Free Republic

So the Kremlin can't buy every retiring European leader. Romano Prodi, for one, won't soon be bunking with Gerhard Schröder in Moscow. Vladimir Putin personally tried to tap the outgoing Italian Prime Minister to become chairman of South Stream, a new pipeline project by Russian gas monopolist Gazprom to link Russia to Europe. Mr. Prodi was "flattered" by the offer, his spokesman said, but won't be available. While in government, Mr. Prodi backed the 50-50 joint venture between Gazprom and Italy's Eni to pump 30 billion cubic meters of Russian gas through South Stream, scheduled to go on line in...

Huge, perhaps historic, victory for Berlusconi's "Popolo della liberta' " (which translates a bit awkwardly as "the people of liberty;" maybe it's better to call it "the freedom folks"). It's considerably worse than AP lets on. Berlusconi defeated Walter Veltroni's "Democratic Party" by a full 9 points in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. And since the Italian electoral system gives a bonus to the winning side, the margins are very big and stable: 340 to 241 in the Chamber (with another 36 for a couple of small parties), and 167 to 137 in the Senate (with 5...

ROME (AFP) — Self-made billionaire Silvio Berlusconi looked set to win a third term as Italian prime minister Monday, with early projections giving him a wide margin of victory in the all-important Senate. Berlusconi's centre-right coalition has a lead of between 4.6 and 9.1 percentage points in the Senate, according to projections based on about one-third of statistical samplings of the vote. A victory for Berlusconi, 71, would return the media tycoon to the prime minister's office for the third time since 1994, the year after he burst onto the political stage by creating the Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party....

With his much-publicized alleged face-lift, hair transplant, and frequently outrageous comments, Italy's former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi... could become his country's prime minister for the third time... April 13-14 following the defeat last month of the center-left government of prime minister Romano Prodi... [CIA manipulation/conspiracy nonsense omitted] ...Signor Berlusconi has been... forming center-right coalitions that brought him first to power in 1999 for a brief seven months and then again in 2001 for a lengthy five years in office before being defeated in April 2006 by the coalition led by Prime Minister Prodi. (From 1981 to 2007, Italy had 16...

Italy’s centre-left coalition government fell on Thursday night after Romano Prodi, prime minister, narrowly lost a tumultuous vote of confidence in the Senate that his allies had advised him not to call. Defeated at the end of a long day of drama and just 20 months in office, Mr Prodi submitted his resignation to Giorgio Napolitano, the president. While keeping his pride intact, the loss could mark the end of Mr Prodi’s career as an elected politician after leading two governments that failed to complete less than half their full term. Mr Prodi has indicated he will not run again,...

ROME - Italian Premier Romano Prodi resigned Thursday night after his government lost a risky Senate confidence vote. The center-left government fell four votes short of the 160 needed for victory. The vote was 161-156. Elected in April 2006, Prodi has had a shaky government from nearly the start. But it lurched toward collapse after a small Christian Democrat party, whose votes were vital to a coalition majority in the Senate, yanked its support earlier this week in the latest squabbling among his allies. Calling early elections or asking a politician to try to form another government are among President...

Ricardo Franco Levi, Prodi’s right hand man , undersecretary to the President of the Council, has written the text to put a stopper in the mouth of the Internet. The draft law was approved by the Council of Ministers on 12 October. No Minister dissociated themselves from it. On gagging information, very quietly, these are all in agreement. The Levi-Prodi law lays out that anyone with a blog or a website has to register it with the ROC, a register of the Communications Authority, produce certificates, pay a tax, even if they provide information without any intention to make money....

JERUSALEM - Italian Premier Romano Prodi said Monday that Iran must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons and called on Gaza's Hamas rulers to release a captured Israeli soldier. Prodi was on a three-day trip to Israel and the West Bank to discuss ways to promote Mideast peacemaking. At a news conference, he joined Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in speaking of the need to block Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Nobody knew it at the time, but the fate of the Romano Prodi government that suddenly collapsed on 21 February was almost surely sealed two days before Prodi handed in his resignation, during what seemed to be a seemingly insignificant closed-door meeting with officials from the Holy See. Officially speaking, the government failed after Prodi's allies fell two votes short of the majority needed to gain approval on a vote backing Italy's peacekeeping role within the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan. But while the debate over Italy's 1,900 Afghan-based troops may have been the final act in Prodi's nine-month tenure, the...

ROME (AFP) - Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi on Wednesday survived a close vote of confidence in the Senate, ending a weeklong political crisis after his resignation. The 67-year-old former European Commission chief, serving his second stint as prime minister, is expected to sail through another vote in the Chamber of Deputies, where he has a comfortable majority, on Friday. The Senate vote went in Prodi's favor by 162 to 157. Two senators whose votes were uncertain ahead of the ballot, independent Luigi Pollaro and opposition centrist Marco Follini, voted for Prodi. Four of Italy's seven unelected senators for life...

Romano Prodi, who recently resigned as Italy's prime minister, has been asked by Giorgio Napolitano, the head of state, to remain in office and face a vote of confidence in parliament, a presidential official has said. Prodi resigned on Wednesday after he lost a senate vote on foreign policy, which included keeping troops in Afghanistan. "I will go to parliament as soon as possible, with the support of a cohesive coalition determined to help the country at this difficult stage," said Prodi after Napolitano's request. Prodi's supporters earlier asked that he be given a second chance to show he can...

THEY'VE been branded "traitors" and "bastards" and worse. But the two left- wing senators who brought down Italy's prime minister, Romano Prodi, on Wednesday night say they didn't mean to do it."Maybe if I knew my vote was so fundamental, I would have reflected a bit," said Fernando Rossi, a 60-year-old communist, sounding apologetic. He and the other senator, a Trotskyite with the Communist Refoundation Party, tried their best yesterday to deflect blame. But with left-of-centre newspapers screaming headlines like: "They betrayed 19 million voters", it was a hard sell. "First off, I didn't vote against it. I abstained," said...

Italian PM Romano Prodi is to hand his resignation to the country's president after losing a crucial foreign policy vote in the Senate, a minister says. Several parties in Mr Prodi's coalition oppose Italy's deployment of 2,000 troops in Afghanistan and plans to expand a US airbase in northern Italy.

ITALY'S government, divided over the Afghan war and its US military ties, lost a crucial parliamentary vote over foreign policy overnight prompting the opposition to call on Prime Minister Romano Prodi to quit. There was no constitutional requirement for Mr Prodi to step down, but Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema had said before the vote that the centre-left government should resign if it did not command majority support on foreign policy.

MILAN (Reuters) - Prime Minister Romano Prodi and his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi will not be called to testify on behalf of Italy's former spy chief, who is accused of helping the CIA kidnap a terrorism suspect, a judge ruled on Tuesday. Prosecutors want to try 26 Americans, most believed to be CIA agents, for grabbing Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off a Milan street in 2003 and flying him to Egypt, where he says he was tortured. Italy's former spy chief Nicolo Pollari, who risks indictment on suspicion of aiding the CIA mission, wanted Prodi and Berlusconi to defend...

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – China will contribute 1,000 men to the peacekeeping force in Lebanon. Premier Wen Jiabao announced this on 18 September during a visit of the Italian premier, Romano Prodi. Analysts believe the move is prompted by economic reasons but also by a desire to reinforce China's role in international affairs. This is the largest peace force ever dispatched by Beijing, already represented in UNIFIL by 187 soldiers. China will also give 40 million yuan (around five million US dollars) in humanitarian aid to Beirut. Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a China expert at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris,...

(ANSA) - Beijing, September 18 - Italy will work for a swift end to the European Union arms embargo against China, visiting Italian Premier Romano Prodi said here on Monday . The arms embargo was imposed following the violent 1989 crackdown on a pro-democracy protest in Beijing's central Tiennamen Square . "Our position is not new because for years we have considered the embargo something which had more to do with the past than with the future," Prodi said . Lifting the embargo, he observed, "will not change the situation radically because China has become self-sufficient, if not more, in...

Russia on Friday cast new doubt on the prospects for the Bush administration’s efforts to punish Iran for refusing to suspend its nuclear program, even as European leaders expressed wariness at moving quickly to impose sanctions. In Moscow, officials expressed regret that an Aug. 31 deadline had passed without an agreement by Iran to halt its efforts to enrich uranium that could be used for building nuclear weapons, as American and European officials believe Iran intends to do.

Rome, 14 June (AKI) - Italy's Consulta, a government-appointed body on Muslim affairs, will draft a reform plan to change the country's citizenship laws and present it to the new centre-left government of Romano Prodi, its members said on Wednesday after meeting Interior Minister Giuliano Amato. The Consulta's panel, which includes people from a wide range of backgrounds and from ten Muslim nations, asked at the meeting for a law making it easier for immigrants to acquire citizenship. They will present their proposals within the next three weeks. Under the Consulta's proposal to the cabinet, which was sworn in last...

NASSIRIYA, Iraq (Reuters) -- Italy will redouble its efforts to help the reconstruction of Iraq even after withdrawing its troops this year, new Defense Minister Arturo Parisi said. "The withdrawal does not mean we are turning our back on the Iraqis," Parisi said Tuesday during his first visit to Italy's military contingent in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya. "Italy's commitment will proceed through strengthened political, civil and humanitarian assistance, and support for (Iraq's) institutions and the reconstruction of the country." However, Parisi said it was too early to say whether Italy would keep civilians in Iraq after its soldiers...

ROME - Italy will pull 1,100 of its troops from Iraq in June, the new government said Friday, giving its first specific numbers about the planned withdrawal. "In June we will reduce our troops from 2,700 to 1,600," Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said during an evening television show. His announcement came hours after he met with Premier Romano Prodi to map Italy's exit strategy from the U.S.-led coalition. Most Italian troops in Iraq are in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. They are involved in training, security and reconstruction. The decision to withdraw this many troops by June belongs to...

ROME, May 25, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Reuters reports that Italian Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, reprimanded his ministers Tuesday for expressing their personal opinions on sensitive social issues such as abortion and homosexual civil unions. Although the recently elected Prime Minister had vowed to bring in legal recognition for homosexual partnerings, his coalition government is divided on these and similar issues. L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper rebuked Italy's health minister, Livia Turco, for her support of the deadly abortion drug, RU-486 which it called the weapon for "carefree murder." Turco had called the drug which has killed a "safe and...

ITALIAN JUSTICE MINISTER LINKED TO MAFIA INQUIRY Prodi forced to name man holding balance of power. Clemente Mastella was at mob associate’s wedding. Mr Mastella was questioned this year at Italy’s National Anti-mafia Directorate in Rome about his relations with Francesco Campanella, who confessed to helping the mafia’s then-fugitive boss, Bernardo Provenzano. In July 2000 Mr Mastella was a witness at Mr Campanella’s wedding. Mr Mastella was not a suspect and has not been accused of any offence. Mr Campanella, who sat on the town council of Villabate, a mob-ridden town outside Palermo, has confessed to providing vital assistance to...

ROME -- Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said Thursday the war in Iraq was a "grave" mistake, but said Italy would remain on the front lines in the war against terror. "We consider the war and occupation in Iraq a grave error that hasn't solved -- but has complicated -- the problem of security," Prodi said in his first address to the Senate as prime minister. "Terrorism has found a new base and new excuses for internal and external terrorist action."

Newly elected Italian President Giorgio Napolitano waves as he leaves Italian Senate A huge applause broke out when the provisional results showed former Communist Giorgio Napolitano was elected Italy's 11th post-war WW II president. The speaker of the lower house Fausto Bertinotti later officially confirmed the result. Bertinotti announced that the new head of state had obtained 543 votes and a long applause erupted in parliament. The number of votes was well above the minimum 505 mark required for victory. He then announced the winner."I proclaim elected President of the Republic, Senator Giorgio Napolitano," he said.Giorgio Napolitano, 80, was elected...

An article on L’Opinione reports (in Italian) that anti-globalization and communist groups based in Italy, among which is the infamous “anti-imperialist camp” (that collecting “Euros for the Iraqi resistance”) coordinated with Islamic terrorists in Iraq to attack our troops in Nassiryiah. The Italian intelligence heard phone conversations in which the red fundamentalists instructed the Islamists about how and when to kill our soldiers. It seems that the attack was organized in order to pressure Mr. Prodi to speed the pullout from Iraq. And of course all was coordinated by the Islamic Republic of Iran. I am sorry that I can’t...

Silvio Berlusconi has formally resigned as prime minister of Italy, paving the way for Romano Prodi to form a new government of the centre-left. The centre-right leader, who was narrowly defeated at last month's election, handed in his notice to President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. However, Mr Ciampi has asked him to stay on as caretaker prime minister. The president is himself leaving office this month and wants his successor to oversee the change of government. But he is under growing political pressure to appoint Mr Prodi this week. Mr Berlusconi went to the Quirinal Palace, the official residence of Mr...

ROME - Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the longest-serving leader in postwar Italy, resigned Tuesday to make way for a center-left government led by Romano Prodi that must re-energize a moribund economy. President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi asked Berlusconi to remain on as caretaker prime minister during their 30-minute meeting at the Quirinale Palace. "The president of the republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, has met this morning with Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who has handed in the resignation of the Cabinet over which he presides," the president's office said in a statement.

Pizza maker gets ready to quit the Iraq coalition By Oliver Poole in Nasariyah (Filed: 02/05/2006) The election of Romano Prodi as Italy's prime minister is not good news for Signore Ciano, a pizza maker flown to Iraq by the Italian military more than two years ago to ensure that its troops there ate in a style their mothers would approve of. Since he established his Neapolitan-style restaurant on a base near Nasariyah, it has served about 150 pizzas a day - a number that partly reflects its popularity with dozens of female American troops from an adjacent camp who...

ROME, April 29 (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Saturday he would resign, ending three weeks of wrangling over a narrow election defeat and clearing the political decks for Romano Prodi to take power. Berlusconi, who had previously alleged election fraud and refused to formally concede defeat after April 9-10 polls, would hand his resignation to President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi on Tuesday after a scheduled cabinet meeting, officials said. Prodi's centre-left coalition, ranging from communists to centrist Roman Catholics, won the election by the smallest margin in modern Italian history and will have to find quick remedies...

Still refusing to concede defeat in the Italian general election, Silvio Berlusconi put on another bravura performance at the weekend by serenading his supporters and then threatening to paralyse the incoming government. The former cruise ship crooner took to the stage in a hotel restaurant in Trieste in northern Italy, singing a medley of Neapolitan ballads. He also treated his audience, who applauded wildly, to a song he said he had composed in the wake of the election result, in which he talks about going to live on a tropical island. Afterwards he returned to attacking Romano Prodi, whose centre-left...

Italy’s highest court on Wednesday cleared the way for Romano Prodi, the centre-left leader, to take over as prime minister by certifying his victory in last week’s hotly disputed general election. Having reviewed several thousand contested ballot papers, the Court of Cassation confirmed that Mr Prodi’s alliance had defeated the centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi, the premier who has governed Italy since 2001. Mr Berlusconi refused last week to acknowledge Mr Prodi’s victory, but some politicians in his coalition have signalled their willingness to accept the result and go into opposition. They calculate that, with a mere two-seat majority in...

Italy's political limbo ended yesterday when the Supreme Court ruled that Romano Prodi had beaten Silvio Berlusconi in the country's bitterly fought general election.The court ruled that Mr Prodi's centre-Left coalition had won by just under 25,000 votes in the disputed lower house, a margin that was almost unchanged from the initial verdict 10 days ago, despite a succession of claims of voting fraud and shrill demands for recounts by Mr Berlusconi. Allies of Mr Berlusconi, 69, who remains prime minister until a new government is sworn in, insisted that their leader and his centre-Right coalition would not concede defeat...

LEAVING the San Siro stadium on Friday evening after watching AC Milan, the team he owns, beat their city rivals Inter 1-0, Silvio Berlusconi declared: "I am an optimist, a fighter."Despite being narrowly defeated in last week's general election, the pugnacious Italian prime minister is being true to his word. Berlusconi has published a letter in the nation's leading newspaper, the Corriere della Serra, calling for his victorious opponent, Romano Prodi, to join him in a "grand coalition" of their two parties, and threatening to topple a future Prodi government if it turns his offer down. Italy, the leader of...

Italo-Australians may have helped topple Silvio Berlusconi's government, Natasha Bita reports from Rome. CELEBRATING his election to the Italian Senate this week, Melbourne journalist Nino Randazzo fielded a phone call from party headquarters in Rome, worried whether he could be counted to support the centre-left Unione, the winner by a very small margin in a disputed tally. "Can we count on you?" the Italian politician grilled him. "Are you sure you will remain faithful to your commitment to support the Unione?" Randazzo was appalled. "I took it as an offence," he tells Inquirer. "I told him that Italians living overseas...

Italians fear Florida repeat as Berlusconi digs in By Philippe Naughton and agencies Italy is facing the prospect of a protracted Florida-style electoral wrangle caused by Silvio Berlusconi's refusal to accept the results of this week's parliamentary elections. With official results giving his centre-left opponents a wafer-thin majority, Signor Berlusconi met President Ciampi for more than an hour last night to inform him of "innumerable irregularities" in the two-day election, which ended on Monday. Citing government sources, major newspapers reported today that he had asked the President to sign a special decree ordering an unprecendented recount of 1.1 million spoiled...

CONTINENTAL Europe is at a crossroads. No, scratch that. Continental Europe was at a crossroads a few years ago. This week, it appears to have chosen its path. Taken together, the results of Italy's general election (which turfed out an economic reformer in favour of a former EU president) and the French Government's cave-in to rioters protesting against employment law reform suggest that the strongest forces in Europe today are those of appeasement, stasis and socialism. In Italy, voters were faced with a choice between media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, who was swept into office five years ago promising to cure...

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Wednesday denounced what he called widespread fraud at Italy's general election and demanded his center-left rival Romano Prodi be stripped of victory. Prodi immediately condemned Berlusconi's efforts to overturn the results of the April 9-10 election, the closest in modern Italian history, and his allies warned that the prime minister was stoking dangerous political tensions. The stand-off between the leaders of Italy's two main coalitions pushed Europe's fourth largest economy into uncharted waters and toward a full-blown crisis. "The election result has to change because there was widespread fraud," Berlusconi told reporters after meeting President...

Centre-left leader also stresses commitment to EU (ANSA) - Rome, April 12 - Centre-left leader Romano Prodi confirmed on Wednesday that his coalition intended to pull Italian troops out of Iraq by the end of 2006 and to push for a softer European line on Hamas. In a series of comments to the media on his foreign policy objectives, the former European Commission chief also confirmed that he would be more pro-Brussels and less pro-Washington than Premier Silvio Berlusconi . Much of the foreign interest in Prodi's foreign policy focused on Italy's involvement in Iraq. The country did not take...

Several boxes full of ballots for this week’s Italian general election were found in Rome today, officials said, after Premier Silvio Berlusconi rejected the centre-left’s victory claim and demanded a recount. The boxes, at least five, carried the symbol of the Interior Ministry. They included electoral material and were found by someone in a rubbish bin, said Vincenzo Giulivo, head of the polling station. The ANSA news agency said the ballots had been filled out. The election on Sunday and Monday was one of the closest in Italian history. Romano Prodi’s centre-left opposition has won control of both houses of...

Political uncertainty clouded Italy's future as Premier Silvio Berlusconi refused to concede defeat to center-left leader Romano Prodi in one of the closest elections in the country's recent history. Berlusconi, alleging irregularities, demanded a recount, a process that could take weeks. "Nobody now can say they have won," he said Tuesday. Prodi emerged the winner of the election by a razor-thin margin and promised to form a strong government able to run a deeply divided country mired in economic stagnation. He told Europe 1 radio on Wednesday that discussions would get under way in the next few days to select...

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi refused to concede defeat in Italy's general elections, suggesting that the vote may be declared invalid because of a "great many irregularities." "On the foreign vote there were a great many irregularities," Berlusconi told a packed news conference in Rome. "It cannot be excluded that this vote can be declared invalid," he said, referring to the race for the Senate, which hinged on the tally from six constituencies representing Italians residing overseas. The prime minister, in power since 2001, said: "We cannot recognize the outcome of a vote until there is a definitive clear judgement. Until...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Italian elections appeared to have stripped President George W. Bush of another Iraq war ally in Silvio Berlusconi, with staunch US partner Tony Blair barely holding on in Britain. Pro-war supporters had already departed in Spain and Portugal, but Berlusconi's apparent loss took on added meaning after the campaign-style attention Bush lavished on him during a visit here six weeks ago. US officials had little comment on Italy's two-day legislative vote that left opposition leader Romano Prodi claiming victory, the Berlusconi camp talking recount and Italy facing the prospect of political paralysis. "We certainly look forward to...

ROME - Center-left challenger Romano Prodi won the Italian parliamentary election, official results showed Tuesday, but Premier Silvio Berlusconi refused to concede until all checks are completed. "Nobody now can say they have won," Berlusconi said. The prime minister had called for a recount in the lower Chamber of Deputies, where final results gave Prodi's coalition a razor-thin margin. Earlier, Prodi told a news conference his government would have "constructive relations" with the United States and predicted that financial markets would "welcome with favor" his leadership. He said he was not concerned about Berlusconi's recount call and conceded his margin...

ROME - Center-left challenger Romano Prodi claimed an outright electoral victory Tuesday over Premier Silvio Berlusconi before official results were in, but the slim margin could return Italy to political paralysis and instability. Berlusconi has not conceded and called for a recount in the lower Chamber of Deputies, where final results gave Prodi's coalition a razor-thin margin. While the Interior Ministry had not declared a winner, near-final returns indicated Prodi's coalition had captured the Senate, parliament's upper chamber, giving him a victory in both houses. The tally depended on the six Senate seats being decided by Italians living overseas. Near...

Italy's parliament appeared headed Tuesday toward a split between the conservative coalition headed by Premier Silvio Berlusconi and one led by his center-left challenger - an election result that could stall the formation of a new government. Final results in the two-day vote ending Monday showed Romano Prodi's center-left coalition winning control in the lower house of parliament, with 49.8 percent of the vote compared to 49.7 won by Berlusconi's conservatives. The winning coalition is automatically awarded 55 percent of the seats, according to a new electoral law. The Senate and lower chamber of parliament have equal powers, and any...

ROME (AP) - Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's longest-serving premier since World War II, was locked in a battle for power Monday with center-left challenger Romano Prodi as vote projections from parliamentary election returns swung dramatically back and forth. After a campaign dominated by economic issues, projections based on 98 percent of pollster Nexus' sampling of votes cast gave the flamboyant billionaire's center-right alliance 158 seats in the Senate compared to 151 for Prodi's coalition. But with a margin of error of 1-3 percentage points and six seats chosen by Italians voting abroad unaccounted for, the Senate majority was far from assured....

Vote projections in Italy indicate the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi may defy early predictions and cling to power in both houses of Parliament. Early TV exit polls suggested the centre-left opposition would win the Upper House or Senate. Left wing supporters were jubilant and Opposition Leader Romano Prodi was said to be preparing for a victory speech. But then early counting suggested Mr Berlusconi's right-wing coalition would hold on to the Lower House. TV stations are now predicting Italy's longest serving post-war government could actually win, defying opinion polls during the campaign. The results may be complicated by a...

ROME - Exit polls indicated Monday that the Italian parliamentary election pitting center-left economist Romano Prodi against flamboyant billionaire Premier Silvio Berlusconi was too close to call. ADVERTISEMENT Projections showed Berlusconi's coalition leading in the Senate, but the two sides running neck-and-neck in the lower Chamber of Deputies. Based on 95 percent of pollster Nexus' sampling, Berlusconi's alliance won 158 Senate seats, compared with Prodi's 151. The margin of error was between 1 and 3 percentage points. Also, the projections did not account for six seats chosen by Italians abroad. Voter turnout was about 84 percent, the Interior Ministry said....

New Italian Exit Polls Suggest Narrow Win For Berlusconi’s Center-Right Coalition April 10, 2006 4:10 p.m. EST Joanna Wypior - All Headline News Staff Reporter Rome, Italy (AHN) – As counting continues in the Italian election, a new update on the exit polls now suggests a narrow win for Silvio Berlusconi's center-right coalition, giving the current prime minister a slender lead. Projections based on initial results have suggested that Berlusconi's center-right alliance may retain a majority in both houses of parliament. With 44 percent of the votes counted for, the Nexus Research Institute gave Berlusconi's coalition a slight 49.9 percent...