South African President Thabo Mbeki had intended to lead a summit on Wednesday at the United Nations in New York that would focus on the increasing peacekeeping chores of African Union troops. But on Tuesday, it became clear that Mbeki would not be able to dodge the ongoing election crisis in Zimbabwe.
Self-made billionaire Silvio Berslusconi looked set to secure a third term as Italian prime minister on Monday, with exit polls predicting a narrow win for his conservative coalition in general elections. The exit polls, which came moments after voting ended, predicted the 71-year-old media magnate’s centre-right coalition would win.
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/ 6 February 2008
Italy’s president dissolved Parliament on Wednesday and the caretaker government prepared to call a snap election, likely in mid-April, that could mark a return to power of media magnate Silvio Berlusconi. President Giorgio Napolitano’s bid for cross-party support to reform Italy’s messy voting rules before a fresh election met stiff resistance from Berlusconi.
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/ 25 January 2008
Italy’s president will hold crisis talks with political leaders on Friday to see whether he can avoid calling snap elections after a no confidence vote forced Prime Minister Romano Prodi’s government to resign. Prodi stepped down late on Thursday after losing, as expected, the vote in the Senate.
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/ 7 December 2007
The leaders of Africa and the Europe Union (EU) gathered in Lisbon on Friday for a summit designed to forge a new era in ties, but which is in danger of being overshadowed by the presence of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. The two-day summit in the Portuguese capital is set to be dominated by issues such as trade, immigration, the environment and human rights.
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/ 3 December 2007
International observers declared on Monday that Russia’s parliamentary elections failed to meet widely accepted democratic standards, saying President Vladimir Putin and his government abused their power to favour the dominant Kremlin-backed party while opposition forces were harassed.
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/ 19 November 2007
Italy’s opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi has dumped his right-wing allies in a bid to form a new centrist force that he hopes can carry him back to power at an early election. In an interview Berlusconi explained his surprise decision to dissolve his ”House of Freedoms” alliance with Catholics, separatists and post-fascists.
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/ 12 November 2007
A policeman accidentally shot dead a soccer fan on Sunday during a confrontation between supporters of rival clubs in Italy, police said. The shooting took place after Lazio and Juventus supporters clashed at a motorway restaurant near the Tuscan city of Arezzo.
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/ 5 November 2007
Italian police on Monday arrested Salvatore lo Piccolo, who is suspected to have become the new head of the Sicilian Mafia following the 2006 arrest of the former ”boss of bosses” Bernardo Provenzano. In a morning operation, about 40 police officers surrounded and then raided a villa near the Sicilian capital, Palermo.
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/ 14 September 2007
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on Friday that his government would observe a ceasefire in Darfur after peace talks start next month, on a visit to Rome that has drawn criticism in Italy and abroad. He urged Europe to pressure rebel leaders to attend talks with Khartoum due to start on October 27 in Libya.
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/ 9 September 2007
It began with bread. And that is how it ended. Shortly after 4pm, on a sun-filled autumn day, the voices of Luciano Pavarotti and his father, the baker Fernando, ”who had a voice perhaps more beautiful than mine” filled the 12th century cathedral of Modena as they sang together Cesar Franck’s hymn, Panis Angelicus (Bread of Angels).