silvio

IT HAS not been a good year for Silvio Berlusconi. His wife left him, he had a string of scandals and he lost a fight to give himself legal immunity. On December 13th it got worse. At a rally in Milan a man with a history of mental instability hit him at short range with a model of the city’s...

IF YOU live in Italy and are planning to commit a moderately severe crime—perhaps beating your children, or a white-collar offence such as cooking the books, or even stabbing your neighbour—the law might soon be of little hindrance to you. If a bill tabled in parliament this week were to become...

FAMOUS politicians are occasionally pelted with eggs or shoes. But the attack on Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, on Sunday December 13th was of an entirely different order. As he mixed with a crowd after a rally in Milan a man hurled a plaster souvenir—a model of the city's...