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Wed 2 Jul, 2003 06:51 pm
The US press has largely ignored Mr Berlusconi's scheduled rotation into the top EU slot. A lot of folks evidentally didn't like the idea of his getting the job in the first place and, after only one day, he has managed to outrage the Germans.
Could some of our European correspondents (Walter, Nimh, Baltus) comment on the significance of all this. Thank you.
That was in the past. now:
Berlusconi's villa escapes Sardinia's building ban buildings near coast
Quote: The new president of Sardinia offered his gleaming tourist island the smack of firm government this week, enacting a freeze on construction that will halt almost all building within two kilometres of the sea, to preserve the island's beauty.
The island to which Tony and Cherie Blair fly next Monday as guests of the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, at his extravagant villa, has had a boom in haphazard tourist development along its exquisite coastline in the past 10 months, as a result of a planning vacuum.
A regional court struck down 13 out of 14 of the island's local plans last October. With no overall, island-wide regulations in place, developers and local councils rushed to launch new developments to draw more tourist revenue, Sardinia's main industry for decades. Mr Berlusconi's Villa Certosa, where the Blairs will stay, has seven swimming pools and a plantation of exotic cacti among many other delights, and extends to the shoreline of the Costa Smeralda, the island's most expensive stretch of coast.
When construction crews moved into the villa's grounds this summer to build a pseudo-ancient Greek auditorium and a tunnel enabling access to the estate directly from the sea, opposition politicians erupted angrily in parliament, saying the work was being done without planning consents
full story
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As some on a2k know, I am fond of italy, and not the romantic tourist one although I like bits of that, but the one of history of roiling discontents and fulgent arts. Berlusconi and cohorts are a slice of the pie and I don't mean to affront by my hisses.
i admit Berlusconi is the RICHEST Prime Minister on this planet lollllllll
Now there are speculations about a assumed hair transplantation from Berlusconi. For that reason probably he used the pirate cap.
Well, Berlusconi is interesting all right. I like Italian history. Did you ever read 'The Dark Heart of Italy,' or something like that, Osso, about Berlusconi's power? It made for an interesting read.
I read this book.
dròm_et_rêve wrote:It made for an interesting read.
indeed, very interesting.
I haven't, no, but will look it up.
One of my favorite photos in my ital piazza files is of a group of protesters against him in Rome the first time he was in power... all wearing lonnnnnng pinocchio noses.
ossobuco wrote: all wearing lonnnnnng pinocchio noses.
That's representative for all of those...
for whom? the book or Berlusconi? hmm, I hear that no publicity is bad, but I'm not sure that's entirely true. Seems like it.
well, I meant good promotion for Amazon and the good book. ;-)
? (ha)
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