Articles by: From italy

Rome, January 24.  Prodi's administration, which has had a wafer-thin majority in the 315-seat upper house ever since it came to power, lost the crucial test by five votes.


As expected, key centrists in his eight-party coalition voted against the government, finally pulling the plug on an alliance which was deeply divided on a wide range of issues.


The announcement of the results of the vote - 161 against, 155 in favour - led rapidly to raucous celebrations on one side of the Senate, where some members broke open bottles of champagne.


Former premier Silvio Berlusconi, whose Forza Italia party is the biggest on the centre right, immediately called on President Giorgio Napolitano to dissolve parliament and set a date for elections.


Buoyed by polls indicating that the centre right would win handsomely, the 70-year-old businessman-turned politician promised to tell voters quickly what they could expect from a new centre-right government.


''We'll say what we intend to do in our first 100 days. We want a big majority in the House and the Senate,'' he said.


Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni, head of the Democratic Party, the senior partner in the centre-left coalition, said he was against sending Italians to the polls this spring.


''Elections would push the country into a dramatic crisis,'' said Veltroni, who is a likely candidate to lead the centre left in the event of elections.


Prodi, who left the Senate shortly before the result was announced, made no immediate statement.


Speaking in parliament earlier, the premier said the country could ill afford to face the uncertainty of a political crisis in the current economic climate.


The government called confidence votes in the House and Senate after the small Udeur party withdrew its support. That move followed the resignation of the party's leader, Clemente Mastella, as justice minister when he and his wife were placed under investigation for corruption.


Prodi won the vote in the House on Wednesday but never seemed likely to muster support in the Senate, where he was also abandoned by another centrist ally, former premier Lamberto Dini.


PRESIDENT TO HOLD CONSULTATIONS.


The premier, who was obliged to quit after losing a confidence vote, went immediately to the Quirinal Palace to hand in his resignation to President Napolitano.


Napolitano will now meet with parliamentary speakers, party whips and leaders and former heads of state, to hear their views before deciding how to proceed.


He has voiced reluctance to call elections before a new electoral law is in place, fearing that a vote would only produce a government as unstable as Prodi's. The current electoral law, which uses proportional representation to allocate seats, is seen as a key factor in the chronic instability that has plagued the Prodi administration.


The law was pushed through parliament in 2005, at the end of the Berlusconi government's five years in power.


Forced to form an alliance ranging from Communists to Christian Democrats, and holding only a tiny majority in the Senate, the premier always struggled to hammer out policies and get laws through parliament.


Napolitano could try to get a new government installed, giving it the job of overhauling the current electoral law so that the country could then go to the polls under a new system.


Such an interim government, which could be led by an institutional figure, a politician, or even Prodi himself, would then have to go before parliament to show it had a majority.


It is far from certain a new administration would be able to muster a majority because several parties, including some of Prodi's allies, say they are ready to face elections under the current system.


According to a survey carried out for RAI state television, some 50% of Italians are against snap elections while 45% are in favour.


Of those against a return to the polls, 21% would choose an institutional government tasked with approving an electoral reform and 17% would prefer a new Prodi-led government given a set amount of time to do the same thing.


The possibility of a 'technical' government, led by an authoritative institutional figure and containing several non-political ministers, was favoured by 12%.


Prodi made two speeches to the Senate on Thursday, urging MPs to vote in favour of his government so it could continue economic reforms and cut taxes.


Listing what he saw as its key achievements to date, Prodi said it had ''rescued public finances and cut spending'' as well as restoring the primary surplus and starting a steady decline in the national debt.

ANSA NEWS

Following objections from Catholic politicians and the right-wing Mayor of Milan, Letizia Moratti, an international gay art exhibition now opens in the more left-leaning city of Florence - uncensored, albeit without the official blessing of the city council.

'Art and Homosexuality - From Von Gloeden to Pierre et Gilles' will run at the Palazzina Reale in Florence until 6 January 2008.

150 artists from all over the world are on display with works tracing connections between art and homosexuality over the past 100 years.

The original Milan location (Palazzo della Ragione) was abandoned by the organizers after Ms Moratti insisted in drawing up a blacklist of works that had to be removed on the ground that they could be offensive for Catholics and unsuitable for children.

Among the works exhibited are a sadomasochistic portrait of a man in a gimp mask by controversial American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, drawings of heavily muscled men engaged in graphic sexual acts by fetish artist Tom of Finland, and a picture of two men kissing under a crucifix by British painter John Kirby.

The Italian newswire service ANSA reports the exhibition's curator Eugenio Viola as saying: ''The public finally has the opportunity to judge for themselves what is perhaps the most contested exhibition of recent years. It's good news for freedom of expression and thought, and a happy epilogue to a difficult affair''. Viola based his selection of works on a common theme of expression rather than on the sexuality of the artists, who are both gay and straight. ''On the basis of that logic some works have an openly homoerotic content, while in others this expresses itself in a less obvious way through codes, symbols, allegories and metaphors,'' he explained.

The largest show of its kind ever held in Italy, this Florence exhibition will feature, among others, black-and-white photography by German artist Wilhelm von Gloeden from 1900, balletic nudes by Bruce of Los Angeles from the 1950s, portraits of famous male torsos by American fashion photographer Herb Ritts from the 1980s, and a video installation by bald German couple Eva and Adele, self-proclaimed 'hermaphrodite twins', from the 1990s.

Other famous names include David Hockney, Keith Haring and Bruce Weber as well as the British royal family's favourite snapper Mario Testino.

Self-taught Italian artist Carol Rama is among the 20 women artists with works on display.

As the ANSA press release notes, the most likely crowd-pullers are two sculptures by young Italian artists that topped Moratti's blacklist in Milan: Paolo Schmidlin's Miss Kitty (2006) - the life-size replica of an ageing, semi-naked transvestite in a wig, white underpants and stockings bearing a strong resemblance to Pope Benedict XVI; and Paolo Cassara's Pieta' (2007), which portrays a latex-clad Virgin Mary cradling a blow-up doll in place of the baby Jesus.

The famous Italian blog created by comedian Beppe Grillo warned the world against a law proposal that will be discussed at the Italian Parliament on Wednesday. It seems that, should the proposed law be approved by both houses of Parliament, all blogs and websites in the country would have to register, pay a national tax and work under the supervision of a professional journalist working as its executive editor. Such law requirements would simply destroy 99.9% of free blogs and information websites currently online.



As soon as the news became public (thanks to the blog www.civile.it) Grillo's blog dubbed the proposal as the latest move by the Prodi government to try to get rid of the rising popular opposition to his Government. Much of this opposition is indeed self-organized and web-based, with a number of free blogs – including the one operated by Mr. Grillo – opposing Mr. Prodi's political choices.



Yesterday, however, Communications Minister Paolo Gentiloni declared that all this fuzz is the result of an error in the phrasing of the proposed law, which according to Mr. Gentiloni "is not clear and leaves room to absurd interpretations".


So it seems now that it all was a big misunderstanding. The Italian Government is not trying to get rid of freedom of speech in the Internet after all. Only a bump in the road of technological progress.


On a more general plan, however, many commentators note that Italy's politics is ruled by two "castes", both of whom have very good reasons to fear bloggers and grass-roots journalism: on the one hand, the politicians, and on the other hand, the "professional journalists".


Everybody knows (and criticizes) the privileges of Italian politicians; but few know that Italian journalists are organized as an "order" (Ordine dei giornalisti) that is entitled by the State to decide - on the basis of annual written and oral examinations - who can work as a "professional" journalist, getting higher salaries, pension rights, and social presige.


Mr. Grillo aside, Italian bloggers and citizen journalists are now raising their voices and the two castes are scared they might lose their life-long political monopoly over information...