Losing Its Religion By Nick Pisa November 2009 Catholic convert Tony Blair is among several world leaders being invited to attend a top level summit with Pope Benedict XVI to discuss the role of the Church in politics. The two-day summit will be held at the Vatican and will include other Catholic politicians from all over the world, including German chancellor Angela Merkel, U.S. vice president Joe Biden, former Spanish PM Jose Maria Aznar, and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Church officials have been quietly working...

Wow. I just noticed something. Our commander-in-chief is the least alpha of any of the leaders of our former enemies from World War II and the Cold War: Germany, Italy, and Russia. While I knew Obama exhibited beta behavior, I had no idea it was this bad. Give me a minute and I’ll lay out pictorial proof. We all know that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi holds the title of “Intergalactic Alpha”. The 73 year-old silverback is banging 18 year-olds, has amassed a fortune, laid the smack down on his wife, and avoided indictment and/or lynching for his shenanigans....

Most world leaders try to avoid repeating gaffes. Not Silvio Berlusconi. The Italian Prime Minister has called President Obama “tanned” again — but this time he did not miss the opportunity to joke about the First Lady’s skin colour as well. After his return from the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Mr Berlusconi told a rally of conservative supporters that he was bringing greetings from someone in the United States. “What’s his name? Some tanned guy. Ah, Barack Obama,” he said. He then added: “You won’t believe it, but the two of them sunbathe together, because the wife is also tanned.”...

Silvio Berlusconi this week further consolidated his already strong reputation for political tastelessness. At the gala dinner for the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh on Thursday, the Italian prime minister visibly irked President Barack Obama with his unabashed ‘va-va-va-voom’ hand gestures when he was introduced to Michelle Obama. Instead of directing a respectful glance into the first lady’s eyes, he first gave her gown a Via Veneto-style leer—and reaped an arms-length handshake from Mrs. Obama instead of the warm embrace she gave other leaders.

Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's gaffe-prone prime minister, has again referred to US President Barack Obama as "suntanned", days after being snubbed by Michelle Obama at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh. "I bring you greetings from a person who is called...a person who is sun-tanned...Barack Obama," the smiling 72-year-old politician told a crowd of cheering supporters in Milan on Sunday. "You wouldn't believe it, but they go sunbathing at the beach together - his wife is also sun-tanned." He said his rapport with America's first black president was "easy-going" and described Mr Obama as a "fine man" with a good sense of...

Silvio Berlusconi is the 5ft 6ins ladies' man with the flair for the tactless remark, Michelle Obama is the 5ft 11 ins. tough cookie First Lady with a determination as steely as her arms. The meeting between the pair at the opening reception for the G20 summit in Pittsburgh bore all the hallmarks of a classic US-European impasse, with the American president in the middle, looking daggers at his Italian counterpart. While Mrs Obama exchanged hugs and kisses with Browns, the Sarkozys, the Medvedevs and Germany's Angela Merkel, she didn't appear to want to come too close to Mr Berlusconi....

ROME, Italy (CNN) -- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said it would be "best" for the country's troops to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible after six were killed in a car bombing in Kabul. Berlusconi, speaking to reporters Thursday, gave no timeline for a withdrawal and said any pullout would have to be coordinated with Italy's allies. "There is no idea," Berlusconi said about a possible date for leaving Afghanistan. "It is an international problem. It is not a problem that a country present there can take on its own. Doing so could betray the accord and trust of...

The author of a book about Silvio Berlusconi's wife says aides to the Italian prime minister want him to get treated for sex addiction. An updated version of "The Veronica Trend" by Maria Latella is scheduled to hit bookstores Wednesday, The Times of London reported. Veronica Lario, a former actress, has threatened to divorce Berlusconi. In the book, Latella says some aides have suggested Berlusconi and Lario announce a formal separation, with Lario then privately working to help her husband. Berlusconi would stay for a week or two in a clinic specializing in sex addiction. "This scenario hasn't been completely...

Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi has lashed out at the United States by likening the 1986 U.S. Strikes on Libya to Osama bin Laden's terror attacks on the United States in 2001. He was speaking Thursday in Rome, where he is on a three-day official visit. In a speech to Italian lawmakers, Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi urged the world to understand the reasons that motivate terrorists. He called for dialogue with terrorists, saying, "One must talk to the devil, if it brings about a solution." While condemning al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, he implied there was little difference between bin Laden's...

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's private conversations with an escort, which have riveted Italians all week, may wind up getting him into trouble with Italy's archaeological authorities... In one of the transcripts of his purported conversations with Patrizia D'Addario posted on an Italian website, Berlusconi boasts to her about his sprawling villa in Sardinia -- complete with an ice cream parlour and artificial lakes. "Here we found 30 Phoenician tombs from (around) 300 BC," the voice is heard to say.

24 HOURS after Italy's PM made light of allegations about encounters with a prostitute, sensational new audio tapes and transcripts were released purportedly recorded while they were having sex. In the third series of tapes and transcripts to be published by the left-leaning weekly L’Espresso this week, the escort Patrizia D’Addario is recorded apparently telling Silvio Berlusconi that it is several months since she had sex and that a younger man would have already had an orgasm "by now". Mr Berlusconi is then recorded purportedly telling Ms D’Addario that "you should have sex with yourself, you should touch yourself often".

Obama praises Italy's 'great' leader as a man of integrity — but it's not Berlusconi Silvio Berlusconi escorts the President ... Image :1 of 3 Richard Owen, L'Aquila Many Italians will no doubt be pleased that when President Obama arrived in Italy today for his first G8 summit, he immediately launched into lavish praise of the nation’s “great leader”. This eminent figure had “the admiration of the Italian people”, Mr Obama said, not only because of his long public service but also for his “integrity and his graciousness". “I just want to confirm that everything I have heard about him...

Faced with the thorny problem of having no "First Lady" to look after the G8 leaders' spouses on their three day trip to Italy, Silvio Berlusconi has come up with a solution in keeping with his reputation. The Italian prime minister has asked a former topless model turned government minister to stand in for his estranged wife. The 72-year-old premier has chosen Mara Carfagna – now Italy's equal opportunities minister – to take care of the likes of Michelle Obama Formr model Mara Carfagna will take care of the likes of Michelle Obama and Sarah Brown Miss Carfagna, 33, is...

Professor Paul Rahe follows up on his post "Obama's gestures": Just under three weeks ago, I wrote a Power Line post drawing attention to a photograph released by the White House, showing President Obama nonchalantly leaning back in his chair with his feet on the desk, the soles of his shoes clearly visible while speaking on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In that post, I noted that some in the Israeli press interpreted the release of the photograph as an expression of contempt intended for Arab consumption, inspired by the hurling of a shoe at President Bush...

As the summer begins, White House watchers have spotted a new look by President Obama: The Evil Eye! Staffers have joked about the menacing glance, which comes when the president meets with world leaders who are not aligned with his progressive view. White House photographers have captured the "evil eye" in recent weeks, during sessions with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Colombia's Alvaro Uribev. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi got hit with the commander's malocchio last week in the Oval office. And at least one White House reporter has been on the receiving end of the daggers during a press...

BEWARE THE OBAMA 'EVIL EYE' Tue Jun 30 2009 07:43:56 ET As the summer begins, White House watchers have spotted a new look by President Obama: The Evil Eye! Staffers have joked about the menacing glance, which comes when the president meets with world leaders who are not aligned with his progressive view. White House photographers have captured the "evil eye" in recent weeks, during sessions with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Colombia's Alvaro Uribev. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi got hit with the commander's malocchio last week in the Oval office. And at least one White House reporter...

Embattled Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Tuesday he has never paid a woman for sex, the subject of an embarrassing investigation under way in southern Italy. "I have never paid a woman," Berlusconi said in an interview to appear Wednesday. "I have never seen the satisfaction that there could be in it without the pleasure of conquest," he told the celebrity weekly Chi. The 72-year-old billionaire is embroiled in a host of scandals from his links to an aspiring teen model to a messy divorce. A call girl, Patrizia D'Addario, told the leading daily Corriere della Sera last...

Silvio Berlusconi enjoyed a resounding victory in provincial elections after Italians overlooked the allegations of sleaze swirling around the Italian prime minister. The prime minister also faced down accusations that he slept with a prostitute at his mansion in Rome, one of the many embarrassing claims about his private life to have emerged. PM Berlusconi and wife The scandal took a further twist on Tuesday when a transsexual television presenter claimed to have acted as a "talent scout" for young women who were subsequently invited to Mr Berlusconi's parties. But Mr Berlusconi hit back. "I've never paid for a woman,"...

June 19, 2009 Showgirl Patrizia D’Addario says she shot secret video in Berlusconi bedroom Richard Owen in Rome A showgirl who claims that she and other women were paid to attend Silvio Berlusconi’s private parties said yesterday that she had pictures showing her with the Italian Prime Minister in his bedroom. Patrizia D’Addario, a former model and escort girl, said that she had given prosecutors audio tapes but also had secretly recorded video footage of her encounters in the Prime Minister’s Rome residence. Ms D’Addario, 42, who was yesterday described by a senior government figure as a high-class prostitute, said...

A showgirl who claims that she and other women were paid to attend Silvio Berlusconi’s private parties said yesterday that she had pictures showing her with the Italian Prime Minister in his bedroom. Patrizia D’Addario, a former model and escort girl, said that she had given prosecutors audio tapes but also had secretly recorded video footage of her encounters in the Prime Minister’s Rome residence. Ms D’Addario, 42, who was yesterday described by a senior government figure as a high-class prostitute, said that the footage showed her standing in front of a mirror. A bedroom with a framed photograph of...

When Silvio Berlusconi was last in Washington in October 2008, George Bush fêted him for two days: there was a welcoming ceremony on the South Lawn, a state dinner, meetings in the Oval Office and a Rose Garden press conference. The Italian Prime Minister’s first one-to-one encounter with President Obama on Monday will be a rather different affair. He will be in Washington less than a day. He will hold an Oval Office meeting, followed by a very brief question-and-answer session with reporters. By evening he will be on his way back to Rome. It is hard to think of...

Milan, 13 Feb. (AKI) - Magistrates in Milan on Tuesday started questioning 15 alleged members of the leftist Red Brigades terror group a day after police arrested them on charges of planning attacks against the Milan home of conservative opposition leader and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, his Mediaset group, the Sky group, right-wing daily Libero, Italy's main oil company ENI and jurist Pietro Ichino, a government consultant on labour reform. Meanwhile, on Tuesday morning Italy's largest circulation daily Corriere della Sera received threats in a phone call placed by alleged members of the terror group in response to the arrests....

Italians appeared to overlook the scandals engulfing Silvio Berlusconi, their prime minister, giving his centre-Right party a comfortable majority in the European elections, early results showed. A poll commissioned by La Repubblica newspaper gave the billionaire businessman's People of Freedom Party between 39 and 43 per cent of the vote and the left-wing opposition between 27 and 31 per cent of the vote. It showed that the anti-immigration, Right-wing Northern League, an ally of Mr Berlusconi's party, attracted between 6.5 and 10.5 per cent of the vote The results, collated by polling agency IPR marketing, were preliminary, appearing within minutes...

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has succeeded in blocking publication of photos of his New Year's Eve party after reports said guests included a teenage girl whose relationship with him has caused a scandal. Judicial sources said the 72-year-old Berlusconi, who denies having an affair with 18-year-old Noemi Letizia, said publication of the images taken by a photojournalist without his permission would have violated his right to privacy. A prosecutor in Rome granted the injunction and ordered the seizure of hundreds of photos taken by Antonello Zappadu using a powerful lens from outside Berlusconi's villa on the Mediterranean island of...

Silvio Berlusconi said conditions in the holding centres were so poor that they justified the newly adopted policy of turning boatloads of refugees back to North Africa rather than allowing them to land on Italian territory. "I think it is much easier to examine individual situations in the country of origin, otherwise they come here and go to a camp which, I should not be saying this, is very similar to a concentration camp," said Mr Berlusconi. Silvio Berlusconi and First Lady Mr Berlusconi's Right-wing government plans to double the number of holding camps for migrants from 10 to 20...

Italy does not want to become a "multi-ethnic" country and will continue its newly adopted policy of sending boatloads of immigrants and asylum seekers back to North Africa, the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, said. Previous Left-wing governments had "opened the doors to clandestine migrants coming from other countries, with an idea of a multi-ethnic Italy," Mr Berlusconi said. But that kind of society was "not our idea", he added, as he sought to reassure Italians who were alarmed at the number of immigrants pouring into the country, particularly from eastern Europe and Africa. The prime minister's vision of Italy was...

The highest financial stakes in Silvio Berlusconi’s divorce are over the inheritance of his business empire, and how it is split between the two children from his first marriage, and the three younger ones from his long second marriage. Mr Berlusconi’s wealth was estimated by Forbes at $6.5 billion (£4.3 billion) in March, putting him at No 70 in the rankings of the world’s billionaires. That represents his share of about 63 per cent in Fininvest, the family holding company (the rest is held by his children). Fininvest’s two biggest assets are its shares in two quoted companies, the media...

ROME — Less than a week after writing an open letter that criticized her husband for cavorting with much younger women, the second wife of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi says she wants to file for divorce, Italian newspapers reported Sunday. “I’d like to close the curtain on our married life,” Veronica Lario, 52, said in an interview with La Repubblica that was published Sunday. A secretary for Ms. Lario confirmed the report.

ROME - The prime minister has no clothes. Silvio Berlusconi appears with a giant pair of wings and little else in a new work of art, an equally scantily clad female minister next to him in the composition that is creating a sensation. "I did it as a joke!" the artist, Filippo Panseca, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "I've been doing all sorts of works for 50 years, I didn't expect to raise such clamour with this." The work is all the more controversial because the minister portrayed next to the Berlusconi, Mara Carfagna, had been on the receiving...

Footage has emerged of the Queen appearing to express mild irritation at Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for being too noisy. The incident took place as the Queen posed with world leaders from the G20 summit in the traditional "family" photograph at Buckingham Palace. Mr Berlusconi then shouted "Mr Obama", prompting Her Majesty to turn around in mock frustration at the noise. Buckingham Palace have denied that any offence was taken by the Queen. The footage has been placed on the YouTube website and has quickly proved to be a popular clip. 'Loud and jolly' A palace spokeswoman said the...

Mr Berlusconi was responding to questions from journalists about his stewardship of the Italian economy, which has lurched into recession despite his assurances that the country is well-placed to weather the world crisis. "I'm paler [than Mr Obama], because it's been so long since I went sunbathing. He's more handsome, younger and taller," quipped the media mogul, who is renowned for his gaffes. Mr Berlusconi, 72, was accused of racism in November when he hailed then President-elect Obama as "handsome, young and also suntanned". The Italian leader accused his critics of lacking a sense of humour, and a few days...

Italy's government has rushed through a decree to crack down on sexual violence and illegal immigration after a spate of rapes blamed on foreigners.

The tomato comes from Peru and spaghetti was probably a gift from China. It is, though, the “foreign” kebab that is being kicked out of Italian cities as it becomes the target of a campaign against ethnic food, backed by the centre-right Government of Silvio Berlusconi.

Mamma would approve. While the world's major economies struggle to bail out their failing banks and car industries, Italy has revealed a different priority: parmesan. Silvio Berlusconi's government is to buy 100,000 of the country's beloved Parmigiano Reggiano cheeses from its hard-pressed producers at a cost to the state of 50 million euros (£45 million). The hard, pungent cheese made around the northern city of Parma has until now been a staple product found in most Italian households - and as confirmation of the country's obsession with food is Italy's most shoplifted product. But high production prices due to the...

Italian president and media baron Silvio Berlusconi said today that he would use his country's imminent presidency of the G8 group to push for an international agreement to "regulate the internet". Speaking to Italian postal workers, Reuters reports Berlusconi said: "The G8 has as its task the regulation of financial markets... I think the next G8 can bring to the table a proposal for a regulation of the internet." Italy's G8 presidency begins on January 1. The role is taken by each of the group's members in rotation. The holder country is responsible for organising and hosting the G8's meetings...

Beautiful women adorn the Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi. But wiretaps on his telephones reveal that experience and merit weren’t the qualifications he was looking for Silvio Berlusconi, the 72-year-old Italian prime minister, is no stranger to scandal. Having survived 17 criminal trials without conviction, he has inured the Italian public to feelings of shock or indignation. Last January, the prosecutor’s office in Naples indicted Berlusconi and issued a report containing extracts of over 1,000 wiretapped conversations depicting Italy’s state TV network, RAI, as a casting couch that Berlusconi used to grant favours to aspiring actresses — he called them...

‘Antimissile shield in Poland provokes Russia’ Italian PM says Created: 13.11.2008 10:35 Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi stated yesterday that the deployment of the US antimissile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic is a “provocation” against Russia. “Let’s speak frankly: we believe that there have been some provocations against the Russian federation such as the project to deploy missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic,” Berlusconi said. Italy’s PM reminded that the Russian president Dmitrij Medvedev’s response to that plan was to announce the deployment of missiles in – as Berlusconi put it – “the Russian enclave in the...

ITALIAN Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi today praised US election victor Barack Obama as young, beautiful and "tanned" and said the world saw him as a messiah. "He is young, he is beautiful and he is tanned,'' Mr Berlusconi said in Moscow's Kremlin, when asked how President-elect Obama might get along with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev. "I think that there is going to be good co-operation,'' Mr Berlusconi said. Mr Berlusconi warned that Senator Obama, the United States' first black president, would have to deal with inflated expectations from a world that had portrayed him "almost as a messiah''. "There...

MOSCOW (AP) - Italy's famously impolitic Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi described U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday as "young, handsome and even tanned." Berlusconi appeared to be joking about America's first black president at a news conference following talks with Russia's president. The Italian leader, who has a history of controversial remarks, was asked by a reporter about the prospect for U.S.-Russian relations, which have plummeted to Cold War-levels in recent months. Berlusconi responded by saying that the relative youth of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, 43, and Obama, 47, should make it easier for Moscow and Washington to work together....

Today the President met with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the White House, the First lady also accompanied him to the National Gallery of Art in Washington and in the the Prime Minister attended a dinner at the White House. . Pray for President Bush -- Day 2951 & Pray for McCain/Palin - Day - 45 Enjoy Sanity Island

Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi said political leaders discussing idea of closing world's financial markets while they 'rewrite the rules of international finance'... MORE Nothing follows. I can't get to the Bloomberg story its getting hammered. This is huge and series. Load your shotguns folks.

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi implicitely compared Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Adolf Hitler at an award ceremony in Paris. Speaking in the French capital last week a dinner where he received an award from the Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal in France, Berlusconi was quoted as saying in a reference to Ahmadinejad :''We must all be extremely wary of the lunacy of those who say, even if only for domestic political reasons, that Israel must be wiped off the world map.” Referring to Hitler, he said, ''We don't believe such things are real, but there has already been a certain...

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced Saturday the introduction of "a national energy plan" paving the way for a controversial return to nuclear energy, ANSA news agency reported. "From now until next spring, the government will present a national energy plan," he said at the opening of an off-shore regasification unit in northeast Rovigo, adding that it will see "the launch of nuclear and renewable energy." A month after Berlusconi returned to power in April, the Italian government said it would begin building nuclear power stations to solve the country's dependence on foreign oil and gas supplies. The decision reversed...

Intelligence obtained by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reveals that Iran has been modifying its Shihab-3 ballistic missiles to carry nuclear warheads. IAEA agents presented the intelligence on Tuesday after Iran rejected their requests to formally examine its ballistic missile program alongside an ongoing investigation into the intents of its nuclear program. Senior IAEA officials called the information “very credible” and demanded that Iran provide “substantive responses.”

Italy agreed to pay Libya $5 billion as compensation for its 30-year occupation of the country during the 20th century. The money will be invested by Italy over a 25-year period. For VOA, Sabina Castelfranco reports from Rome. The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday signed a "friendship pact" with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. Under the pact, Italy agreed to compensate Libya for abuses it committed during its colonial rule of the North African country. Italy will invest $5 billion in Libya in a deal that effectively turns the page on colonial-era disputes that have long...

We are not without resources. There are a range of measures to be deployed if Russia does not live up to its cease-fire commitments: Suspend the NATO-Russia Council established in 2002 to help bring Russia closer to the West. Make clear that dissolution will follow suspension. The council gives Russia a seat at the NATO table. Message: Invading neighboring democracies forfeits the seat.Bar Russian entry to the World Trade Organization.Dissolve the G-8. Putin's dictatorship long made Russia's presence in this group of industrial democracies a farce, but no one wanted to upset the bear by expelling it. No need to....

The White House was today forced to apologise to Italy after distributing a biography of Silvio Berlusconi to journalists which alleged that he only gained high office because of his "considerable influence” on the media. The press kit, which was handed out to reporters as they boarded Air Force One on the way to the G8 summit in Japan, also described the Italian Prime Minister as “one of the most controversial leaders in the history of a country known for governmental corruption and vice”. The White House was today investigating how the four-page biography was included in the pack after...

The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's hopes of seeing communion extended to divorcees like himself have been quashed by Pope Benedict XVI.Newspapers reported on Sunday that while attending a ceremony in Sardinia Mr Berlusconi had asked a bishop when the Church planned to change the rules. But the Pope told a conference in Canada that communion can only be received by those free of major sin. "We have to do everything... to receive [communion] in a pure heart," he said. No changeMr Berlusconi has recently begun a major effort to try and get communion granted to divorced and remarried people...

ROME — Italy's defense chief says 2,500 soldiers will be deployed to some Italian cities to help fight crime. Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said Friday the soldiers will back up police. After six months, the deployment will be evaluated. Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government is waging a security crackdown to improve safety. Some soldiers will go to Naples, where they will guard plants processing mountains of garbage. Neapolitans have taken to burning garbage in the streets to protest uncollected trash. It is not clear which other cities will receive soldiers.