This site isn’t meant to break news. But there’s been a near-perfect storm of events — so much excellent newsworthy material on Italy, the Balkans and international relations in general, and not nearly enough time to bang out a coherent thought with me being swamped with both typical and atypical end-of-year responsibilities. Some points: Berlusconi’s …
Category Archives: electoral crisis
Benigni
I’m not going to even pretend that this will be easily comprehenisble to those without a command of both what’s going with Berlusconi these days and the Italian language, although the Corriere‘s English language edition — serviceable but nothing compared to examples like Germany’s Der Spiegel — can elucidate here. Benigni once again proves he’s …
Weekly digest: more Berlusca, the seriousness of ‘bunga-bunga’, more rain, and more Republicans
It’s been awhile and no updates. Yet, in the US we’ve had the midterms, which happened pretty much as predicted, and here in Italy Berlusconi again dominates the headlines with another sex scandal. At this point I’m so fatigued by his scandals that I’m withholding comment until I figure out just how much of a …
If it had been in Italy…
A student passed me this joke on the Chilean mine disaster, which also plays on a lot of other recent Italian news (Sarah Scazzi, Giancarlo Tulliani‘s house, the Naples trash crisis, the electoral crisis). Mainly it’s funny, if you get it all. Deep Italian current events, knowledge, sure, but enjoy: If it had happened in …
Do Not Underestimate Silvio
He’s a survivor. He’s saved. For now. But rumors are afoot, thanks to no less than leading leghista Maroni, that the government will fall in March. But for now, Fini has relented and they’re in it together for a bit longer. How long? It’s anyone’s guess but word over at UniCredit today didn’t contradict Maroni. …
Of New Princes
I realize how remiss I’ve been to have a blog on Italian politics without addressing, at least directly, the very acute crisis that Italian politics is going through right now. Angelo Panebianco’s front-page editorial in yesterday’s Corriere directly assigned the problem to factionalism. The following quote jumped out at me: In the early ’60s, in …