Silvio Berlusconi's own publishing firm releases book celebrating PM as 'Superman'

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi leaves Duomo's square with blood on his face after a political party meeting in Milan Photo: REUTERS

Emotional messages likening Silvio Berlusconi to Superman after his show of strength when he was attacked in Milan last year have been compiled in a new book published by a firm owned by the Italian prime minister.

By Nick Squires in Rome
Published: 5:48PM GMT 16 Mar 2010

Mr Berlusconi's publishing company Mondadori has released the book, called "Love always wins over envy and hatred", ahead of important regional elections at the end of this month.

Bearing a cover photograph of Mr Berlusconi looking younger than his 73 years, it contains some of the 50,000 messages he received from Italians after a man with a history of mental illness hurled a souvenir statuette at his face in Milan in December, breaking his nose and smashing two teeth.

"Even with kryptonite they couldn't knock you down!" wrote one supporter – perhaps an allusion to the fact that Mr Berlusconi has previously described himself as Superman.

Well-wishers described as "abominable" the attack by Massimo Tartaglia, 42, an electronics engineer who will go on trial in the next few weeks on assault charges.

"We are all with you, great Silvio. You are the engine of our country," a woman identified as Eleonora gushed, while another fan urged the prime minister to clone himself.

"On seeing you covered in blood, my wife grabbed her hair and sobbed as she yelled 'My Madonna, save Silvio!'" one man wrote.

The book, which is on sale for 15 euros (£13.60), was mocked as "The little white book of Silvio Ceausescu" by the left-leaning Repubblica newspaper in a front page editorial.

The paper likened it to Colonel Gaddafi's Green Book of political philosophy and said it was reminiscent of the sort of hagiographies issued by dictators in Eastern Europe and South America.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/7458137/Silvio-Berlusconis-own-publishing-firm-releases-book-celebrating-PM-as-Superman.html

Italie : le Sénat adopte un projet de loi qui évite à Berlusconi d'être jugé pendant dix-huit mois

LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 10.03.10

Le Sénat a adopté, mercredi 10 mars, un projet de loi sur "l'empêchement légitime" qui doit permettre au chef du gouvernement, Silvio Berlusconi, et à ses ministres de ne pas comparaître en justice pendant dix-huit mois. Ce projet, qui avait déjà été approuvé le 3 février par les députés après un débat houleux et a été voté au Sénat sous les huées et les cris de l'opposition, doit maintenant être paraphé par le président de la République.

En vertu de ce texte, le chef du gouvernement et ses ministres peuvent obtenir automatiquement la suspension d'un procès pour "empêchement légitime" pendant dix-huit mois. Jusqu'à présent, ces "empêchements légitimes" étaient examinés au cas par cas. Ces derniers mois, les juges ont ainsi accepté que le président du conseil ne se présente pas devant eux en raison d'un conseil des ministres, mais ils ont rejeté un autre empêchement invoqué : l'inauguration d'un tronçon de route.

Le président du conseil devrait invoquer ce texte lors de la prochaine audience, prévue le 26 mars, dans l'affaire Mills, où il est accusé d'avoir versé 600 000 dollars (environ 440 000 euros) à son ex-avocat britannique David Mills, en échange de faux témoignages en sa faveur. M. Berlusconi est également poursuivi pour fraude fiscale dans le cadre de l'achat et de la vente de droits télévisés de son empire médiatique dans l'affaire Mediaset. L'opposition a une nouvelle fois protesté avec vigueur contre une loi "faite sur mesure", selon elle, pour Silvio Berlusconi.

http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2010/03/10/italie-le-senat-adopte-un-projet-de-loi-qui-evite-a-berlusconi-d-etre-juge-pendant-18-mois_1317414_3214.html#ens_id=1191686

L'opposition italienne défie Berlusconi dans les rues de Rome

LEMONDE.FR avec AFP | 13.03.10

Plusieurs dizaines de milliers de personnes ont manifesté, samedi 13 mars à Rome, contre le chef du gouvernement italien Silvio Berlusconi, à l'appel des partis de l'opposition. La Piazza del Popolo (Place du Peuple), lieu traditionnel de manifestation pour l'opposition, était occupée par 200 000 personnes selon les organisateurs.

La foule arborait des ballons de diverses couleurs : les nationales pour le Parti démocratique (PD, principale formation de l'opposition) de Pierluigi Bersani, rouges pour la CGIL (le principal syndicat), blancs pour l'Italie des Valeurs (IDV) de l'ancien juge anti-corruption Antonio Di Pietro. De nombreux jeunes étaient emmitouflés dans des écharpes violettes, la couleur des anti Berlusconi.

Beaucoup de pancartes proclamant "Basta"("Assez") étaient brandies. Plus original, un manifestant avait écrit: "Electeurs du PDL (le parti de Berlusconi), votez Ali Baba, au moins vous savez que les voleurs ne sont que quarante". Dans ce pays où le football est roi, certains s'étaient aussi découvert une passion pour l'équipe du Manchester United, qui a battu mercredi à plates coutures l'AC Milan de Berlusconi et encourageaient: "Allez Manchester".

Lors des régionales des 28 et 29 mars, "nous dirons qu'une autre Italie est possible, nous combattrons Berlusconi", a lancé M. Bersani pour qui "Berlusconi ne peut plus parler au futur de notre pays". "L'agenda de ce pays est dans les mains d'un seul qui fait des lois pour lui et les siens", a-t-il dénoncé, appelant à "mettre le travail, l'école et la santé au centre de (la) campagne régionale". "Tenons sur nos valeurs", a-t-il ajouté.

La manifestation entendait protester contre un décret que le président du Conseil a fait adopter pour remédier au "véritable cafouillage", selon les termes du président de la République Giorgio Napolitano, auquel a donné lieu l'enregistrement des listes de son parti aux régionales dans le Latium (région de Rome) et en Lombardie. Les deux candidats, Renata Polverini et Roberto Formigoni, ont été finalement réadmis, mais pas une liste complémentaire PDL à Rome.

http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2010/03/13/l-opposition-italienne-defie-berlusconi-dans-les-rues-de-rome_1318933_3214.html

Berlusconi's burlesque

Italy's regional elections

A farcical failure to register candidates in time

Mar 11th 2010 | ROME | From The Economist print edition

THE elections on March 28th and 29th in 13 of Italy’s 20 regions were meant to seal Silvio Berlusconi’s resurgence after a run of scandals over his private life. Eleven regions are held by the centre-left opposition. The prime minister, coasting on a wave of sympathy after an attack by a mentally unstable man in December, had hoped his People of Freedom (PdL) movement might oust up to five centrist and left-wing governors. But its campaign is in chaos—and the government’s ratings are plunging.

To think that it all started with a bread roll. That is what Alfredo Milioni, a former bus-driver charged with registering the PdL’s candidates in Lazio (which includes Rome), first said had lured him from the queue at the electoral office on February 27th. He later offered two other explanations for missing the deadline. Party leaders claimed he had fallen into a trap set by the opposition. But nobody disputes that he returned after the deadline had expired. Electoral officials duly refused to accept the PdL’s slate. That, and two failed court appeals, has left the ruling party out of the race in Lazio, one of five potential swing regions. It was almost excluded in Lombardy too, this time because some of its signatures seemed dubious.

What do you do if you are in a fix, having failed to abide by the rules? In the case of Silvio Berlusconi, you alter the rules. On March 5th his cabinet approved a decree to allow the candidates to run after all. President Giorgio Napolitano signed it into law, prompting one opposition leader, Antonio Di Pietro, to call for his impeachment. The decree transformed a farce into yet another example of Mr Berlusconi’s contempt for the rule of law, of a piece with a new draft law to allow ministers to delay criminal trials against them.

Yet the cabinet’s decree has united his often fractious opponents and so far failed to achieve its objective. On March 8th yet another court ruled against the PdL, saying that a government ordinance could not change regional law. Moreover, said the judges, PdL representatives were required to have been at the electoral office when the deadline expired, and there was no proof they were.

The ruling added to a growing impression of incompetence among PdL officials. Umberto Bossi, the Northern League leader, has called them “amateurs out of their depth”. This is damaging to Mr Berlusconi because he has sold himself as leader of a team that gets results. His government was already losing ground in the polls after a scandal over public-works contracts. On March 7th Corriere della Sera newspaper put the government’s approval rating at just 39%, down from over 50% in December. Another survey inPanorama, a magazine, suggested that the centre-left would hold on to all but one region.

Mr Berlusconi’s response was characteristic. On March 9th he abruptly turned victim, blaming his woes on opposition conspirators and left-wing judges, and announcing “a big, national demonstration to defend our right to vote.”

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15663656

Silvio Berlusconi in ‘protection deal with mafia’

A young Silvio Berlusconi reportedly asked Stefano Bontade, assassinated in 1981, to protect his children and his first wife Carla

From The Sunday Times March 14, 2010

Mark Franchetti

THE billionaire Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, once met a leading mafia godfather to ask for protection, according to testimony gathered over several years by crime prosecutors.

Mafia informants claim the meeting took place in Milan in 1974, when Berlusconi was already a wealthy entrepreneur, at the offices of his property company. The informers say Berlusconi met Stefano Bontade, then one of the mafia’s most powerful bosses, because he feared for his family’s safety at a time when Italy was plagued by a wave of high-profile kidnappings.

Francesco Di Carlo, one of Bontade’s henchmen who is now in jail, told prosecutors that he was at the meeting. He claims Berlusconi asked for help to ensure that neither he nor his children would be abducted by other mafia clans.

According to the henchman’s testimony, Bontade gave his word that he would personally ensure Berlusconi’s safety. In return Berlusconi told the mafia godfather that he was “at his disposal, for anything”.

According to anti-mafia prosecutors, the meeting was arranged by Marcello Dell’Utri, a close friend and business partner of Berlusconi. Dell’Utri later played an important role in founding the tycoon’s first political party, Forza Italia, which won the 1994 election and took Berlusconi to power.

Now a senator, Dell’Utri was sentenced in 2004 to nine years in prison for aiding and abetting the mafia. He denies the charges and is appealing — and is still a free man under the Italian judicial system. He and Berlusconi deny they met Bontade. But magistrates believe Di Carlo’s testimony, which was backed by another mafia boss who became an informant.

“In our view Dell’Utri had very close contact with the mafia. He acted as an ambassador for the mafia, representing its interests among Italy’s wealthy entrepreneurs,” said Domenico Gozzo, a key member of the prosecution team in the Dell’Utri trial.

“Instead of turning to the police, Berlusconi turned to Dell’Utri when he became worried about security. He asked his friend to find a solution. Dell’Utri did so during a meeting with the then mafia head, Stefano Bontade, in which Berlusconi took part. Bontade promised to send a person to protect Berlusconi and his family. Why? Because Berlusconi became of interest to the Cosa Nostra, first as an entrepreneur and later as a politician.”

Shortly after the alleged meeting with Bontade, who was killed in a mafia turf war in 1981, Berlusconi hired Vittorio Mangano, a mafia member.

Mangano’s official job was to run the tycoon’s luxury estate at Arcore, outside Milan. He lived at the 145-room villa for two years, driving Berlusconi’s children to school.

Prosecutors allege that Mangano was the man Bontade provided to guard the tycoon and his family, thus sending a signal to the other clans that Berlusconi was under the direct protection of the mafia. Berlusconi and Dell’Utri both claim they did not know that Mangano was a criminal. However, he was arrested twice while working for Berlusconi.

“Mangano was already a convicted criminal when Berlusconi took him in,” said Gozzo.

In 2000 Mangano, who was serving a sentence for drug trafficking, was found guilty of double murder. He died before his appeal could be heard. Berlusconi and Dell’Utri have since described him as a hero because he refused to make false claims against them.

“Mangano was a person who behaved very well with us,” said Berlusconi in 2008.

“He then had some problems with the law but I’m not aware of him having ever been found guilty for good,” he added, referring to the fact that Mangano’s appeal was never heard.

The prime minister has never been charged with mafia association. Gozzo and other magistrates sought to question him about Dell’Utri, his alleged mafia links and some of the funds invested in his businesses, but Berlusconi chose to remain silent, citing his right to do so under Italian law, It has also been alleged by informants that the mafia backed Forza Italia. The claim was made again last December by Gaspare Spatuzza, a jailed mafia hitman who killed 40 people and disposed of a rival by dissolving him in acid. He told prosecutors that Berlusconi and Dell’Utri had contact with the Graviano brothers, two mafia bosses.

Berlusconi, 73, has angrily rejected all allegations of mafia links and claims to be the victim of a conspiracy orchestrated by left-wing judges. He said recently that no Italian government had done more than his to combat the mafia.

“From the moment when Dell’Utri brought Mangano in, he put Berlusconi in the hands of the mafia,” said Marco Travaglio, one of Italy’s leading investigative reporters.

“Cosa Nostra is not like a taxi where you jump on, pay for the trip, get off and say goodbye. Once you are on you can no longer get off. Berlusconi is terrified that his past will catch up with him.”

Mark Franchetti will report on the Italian prime minister in The Berlusconi Show on Wednesday on BBC2

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7060965.ece

L'Ira di Silvio!La Russa placca freelance!

Silvio Berlusconi loses temper with journalist

From Times Online

March 10, 2010

Richard Owen, Rome

Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, today lost his temper with a freelance journalist at a press conference and ordered him to be ejected.

The journalist, Rocco Carlomagno, was manhandled by Ignazio La Russa, the Defence Minister, after he rose to shout an unscheduled question to the Prime Minister about the future of Guido Bertolaso, the head of the Civil Protection Agency and Mr Berlusconi's right hand man.

Mr Bertolaso has been caught up in an investigation by magistrates into an alleged bribery and sex for favours scandal involving building contracts for last year's G8 summit in Italy. He denies any wrongdoing.

Increasingly under pressure over falling ratings amid corruption scandals and bungled election candidacies by his party, Mr Berlusconi, 73, called Mr Carlomagno a "boor", adding "Mr Bertolaso will be able to sue you. Shame on you!" and asking aides to "show him the door". He added: "Every morning when you look in the mirror to comb you hair you have already ruined your day".

Mr La Russa left the podium to subdue the journalist, saying: "Behave, you lout" and grabbing him by the back of the jacket. Mr Carlomagno, a left-wing journalist noted for campaigning against nuclear power, was not ejected, but told reporters afterwards that he would lodge a complaint against Mr La Russa for "aggression", claiming the Minister had punched him in the chest.

The People of Liberty (PdL), Mr Berlusconi's centre-right party, said later that Mr Carlomagno was not a bona fide journalist, as he had claimed, but a "political actvist" who had gained entry to the press conference under false pretences and had disrupted it.

A survey today by Ipr marketing said that support for Mr Berlusconi had sunk to the lowest levels since he won his third term a year and a half ago. Only 44 per cent said they had faith in the Prime Minister, a drop of two points compared to the previous month's poll and well below the 62 per cent he enjoyed at the start of his administration. The poll also showed support for the PdL had fallen to a record low of 43 per cent.

At the press conference Mr Berlusconi urged his supporters to take to the streets of Rome on March 20, a week before regional elections, following weeks of chaos surrounding the registration of PdL candidates. However Gianfranco Fini, co-founder of the PdL and Mr Berlusconi's most likely challenger for the centre-right leadership, said he would not attend because as Speaker of the Lower House he had an "institutional role".

Lists of Mr Berlusconi's candidates in the Lazio and Lombardy regions were disqualified for not being submitted by the deadline, or for lack of authenticated signatures. Appeal judges have re-instated the candidates lists in Lombardy but not in Lazio. Mr Berlusconi blamed "left-wing" magistrates for excluding his candidates in an attempt to damage his party, and claimed PdL officials were "not at fault" even though in Lazio the lists were submitted fifteen minutes after the deadline.

Alfredo Milioni, the official given the task of submitting the Lazio lists, initially claimed he had missed the deadline because he had left the queue to buy a panino sandwich. He later changed this version of events several times, eventually claiming that members of the centre Left opposition had physically prevented him from submitting the election papers.

In a lengthy and detailed reconstruction, Mr Berlusconi, flanked by Renata Polverini, the PdL candidate for President of Lazio, said local PdL officials had been "impeded" at the electoral office by members of the left-wing Radical Party, who had created a "disturbance". Emma Bonino, leader of the Radical Party and the centre-left candidate for President of Lazio, dismissed this, saying the PdL had simply "not followed the procedures".

Pierluigi Bersani, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, said Mr Berlusconi's reconstruction of events was "a fantasy". "This was meant to be a government which acts, instead it is a government of confusion," he said. He recalled that Mr Berlusconi and his allies had initially lambasted PdL officials over their "mistakes".

Mr Berlusconi insisted the Left was "like a football team which enters the ground without opponents, with the help of friendly referees who have locked the other team in the dressing room". He said there was no question of postponing the vote.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7057026.ece