Bob Geldof calls out Premier Silvio Berlusconi

Updated: 2009-07-06 10:16

ROME: At least it wasn't another sex scandal. Irish singer and anti-poverty campaigner Bob Geldof grilled Silvio Berlusconi in an interview published on Sunday, telling him that Rome's failed pledges on aid put his credibility in doubt as he chairs a G8 summit this week.

"How can you lead the G8? Where is your credibility?" Geldof asked the conservative Italian Prime Minister in the interview, printed in La Stampa newspaper ahead of the July 8-10 Group of Eight summit in the central city of L'Aquila.

"Here we have the signature of a country and the honour of a man," Geldof told Berlusconi, showing him the written commitment to increase aid to Africa signed by him and his G8 colleagues at a 2005 summit in Scotland, La Stampa said.

"I am sorry, we made a mistake," Berlusconi responded, saying Italy's public debt mountain and the global economic crisis had forced it to cut spending.

"We are sorry we also reduced aid to Africa ... Our Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti has made a commitment to readjust in line with our undertakings within three years."

Development is one a major theme at the summit which on the final day will be broadened to include some African nations.

EMPTY PROMISES

Geldof's ONE campaign group said in a damning report last month Italy was trailing far behind other G8 nations in making good on their collective promise to more than double aid to Africa by 2010.

It said Rome had delivered only three percent of the aid increase promised by Berlusconi four years ago and that Italy's shortfall risked undermining the performance of the whole G8.

A government adviser told Geldof at the interview Italy would raise aid spending to 0.33 of its gross domestic product by 2010 and to 0.51 percent in 2015 - still short of the 0.7 percent target pledged at the 2005 G8 summit.

"I don't believe this. To achieve this plan you would have to do an unbelievable job. And we don't need plans, we need actions," Geldof retorted.

Berlusconi said Italy was ready to back US President Barack Obama's plan to double US funding for agricultural development aid to $1 billion by 2010, with an additional $1 billion expected to come from his G8 partners.

La Stampa said the interview at times resembled a boxing match, with billionaire Berlusconi clenching his fist, Geldof shaking his head and interrupting him, and the prime minister's aides intervening to soothe tempers.

"We were knocked back by all the things that happened to us. The crisis, the earthquake. We also have a situation of strong confrontation with the opposition, and magistrates attacking us," Berlusconi said at one stage.

Geldof snapped, "This is not a debate about the media or the judiciary system. We are talking about poor, defenceless people."

Source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2009-07/06/content_8381936.htm

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Netcraft rank: 66069

Conservative Caligula cavorts with lesbians

Sunday, 05 July 2009 07:03

Photographs show Silvio Berlusconi grinning as two young women kiss in front of him at his Sardinian estate.

A prostitute claims that she spent a night at Berlusconi’s residence in Rome.

Several European publications are bidding for photographs by Antonello Zappadu, who took 5,000 pictures of Berlusconi’s guests in Sardinia in 2007 and 2008. the aim was to publish them just before the summit begins on Wednesday “for maximum impact." Berlusconi is hosting a G8 summit this week.

Some photos show Berlusconi with five young women in a gazebo. Two of them are sitting on his lap. He grins approvingly as Angela Sozio, 36, a red-headed former Big Brother contestant, sits on the knees of another young woman and kisses her on the lips.

She gives a bouquet of flowers to a young woman with whom Berlusconi has been holding hands. Sozio and the other two women intone a wedding march.

Prosecutors in Bari, southern Italy, have questioned Patrizia D’Addario, the call girl who says she was with Berlusconi on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama’s election night. Berlusconi missed an Obama celebration event to be with the call girl.

Last month a Sardinian judge ordered all 5,000 photographs to be seized on the grounds that they violated Berlusconi’s privacy, but they had already been sold to Ecoprensa, a Colombian picture agency. The Spanish newspaper El Pais has published photographs of a topless young woman by a pool and Mirek Topolanek, a former Czech prime minister, who is naked.

Also up for sale are photographs showing two topless women in thongs kissing under a shower in June 2008. The photographs were taken at another home belonging to Berlusconi.

Berlusconi said nothing last week about the scandal, which began when his wife, Veronica Lario, demanded a divorce. She alleged that he “frequents underage girls” after he attended the 18th birthday party of Noemi Letizia, a lingerie model.

Berlusconi, who was jeered with shouts of pedophile and whoremonger when he visited the scene of a train crash in Viareggio in Tuscany last week, will aim to minimise the risk of further public hostility when he escorts leaders to towns hit by the earthquake.

A residents’ association named 3.32, after the time of the tremor, intends to mount protests during the summit. Three months on, 25,000 homeless people are still living in camps and the temperature in the tents can reach 44C.

Berlusconi also risks a snub from Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the Italian-born wife of the French president. After Berlusconi joked that Obama was “always tanned”, she remarked: “Sometimes I am very happy that I have become French.”

Source: TIMESONLINE feromoon.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4729:lesbian-clinch-more-embarrassment-for-berlusconi-&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=18

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Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi gets kinkier and kinkier

25/06/2009 15:39:23

Editor's Note: The Italian premier reportedly skipped an appearance at a US-Italy event marking the election of President Barack Obama to be with the prostitute. The premier also said "I'm paler than Mr Obama, because it's been so long since I went sunbathing. He's more handsome, younger and taller."

Patrizia D'Addario, a prostitute identified in Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi's sex scandal dismissed his claims that he did not know her. She had told La Repubblica that spent a night with Berlusconi followed by an "intimate" breakfast.

Patrizia D'Addario indicated Berlusconi might have been confused because "there were so many other young women who looked just like me" at the parties he threw at his residence.

Prosecutors in Bari have questioned D'Addario and other women as part of a probe into a local businessman accused of being then premier's pimp.

The businessman, Giampaolo Tarantini, has said the women were only reimbursed for their travel expenses. Most of the women were paid about US$1400 to attend the party which is lavish reimbursement for travel.

Mr Berlusconi has told gossip magazine Chi he has never paid for sex and in an interview. This is true because he used Giampaolo Tarantini to pimp for him.

D'Addario told La Repubblica newspaper that she attended two parties at Mr Berlusconi's Roman home, including one at which she said there were 20 young women, including two known lesbian prostitutes, who flocked around the premier as if they were at a "harem."

"Actually, harems are serious things that I know well because I've been to Dubai three times," said D'Addario.

She said she danced with the premier to Frank Sinatra's "My Way" during the party. She said she spent that night, November 4, with Mr Berlusconi. The premier reportedly skipped an appearance at a US-Italy event marking the election of President Barack Obama to be with the prostitute.

D'Addario recorded her encounter with the premier and has turned the tapes over to Bari prosecutors. Prosecutors have not yet commented on the claim.

D'Addario denied Mr Berlusconi's claims she was paid to expose him. She received €1,000 from Tarantini for her attendance at an October 15 party, but was not paid for the November 4 encounter and instead received the promise Mr Berlusconi would intervene in a land dispute. When Berlusconi reneged on his promise to help her, she came forward.

D'Addario said after she confided in an acquaintance that she had recorded proof of her encounter with the premier, her house was robbed.

She said thieves made off with her computer, music CDs, lingerie and designer clothes - including the Versace dress she wore the night of November 4.

source: http://news.eircom.net/breakingnews/15939787

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