A high-end prostitute says she has proof she spent the night at Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s residence in Rome after a party that allegedly featured his wisecracks, cabaret crooning and a bevy of sexy women.
Berlusconi denied the claim, but there are signs of trouble ahead for the Italy’s longest-serving prime minister: Prosecutors are examining images Patrizia D’Addario allegedly took of his bedroom and telephone recordings of him allegedly sweet-talking her — and the Roman Catholic Church is warning the “limits of decency” have been breached.
A defiant Berlusconi — sometimes referred to as the “Teflon” prime minister for his ability to escape controversy — said he had nothing to be sorry about.
But the scandal engulfing Berlusconi over his purported fondness for young models and starlets shows no signs of letting up. With newspapers competing for the last tawdry detail, Italians are taking a new look at the life of the man they voted into power three times and finding a very different Berlusconi than his carefully manicured image.
On Wednesday, Berlusconi launched a new tourism campaign for Italy, saying the country needed to rehabilitate its image internationally because its reputation had been tarnished by his recent personal scandals and a garbage crisis in Naples last year.
The most recent accusations against the prime minister come just a few weeks before he hosts US President Barack Obama and many of the world’s leaders at a G8 summit in L’Aquila.
“There is nothing in my private life that I should apologize for,” Berlusconi told the gossip magazine Chi, which he owns, in the issue on newsstands on Wednesday.
“I have never paid a woman. I never understood what the satisfaction is when you are missing the pleasure of conquest,” he was quoted as saying.
Until the interview, Berlusconi had simply dismissed as “garbage” and a smear campaign reports that an acquaintance of his had recruited three women, and paid two of them, to attend parties at his residences.
To break the silence and address the accusations directly, the leader chose a popular magazine that is part of his Mondadori publishing house.
On the cover, above a headline reading: “Now I do the talking,” a smiling Berlusconi sits on a lawn, his one-year-old grandson at his side. In other photos inside, the prime minister is seen surrounded by his grandchildren and children and in one, he is playing at the piano with grandson Alessandro, dressed in a sailor suit.
The photos offer a stark contrast with the image of Berlusconi depicted in recent weeks by Italian newspapers: A rich and powerful flirt who liked being surrounded by pretty women while he boasted of his visits to the White House, cracked jokes and sang songs.
“There must be limits,” said Famiglia Cristiana, an influential Catholic magazine that is distributed in parishes across Italy.
“Those limits of decency have been exceeded,” it said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese