John Hooper
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/ 16 April 2008

Berlusconi seeks to woo anti-immigrant party

Italians on Tuesday got their first taste of life under their new government as Silvio Berlusconi moved to appease the newly powerful Northern League with pledges of lower taxes, more police and camps for jobless foreigners. ”One of the things to do is to close the frontiers,” he said in a TV interview.

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/ 11 April 2008

Berlusconi pleads for big election majority

Silvio Berlusconi on Thursday appealed to Italian voters to give him a huge majority at the general election on Sunday and Monday. He said that ”to really govern” he needed a margin of at least 20 seats in the Senate, the Upper House of the Italian Parliament. That would allow him ”to take, if necessary, difficult and unpopular decisions”.