ROME — Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has taken his claim that he is being persecuted by leftist judges to the G-8 summit, telling a clearly perplexed President Barack Obama that in Italy they represent "almost a dictatorship."
His comments carried on Italian TV news broadcasts from the summit in Deauville, France, set off a barrage of criticism Friday from Italian magistrates and his political opponents. Italians are used to such statements from Berlusconi, but Obama seemed surprised when Berlusconi approached him and said through an interpreter that his government has proposed a judicial reform because "we have almost a dictatorship of leftist judges."
Berlusconi is currently a defendant in four cases, three related to his business interests and one on charges of paying for sex with an underage teen. He denies wrongdoing.
Although recent opinion polls indicate his popularity has started to sag, the 74-year-old media mogul seems intent on confounding predictions that his long political run might be nearing an end.
"I won't abandon the field of politics until there is a justice system in Italy that is fair and judges who judge according to merit and not according to whether the defendant is friend or foe," Berlusconi told reporters at a closing G-8 news conference.
In Milan, Berlusconi 's father was chief of Banca Rasini, a bank which was later closed because of its links to the mafia. Thanks to still misterious fundings, Berlusconi became a big building contractor . In the 80's, Berlusconi was a member of an illegal masonic lodge called P2 (Propaganda 2). which controlled the Italian secret service, the armed forces and the biggest newspaper, Corriere della sera. P2 wanted to subvert the Italian constitution: among their aims, judiciary control and a new, powerful tv network. Thanks to corrupt premier Bettino Craxi, Berlusconi 's new tv network got the national broadcast permission. (Craxi got 21 billions lire for his services from Berlusconi.) When a big payola scandal ("Tangentopoli") swept away the old political parties, Berlusconi started his own political party, a right-wing one. Thanks to a corrupt judge, Berlusconi then got the biggest italian publishing house, Mondadori. Now Berlusconi owns/controls all the big tv networks in Italy. Thanks to his political power, he got from the Parliament about 20 laws which blocked many trials against him. His biggest fears now? The Mondadori case trial (he has to give back 750 billions euros) and the one on charges of paying for sex with an underage teen. That's why he wants to control the judicial power. And he bothers Obama, who clearly doesn't give a damn
So, he's come and gone. After India in November last year, and Brazil just last March, this week it was the turn of the United Kingdom to have the excitement of a Barack Obama visit. We may have had the glamour of white tie and tails and diamond tiaras at a state banquet in Buckingham Palace, and the novelty of a US President and UK Prime Minister flipping burgers at a barbecue for service personnel in the garden of 10 Downing Street, and Mr Obama may have made history by addressing the combined Houses of Parliament in the mediaeval magnificence of Westminster Hall. But for me the most endearing moment came earlier in the week, in Ireland, when he visited the little village of Moneygall, between Dublin and Limerick, the birthplace of his Irish ancestors.
Ireland had been already in the news in the UK in the previous week, of course, because of another first, historical visit, that of Her Britannic Majesty, the Queen. There were congratulations on the part of commentators all around on the burying of ancient grievances, and general extolling of the renewed goodwill and friendship between the UK and the only other European country with which it shares a language and a land border. And to confound those who would attempt to portray Her Most Gracious Majesty as the foreign ruler over a portion of territory rightfully in the island of Ireland, pundits were quick to point out that the Queen is directly descended not only from such excellent Gaelic families as the O'Brien and O'Neill, but also from that almost legendary Irish hero, the 11th-century High King of Ireland, Brian Boru.
Accounts of Mr Obama's trip down memory lane in Moneygall spoke of equal success and bonhomie, despite reports in The Guardian newspaper of the Garda (the Irish police force) insisting on security arrangements which involved escorting the locals even to milking their cows. The villagers were happy to declare, "He's a fine looking fella, you know," and to sing to the theme of "There's no-one as Irish as Barack Obama." (The limitation of a written blog is that here you have to provide that charming Irish brogue yourself.) And according once again to The Guardian, Mr Obama reciprocated with wit worthy of someone who might have kissed the Blarney stone: "My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall O'bamas," the President said. "I've come home to find the apostrophe that we lost somewhere along the way."
I am not overly enthused about Barack Obama's policies or politics, even though I recognise his gifts as an orator, and I find his having been elected to what is routinely described as 'the most powerful office in the world' a tribute not so much to him as to the American people who put him there, and to the vitality, whatever its other flaws, of American democracy. What his Moneygall escapade wonderfully demonstrates, though, is this: That the man celebrated and admired as the first African-American President of the United States should be able to gleefully acknowledge his Irish roots, with the delighted acquiescence of the Irish and of others, must be proof that ethnicity is a label of convenience that can confuse as much as it explains, that can unite as much as it separates.
You would expect an energetic defence of Homo multiculturalis, naturally, from somebody who has already argued that the future is brown. But, really, if there is one wonderful thing that genetic research has thrown up in the last decades, it is that for every single one of us, the past was, at some point, black.
We all came out of Africa. The whole of humanity currently populating Europe, Asia, Australia and the Pacific Islands, North and South America is descended from a small group of people, a few thousand at most, who left Africa and crossed the Red Sea to Central Asia between 125,000 and 60,000 years ago. Over time they spread east and north: to India and South Asia first, then to Australia and Europe. By around 12,000 years ago those who had settled in Europe had developed lighter skins to compensate for the lack of sunlight, and Homo sapiens had reached the Americas. We are all their descendants today, nearly seven billion of us distantly related cousins, straddling the Earth.For another thing that genetic research has found is an Adam and an Eve; not a first couple of humans in the sense that Bible fundamentalists would like, but a man and a woman whose genetic inheritance we share; our common forebears; and they are both Africans. 'Y-chromosomal Adam' lived 60,000 years ago; he is so called because all men alive today have inherited their 'Y' chromosome, the genetic bit that makes them male, from him. 'Mitochondrial Eve' lived 150,000 years ago; everybody alive today has mitochondria inherited from her.
(Mitochondria are little organisms in your cells that produce energy from the oxygen you breathe. They are passed on to you from your mother only. George Lucas was inspired by discoveries in mitochondrial biology to come up with the 'midiclorians' which give the Jedi their sensitivity to the Force. Which suggests an interesting plot twist for Star Wars The Next Generation: since Luke's exceptional strength in the Force could only come from Padmé Amidala ... was she a hidden Jedi ?!?)
But back to Barack Obama, our prototype Irish-African, and to those shared ancestors with Elizabeth II. For other pundits, taking up the Brian Boru connection, remarked that it is something that everyone in Ireland can claim; so we can presume the President and the Queen to be related to some degree, through that great-great-great-grandfather of his who, like many others, left for America at the time of the Irish Potato Famine. Surely it cannot take much more for those who would make an issue out of race, or colour of skin, or place of birth, to realise that the exercise can be repeated for all; that it is futile to try to divide the world into 'us' and 'them' when we are all linked together, across history and geography, across time and space. In his speech in Westminster Hall, Mr Obama struck an important and much-needed note for the acceptance of diversity, and crucially, for the immigration-averse in Britain and in his own native country, for the acceptance of newcomers, by describing how it had made it possible "for the grandson of a Kenyan who served as a cook in the British Army to stand before you as President of the United States." It is also what makes it possible for a Brazilian-born Belgian to be blogging in English for The Times of India.
The quality of the video is woeful but I’m not sure how long the original will stay on the RTE site, so I thought I better record it – see the much better version
President Obama arrives at the White House after a six-day, four-nation trip across Europe
President Obama boards Air Force One at the airport in Warsaw en route to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland
President Barack Obama lights a candle as he visits the memorial to the victims of the Smolensk plane crash at the Field Cathedral of the Polish Military in Warsaw, May 28
***
President Obama and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk shake hands at a joint news conference at the Chancellery Building in Warsaw
***
From Bobfr
Dear Mr President,
Welcome home and thank you for the enormous achievement your trip to Ireland, UK and Europe represents.
You have won the hearts and minds of countless individuals; you have warmed them with the generosity of your spirit; and, you have restored respect for America – no small task given the vast damage GW Bush and his Administration did to our values and our reputation as a Nation of Laws and one that respects the life of every person.
To the Future!
All times Eastern
3:55 AM The President attends a U.S. Embassy meet and greet
4:30 AM Participates in an arrival ceremony
4:35 AM Holds a bilateral meeting with President Komorowski of Poland
5:25 AM Makes a statement to the press with President Komorowski
5:50 AM Participates in a discussion on democracy with President Komorowski
6:40 AM Participates in an arrival ceremony at the Chancellery
6:55 AM Holds a working lunch with Prime Minister Tusk of Poland
8:10 AM Holds a joint press conference with PM Tusk
9:15 AM Visits the memorial to the victims of the Smolensk plane crash
9:55 AM Departs Warsaw
6:50 PM Arrives at Andrews Air Force Base
7:05 PM Arrives at the White House
****
USA Today: President Obama, who returns from a five-day European trip on Saturday, heads to Joplin, Mo., on Sunday to tour the damage from last week’s devastating tornadoes.
He’ll also make brief remarks at a memorial service for those who died and thank first responders who have been searching for survivors and consoling victims. He and FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate also will meet with state and local officials to discuss the federal-state response to the disaster.
The service will be held at 2 p.m. CT at the Taylor Performing Arts Center at Missouri Southern State University.
All times Eastern
3:55 AM The President attends a U.S. Embassy meet and greet
4:30 AM Participates in an arrival ceremony
4:35 AM Holds a bilateral meeting with President Komorowski of Poland
5:25 AM Makes a statement to the press with President Komorowski
5:50 AM Participates in a discussion on democracy with President Komorowski
6:40 AM Participates in an arrival ceremony at the Chancellery
6:55 AM Holds a working lunch with Prime Minister Tusk of Poland
8:10 AM Holds a joint press conference with PM Tusk
9:15 AM Visits the memorial to the victims of the Smolensk plane crash
9:55 AM Departs Warsaw
6:50 PM Arrives at Andrews Air Force Base
7:05 PM Arrives at the White House
****
USA Today: President Obama, who returns from a five-day European trip on Saturday, heads to Joplin, Mo., on Sunday to tour the damage from last week’s devastating tornadoes.
He’ll also make brief remarks at a memorial service for those who died and thank first responders who have been searching for survivors and consoling victims. He and FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate also will meet with state and local officials to discuss the federal-state response to the disaster.
The service will be held at 2 p.m. CT at the Taylor Performing Arts Center at Missouri Southern State University.
27
May
11
berlusconi …. bonkers
I have only two words of Italian – Paolo Maldini – so I have no clue what’s been said in this video. 
But read below, and watch the ‘WTF’ body language of the President!
Reuters: Silvio Berlusconi’s latest international gaffe, when he complained to a bemused President Barack Obama about his problems with magistrates, was met with mockery, embarrassment and scorn at home on Friday.
Obama looked baffled when television cameras picked up the Italian prime minister buttonholing him at a Group of Eight meeting in France and treating him to one of his trade mark tirades about magistrates who have hauled him into court for four concurrent trials.
Microphones picked up Berlusconi telling Obama during a pause in the G8 meeting: “We have presented a justice reform that is fundamental to us. In Italy we have almost a dictatorship of leftist judges.”
“The prime minister has clearly lost his head,” said left-leaning La Repubblica newspaper in a front page editorial.
Pierluigi Bersani, leader of the largest opposition party, quipped that Berlusconi was probably asking Obama for NATO military action against the judges…..
(Berlusconi, 74, is currently on trial for having sex with an underage prostitute)
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