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...office cites the so-called "Sons of Iraq" program, a largely Sunni group of militiamen now paid by U.S. taxpayers to keep the peace in their neighborhoods. More than 100,000 strong, the group has yet to reconcile its long-standing differences with the Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. U.S. efforts to integrate these forces into the formal Iraq security forces are moving slowly, and only 14,000 militiamen have made the leap so far. What happens if the U.S. stops funding such rent-a-cops is anyone's guess, Pentagon officials acknowledge...
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...
...Berlusconi, a media mogul who boasts about his Casanova talents, is publicly pushing for Benedict to change the Communion rules for remarried Catholics. A story in the Italian daily he owns, Il Giornale, recounted how the 71-year-old Prime Minister last Saturday passed up Communion, but asked the local bishop at the chapel near his villa on the island of Sardinia to reconsider the standing rules. Bishop Sebastiano Sanguinetti reportedly responded: "Go tell that to someone higher than me." There was no indication that Berlusconi had raised the matter when he met the pontiff earlier this month...
...Italian newspaper published a photograph last year of Berlusconi receiving communion at the 2000 private funeral in Tunisia of former Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi. Giuliani for his part was much more bold in his defiance of the ban, lining up for communion (offered in the pews by a priest) at the St. Patrick's Cathedral Mass during the Pope's visit to New York in April. New York's Archbishop, Cardinal Edward Egan, later publicly scolded the former mayor and presidential candidate, saying they had "an understanding" that he would not take Communion. A spokeswoman for Giuliani said...
When you were first named Prime Minister, you announced one of your primary goals was to fight corruption. What progress has there been and what can you do to continue the fight...