Berlusconi’s demands rile Parliament ahead of key votes
Berlusconi case grinding work to a halt
Berlusconi says he will support government
That didn't save him.
Italian Senate panel votes to expel Berlusconi
"Milan court sets 2-year Berlusconi political ban; Parliament must approve term, delaying process" by Colleen Barry | Associated Press, October 20, 2013
MILAN — ‘‘It doesn’t change the big picture at all. It is a reminder to him and to the world that he is a convicted criminal, which he doesn’t like being reminded of, that he will have to serve a sentence,’’ said James Walston, a professor of international relations at American University of Rome.
For now, the three-time former premier and his center-right forces have pledged to continue their support for Premier Enrico Letta’s cross-party government of long-time political foes on the left and the right.
After triggering a government crisis by threatening to pull his party’s backing of the governing coalition, Berlusconi did a last-minute about-face to support the government in a confidence vote....
Berlusconi won’t go to jail for the tax fraud case.
The four-year term has been reduced to one year under an amnesty for crimes committed before 2006, and Berlusconi reportedly has requested to perform community service instead of house arrest.
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Related:
"Italy court upholds tax fraud sentence for Berlusconi; Decision a blow to ruling coalition" by Rachel Donadio | New York Times, August 02, 2013
ROME —For years, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi navigated the labyrinth of Italian justice, always finding an exit — until Thursday, when Italy’s highest court handed him his first definitive sentence, upholding a prison term for tax fraud and sending Italy’s fragile government on the road to crisis.
The court called for a re-examination of a ban on Berlusconi’s holding public office but did not reject the ban. This staved off the imminent collapse of the right-left coalition of Prime Minister Enrico Letta, which was formed to tackle Italy’s dire economy — but probably only bought it more time.
Parts of Letta’s center-left Democratic Party are reluctant to share power with a now-convicted criminal. Meanwhile, the center-right People of Liberty party looked poised to split between Berlusconi loyalists and those seeking more independence from the former prime minister in a future bloc.
“The barometer signals a very strong storm,” said Giovanni Orsina, professor of contemporary history at LUISS Guido Carli and author of “Understanding Berlusconi.” “I expect a lot of quake tremors in the next few days, but I think that the government will survive.”
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Thursday’s ruling, like everything about Berlusconi, polarized Italy. Some of the former prime minister’s loyalists called it the equivalent of a judicial coup d’état, while his critics called it tantamount to Al Capone being convicted of tax evasion.
After the ruling, a furious, saddened and uncharacteristically unsmiling Berlusconi took to the airwaves of Rete4, one of the channels in his Mediaset empire, and declared his innocence, attacking the magistrates who he said had tormented him for 20 years and become an anti-democratic force within Italy.
“The sentence is absolutely groundless and violates my personal liberty and my rights,” Berlusconi said.
Thursday’s ruling did not automatically send Berlusconi to prison or house arrest. It is up to the same appeals court in Milan that convicted him to formally request his arrest. Berlusconi’s lawyers can also request a suspended sentence.
No frikkin' jail cell!?
Experts said that considering his age, Berlusconi, 76, would more likely face house arrest or community service than prison.
There are two sets of ju$tice in this world no matter where you live.
Opposition politicians immediately called for Berlusconi to resign from Parliament.
Vito Crimi, a member of Parliament from the Five Star Movement of Beppe Grillo, called it “shameful” that Berlusconi would stay in public office.
I'm surprised they said the name.
In other circumstances, the ruling might have dealt a final blow to Berlusconi’s role in politics. But today Berlusconi, who came back from the dead in national elections in February, is an element of stability in the coalition government.
The government was formed to help put Italy’s economy back on track.
Really?
Unemployment is 12 percent, rising to 39 percent for young people, and the national debt is close to 130 percent of gross domestic product, the second-highest in the eurozone after Greece. But the government has chosen to delay a series of decisions on hot-button issues like taxes.
Even as political analysts said they did not expect the government to fall, if only because of a lack of clear political alternatives, they also said the coalition would not escape unscathed.
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Related:
"Premier of Italy, Enrico Letta’s government has frozen a tax on first homes, scrapping a June payment while ministers consider alternative policies. The EU has warned Letta’s government that if it cancels the tax, it would have to find $5.2 billion in revenue elsewhere. The main forces arguing in favor of continued debt reduction have been Germany and the European Central Bank. On Monday, ECB president Mario Draghi repeated that without sustainable public debt, a country cannot grow. He admitted austerity’s short-term impact on economic growth can be a problem. But he said that could be addressed in part by choosing the right mix of austerity policies."
These guys are hopele$$. I mean, listen to him. Public debt means economic growth!
And the SAME PEOPLE that CREATED the PROBLEM are now CRITICIZING THOSE who DID THEIR BIDDING?
"IMF criticizes Italy for high unemployment among youth" by Frances D’Emilio | Associated Press, July 05, 2013
ROME — The International Monetary Fund pressed Italy on Thursday to do more about ‘‘unacceptably high’’ unemployment, especially among young people and women, and urged it to bring back an unpopular property tax whose return could threaten the survival of Premier Enrico Letta’s coalition government.
Oh, they aren't concerned about unemployed youth; they WANT DEBT PAYMENTS MADE!
Former premier Silvio Berlusconi made suspension of the tax on primary residences a condition of his conservative forces’ vital support for Letta’s government. Letta reluctantly agreed to let property owners skip paying the tax in June, and has said his government would decide later in the year whether to revive the tax, which brings in some $5.2 billion annually.
In a report at the end of its annual visit to the country, the IMF told Italy the tax ‘‘should be maintained.’’ Berlusconi’s lawmakers immediately countered with a vow that the tax would be abolished, raising tensions in the already uneasy coalition.
He backed down.
Berlusconi’s center-right People of Freedom party ‘‘reiterates that it is absolutely necessary’’ to abolish the tax, said Anna Maria Bernini, a senator in the party. While expressing ‘‘maximum respect’’ for the IMF’s analysis, Bernini said the backing for the government ‘‘came from our lawmakers in Parliament, and not the IMF.’’
Berlusconi had made abolishing the tax the main plank of his populist campaign for election earlier this year. His forces came in second, and their backing was needed to secure Letta’s center-left bloc enough support in Parliament to govern.
Mario Monti, who succeeded Berlusconi in late 2011 when financial markets lost faith in the media mogul’s handling of Italy’s debt crisis, promptly brought the tax back. But Letta was forced to suspend it right after taking office as the price for Berlusconi’s support. Monti paid his own high price for his severe austerity measures, including reviving the tax, when Berlusconi yanked support for Monti’s government last year.
See: Monti the New Mussolini
Turns out no one likes a dictator that serves banks, the truest form of fa$cism, and not the historically mislabeled nationalism practiced by Il Duce.
‘‘All countries have property taxes,’’ said Kenneth Kang, an IMF official, when asked about whether it was worth reviving the tax if its return meant jeopardizing the government’s stability. Italian Economy Minister Fabrizio Saccomanni, at the same news conference, said, ‘‘Certainly we’ll take into consideration the IMF’s opinion.’’
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The alternative — possible fresh elections — could be unnerving enough to keep the uneasy coalition together.
While praising Italy for having taken ‘‘bold steps’’ to heal its finances, the IMF’s report card gave Italy poor grades over unemployment....
Italy’s competitiveness is hurt by factors including regulatory hurdles, a cost of electricity that is as much as 40 percent greater than in France and Germany, and an inefficient justice system, the IMF concluded.
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What can distract Italians from such things?
"Court convicts 3 Berlusconi associates" Associated Press, July 20, 2013
MILAN — A Milan court on Friday convicted three of ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s former associates of procuring aspiring show girls willing to prostitute themselves during the media mogul’s infamous ‘‘bunga bunga’’ parties.
The convictions, accompanied by stiff sentences, were the latest blow to Berlusconi, whose judicial woes have proven another obstacle for Italy’s fragile coalition government as it seeks to get the country’s finances in order....
All are expected to appeal the verdicts.
The three were part of a circle of formerly trusted associates who attended the racy parties at Berlusconi’s villa near Milan that by some accounts revolved around provocative striptease performances for the then-premier.
The court concluded that the three, to varying extents, played a role in organizing the women for the parties, which came to light after prosecutors started investigating the role of a Moroccan teen at the center of Berlusconi’s sex-for-hire scandal.
Berlusconi wasn’t on trial in this case, but he was convicted separately last month of paying for sex with a minor, the then-17-year-old Moroccan named Karima el-Mahroug, and pressuring public officials to cover it up.
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"Key Berlusconi witness recants 2010 statements" Associated Press, May 25, 2013
MILAN — The woman who prosecutors allege had sex with Silvio Berlusconi while he was Italy’s premier in exchange for money spent her second day on the witness stand Friday, denying her own sworn descriptions of racy escapades at his ‘‘bunga bunga’’ parties and long lists of expensive jewelry and watches received from the media mogul.
Karima el Mahroug, a Moroccan known as Ruby, dismissed a series of sworn statements she made to investigators in the summer of 2010 as ‘‘all stupid things’’ that she now regrets saying. ‘‘I apologize to the prosecutors. They were all nonsense,’’ she said....
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Related:
Woman provides account of Berlusconi’s wild parties
Woman in Berlusconi sex trial speaks out
I would certainly like to believe she didn't fuck him.
"Silvio Berlusconi sentenced to 7 years in sex case convicted of having sex with minor, abusing power" by Rachel Donadio | New York Times, June 25, 2013
ROME — A court in Milan found former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi guilty Monday of paying for sex with a minor and abusing his office to cover it up, imposing a seven-year jail sentence and banning him from public office for life.
The ruling, like most things involving Berlusconi, polarized Italy. It shook the governing coalition in which Berlusconi’s center-right party is participating, but was not expected to topple it.
The former prime minister, who denies wrongdoing, holds no official post but remains influential in the ruling coalition that includes his party. He does not immediately have to give up his political activities, pending two rounds of appeals.
The trial, involving an underage woman named Karima El-Mahroug, nicknamed “Ruby Heart-Stealer,” had become the most personal, and tawdry, of Berlusconi’s many legal sagas. The three presiding judges, all women, handed Berlusconi a seven-year sentence, tougher than the six years that prosecutors had requested.
Demonstrators, both for and against Berlusconi, gathered outside the Milan courthouse for the ruling, and the courtroom was packed with journalists from around the world. The former prime minister was not in the courtroom.
Berlusconi, 76, who is widely seen as remaining in politics in order to keep his parliamentary immunity and to protect his business interests — has vehemently denied all the charges, accusing prosecutors of being on a left-wing witch hunt against him.
I think they kicked him out.
The ruling inevitably puts strains on the nearly two-month-old government of Prime Minister Enrico Letta, a coalition that unites his center-left Democratic Party with Berlusconi’s People of Liberty party for the first time.
In the coalition, Berlusconi has been fighting to abolish an unpopular property-tax increase imposed by former prime minister Mario Monti, and wants to delay raising the value-added tax, measures Italy had committed to in order to bring its budget deficit below 3 percent of gross domestic product.
But Letta’s tenure has largely been overshadowed by Berlusconi’s legal troubles.
Both Berlusconi and Mahroug say they did not have sex, although Mahroug said the prime minister gave her about $9,100 the first time she visited his villa for a party in 2010.
The judges found Berlusconi guilty of paying Mahroug for sex before she turned 18 and abusing his office in calling the police to intervene when she was detained in May 2010 for theft.
Berlusconi had said he called the police to avoid a diplomatic incident because he had been told Mahroug was the niece of Hosni Mubarak, then the president of Egypt.
Then what is she doing hooking?
In what has become known as “the Ruby Trial,’’ which began more than two years ago, Milan prosecutors painted a picture in which young women attended parties at Berlusconi’s private residence near Milan in exchange for money and gifts.
They said the evenings were orchestrated by a former news anchor on one of Berlusconi’s television networks, a show-business agent, and a former dental hygienist-turned regional politician. All three deny wrongdoing.
In a testimony in the separate trial for the three aides, Mahroug said that she received up to $4,000 for the half-dozen evenings that she attended what have become famously known in Italy as “bunga bunga” parties at Berlusconi’s house.
Berlusconi’s political career — and with it the stability of the Letta government — hinge on a separate trial in which Berlusconi has been convicted of tax fraud by two lower courts in a case involving his Mediaset television empire.
The final ruling by Italy’s highest court is expected this year....
Related: US agent convicted in Italy seeks pardon
Hey, I'm not knoxing it.
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And as of today there are more scintillating revelations regarding another trial.
Also see: Italian lake may give up GIs’ remains
"Italy convicts ex-Nazi in ’43 slayings" by Colleen Barry | Associated Press, October 19, 2013
MILAN — Alfred Stork, who now lives in Germany, was tried as a member of an execution squad that killed the 120 Italian officers as part of the weeklong Kefalonia massacres, in which nearly 4,000 Italian soldiers were killed in September 1943, said military prosecutor Marco De Paolis.
The Italian troops were occupying Greece with their German allies, but found themselves in enemy territory, and under attack, after Italy signed an armistice with the Allies following the fall of fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
De Paolis said he launched this investigation in 2009 at the request of two victims’ children, and identified Stork after receiving files from a failed attempt at prosecuting 80 suspects a decade ago.
De Paolis said he felt it was ‘‘useless’’ to petition for Stork’s extradition for trial since Germany has refused to turn over its citizens even when convicted of Nazi-era crimes.
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I said what I said and I meant it.
"Eruption of Etna closes airspace
ROME — Mount Etna, Europe’s most active volcano, has erupted, spewing lava and sending up a plume of ash visible in much of eastern Sicily. Etna’s eruptions are common, but the last major one occurred in 1992. Catania airport said the eruption Saturday forced the closure of airspace, but that order was lifted (AP)."
That isn't going to help the global warming.
Time to land this post.
