Word: berlusconi
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When the G-8 summit begins in Italy on July 8, it will undoubtedly garner a flood of attention for its host. But while Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was planning to bask in the results of his bold, last-minute decision to switch the site of the meeting from La Maddalena on Sardinia to L'Aquila, the central city still reeling from April's deadly earthquake, it is the stories of Berlusconi as a party guy that are capturing the imagination...
Since April, the coverage of the 72-year-old billionaire mogul turned politico has read like something between an airport romance novel and soft porn. On April 26, Berlusconi showed up at the 18th birthday party of leggy Neapolitan blond Noemi Letizia with the gift of a diamond necklace. Within two days, Berlusconi's wife of 20 years, Veronica Lario, announced she wanted a divorce, claiming that her husband "frequents underage females." (See Berlusconi's Worst Gaffes...
...subsequent media storm has rained an almost daily shower of gossipy tales upon the Italian public. On June 5, Spanish daily El Pais published photographs that showed topless women and a nude man partying at Berlusconi's Sardinian villa. And then there was the investigation, later dropped, into allegations that he'd used a government airplane to fly in young women and showbiz performers for private functions...
...latest Berlusconi tidbit is potentially the most damaging. On June 17, investigators in the southern city of Bari confirmed they were carrying out a criminal investigation into allegations that businessman Giampaolo Tarantini had hired prostitutes to attend several Berlusconi bashes, although Berlusconi himself is not under investigation...
...members (a new term begins on January 1) with that country responsible for planning and hosting some lower-level meetings, which serve as the build-up to the mid-year three-day event attended by the major players. As this year's G-8 president, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has the honor of hosting Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso, Russia's President Dimitri Medvedev, U.K.'s Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the U.S.'s President Barack Obama in L'Aquila, the town...