Word: berlusconis
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Rudolph Giuliani and Silvio Berlusconi share more than just Italian roots and an off-the-cuff approach to politics. The former mayor of New York and current Prime Minister of Italy also have the same beef with Pope Benedict XVI and the rules of the Catholic Church. Both political leaders are divorced and remarried Catholics, which shuts them out from receiving Holy Communion because of longstanding Church doctrine that forbids divorce. The ban, however, has not stopped either Berlusconi or Giuliani from receiving communion - and getting caught on camera doing so, with much tsk-tsking from the Church...
...might have not gotten a wholly warm welcome. More than 1,000 police were called up for the event, and tension was running high, with several dumpsters upended and constant chanting against the government. In a post-meeting press conference at the Palazzo Reale, where past kings resided, Berlusconi vowed to "make Naples bloom again...
Rosaria Arpenti, a law professor at the city's Federico II University, called Berlusconi's arrival in Naples a buffonata, or a big fat joke. "The problems don't get resolved just by him coming here," said the mother of two. "We Neapolitans are enraged. The city is in the hands of a small group of criminals that hold the good people hostage. And in the face of this, politicians don't do anything...
...Another Berlusconi campaign promise, to crack down on illegal immigration, was also on the cabinet's agenda Wednesday. The government put forward a controversial bill to make it a crime to be an undocumented foreigner, as well as the introduction of measures aimed at stopping the Roma, or gypsy, population, from living in camps on the outskirts of Italian cities...
...city with the complicated challenge of immigration. Giovanni, a 50-year-old newspaper vendor on Via Toledo near the city's Spanish Quarter said there is both widespread organized crime, but also petty crime, in Naples. It is the latter that makes him scared to go out at night. "Berlusconi had to do something. His credibility is riding on it," the Neapolitan native said. "The streets need to be cleaned up." He was referring not to the trash, but to immigrants...