Talk:Silvio Berlusconi/Archive 1

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POV categories

I recommend that editors refrain from adding obvious POV categories like "italian fraudster" and "italian tax evaders". You will be reverted. T. trichiura Infect me 19:22, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

If the categories are "POV", then they should be deleted. As they exist, they are clearly appropriate to this article, as per the available sources. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:48, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

According to Italian penal theory, the accused retains the presumption of innocence until definitive conviction, meaning not just the appeal (which is different from Anglo-American appeals; it's really a second trial) but also the Court of Cassation. Of course sometimes they serve years in prison in the meantime (ask Amanda Knox, although three of her years wound up being for something else), but still, that's the theory. --Trovatore (talk) 20:04, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Trovatore has it exactly -- this is the reason I gave in my edit summary as well. T. trichiura Infect me 20:07, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I have read the relevant sources as people asked me to, and I do not see the substantial distinction between continental European and Anglo-American legal systems which justifies such a fundamental distinction between how we handle categories like this on Wikipedia. This isn't POV, it's reflecting the decision of the Italian court. We have added relevant categories to some people with convictions, which they are appealing against and the appeals have not quite been exhausted e.g. Tommy Sheridan. PatGallacher (talk) 20:19, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

If you read the sources, I am sure you must have read that my claims about the presumption of innocence are accurate, right? Are you saying that that does not make a difference? --Trovatore (talk) 19:27, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

See above for relevant discussion, T. trichiura Infect me 20:20, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I have already read what people wrote, would people please have the courtesy to read what I wrote. Can people please provide sources on the Italian legal system. PatGallacher (talk) 20:25, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I'll look for english source (although several of the sources in the article already indicate this, so it's not necessary), but you need to stop re-adding those tags while the discussion is ongoing here. Wait for consensus. T. trichiura Infect me 20:37, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I have had a look at Talk:Amanda Knox and Italian Code of Criminal Procedure, some of it is interesting, but could people point me at the appropriate issues. PatGallacher (talk) 20:31, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I too have had a look, and I see nothing there to support the strange contention that a conviction is not a conviction.

The categories should be restored. Please note that a category is not a "tag"; per WP:CAT it is a navigational device. Objections to categorising Berlusconi according to his conviction carry little weight if the objectors mistakenly think that they are tags. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:18, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

No, this kind of reading of the situation is completely wrong and your comments add nothing to the discussion. It doesn't matter if people here are calling it a "tag" or "a cat", but rather that it's totally inaccurate according to Italian legal theory. Please stop wikilawyering and leave the semantics behind--we want a good article for the encyclopedia. T. trichiura Infect me 21:32, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Trichuria, assertions such as "your comments add nothing to the discussion" are nothing but hot air.

What we need are references to support your claim. Without those refs, there is no resaon to remove the categories. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:04, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't support such cats, labeling cats at all, but opposes should understand that - readers never ever get to even get to the middle of an article never mind the cats at the bottom - with such a notable person as this - no readers come to the article via the cat list so adding the cats has no value at all - ......improve the article - its rambling and not very good - regards - Youreallycan 21:26, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I see we also have a category "Italian politicians convicted of crimes". PatGallacher (talk) 22:06, 26 October 2012 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Italian_politicians_convicted_of_crimes

Refs in supporting categorising Berlusconi as a convicted criminal

• The Guardian: In his ruling, judge Edoardo D'Avossa, wrote that Berlusconi possessed a "natural capacity to commit crime, as shown by his pursuit of the criminal plan."
• BBC: Mr Berlusconi is not the first Italian prime minister to be convicted of a crime
• New York Times: A court in Milan convicted former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, of tax fraud on Friday and sentenced him to four years in prison. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:30, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
• Berlusconi is a convicted criminal, period. The cats apply, as does WikiProject Criminal Biography, the template of which I have just added to this talkpage. I got here, by the way, via the ITN feature on our Main page. Jusdafax 15:28, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, from an Associated Press story issued today: "The sentence isn't definitive until all appeals are exhausted, and Berlusconi's lawyers vowed to appeal. He remains free and is unlikely to serve jail time given his age and the possibility that the statute of limitations may expire before the two levels of appeals are completed." HammerFilmFan (talk) 21:14, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

According to those argumentation a person is a criminal.... BEACUSE NEWSPAPARS SAY IT, and not because it has been defined a such by the legal system into which the crinme is accomplished.

Thta's plainly wrong (in scientific sense) since the newspaper columnist CAN be wrong themselves.

The Italian constitution tells explicitly that the "presunction of inncocence" apply until the entire process has come to the end. And a "process" (always for the Italian legal system -that it is not a "theory": it is just what it is: a legal system independent from the US ot UK ones, who spokes about an "italian legal theory" was simply making wrong presumptions: they are just laws. Nothing no more than laws, valid under a a well defined territory) is made by various "trials". The fact that one of then ended cannot be used to qualify a person as "convicted criminal" until the "conviction" had become "judged" (and it happens where no appeal is required after a given number of days, otherwise it will not happen until all the trials ended)

Requiring "sources" is simply a non sense: the Italian constitution (as well as the entire penal and civil codes) can be downloaded from the institutional sites.If it is not in English language, that's your problem, not ours or Wikipedia problems, being Italy a sovrain state with its own language, and not an US or UK colony.

Claiming a person as "convicted criminal" without the conviction is claimed as "judged" is itself a criminal offense for that same system. that's way every attempt to call a person that way *before the right time* will be reverted. Is it that difficult to understand this very simple concept?

I think that page Silvio Berlusconi underage prostitution charges is unappropriate for an encyclopedia as wikipedia... it is not an storical fact. By the way the write "On June 24, 2013, Berlusconi was found guilty of paying an underage prostitute for sex, and of abusing his powers in an ensuing cover up. He was sentenced to seven years in jail, and banned from public office for life. He is certain to appeal, and the sentence will not be enforced until the result of the trial is confirmed at appeal.[15][16]" in the principal page of the voice Silvio Berlusconi should be delated because the italian law (civil law) is different by the common law and there are more than one steaps of judice determination. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Truthresearcher2013 (talk • contribs) 17:36, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

BLPN

• - Wikipedia:BLPN#Silvio_Berlusconi#

This has now been raised at the BLP noticeboard, see WP:BLPN. PatGallacher (talk) 21:30, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Oppose - Totally unnecessary provocation. T. trichiura Infect me 21:43, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

What exactly is being provoked? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:04, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I wonder that. but with his track record, you would think this would just be something minor compared. so is it still BLP? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cara22 (talk • contribs) 05:29, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

The arrested scientists

Im not sure if this is appropriate so I decided to ask first. Considering the recent conviction of the scientists over the earthquake, would it be useful to add a comparison section, just to make note of the seeming imbalance of legal issues involving them? Because its a pretty hard to ignore issue (that is, scientists being sentenced to six years for not predicting an earthquake, vs. someone commiting an actual crime.) Of course, any section would be fully sourced.

If this isn't the right place for such a thing, that's fine too. I just don't want to bother looking for those sources until I know. 74.132.249.206 (talk) 09:54, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Unless there are published sources making that sort of comparison, the answer is no. To see why, have a look at WP:OR. Thanks for the suggestion, but I doubt this is going anywhere. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 12:39, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

The phrase "for not predicting an earthquake" here above, is inaccurate (and false in logical terms): they have been sentenced for "predicting that there was no earthquake" (in other word, the sentence states that they did a prediction (although negative), in a context where no predictions are possible). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.117.184.32 (talk) 21:58, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Also, the tile is misleading: No one had been arrested. It was just a 1st grade sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.117.184.32 (talk) 22:02, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Blunder: Earthquake victims should consider it "camping"

A German WDR radio journalist who said he was present during Berlusconi's speech to the earthquake victims remarked in a radio show that Berlusconi's "camping weekend" quote was taken out of contex by the media. When Berlusconis said that, he was expressly and specifically adressing the children among the victims in an attempt to cheer them up. Said journalist was rather critical of Berlusconi otherwise, but in this particular instance the said Berlusconi was treated unfairly. I think the article should include this clarification, but it's apparently protected at this time. 87.164.179.46 (talk) 14:55, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Italian Lire to euros

the following statement "paid 100,000 Italian liras (approximately equivalent to 300 euros today) as an entry fee" is incorrect since 1€ is 1936,27 Italian Lire, and therefore 100,000 Lire are 51.65€, and not 300€ as stated above

eugenio — Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.83.109.21 (talk) 11:03, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Addendum: as there is no conversion between euros and Lire dating back to 1978 maybe it would make more sense to quote it in US Dollars. on 31 December 1978 for example 100,000 ITL-Italy were worth 120.3 USD-United States [US dollar / $] at a Rate of 1 ITL=0.001203 USD

eugenio — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.190.236.2 (talk) 13:51, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi there "eugenio",

thanks for contributing to Wikipedia with your comments.

Please compare the Foreign currency denominated account article. According to it (I quote):

"(...) The origin of the Eurocurrency market can be traced back to the 1950s and early 1960s, when the former Soviet Union and Soviet-bloc countries sold gold and commodities to raise hard currency. Because of anti-Soviet sentiment, these Communist countries were afraid of depositing their U.S. Dollar in U.S. Bank for fear that the deposits could be frozen or taken. Instead they deposited their dollars in a French bank whose telex address was EURO-BANK. Since that time, dollar deposits outside the U.S. have been called Eurodollar and banks accepting Eurocurrency deposits have been called Eurobanks (...)".

Okay, okay... there is a ^{[[citation needed]]} template at the end... but this should make us wonder about your statement:

"(...) there is no conversion between euros and Lire dating back to 1978 maybe it would make more sense to quote it in US Dollars. (...)".

Huh?

  M aurice   Carbonaro 09:57, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I think eugenio has a point here: There was no Euro in 1978, so there is not likely to be any sourceable conversion per se. You could take the 1978 exchange rate with the US dollar, apply a correction for inflation to 2013, and then convert that back to 2013 Euros, but errors are accumulating at every step. On the other hand, a figure in 1978 dollars is not going to be that intuitive to most readers, so there are arguments on both sides. --Trovatore (talk) 21:17, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

References

Honours and awards

Among "Honours and awards" there is one from "House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies". But that house, and Two Sicilies Kingdom is no more a country since 1860! Instead it seems missing the "Distinguished Statesman award" conferred by the jewish US-based "Anti-Defamation League" in 2003. On the Memory Day, commemoring Shoah victims, in january 2013, Berlusconi was sympathetic with fascist regime: [1]. Mmm, well... --147.162.48.1 (talk) 11:40, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Good point 147.162.48.1 (talk) about the "Honours and awards" House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies: Knight Grand Cross of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George. Well the adjective "borbonico" has still a double meaning in Italy for "out of date": who knows, maybe it's a title of honor that has "endochronic properties" just like "resublimated Thiotimoline". (please note the citation needed template).   M aurice   Carbonaro  18:55, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Image labelled "Berlusconi with the U.S. President George W. Bush at the White House" does not seem to be an image of Berlusconi(not sure who it is, but it is not him).JustTheOneTime (talk) 17:01, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

National Alliance

In the first part of the article, National Alliance is appealed as "neo-fascist" (while this word is linked to the "post-fascist" page). In the following part of the article, National Alliance is appealed as "post-fascist". I'm asking to correct the first word from "neo-fascist" to "post-fascist". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.167.204.14 (talk) 08:04, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Neither seem appropriate given that the Wikipedia article on the National Alliance (Italy) describes them as simply "conservative". There is one source in that article that describes them as "post-fascist". It seems rather a failure of neutral point of view for Wikipedia to refer to them as either "neo-fascist" or "post-fascist" given the extremely negative implication of both labels. I've removed both descriptors of the National Alliance. If people want to know about the ideology of the National Alliance, they can click through to the article and read it rather than us attempting to summarise it into a reductive or possibly incorrect label. —Tom Morris (talk) 08:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

The first I recall hearing this term post-fascista, it was used by Fini himself, to describe himself. However, as he used it, it was fairly meaningless — it didn't say really anything at all about his policy views at the current time. Rather, it was in the context of an assertion (at least as I interpreted it) that fascism was a creature of its time, and that it is not meaningful to talk about it in the context of today's debates.

So people who are tempted to describe AN as "post-fascist" should probably be aware that they may be inadvertently suggesting that there is no such thing as contemporary fascism, a proposition they may not agree with. On the other hand, calling it "neo-fascist" seems excessive, particularly given that some people are likely to hear it as "neo-Nazi", which I think any informed neutral observer would agree that AN is not.

On the third hand, there probably does need to be some acknowledgment of AN's (at least historical) connection to the side that thought there were some pretty good things about the PNF. I don't know what form that should take; both "neo-fascist" and "post-fascist" seem wrong, but "conservative" doesn't really convey that point. --Trovatore (talk) 08:59, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

De facto, AN was a conservative party in policies, not a neo-fascist one, and as correctly pointed above, "post-fascist" makes little sense. Here unfortunately I can only find snippets, but one clearly quotes a book saying "In Fiuggi has born a party conservative, even if syncretic, on the cultural level, and liberal, even if with a strong social vocation, on the economic level". However this was a metamorphosis that took some time: in 1994, Piero Ignazi still describes it as a mere electoral acronym, indistinguishable from the old MSI: [2]. --Cyclopia^talk 09:56, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Move proposal for connected article

See Talk:Silvio Berlusconi underage prostitution charges#RM. Please reply there. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:58, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

"and convicted criminal"?

Surely it's time to add "and convicted criminal" to the first para of the intro? His conviction has been upheld by the Court of Cassation and there's no further appeal. Malick78 (talk) 09:51, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Isn't there a more precise term? Fraudster maybe? Iluvatar85 (talk) 16:46, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Either "fraudster" or "convicted criminal" would do now. If the sentence for "exploitation of underage prostitution" will also be upheld, "fraudster" will not be enough --Purple74 (talk) 12:14, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Done. I went for a rather specific "tax evader", I hope it's not deemed too euphemistical. --Nemo 13:58, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Is he the first Italian Prime Minister to be arrested since Mussolini?

I assume you mean former PM: no he isn't, Arnaldo Forlani being the most relevant precedent recalled (implicitly) by Giorgio Napolitano (he served a couple years of social services in early 1990s). [3] --Nemo 15:52, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Reader feedback: This article needs some more...

93.56.98.201 posted this comment on 2 February 2013 (view all feedback).

This article needs some more truth. Even people who hate Berlusconi should have enough honesty to at least report facts correctly and not hide facts that are unpleasant for them. For instance, anti-mafia public prosecutor Grasso recently praised the last Berlusconi government for its anti-mafia laws. Too unpleasant to be reported?

Any thoughts?

Trinitresque (talk) 17:54, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

The fact that that praise was given does not itself justify its inclusion into this article. If we added every praise a subject receives to each article, we might end up with articles many times their current lengths. There should be a separate reason why something like this merits inclusion in my opinion. Trinitresque (talk) 17:54, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Giunta delle elezioni e delle immunità parlamentari

On [4], I'd ask the user to provide better sources for the claim. In this very moment the committee is discussing 3 "pregiudiziali" which would exclude any application of the "Severino law". I suspect the editor is confusing the Severino law decadence with the public offices ban, which is not yet active because its length needs to be recalculated by the court after it was canceled by the Court of Cassation. Nemo 16:39, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Yep, you are correct. Just checked the story. I relied on a normally well respected Danish source, who had mixed it up. Indeed the Senate Committee right now only focus on application of the "Severino law". So we have two paths potentially leading to a Senate expulsion: "Severino law" and "Court ruling". As I have understood the situation, the supreme court already decided to grant a public office ban for Berlusconi, but returned the duration question (if it should be either 3 or 5 years) for the lower court to judge. I suspect, that even if the Senate committee decides not to expel Berlusconi based on the Severino law, they will still have to expel him (one way or the other) based on the court ruling. I look forward to learn how it all unfolds. Danish Expert (talk) 05:53, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

On a sidenote: Cesare_Previti is an excellent precedent case to observe how a similar public office expulsion was conducted in 2007. The Italian supreme court had given him a lifetime ban from holding public office on 4 May 2006, but he did no withdraw as a deputy, and appealed the supreme courts decision to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The house then voted to expel him on 31 July 2007 (by a similar voting process as Berlusconi now face). And finally ECHR ruled on 19 January 2010, that his appeal was declared inadmissible. The interesting point to note, is that it took ECHR 3.5 years to rule his appeal was inadmissible - and that the house did not wait to receive the ECHR decision before voting to expel him. With that in mind, I don't think Berlusconi will succeed by his current attempt, to sway the Senate committee to postpone taking any decision until after his appeal has been heard by ECHR. Danish Expert (talk) 07:34, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I may be confused and I've not checked so don't trust me, but the public offices ban applies (automatically) only at the next election; at a minimum it needs to be "ratified" by the same Giunta (committee) to cause a decadence. At the same time there is also a third line of decadence in the same Giunta, i.e. that he didn't have the right to stand as a candidate in the first place because of a 1954 law on holders of public contracts (TV). So there will be a series or court rulings and votes by the committee and the full Senate before this is over. I'm not sure if you want to detail all this somewhere; I personally don't and I'd just leave some generic language till the events unfold. --Nemo 11:14, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree we should not list full details about all the Senate committee votes in advance. It is better we instead await the outcome, before writing about it in full detail. Still, the framework of what is going on in the Senate committee and the political ramifications, is something that remain interesting shortly to report, so I just added a short paragraph for this purpose. When the final outcome of the Senate deliberations are known, I of course accept the paragraph can be cooked down and rewritten only to reflect the main conclusions. Danish Expert (talk) 14:12, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Aged picture of Silvio Berlusconi

The Berlusconi's front picture of the article is aged (2010). I propose to update it. 46.255.85.34 (talk) 09:10, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Sadly he no longer is in office so there are less official photos nowadays and we don't have many on Commons (additionally, Flickr is down now and Google finds nothing). I found only two suitable options (to be cropped), see right side. Suggestions? --Nemo 11:17, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Nick.mon reverted the update [5], so ask him. --Nemo 18:10, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Article too long?

RJFF has tagged the article as being too long with a need of subarticle spinoff or condensing. Nick.mon removed the tag, and I agree with him that the tag is not needed. The article might contain certain chapters with a need to be condensed, but then I think you should add "too long chapter" tags for each of those chapters, rather than tag the article as being too long in general. I also think, that a long article with many summary chapters (as we already have now), is actually something most readers will expect to be presented to in Berlusconi's case, when considering he has been a top politician for 25 years, implicated in almost 30 court cases, and inarguably is one of the most important business people in Italy. Danish Expert (talk) 04:24, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes I agree with you, all the article about political leaders all over the world are very long, and I don't know why, the one of Berlusconi must be divided into many little articles. And the current article is well divided into chapter and I think that it is very clear. -- Nick.mon (talk) 12:40, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Just removed the "too long article" template posted by RJFF for the second time. See my previous reply above for argumentation. To move the debate further ahead, I still invite RJFF to use the {{Very long|section|date=October 2013}} tag-template for each section he considers to be too long, rather than tagging the entire article as a whole. Danish Expert (talk) 16:11, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Money

I can guarantee that Berlusconi according to new surveys, has a capital of 11 billion €. Forbes does not say right.
I can not edit the page in English, I can only edit pages in Italian.--Giuseppe luci (talk) 18:22, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Please provide a source for your claim. We cannot say Forbes isn't right just on our opinions or faith assumption among users. (in Italian): Per favore forniscici una fonte per la tua affermazione. Non possiamo dire che Forbes non è corretta solo sulle nostre opinioni o su assunzioni di fiducia fra noi utenti. [Rispondi in inglese se riesci]--Nickanc (talk) 15:15, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Example of Severino Law effects on politician

I think that this fact "The latest example of this in Italy, was when the leader of the Five Star Movement, Beppe Grillo, led his party's 2013 election campaign despite being banned from public office due to a conviction over a road accident." is non correct. The Severino Law (decreto legislativo n.235 of 31 december 2012) on article 1, paragraph c) state that manslaughter (omicidio colposo in italian) is not affected. Beppe Grillo on his blog wrote [6] that he was convicted for "omicidio colposo" for a road accident at 1 year and 3 months. A more compliant example of the application of this law is the case of regional councillor Michele Iorio, [7] that was banned for 18 month. — Mauri75 (talk) 19:20, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 29 September 2013

Please change "The latest example of this in Italy, was when the leader of the Five Star Movement, Beppe Grillo, led his party's 2013 election campaign despite being banned from public office due to a conviction over a road accident." beacause is non correct. The Severino Law (decreto legislativo n.235 of 31 december 2012) on article 1, paragraph c) state that manslaughter (omicidio colposo in italian) is not affected. Beppe Grillo on his blog wrote [8] that he was convicted for "omicidio colposo" for a road accident at 1 year and 3 months. A more compliant example of the application of this law is the case of regional councillor Michele Iorio, [9] that was banned for 18 month. I suggest to change to "The first example of this in Italy, was when the councellor Angelo_Michele_Iorio has be banned from public office due to a conviction [10] Mauri75 (talk) 19:47, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Partly done: you're right, the CNN article is not accurate enough: Grillo refused to run for elections because of a rule established within his party (and not as a consequence of the Severino law). However, IMO the comparison should be made with a leader who led his party despite being banned from public office, and I just know Grillo in this situation. I changed the sentence this way:
«A similar situation occurred in March 2013, when the leader of the Five Star Movement, Beppe Grillo, convicted over a road accident in 1988, led his party's 2013 election campaign despite he couldn't run for a public office because of a rule established within his movement.»
Hope it's OK for you, — TintoMeches, 02:43, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Any difference between the two public office bans sanctioned by the Court and Severino Law?

Just want to bump a note, that after reading several articles this month, it appear there is no actual difference between the two type of public office bans existing in Italy. This Foglio article has clarified, that the only difference is that they are imposed independently by two parallel authorities. The court imposed public office ban is an "additional penalty" related solely to the arbitrated case; while the Severino law imposed public office ban is a standard penalty being activated by the "Administrative Authoraty" for persons being finally convicted of aggravated crimes. The main conclusion is, that the longest of the two imposed public office bans by effect will supersede the shortest. So in the tax evasion case, the six-year ban from the Severino law will supersede the two-year court imposed ban. While if it ends with a court imposed lifetime public office ban in the Ruby case, then this lifetime ban will supersede the shorter Severino law public office ban. For activation of both types of public office bans against active parliamentarians, the ban will only take effect from the date when the parliamentarian's house has passed the ban. Danish Expert (talk) 11:37, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Berlusconi has been expelled from the Italian Parliament

See this article from ANSA: http://www.ansa.it/web/notizie/postit/decadenza_berlusconi/2013/11/26/Speciale-Decadenza-Berlusconi_9683972.html213.215.136.158

(talk) 17:00, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Sentence doesn't make sense

Does "US" belong in this sentence? None of the references clarify if "US" belongs in the sentence. "Later, at the summit's official dinner hosted by President Giorgio Napolitano, US and Libyan leaders upset protocol by sitting next to Italian Prime Minister and G8 host Berlusconi. (According to protocol, Gaddafi should have sat three places away from Berlusconi.)[117][118][119]" (Bold added.) Raquel Baranow (talk) 06:11, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Cavaliere (Knight)

Berlusconi didn't resign from the title of Cavaliere. Firstly he "self-suspended" himself (that's different!). Secondly, he self-suspended himself not from the Title (that should be done by the President of the Republic), but just from a private association of people qith that title. He is still Cavaliere, a kind of owner a House in a luxury neighborhood leaving the association of the owners: he still owns the house. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.34.9.71 (talk) 12:06, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 April 2015

Berlusconi has founded a political party with the approval of the Cosa Nostra - The Italian Mafia.. He gave money to the Mafia for protection providing liquids useful for the development of the same mafia organization that killed Falcone and Borsellino. Has impoverished the country. He has made one of the most shameful tax fraud in Italian history (and for what has been thrown out by the Senate). Cristianizzo (talk) 14:49, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

 Not done that is a PoV not a semi-protected edit request
For a semi-protected edit, your language would have to be far more neutral and you would have to cite reliable sources - Arjayay (talk) 15:43, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

The only part of that that is POV is the word "shameful". The rest is allegations made, with supporting evidence, by many serious, mainstream investigative journalists, so of course there are reliable sources. You may be convinced by the evidence or not, but these allegations can't be ignored. If this was my blog, I'd go and search for those reliable sources I've heard in interviews etc. , but I doubt I can make the time do so for a Wikipedia article. Wikipedia is a lost cause. (That last sentence = POV:-) )

PS to be extra clear: Consider the two sentences. "He gave money to the Mafia for protection." "His fraud was SHAMEFUL." The second sentence tells us how someone feels. How they feel is not correct or incorrect, instead it is point of view. The first is not about how someone feels. It is either correct or incorrect. It is not point of view.

77.98.32.90 (talk) 22:47, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Poor language in parts of article

Particularly the #Berlusconism section contains poor language. Ideally I should just correct it right away, but ideally I should also sell my earthly possessions and live a life of virtue and I'm not doing that either. Maybe insert a note about it at top of page?

External links modified

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Angela Merkel

Looks like vandalism. EvilFreD (talk) 13:40, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Actually it's true. 151.20.1.111 (talk) 17:36, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Even if it is true it isn't encyclopedic. __209.179.86.123 (talk) 17:57, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

A couple of corrections needed

Currently at the end of Family background and personal life is this sentence: "In May 2009, Lario announced that she was to file for divorce." Since that's six years ago, I'm going to go out on a limb and declare that is way out of date. Especially since the very next sentence (in a new paragraph?) continues with, "On 28 December 2012, Berlusconi was ordered to pay his ex-wife Veronica Lario $48 million a year in a divorce settlement that was filed Christmas Day, and he will keep the $100 million house they live in with their three children." First off, was it really filed on Christmas Day - a holiday? The statement also implies that he and the now ex-wife will continue to live together. That doesn't sound right. And while whoever is correcting this, delete the earlier sentence, "By this time, Berlusconi was a well-known entrepreneur, and his wedding was a notable social event. One of his best men was Bettino Craxi, a former prime minister and leader of the Italian Socialist Party." It shouldn't be there and just looks silly. Who writes this stuff?

Also, In the photo of Berlusconi addressing the US Congress, the other people should also be identified. From left, it should read Vice President Dick Cheney and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert. __209.179.86.123 (talk) 17:55, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 February 2016

What is his middle name? "Word is(KKDavid CIA)he used Alfred for theft including the fake English accent. Also the ^Why can't we call him Mussolini^ TV broadcast by _______ Also the Chloeduet are you a real person on the new account page was really obese bill Alfred cute ;-)

Impose Cures Obese-Riches (talk) 21:59, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Cannolis (talk) 22:32, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

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Longest term after Mussolini and Giolitti

@KevinOKeeffe: with regard to this edit, I suppose I can let it rest as long as the information about being the third-longest in service is still there, and linked to the full list, so the facts are still there; but I want to put it on record that this strikes me as the sort of PC-for-PC's-sake "NPOV" rather than true WP:NPOV. Nobody was comparing Berlusconi's actions to Mussolini's (or for that matter, Giolitti's), but the article merely stated that Berlusconi had the longest term for a prime minister after those two very prominent historical figures. Besides, you argue in your edit summary that there is no mention of Giolitti at the start of Mussolini's article; well, that's true, but aside from that not meaning much, the lede of the Mussolini article does say "he became the youngest Prime Minister in Italian history until the appointment of Matteo Renzi in February 2014": shall we consider that a POV-slur against Renzi? Where does it end? At no person's article ever mentioning another person if it is a slut to compare those two people in any respect (even benign ones like age or length in service) in some editors' minds? LjL (talk) 12:08, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

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50th Prime Minister

I would like to ask Checco and Autospark (who are among the most active users in the articles regarding Italian politics) if it isn't better to keep the link to the List of Prime Ministers of Italy in the infobox. Because Nikkimaria edited all the articles regarding Italian PMs, deleting the links to the list, writing, for example, "50th Prime Minister of Italy" and not "50th Prime Minister of Italy" as we used for years. -- Nick.mon (talk) 16:59, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

That formatting is deprecated. See the documentation for Template:Infobox officeholder as well as the Manual of Style for linking. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:40, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Underage crimes should be in intro

Maybe him being charged with abusing his power and with patronizing an underage prostitute should be in the intro even though his conviction was sadly, eventually over turned

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Sentence in the first section

This sentence in the first section sounds pretty nNPOV to me: "Berlusconi is famous for his populist political style and brash, overbearing personality. In his long-time tenure, he was often accused of being an authoritarian leader and a strongman". I have removed the third reference since it doesn't state anything about it, while the other two are absolutely not enough to support the whole paragraph. The former is a blog hosted on a (relatively minor) newspaper website (with well known political positions), while the latter refers to an half sentence said by a member of the Democratic Party --Tia solzago (talk) 22:38, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Since no one replied, I have removed the sentence --Tia solzago (talk) 22:04, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

You waited less than a week, you should have tagged it instead. I reinstated the sentence because they do appear to be reliable and it would be hard to argue that they're wrong (is he not a populist?). I do agree better sources should be used though. Prinsgezinde (talk) 21:41, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

We can discuss about the "populist political style" (even if "populist" is an adjective that in Italy is currently used for other parties), but the second sentence needs more and better (i.e. NPOV) sources now. I don't know if you understand Italian and can read the references present, but as I wrote above they are inadequate. If Berlusconi must be classified as an authoritarian leader and be put in the same list as, for example, Putin or Erdogan, it should not be a difficult task to find them, otherwise the sentence must be reformulated or removed --Tia solzago (talk) 13:41, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

References

NPOV again

This article is now considerably changed from some time ago. Can someone point out any specific NPOV problems? I think it's now at the level where critics of the page have to be quite specific about what is wrong if they want to sustain the POV argument. I don't think it's completely brilliant yet, but at least what is missing (some policy aspects) is now clear. So guys what's wrong with it now?Azikala 16:49, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

My post dated 19 Jul is prior to the last edit. I agree that the article is now more balanced and more informative, even if, in my opinion, the emphasis given to the legal investigations is still excessive, particularly if compared with articles of other politicians. Marius 06:11, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for that.. It seems that work on this article was worthwhile. Some sections are still marked as stubs (his policy section, for example). If these are expanded then the Legal section will shrink relatively and you will be happier. I will remove the NPOV notice tonight some time after 1800 UTC today (barrning other comments) Azikala 06:57, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

To be clarified

Berlusconi’s brother ad some managers of his television’s crimes of curruption where instead validated.

I read this sentence as I was making my first attempt at making the new "opposite view" secions more NPOV and could not correct it or erase it since I could not understand exactely what it was meant to say. Can anyone give me a hypothetical rewrite of this sentence? Also, don't you think that the title "Another point of view" is, in itself, contradictory since it is meant to give the article a NEUTRAL point of view, and not the views of the two partisan sides? Should we not merge the "Criticism" and "Another point of view" sections and make it a balanced look at the public opinion about the said character? Thanks for your input. --Liberlogos 03:33, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

His official tax returns declare far less

this appears to be a misunderstanding. His tax returns declare 9-12 million income depending on the year according to what I've found on the internet. This is not related to his fixed assets of $10 Billion. Unless I can find a thing to back this up or someone else can provide it I plan to delete this statement.

deleted

private TV network (Fininvest, now Mediaset)

According to internet sources, Finivest is his investment company and still exists. This statement may be wrong. I don't know exact details so I won't delete it yet.

fixed Azikala 16:49, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The Casa delle Libertà was routed in the 2003 local elections

Should probably read something like, alongside many other governments in Europe, Casa delle Libertà has done badly in the recent elections, first the local and then European elections. "Forza Italia", however has had such a very marked reduction in support to below 20% which has lead to it's loss of position in the coalition.

fixed Azikala 16:49, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

In the meantime a series of problems in the running of the state television channels

is completely non specific and should state what it means by "problems" (the orignal word was "hiccups")

deleted, since I couldn't find a good specific reference.Azikala 16:49, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Some speculate that this is a reason for attacks by journalists allegedly close to such parties.

who alledges that the journalists are close to the Communists? What "attacks" have they made

partly balanced out by reference also to right wing press. still needs specifics, but at least it isn't terribly POV.

Azikala 23:58, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Looks factually based to me

I for one am in disagreement. All the circumstances quoted in the criticism section have factual basis (sometimes video evidence, viz. the Schulz incident). Concerned parties can insert equally factually based positives about Mr. Berlusconi's tenure (assuming they can find them).

I must also note that the the concept that the Italian Government "imposes" lagislation is nowhere to be found in the article text (which actually uses words such as "presented" and "pushed through").

Alien_Life_form July 7, 2004

Correct, but please look the Page History and check the content of the article before my post in this discussion page. For instance Revision as of 01.37, 4 Jun 2004 the phrase ' the Italian Parliament' was replaced by 'his government majority'. Consider also the tenor of the other statements that were introduced before the page was reverted as considered POV.

Again, one thing is a fair political debate in which everyone can tell his own opinion, something else is the acrimony against a political 'enemy'. I don't like Mr.Berlusconi very much but I respect the vote of my fellow citizens.

And I like democracy. I hope that the (anonymous) Berlusconi's criticizers like it as well.

Regards, Mario_

Marius 19:05, 7 Jul 2004

I am also in favour of democracy, I am not anonymous, but I have had comments deleted by anonymous persons:-) Berlusconi **is** a very contrversial person, and he puts a lot of effort into promoting his image, it is all part of his style. It would be evidently wrong to ignore this controversy, just as it would be wrong to say that any critisism of him is partisan. It would be POV to say that his economic policy has flopped without adding in the figures to back it up, but it is not POV to highlight eg. his long legal battles which started before his entry into politics, they are simple facts whose dates back themselves up.

At the end of the day Democracy depends on free speech, and much critiscism of Berlusconi revolves around the fact that he appears to have forgoton this. I think the editing of this page represents Berlusconis approach to the press and media in general, any critisicm is partisan and biased and therefore should be eliminated. In a democracy the plethora should be able to see all, and decide themselves what to believe. Only blatent lies and abuse should be tackled. Perhaps the same should be true of this page.

Deleting comments from discussion pages is wrong, of course. The article now deals in detail with either controversy and legal investigations, so they're are not ignored. If you have other facts to add, add them. Everyone is innocent until it's proved he's guilty. IMO as soon as a new legal sentence concerning B.will be issued then it'll be factual and should be added to the article, specifying if it is an acquittal or a conviction. In Italy the criticism against Berlusconi can be freely expressed as Italy is a democratic country. Saying that B. has full control of the italian media is pure disinformation (see the article). In Italy the political system grant to all minorities the right to express themselves (prove the contrary, if you are able). IMHO an encyclopedia is not the right place for either supporters or opponents to express their POV. %) Marius 21:55, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Mario, who are you? Have you ever heard of Enzo Biagi? The journalist Berlusconi had kicked out of Rai even though his program had 18 million people watching it every night? "Criticism against Berlusconi can be freely expressed as Italy is a democratic country"? Where are Santoro, Luttazzi and Guzzanti? Could they express their views? How come Beppe Grillo has never been allowed back in Rai in the past five years? Where have you lived in the past 5 years Mario? Vschwager 13:14, 20 March 2006 (UTC)Vincent

This page is getting more and more unbalanced

I suggest to remove this page completly as it's clear it is edited only by partisans anti-Berlusconi.

They are also very ignorant as they don't know that the laws in Italy are always approved by the Parliament and not imposed by the Government.

Mario__

Mario, we've got several people on here who agree with you, including myself. I don't know enough about Italian politics to write it though. So give it a fix. Start from scratch if you want. Good luck! Stargoat 13:22, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

the last two sections were done before extensive editing. I think they should be treated as completed unless they are renewed with more specific comments Azikala 16:49, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)

If Berlusconi's supporters do not use Wikipedia (or read for that matter) it's not anybody's fault. The majority of Berlusconi's voters have little or no educational background, and Berlusconi knows this very well. Berlusconi's party, Forza Italia, heavily utilizes terminilogy stemming from football terminology: i.e. people affiliated to his party are called "azzurri" (like the Italian football team). If you like to read some pro-Berlusconi's comments please refer to www.forza-italia.it, there are plenty of them. Wikipedia, being and encyclopedia, would not have much following, I am afraid, among Berlusconi's supporters.

Vschwager 13:12, 20 March 2006 (UTC)Vincent

This page doesn't appair impartial

The text is not impartial in how much filler in wide and complete way the critic made from the opposition party to the first minister. Not filler absoluty the government activity. In a document of wikipedia he is fundamental to balance the two aspects.

Regards, Adriano

The point is that this man, Silvio Berlusconi, has done a full brain-washing to the Italians with his multiple media guns. Nothing less nothing more. Should we still say that he was democratically elected or should we believe that, from George Orwell to Marshall McLuhan, democracy has nothing to do with this unsustainable mind-conditioning?

This page doesn't appair impartial

I'm not a partisan of Forza Italia and Mr. Silvio Berlusconi but, as an italian, I feel myself offended by the PARTISAN way the biography of the Italian prime minister is presented. The extensor of this page must remember that Mr. Berlusconi has been democratically elected by the majority of italians and furthermore that the allegations he's facing haven't been proved yet.

Regards, Mario_

If it contains any information that is incorrect, you can move it here to Talk. If it's unbalanced, you can add more material presenting his positive attributes. ( 08:26, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Removed the following recently added statement which is pure POV. ( 12:23, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

"Berlusconi is still very much locked into the cold war ideology, and anybody who is against him is branded as a communist. Many consider this rather ironic given that his legislation whould not look out of place in Orwellian novels such as 1984 and Animal farm."

Even Hitler was democratically elected, did it mean that he was free to do whatever he damn pleased to do? Besides Berlusconi could not even run for office because, pursuant Italian law, he was ineligible (he owned and owns a state concession-his TV license!). Finally let's not forget that several indictments were dropped because of intervening statute of limitations, other more civilized countries wouldn't have such an embarassing character run their parliament, alas, Italians haven't learned from history. Berlusconi's fight against communism is absolutely bogus, it's pure demagogy and that's it. In a country pleagued by thelikes of the Mafia, Camorra, Ndrangheta and Sacra Corona Unita, Berlusconi only sees communist judges as being Italy's biggest threat! Many judges, even the ones with right wing leanings, have been branded as communist as soos as they dared investigate his sprawling businesses! Never, in his five years in office, I have heard him say the word Mafia, never! Who is behind Berlusconi? How far is Europe willing to tolerate such a character? What interests is he protecting? How far are can this thing go while Italy is on the brink of an Argetinian like financial disaster? Let's ask ourselves these questions, for our own good, for Europe and Italy's sake.

The comments on this page do not offend me as an Italian, Berlusconi offends me and embarasses me every day, I take this opportunity to apologize to Spd's Representative Martin Schulz for Berlusconi's joke at the Europarlament, to the Finnish President Miss Tarja Halonen for Berlusconi's vulgar comments on women. Just look for Berlusconi, gaffe in any search engine, the man is an endless source of embarassement. I am Italian, I have to live with this, this does not mean I have to like it necessarily.

Vschwager 13:07, 20 March 2006 (UTC)Vincent

lameduck

I added the notation that Berlusconi is currently the lameduck pm. But actually I'm not so sure; how does it work? Certainly Prodi is not yet pm. But is Berlusconi still pm, or is there just not one at the moment? --Trovatore 08:21, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Berlusconi is still a prime minister,Prodi is still a oposition communista politicianDzoni 08:33, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Berlusconi is still formally the prime minister, Prodi is to be nominated pm in late May by the person who will succeed Carlo Azelio Ciampi as President of the Italian Republic. Anyway, only the executive is retained, the legislature is already in the newly elected parliament's hands, AFAIK.--Army1987 15:11, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

The argument that Berlusconi is a lame duck is still somewhat premature. May is a long time away, and he's not ready to call it quits. He may be able to pull off some unlikely coup (metaphorical or otherwise) and secure control after all, however unlikely that may be. In any event until this is a settled question there can be no lame duck. Wally 23:12, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

He probably shouldn't be called a lame duck until he concedes. john k 00:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Y'all have a point. Do what you think is best. --Trovatore 02:54, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

He can't make any new decisions while the post-election outcome, of the government, must be resolved. He's in 'caretaker' mode, as it's called in Parliamentary govt. systems, not allowed to change govt. policy, etc. We could probably instert 'caretaker' until the outcome is decided. User:Merlov 10:46 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Please don't edit this page (other than to archive more material), please rather restart discussio on Talk:Silvio Berlusconi

It is known that Silvio Berlusconi has a very high opinion of himself, at times comparing himself to Napoleon [21], Churchill [22] and Jesus Christ [23][24].

Please do not feed the Trolls
Per favore, non date da mangiare ai troll

I dont think its objective to write,he never comapred himself to Jesus Christ.Dzoni 08:07, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

He did. (He said something like "I'm the Jesus Christ of Italian politics, I'm a patient victim like him".)--Army1987 10:04, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Well,that is the truth,you can see for yourself how dirty communistas stole the elections abroad.IF they were as honest as Berlu,they would never win,so he is a patient victimDzoni 00:11, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

If you really believe that, you need treatment; what you have is called paranoia. Italy's communists are far more mainstream in politics than the neo-fascists in Berlusconi's coalition, and besides, if anyone had the opportunity to cheat, it would have been the party to which the interior minister belonged. ;) Face it: Berlusconi lost, barely, but he lost. —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 10:51, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

If they were as honest as Berlu they would have been jailed.--Pokipsy76 11:07, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Lol "neo-fascistas",we are not "Neo" nothing,we are true Fascistas,true Patriots,but you have to be honest,neo-communists would rather steal the election then Fascists.Because,no normal man can imagine Alessandra Mussolini cheating on the election,because Alternativa Sociale is the most honourable party in Italia and wider.Comunistas stole the election and as Berlu said:"Im still a prime minister,and Im planning to stay,me ne frego what they think".Dzoni 11:26, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Really? No one can imagine Alessandra "Better to be a fascist than a faggot" Mussolini trying to run off with an election?

Who are you and how is it that you are allowed to vote? Wally 23:16, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Where's the evidence that the Italian Communist Party rigged the election? Provide it, or withdraw that accusation. We are here to provide information, not unsubstanciated defamation!

The Independent has different conclusions regarding the election: That "The Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's hopes that a recount of disputed ballot papers would overturn his narrow loss in the recent general election were dashed yesterday when his government was forced to admit there were too few contested votes cast to change the outcome.

The Italian interior ministry's acknowledgement that the number of ballots in question for the lower house of parliament was not near enough to overturn his rival Romano Prodi's 24,000-vote majority discredited Mr Berlusconi's claim that he lost to Mr Prodi through "cheating"."(1) no mention of the ICP cheating, only discredited allegations by the PM.

(1)http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article357786.ece User:Merlov 10:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

E meglio essere un fascista che un frocio,thats 100 precento true.As for Prodis dirty little games,just look on how they took Diaspora votes,that should belonged to us.

Prodi is a communista and there is no place for a man like that in todays Europe,he would fit well in Stalins Russia or Maos China(that hes so protective of).If he likes communismo so much,he may go to Cuba,because its clear people of Italia dont want him.

He should have accepted great coalition proposal that Berlu made,because now he will just have to stay in opposition for another 5 years.Dumb communistaDzoni 16:04, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

You're one of those the world would be much better without. I'll tell you. much better be gay than fascist- at leat my conscience is clear- you're just horribl;e bigots, ignoramuses and want to impose your way of life on others. The whoe civilised world is pleased Berlusconi is out of the way. In the UK the BBC saluted Berlusconi's election with these words,' In the uk, he would be in prison, in Italy, he's the Prime Minister'. By the way- your views go are discriminatory, therefore I would just like to know who you are to sue you and get you your deserved fine/community service/8 months in prison, whichever, only you're a coward and won't stand up for your own bigoted ideas. Lots of gay people paid (were even murdered by people like you!!!) for who they happened to be,and in bigoted places like most of Italy, they still are, you won't even want to pay for who you choose to ba and wht you choose to believe in- thatnks god Berlusconi's out of the way- MUCH BETTER BE GAY THAN FASCIST!!!!!!!!!!!!

Berlusconi got to power through huge and technically illegal advertising (still tried this way round), therefore cheating, through making impossible promises (1 million jobs- yes lost!!!! Get the frigging numbers right!!! Italy's had NO GROWTH AT ALL during Berlusconi's government- its best period of growth under Prodi), by colluding with tax evasors (never mentioned evading tax- Italy's biggest problem, but hey, he evades himself!!!!) and convincing people with low IQs and low education.

In 5 years time, Berlusconi won't be running for PM, he'll be in prison very likely- or run a way as his friend Craxi did (using Berlusconi' jet, by the way- that's another crime of his- helping criminals escape justice).

he's so pthetic he can't even admit he's clown till the end!!!!!!

Libro e moschetto - fascista perfetto,and Im not talking to faggots,so faggot just be queit or Ima do what Paolo DI Canio would done to you.Duxxx haha.

AS for the other ragazzo that saqid that Berlu is a criminal,well tell me this:ISNT A PRODI A GREATER CRIMINAL BY FAR???HES THE ONE WHO STOL THE DIASPRA VOTES FOR GODS SAKE!!!!

And tell me this,but please be 100 precent honest:Can you even imagine Alessandra Mussolini doing anything that is illegal.Because no party is so strong supportiv of laws as ALTERNATIVA S.Dzoni 01:55, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[Slight OT] It's quite astonishing that a sentence such as "better a fascist than a faggot" sounds like a ridiculization of someone else's arguments for straw man purpose but is a real argument and most times I've heard it pronounced it was by someone who agrees with it and says they voted for La Casa Delle Libertà. (BTW, I'm not adfirming that a gay is necessarily better than a fascist, IMO such comparisons between groups of people are quite meaningless. But, as far as politics is concerned, we should vote for people according to their political ideas, rather than to their sexual preferences.) I've also had a conversation like this: —I voted I Verdi, what about you? — I voted Forza Italia, but how could you vote for a party in a coalition with a party with a transgender such as Luxuria as a candidate? —Are you saying it's better to vote for a party full of mafiosi? —Better a mafioso than a faggot, for sure. And the "I'm not talking to faggots" argument IMO is BS, I'm not personally offended by it as I'm an heterosexual, but I think offending homosexual this way is unjust. Anyway, this is not the place for discussing wheter Prodi stole the elections, not wheter a fascist is better than a homosexual...--Army1987 15:04, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I could never ever vote for communists,and one thing you can not deny:FASCISTAS WERE NEVER THIEFS,YOU KNOW ALESSANDRA SHOWED TO BE HONEST PERSON MANY MANY TIMES.

Really? [11] Do you remember? --Army1987 17:28, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

The fascists were murderers and liberticides. Ci mancava soltanto che fossero anche ladri.

That said, Berlusconi, whatever faults he may have, is not a fascist, so I don't see the relevance of this discussion. --Trovatore 17:32, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Apparently this discussion started about wheter the fascists in Alternativa Sociale are better than faggots in L'Unione. (Luckily we're not seriously discussing about the latter yet.) I guess we'd better stop feeding the troll. --Army1987 17:39, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I KNOW,Berlu is not perfect,but still,hes way better then those frocios and communistas that are about to come to power(if we dont stop them)Dzoni 04:08, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Mussoline sneaked what were at the time 20Milllion Lirae (billions now) of Italian gold to Switzerland- we never got it back. I call this thieving...

it's just ridiculous and outrageous that gay people can be discriminated against on Wikipedia- Apologiia di Fascismo is a crime in Italy, being Gay is not, for a start. So if someone should noty speak, those are the fascists. Can these insults be edited and the discriminator be banned? That's the least Wikipedia can do for Equal opportunities.

I think we should allow everybody to express their opinion, at least on talk pages. But I do agree the latter 17:34 comment is a personal attack. --Army1987 18:19, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

There's quite a clear difference between expressing opinions and threatening gay people with castaration (this is what XCazzoni or whatever his Fascist nam,e is is suggesting with reference to what Fascists used to do). Does freedom of opinion include harrassment? Threat? Psychological torture? Freemdom of speech - yes I do believe in it, unlike Cazzoni, but there is a clear distinction between freedom of opinion and freedom of insult, threat and harrassment- until we understand that, Cazzoni and others like him will 'abuse' the democratic rights that anti-Fascism has created to promote Fascism against those very rights. Not much freedom of Opinion in Berlusconi's Italy it seems... How many journalists did he sack? Thanks god Berlusconi e' fuori dai ...., a pathetic loser as well, not even a grain of dignity. Maybe now democracy will go back to Italy. Mr Cazzoni should find an island where all intolerant Cazzonis like him could live together (well for a short time,. as they would soon start killing each others off, as they are intilerant...)

You dont actualy believe that bullshit that you are saying......Alessandra is not a rich woman,shes a HONEST,HARD WORKIN FASCISTA,so please dont trust that communistas propaganda tricksDzoni 17:34, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

p.s.Frocio,you better shut up and stop raising your voice for faggot rights,or Im going to look for you and Im going to bring Di Canio with me:)))Dzoni 17:34, 17 April 2006 (UTC) Read WP:NPA please.--Army1987 18:19, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I red it,thank you very much Army,but I just cant stand frocios,I hate them,hate themDzoni 02:35, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

SO what? Sorry for you- you lose here as well- gay people have a right to speak. You have no right to deny that right- full stop.

nNPOV section

In the "Influence on the media" iI've changed the position of template because the first sentences are neutral how you can see in the statistics. It isn't our task to judge them. --Ilario 15:05, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Silvio's Current Status

He may/may not be the Prime Minister of Italy for much longer but he will remain in his post at least until the election of a new President in mid-May 2006. Can we retain the use of "current" and not "former" PM in the first paragraph of the article until(or if) there is a change of government?? In the interests of fact and not supposition. --Kingsbury 18:51, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. User:Merlov 11:02, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Ides of April:

Ceasar: "The Ides of April have come for Silvio old man."

Old man: "Aye, but not gone!". --Lacatosias 09:51, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Imbalance in article lenghts: Berlie and Prodi

It is strange that the article on R. Prodi is very short and Berlusconi is this long. The "Professor" is 100x more intelligent and professional than this oligarch and should deserve a better write-up! Hopefully S.B. will be out by late monday, he is a shame of the EU, just like the Austrian neo-nazi government was a shame of the EU. 195.70.32.136 08:44, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you post this request on Talk:Romano Prodi? --Army1987 16:49, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

The important thing now is that Prodi is Premier and Berlusoni is OUT!!!!!!!!!!! YeAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! Buona notte, scellerato landruncolo!!--Lacatosias 14:53, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Please remember that the purpose of the discussion page is to discuss the article, not politics. If you think that the article on Berlusconi is too long, shorten it or subdivide it, or suggest modifications here. If you think the article on Prodi is to short, expand it, or find a knowledgeable person to do that. Aleph4 18:09, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Al;so, Prodi is internationally respected, and has done a lot for Italy (its best period EVER in modern history was when Prodi was Prime Minister) Berlusconi is an international embarrassment for Italy- a clown.

Please NPOV

I've deleted the term "infamous" for the concentration camps en:Wikipedia:Words_to_avoid. All concentration camps were infamous not only those of fascists. --Ilario 17:56, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Term of office

In the frame at the top right it stands: 27 April 1994 —22 December 1994

And in the bottom frame it stands: Prime Minister of Italy 1994–1995 Dl 10:05, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Glossy brochere

I'm a bit surprised that the ~150 page glossy brochure he/his party produced advertising him which was criticised by Bono for misusing his image doesn't appear to have been mentioned Nil Einne 22:05, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

News tidbit

Just read this at EUbusiness—should probably be included in the article, but I'm not sure where exactly...? Help appreciated. —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 06:53, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Berlusconi lol

http://www.wimp.com/minister/

LEGATVSLEGIONIS

I move that LEGATVSLEGIONIS stop posting on this discussion board, because his contributions are all absurdly biased and unsubstantiated opinions. Oldkinderhook 18:45, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I feel you want to bring to silence LEGATVSLEGIONIS because you don't like his comments because he is not anti-B! Freedom of speech is never allowed either to Mr.B or his supporters. Thier words are always too long or off topic. DWDP 5 April 2006

Concensus on NPOV

Now that many agree that the article should be rewritten in a NPOV, we should outline how shall we proceed with this, without leaving anything out and using reputable sources, and citing the sources. Maltesedog 11:00, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think that the article needn't be rewritten from scratch, but the disputed sections should be amended. I don't see such a big consensus as you said... --Lou Crazy 23:44, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

i think that the article should absolutely be rewritten: in my opinion its structure's not balanced at all if you know what i mean;it should be divided into 3 large sections:

1) proven things only: a short biography, political career, legislative actions and so on 2) POV of the ones who don't trust Berlusconi: Controversial facts ( for example Mangano), legal investigations---->many investigations have been achieved, other ones are still in progress and so its not proven that Berlusconi is a criminal ---> that's why we should create this section 3) POV of the Berlusconi's supporters ---> strong connection between politics and some judges plus a short history of that connection

By the way if you all are honest with yourselves, you'd have to admit that the article should be rewritten; but if you don't agree with me, no problem, although everyone, who's searching for something on Berlusconi on Wikipedia, can't consider that article as a good source in my opinion LEGATVSLEGIONIS 06:05, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Lou, instead of rewriting it from scratch, I'd rather make step by spep changes; I think this approch helps in reaching consensus. After each section is neutral, we could consider moving some of them. --BMF81 07:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree - in my opinion, a step-by-step process would be the best route to follow. I would also point at the BBC as a reliable source of information: no links unless necessary, of course, but their BBC News online service maintains good coverage on the subject of Berlusconi, his profile as a Prime Minister/VIP, and excerpts of his speeches. Might be worth checking here and there, since it's already featured in the Italian version of his profile. --Dark Schneider 11:50, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I rewritten the intro trying to reach NPOV. I know it's long but hopefully some parts of the controversy issues will eventually be moved to separate articles so in the end the whole article will be shorter... possibly... however the article about Tony Blair is 80kb long, it's not that this article is so terribly long, it's just very poor and biased, and unfortunately it has become much worse since the last time I read it months ago. Massimamanno 6:35, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I have done minor edits to this version of the intro (as I previously did to other sections) but only to improve the English. It still does not seem very encyclopedic and the assertions about the left and right POVs are vague and general rather than well supported. And, even in Italy, the issues are not L<>R. The summary surely needs to attempt to flag later more detailed explanations about why he is such a controversial personaility? A fuller breakdown later about his politics, properly referenced so that the perspectives of all sides are explored (as opposed to characterised almost stereotypically) is still needed to make this article - or articles - more balanced and accurately-informative--farsee50 10:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Sources and opinions on Wikipedia

now i'd like talking about another important fact; BMF81 said: I wrote most of that section. I suppose you refer to the first paragraph, where common point of views of Berlusconi's supporters and opposers are shown: opposers: Some critics argued that Berlusconi did it to take care of his own interests, being saving his own companies from bankruptcy and himself from convictions. supporters: Instead, Berlusconi's supporters hailed him as the "new man" that was to bring the public bureaucracy to new efficiency and to reform the state from top to bottom; they argued that he was so rich that he would have no interest in using politics to become even richer, and regarding his trials they also argued that just after Berlusconi entered into politics, his opponents tried to get rid of him by a judicial persecution. It seem to me that those two are very common opinions in Italy, and any italian heard about all of them; I think is necessary to present them, as they are the most spread opinions about Berlusconi. Anyway after these opinions well cited facts are presented: Mediobaca annual report and all investigations of 1992 and 1993.

well i've always thought opinions didn't have to be mentioned in an enciclopedya; i'd like to mention just the facts, not the opinions; but if you like the opinions so much, how come didn't you say a word about what the berlusconi's supporters think about the italian Justice? Legal investigations of Berlusconi is a long part in the article; u should have written another LONG section about the italian Justice with the point of view of berlusconi's supporters. I think we don't have to mention any opinions, just the facts; and if you all don't agree with me, then we ought to write ALL the opinions LEGATVSLEGIONIS 22:52, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Although I respect your opinion of totally excluding any opinion from the encyclopedia, most wikipedians don't agree with it. I believe that the important thing is to clearly distinguish opinions from facts, so every reader can make his own judgement with a complete vision of the matter. Take a look at President Bush' article, at the sections Political ideology and Administration: there you can find some supporters and critics opinions. The most relevant opinions have to be included in order to give a complete coverege of a issue, the important thing is to say that they are opinions and (again) clearly distinguish them from facts.--BMF81 00:06, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

oh, well, so opinions have to be included...but where to find the sources for those opinions?and how can i be sure of them? maybe some opinions are just the editor's opinions, not general ones if you know what i mean; by the way i don't know much about that debat of the included or not included opinions: it's my fault...nevertheless if opinions have to be included, i'd like to write a long section on the Italian Justice with the point of view of Berlusconi's supporters even if i'd like to talk with you all on irc or msn first. By the way i'm not a member of Forza Italia or House of Freedom, don't be worry about that :) of course i'm a berlusconi's supporter but i'll feel free to vote for someone else if i won't trust him anymore LEGATVSLEGIONIS 06:56, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

You addressed the central problem of course: "maybe some opinions are just the editor's opinions", in other words is necessary to cite sources. For what I saw so far in the english wikipedia, sometimes happens that one of the editors adds an opinion without citing sources, because he thinks that is well know (in other words, that is "common knowledge"). This is ok as long there is no other editor that disagrees with it being common knowledge, and ask to provide a source.

Now, speaking about the section "the debate about the motives", I tried to summarize the most relevant opinions that I know about that matter: I've been a Berlusconi' supporter from 1997 to 2003 (I even had a Forza Italia subscription for one year), and than I read many books and articles of indipendent right-wing journalist Marco Travaglio, so I know about the main arguments of that debate. But, if you think some of the opinions I wrote there are kind of "made up", you are more than welcome to ask for a source to be cited. (If you want to see something negative I wrote about the Left, take a look at this)--BMF81 09:13, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

By the way when i've said: i don't know much about that debat of the included or not included opinions i meant that debate between the ones who'd love to exclude any opinions from wikipedia and the ones who don't agree; of course i've heard of those opinions that u've mentioned in the debate about the motives; nevertheless what is a good source in your opinion? can everything on the net be used as a source? if someone is a lier and he starts inventing and writting something on the net, is it a good source??? and talking about the opinions, they usually had been created by the political parties themselves in my opinion and through the media, they became the opinions of some political parties' supporters; so maybe if we wanna mention the most relevant opinions, we ought to mention what several political leaders had said ( the sources would be the official sites of some political parties) LEGATVSLEGIONIS 09:50, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you that we can't "use everything on the net as a source". We can take as a sources printed materials (books, newspapers, etc.), and some of the most notable sites (like the sites of political parties, political insitutions, BBC, CNN, etc.). Of course is always important to say who say what, so every reader can also judge on the basis of the source. We can't rely only on poiltical parties declarations, since also the opinion of independent commentators (journalist, scholars, etc.) its very important. PS. I made a research and just added a source in the "debate about the motives".--BMF81 11:09, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

In Italian Wikipedia I'm making it and I'm following two books very well documented (see talk pages). --Ilario 13:43, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

NPOV sections

Ok, according to User:LEGATVSLEGIONIS criticism, I added NPOV tags to the sections he cited. For the sake of clarity, I summarize here the criticism for each section, so we can work on them separately:

The debate about the motives

I can find just some personal opinions and fascinating theories in there. --LEGATVSLEGIONIS

I wrote most of that section. I suppose you refer to the first paragraph, where common point of views of Berlusconi's supporters and opposers are shown:
opposers:

Some critics argued that Berlusconi did it to take care of his own interests, being saving his own companies from bankruptcy and himself from convictions.

supporters:

Instead, Berlusconi's supporters hailed him as the "new man" that was to bring the public bureaucracy to new efficiency and to reform the state from top to bottom; they argued that he was so rich that he would have no interest in using politics to become even richer, and regarding his trials they also argued that just after Berlusconi entered into politics, his opponents tried to get rid of him by a judicial persecution.

It seem to me that those two are very common opinions in Italy, and any italian heard about all of them; I think is necessary to present them, as they are the most spread opinions about Berlusconi. Anyway after these opinions well cited facts are presented: Mediobaca annual report and all investigations of 1992 and 1993.
--BMF81 15:05, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I made a research and just added a source in the "debate about the motives". So should the NPOV dispute on this section be considered fixed?--BMF81 07:32, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The Berlusconi III Cabinet

About this sentence:

“There have been harsh criticisms on Berlusconi's choices: the ministry of Health, previously occupied by Girolamo Sirchia, a famous doctor, has been given to Francesco Storace, who, only a few weeks earlier, lost the regional elections in Latium. Another controversial move was the nomination of Giulio Tremonti as Vice-Prime Minister. Tremonti had been the Minister of Economy just few years earlier, but was forced to resign. He is strongly supported by the Northern League, but opposed by UDC and AN.”

Not a very neutral point of view…maybe u don’t agree with those Berlusconi’s choises, and u’re free to think what u wanna, but that’s absolutely not an objective fact.--LEGATVSLEGIONIS

I agree with you, this has to be reworded.--BMF81 15:09, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

In this case, the "fact" is that he was harshly criticised. And this fact is interesting enough to be mentioned. But I agree with BMF81 that it should be reworded. --Lou Crazy 04:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Legislative actions

This part have to be expanded to include two of important reforms: the reforms of labour and school systems. --LEGATVSLEGIONIS

Would you write a few words on them? Do it in Italian, I can translate. I would also mention the "testi unici"; while the ordinary citizen doesn't usually see their usefulness, they usually help the affected sector by streamlining the law. --Lou Crazy 04:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I have put a request for expansion tag instead of an npov one.--BMF81 21:20, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Influence on the Media

This sentence it's not neutral:

“Berlusconi's influence over RAI became evident when in Sofia, Bulgaria he expressed his views on the journalists Enzo Biagi, Michele Santoro [13], and comedian Daniele Luttazzi after his satiric behaviour and his interview with journalist Marco Travaglio”.

It's not neutral beacuse it doesn't mention what Michele Santoro and Enzo Biagi did just a little before that election day.--LEGATVSLEGIONIS

It should be mentioned, so the reader can judge if these acts deserved an exile from public television. It should also be mentioned that Marco Travaglio was suffering from a sort of censorship, an no one on TV had the courage to mention his book before Luttazzi did. --Lou Crazy 04:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there are some points that can be improved in the article, and its structure, to get more closer both to a NPOV and for a more complete information. But i don't understand the official protest by LEGATVSLEGIONIS, expecially some of the motivations, like at the point: “Berlusconi's influence over RAI became evident when in Sofia, Bulgaria he expressed his views on the journalists Enzo Biagi, Michele Santoro [13], and comedian Daniele Luttazzi after his satiric behaviour and his interview with journalist Marco Travaglio.” LEGATVSLEGIONIS says: “You forgot to say what Michele Santoro and Enzo Biagi did just a little before that election day….i’d love to talk a lot about that, but I could definitely annoy the ones who are reading my reply right now ”.

As we can see, in the disputed piece, of which someone may not like the style, there are no personal judgments by the author, except maybe the sentence “Berlusconi's influence .. become evident.” The main topic of the piece of writing is about personal influence on media; the official protest by LEGATVSLEGIONIS instead, is focused on what the journalists did in their job, meaning that that the Prime Miniester's decison could be right in some way. But the article was about political influence itself, not about the content (right or wrong?) of the action.

A Guest (still non expert about editing in Wikipedia) 0:04, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Conflicts of interests

It should be said that this problem isn’t recent, and also talk about the reasons why the Left-wing didn’t resolve it, despite they had ruled over italy for several years ‘till 5 years ago. --LEGATVSLEGIONIS

I agree this as to be extended to discuss Left-wing not solving it. There is a excellent book about these faults of the Left: Inciucio, by Marco Travaglio and Peter Gomez.

Whoever wrote the last comment, would you like to write a BRIEF summary of the point made in Inciucio ? --Lou Crazy 04:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I forgot to sign in, It was me :) Unfortunly I don't have the book in these days, so I can't give a exaustive summary; here is what I remember:

In the early 90s, Berlusconi Media group was close to bankroupcy, also because of the competition with the public broadcaster RAI. Berlusconi said to his fellows that the only way out was to make a deal with RAI to end competition (that is to make a cartel), lower costs and quality of programs, and fix audience share to about 45% for both. In 2002, Luciano Violante, a prominent member of the Left, said in a speech in Parliament:

«Onorevole Anedda, la invito a consultare l’onorevole Berlusconi perché lui sa per certo che gli è stata data la garanzia piena, non adesso, nel 1994, quando ci fu il cambio di governo - che non sarebbero state toccate le televisioni. Lo sa lui e lo sa l’onorevole Letta».

Authors of book Inciucio claim that sentence to be an evidence that the Left make a deal with Berlusconi in 1994, promising to not respect a sentence of the Constitutional Court of Italy that required to assign to someone else one of the three tv frequencies used by Belusconi media group, in order to enforce pluralism and competition; this would be an explanation of why the Left, despite of having won the 1996 elections, did't approve a law to solve the conflicts of interests between media ownership and potical career.

--BMF81 08:26, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I added this paragraph to the section and removed the NPOV tag.--BMF81 20:32, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Sense of Humour

Irrelevant part..sense of humour is one of the most personal and not objective things on the Earth..and then I remember a lot of funnier jokes than the ones cited in the article. I also think that the jokes cited have been chosen to try to show everyone how unliberal Berlusconi is. --LEGATVSLEGIONIS

I agree. This is not a paragraph on his sense of humour (which is very personal), but about his ability to insult almost everyone, even when he doesn't want to. It should be renamed appropriately. --Lou Crazy 04:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that the paragraph is as good as possible: unfortunately Berlusconi really said those phrases, and they need to be written somewhere in the article, not to show everyone how unliberal he is, but to show everyone his personality, and what makes many Italian hate him. Maybe we should rename it! Emc² (Contact me ) 16:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Nobody is saying that he has a bad sense of humour, merely a controversial one. I don't see how this isn't NPOV. It clearly is humour, and even if you find it funny, you'd surely have to admit it's controversial? There are probably people out there who'd think Berlusconi is their dream leader for saying things like that. The section should stay, but perhaps renaming is right. How does 'Controversial Jokes' sound? Doesn't imply that all his jokes/humour are controversial, just the ones listed. And I'm a bit new to wikipedia editing - what would be the right way to start the process of removing the NPOV flag on this section? Imran1985 13:06, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Legal investigations of Berlusconi

This section should also talk a bit about the Italian justice and especially how exactly it works (see also what I said about CSM).--LEGATVSLEGIONIS

About italian judges, if you think it is relevant, you can add some sentence in the paper about the fact that Berlusconi said the judges to be politically driven. Anyway, I think it is a personal statement. If you want to state that italian judges are biased, you need some evidence. Since all the international analysts, as far as I know, never said anything about italian judges, you cannot say that as a truth. If you think there are enough indications to write, as a guess, that they are biased, you can start a discussion about that in this page. --Gala.martin

Yeah, u’re right, I don’t have any evidence, that’s just my personal idea, so i won’t write anything about that on Wikipedia….but maybe those “international analysts” don’t know much about Italy, because half of Italians usually think some judges use their power to attack their political enemy; I could do dozens of different examples, but of course I don’t know if that’s the truth, but it seems the truth….just a question: if an international analyst says that Berlusconi’s daddy was born on Jupiter, can u really think that’s the truth? I believe in the certain prooves, in the facts, and sometimes I’m doubtful about those “international alalysts”--LEGATVSLEGIONIS

• Personally I'm more willing to trust international analysts than gossip that you say "seems the truth." Oldkinderhook 18:38, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I like proves and fact as well. And, from my point of view, there is no reason to believe italian judges are biased. Anyway, I repeat it once again, if you think you can add some information to this article, please do it.--Gala.martin

As far as I know no international analyst ever said Berlusconi's father is a Jovian... but it certainly would be a claim LESS outlandish than saying that ALL italian judges are biased against Berlusconi. For example, some judges were condemned for having been bribed by Berlusconi's cronies, so we know that at least these judges were biased in his favour ;-) --Lou Crazy 04:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Personality

Another irrelevant and not neutral part.--LEGATVSLEGIONIS

Indeed. However, some of the facts mentioned there ought to be moved elsewhere, because they are very interesting. --Lou Crazy 04:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Fascism

"On one occasion, Berlusconi claimed that Benito Mussolini had been the greatest statesman in Italian history. On another occasion, Berlusconi stated that "Benito Mussolini's regime hadn't killed a single person" and that Mussolini "just used to send opposers on holiday", thus apparently denying or dismissing a long series of fascist crimes, from the murder of Giacomo Matteotti to the infamous fascist concentration camps (Rab, Gonars, etc) (1). Berlusconi later claimed that he did not mean to white-wash Mussolini, that he only reacted to a comparison, which he felt unfair, between the fascist dictator and Saddam Hussein. Among the members of parliament elected with him is Alessandra Mussolini, grand daughter of Benito. Even when she left his coalition, he tryed (2) in all ways to keep her in it.(3)""

Is (1) an example of bias in action? Is (2) incorrect english? Is (3) a fact? Heard that she had resigned.

kindIn view of the above discussion, consistent throughout the talk page, I would consider revision of the whole article.

As a Maltese, with English being an official Language of Malta, I'm ready to contribute and I am committed to amending English on wikipedia

While (1) is indeed an example of bias, it means that whoever wrote those words is biased in favour of democracy and against fascism. It could be balanced by saying something like "Die-hard supporters of fascism (of whom there are still many in Italy) appreciated these statements by Berlusconi"

(2) is horrible english. I'll fix it.

(3) it is not a proven fact. Berlusconi said he was trying to keep her in, and it seems he succeded. It should be mentioned as something Berlusconi said, and not a proven fact. --Lou Crazy 04:04, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

In view of the above discussion, consistent throughout the talk page, I would consider revision of the whole article. I totally agree;--LEGATVSLEGIONIS

There is a very important mistake, as far as I know, in this section. The first statement "On one occasion, Berlusconi claimed that Benito Mussolini had been the greatest statesman in Italian history" is not true. The sentence is correct but, as i remember (i'm Italian), was actually proununced in 1994 by Gianfranco Fini , who is the leader of the main allied party in Berlusconi's coalition.

A Guest 00:23, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

O F W H O M T H E R E A R E S T I L L M A N Y I N I T A L Y????????? hey man u must be kidding... there are much more communists than fascists over here and communists have killed millions of people in the recent world history.By the way i'm liberal, not fascist and i wish fascist parties were banned by the Parliament; but the comunist parties (Rifondazione Comunista and Comunisti Italiani) should be banned too but they are in the Left-wing of the parliament...isn't it scandalous?? RC is one of the strongest and biggest communist parties in the entire West and if Prodi will win the next political election they'll be in the next italian government...so how can you be scandalized if Berlusconi tried to create a larger coalition? P.S. some time ago Armando Cossutta (the ex leader of Comunisti Italiani) said that Stalin was one of the best political leaders in the history....no comment LEGATVSLEGIONIS 06:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Rifondazione Comunista and Comunisti Italiani = Eurocommunism, not Communism. --82.56.145.33 15:11, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Vittorio Mangano

i've found other not neutral parts (at least in my opinion) beside the ones i've already mentioned...for example: Vittorio Mangano; if someone, who doesn't know much about italy, reads that part of the article, he can really think berlusconi is a mafioso!! has Berlusconi ever been arrested because of that? how can the first editor of that article seriously write so much about a stable keeper who had been working for berlusconi for some years long time ago???? if his stable keeper was a mafioso, shall i assume that berlusconi is one of the leaders of mafia or what else? and should we write, on this encliclopedya,something about all his employees?? --User:LEGATVSLEGIONIS|LEGATVSLEGIONIS

I disagree definitly with you in this point. There are millions of people in Italy who are disturbed by the fact that a prime minister has mafious friends. The Mangano affair was great scandal in Italy and held the opening page on newspapers for days in year 2001, as i remember. Mangano was not a simple mafouis, he was called by judges "a Boss" and the main contact of Cosa Nostra in Northern Italy. Btw this was not the only case of mafiosi related to Berlusconi: the closest friend of Berlusconi Marcello dell'Utri , that many consider the man who contributed in creating his fortune (by obtaining founds in the early years of Berlusconi's building activities), has in fact been convicted for mafia crimes. (A Guest)

NPOV dispute

I hereby join the movement which claims that the neutrality of the articles is to be disputed. There are severe assertations which are disputable, as legatvslegionis said. I believe, that the article should be rewritten. Another problem is that the article is longer than desirable accortding to the Wikipedia Policies.

I believe, the article should be written by an Italian, who has complete knowledge of the political arena in Italy, and has the capability to mantain a neutral pov. With the help of other users, potential problems especially with regards to language may be resolved. Maltesedog 10:54, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

In order to reach consensus and neutrality, when adding an NPOV tag you must cite precises words and sentences that you find not neutral, so everybody can work on it. --BMF81 12:33, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

see the above talk pages Maltesedog 13:12, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Maltesedog: a rearrangment of the article is needed. If the article is too long, we could divide it: a main article about B.'s life and ideas, and two sub-articles about his business and political career (or even a third sub-article about his troubles with justice). I also agree with the POV tags. For re-writing: any native english available for revisioning? We should also be sure that the re-writers are not in the staff of any italian party, in order to avoid troubles. I can be also available to be one of the re-writers. Gala.martin 15:00, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

i protest

I'm italian, and i think this article isn't neutral at all..i officially protest!

i really don't like the italian way of justice, because the italian magistrature is ruled by CMS whose members had been chosen mostly among those judges who support the left-wing of the national parliament...nowadays the ones, who started investigating on Berlusconi some time ago,are leaders or members of some parties of the left-wing of the Parliament (for example,the most famous one of them is Antonio di Pietro who leads a party called: "Italia dei valori")

Recently many magistrates have used the magistrature to fight their political enemies : for example the old Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and the old Demochristian one (DC) were annihilated some time ago by the magistrature because those parties had taken illicit money by some italian businessmen;but the old Italian Cominist Party had taken illicit money by the Soviet Republic that was the enemy of the entire West....if someone wanna know something more about that, he has to read something about the: "Mithrokin documents"..Mithrokin had been workin for the KGB for a long time during the soviet regime and he decided to tell everybody the truth about that event...the point is that no italian magistrates started investigating on the comunist party because most of them were as neutral as the one who posted this article

Wikipedia ought to be an encyclopedia not a polical forum, but i'd love to read neutral articles only on here...by the way sorry for my awful english, i'll try to improve it soon:)

P.S. my nick on wikipedia is : LEGATVSLEGIONIS;i'm a noob that's why i really don't know how to put some links in on this site :)

Greetings LEGATVSLEGIONIS 06:59, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Maybe this article suffers some POV troubles. If you think so, please point out where. If you think you can improve it, do it. On the other hand, whatever you think about CMS, it is considered neutral by intenational analysts. According to international associations, as like UN or Amnesty, italian democracy has suffered two main attacks since WW2:

• The so called stragismo, that, together with hidden associations as like P2 and Gladio, tried to drive italian votes away from the the communist party
• The behaviour of italian police and army in Genova, during the so called G8.

According to UN and Amnesty Int., elections in Italy have always been regular. Moreover, as far as I know, the international analysts never said that biased judges where attacking any italian government for political reasons (after WW2). So, it is obvious that wikipedia should consider this official point of view as faithful, whatever you or Berlusconi think. From my point of view, for instance, Berlusconi has always been quite lucky with justice, and he was often able to receive sentence from friendly judges. Anyway, this is just what I think, and of course it is not something I can write on the article. I repeat, please point out where the article is not NPOV and try to improve it. Anyway, I think that an article about Berlusconi should deal with his problems with justice. If some documentation is provided, one can add some words about the fact that Berlusconi himself says that italian judges are biased et cetera. But I think it is clear from the article that he always claimed his innocence (but for the P2 affiliation). Gala.martin 21:38, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

“whatever you think about CMS, it is considered neutral by intenational analysts" CSM (Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura=High Council of the Magistrature) is something like a small parliament of the Italian justice; there are several different political parties in there, and those parties are strongly related to the ones of the National Parliament…most of the members of that council support those parties related to the left-wing ones of the Parliament so I really don’t think CSM is neutral

“The so called stragismo, that, together with hidden associations as like P2 and Gladio, tried to drive italian votes away from the the communist party” The old Italian communist party had taked illicit money by the Sovietic Comunist Party for a long time according to the “mithrokin documents”; their aim wasn’t so lovely and nice: they were planning to begin a communist revolution in italy, and the communism was the enemy of the Freedom

“The behaviour of italian police and army in Genova, during the so called G8.” and what about the behaviour of some demonstrators? I joined the Italian army at the end of 2000, and I had been working in a special regiment of the army (the 11th Regiment of Bersaglieri) for a year only..well I was one of those soldiers in Genoa and I can tell u some demonstrators usually put a mask on before burning everything…if u’d like to know more about that event, drop me a line in “my talk”

“I think that an article about Berlusconi should deal with his problems with justice….But I think it is clear from the article that he always claimed his innocence (but for the P2 affiliation)”yea, of course that’s true..by the way u should also wtite in ur article that most of those legal investigations were so ridicolus that they had been stopped immedialety

“I repeat, please point out where the article is not NPOV” : 1) “The debate about the motives” I can find just some personal opinions and fascinating theories in there 2) “There have been harsh criticisms on Berlusconi's choices: the ministry of Health, previously occupied by Girolamo Sirchia, a famous doctor, has been given to Francesco Storace, who, only a few weeks earlier, lost the regional elections in Latium. Another controversial move was the nomination of Giulio Tremonti as Vice-Prime Minister. Tremonti had been the Minister of Economy just few years earlier, but was forced to resign. He is strongly supported by the Northern League, but opposed by UDC and AN.” Not a very neutral point of view…maybe u don’t agree with those Berlusconi’s choises, and u’re free to think what u wanna, but that’s absolutely not an objective fact 3) “Legislative actions” This part ought to be the most important one of your article, because people around the world have known him since he became a politician..but you forgot to extend it (nothing about two of important reforms----the reforms of labour and school systems) 4) “Berlusconi's influence over RAI became evident when in Sofia, Bulgaria he expressed his views on the journalists Enzo Biagi, Michele Santoro [13], and comedian Daniele Luttazzi after his satiric behaviour and his interview with journalist Marco Travaglio.” You forgot to say what Michele Santoro and Enzo Biagi did just a little before that election day….i’d love to talk a lot about that, but I could definitely annoy the ones who are reading my reply right now 5) “Conflicts of interests” well, I agree with u…by the way u forgot to say that this problem isn’t recent; in your opinion, how come the Left-wing didn’t resolve it (and the Left-wing had ruled over italy for several years ‘till 5 years ago)? 6) “Sense of Humour” irrelevant part..sense of humour is one of the most personal and not objective things on the Earth..and then I remember a lot of funnier jokes than the ones that u’ve put in the article….and I think u’ve chosen those ones to try to show everyone how unliberal Berlusconi is 7) “Legal investigations of Berlusconi” you should talk a bit about the Italian justice and especially how exactly it works (I’ve already reminded you something about CSM) 8) “Personality” another irrelevant and not neutral part

At the end i think your article isn’t neutral at all…but I won’t modify it because i absolutely detest the ones who like vandalizing some articles on wikipedia LEGATVSLEGIONIS 03:43, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I am glad you pointed out parts of the article that you think are POV. I think this article needs several improvements, and that it does NOT satisfies wikipedia NPOV standards. Anyway, it is quite hard to deal with a so delicate issue (in these days in particular); anyway, if you feel able to improve it, please do.

About stragismo and G8, I was not writing about my ideas. I was just reporting what Amnesty Int. decleared. Moreover, if you trust some judges, you can read what they stated about this facts (for instance, about what policemen did during Geneva's G8; it has been proved that they injuried people while sleeping, and hide weapons and drugs in their bags in order to imprison them).

About italian judges, I repeat: if you think it is relevant, you can add some sentence in the paper about the fact that Berlusconi said the judges to be politically driven. Anyway, I think it is a personal statement. I want to be clear about that. When one writes an article about a politician on wikipedia, he has to be really careful. Many politician have been sued/condemned for many reasons. You can always guess that the judges were biased. But sometimes you should write it on wikipedia, sometimes it is just a guess. When soviet judges condemned Stalin's opposers, they were likely biased. Simply, Stalin wanted his enemies dead and provided some judges to do the work. History tells us they were biased. The same in Chile during Pinochet's dictatorship, and, alas, many other times. If you want to state that italian judges are biased, you need some evidence. Since all the international analysts, as far as I know, never said anything about italian judges, you cannot say that as a truth. If you think there are enough indications to write, as a guess, that they are biased, you can start a discussion about that in this page.

Please, don't be afraid about editing articles. Any genuine effort to improve an article, is not vandalizing. No one can blame you if you edit an article, as long as you are honest and faithful.

Gala.martin 19:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

About G8, i’ve never denied what u said; but if you have talked about the behaviour of some policemen only,u should drop a line about the behaviour of some demonstrators also in my opinion; dozens of shop-windows were shattered, some policemen who had to defend the Red-Zone, were attacked several times by some demostrators who used lots of different weapons: sticks, fire-extinguishers (for example do u remember what Carlo Giuliani was trying to do just a little before his death?), stones and bricks…hundreds of international cameramen shooted everything

“About italian judges, I repeat: if you think it is relevant, you can add some sentence in the paper about the fact that Berlusconi said the judges to be politically driver” you talked a lot about some irrelevant jokes in ur article, how come didn’t u tell anything about that important matter???

“Anyway, I think it is a personal statement. I want to be clear about that. When one writes an article about a politician on wikipedia, he has to be really careful.”..yea, he has to be careful, especially if he starts talking about several legal investigations and he doesn’t say a word about the end of those investigations….for example if some investigations were stopped because they were based on false prooves, u shouldn’t talk about them at all on a neutral enciclopedya; the one who writes something about a politician should talk about certain things, not about fascinating theories

“Many politician have been sued/condemned for many reasons. You can always guess that the judges were biased. But sometimes you should write it on wikipedia, sometimes it is just a guess. When soviet judges condemned Stalin's opposers, they were likely biased. Simply, Stalin wanted his enemies dead and provided some judges to do the work. History tells us they were biased. The same in Chile during Pinochet's dictatorship, and, alas, many other times” ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Stalin???? Pinochet???? So Berlusconi is quite related to Stalin or Pinochet in your opinion…..Berlusconi was elected by the Italian people 5 years ago, he’s absolutely democratic and i’d be really surprised if u don’t agree with me…

“If you want to state that italian judges are biased, you need some evidence. Since all the international analysts, as far as I know, never said anything about italian judges, you cannot say that as a truth.” Yeah, u’re right, I don’t have any evidence, that’s just my personal idea, so i won’t write anything about that on Wikipedia….but maybe those “international analysts” don’t know much about Italy, because half of Italians usually think some judges use their power to attack their political enemy; I could do dozens of different examples, but of course I don’t know if that’s the truth, but it seems the truth….just a question: if an international analyst says that Berlusconi’s daddy was born on Jupiter, can u really think that’s the truth? I believe in the certain prooves, in the facts, and sometimes I’m doubtful about those “international alalysts”

However I’ve never edited an article before, and honestly I wouldn’t edit your article even if i was quite good at doing it, because I know I’d not be neutral enough and because my English is too bad; I’d love to cooperate with you to make your article a little bit better by the way; maybe 2 not-neutral minds can write a neutral article, who knows? LEGATVSLEGIONIS 12:16, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

• Please, do not take apart some of my words to give them a different meaning. I never said that Berlusconi is equal to Stalin or Pinochet. I just said that italian judges are recognized to be different from what the soviet judges were (during Stalin's dictatorship). I do not know how you could read any attack against Berlusconi in that.

• I like proves and fact as well. And, from my point of view, there is no reason to believe italian judges are biased. Anyway, I repeat it once again, if you think you can add some information to this article, please do it.

• This is not my article, I just made a few edits. I think there are some problems with this article. You see, NPOV is not a completely meaningful word. Everybody has his point of view, and his contribution is welcome as far as he writes what he really believes, and is not factious. An article satisfies the NPOV standard if many people contribute to it, with different points of view. I think that people who wrote this article made a good job, but unfortunately almost all of them had similar points of view. So, that's good you have different ideas, and your contribution would be really valuable. If you feel uncomfortable with your english, just write your contribution down on this discussion page, and ask to some english native people to check it.

• Your partecipation should be active. You cannot say this article is bad and that's it. You should improve it! Remember: don't be dense Gala.martin 16:44, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi LEGATVSLEGIONIS, I think you should check your facts. A few hints...

1. Both at the time of Tangentopoli and later, even left wing politicians have been tried and sometimes condemned; they had no impunity
2. Gerardo d'Ambrosio, one of the Tangentopoli judges, has always been regarded as right wing, especially after his inquiry into the death of Pinelli in 1972
3. Antonio di Pietro was offered a place in the first Berlusconi cabinet. Maybe Berlusconi regarded him as right wing, at the time? It is possible, since he's always been on friendly terms with Tremaglia and Alemanno. Why was Antonio di Pietro never really accepted in the center-left alliance? Because he's essentially a right wing person, like Montanelli was.

--Lou Crazy 04:34, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Lou Crazy

“Both at the time of Tangentopoli and later, even left wing politicians have been tried and sometimes condemned; they had no impunity” that’s quite correct; by the way those judges, who began tangentopoli, usually investigated on PSI (a socialist party and, so, left oriented) and on DC but not on PCI (the communist party); PCI had taken much illicit money not by some Italian businessmen (DC and PSI did it), but by the enemy of the entire West (the soviet communist party)…but there were no serious investigations on PCI and so PSI and DC only were annihilated…now the prooves about that event are known, but a left-oriented government deleted that crime from the list of the Italian crimes (an “ad personam” law :) ) just some years ago In the Italian code of laws, there’s an important principle called: “l’obbligatorietà dell’azione penale dei pubblici ministeri”; I don’t know how to say it in proper English; by the way thanks to that principle, the judges are obliged to investigate as soon as someone starts accusing someone else, but they AREN’T obliged to investigate on someone IMMEDIATELY; sometimes they start investigating on something (or on someone) after several years, sometimes immediately…those judjes, who have political purposes, could use that principle to hit their political enemy and sometimes it's happened in my opinion

“[[Gerardo d'Ambrosio, one of the Tangentopoli judges, has always been regarded as right wing, especially after his inquiry into the death of Pinelli in 1972...Antonio di Pietro was offered a place in the first Berlusconi cabinet. Maybe Berlusconi regarded him as right wing, at the time? It is possible, since he's always been on friendly terms with Tremaglia and Alemanno. Why was Antonio di Pietro never really accepted in the center-left alliance? Because he's essentially a right wing person, like Montanelli was.]]” That’s a really good point; but in my opinion that’s not quite true: Di Pietro isn’t a right-wing person..but I couldn’t call him a left wing person either…if he was a politician some time ago, maybe he had joined DC. By the way his party is in the Left, that's a fact..and some years ago he investigated on Berlusconi...i really don't like that strong connection between politics and magistrature

However honestly I wouldn’t like to begin a political debat; I’d love to read just a neutral article on Berlusconi ( and not a left or a right-oriented one); that’s why I’ve decided to start writing a new article on him; I’m going to search for some neutral sources only, and I’d love to write just the facts, not the theories if u know what I mean….so I’d be glad to be helped by everyone who’d love doing it, because I wanna be sure of the high neutrality of that article Regards LEGATVSLEGIONIS 06:45, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Judges biased? When Berlusconi gets caught he claims judges are biased, then changes the law so that he can get away with his crimes... Who's biased?

Typos + Grammar

I can not even figure out what this sentence is meant to say. Can someone fix it up?

Even if the opposition and some allied parties recognized Berlusconi could not achieve what he promised in the contract, most of his allies agree in finding the reasons of this failure in the unfavourable economical condition Italy is living.

This article is full of typos and bad grammar that need fixing --222.153.59.189 04:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I tried to fix it. But still I am not satisfied with that sentence. Please, check it! Gala.martin 21:51, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

guilty verdicts

I move here this sentence from the Member of Propaganda Due masonry lodge section, since it is not true:
So far, this is the only guilty verdict he suffered. This is not true, since he got others verdicts that proved him guilty:

• All Iberian: 21 bilion lire of bribery given to Bettino Craxi
• a series of accounting frauds. One of them involved 1500 bilion lire off-the-books funds from 64 off-shore companies of his property.

None of them sentenced him to jail, because of prescriptive period, but all of them declared him guilty.
--BMF81 10:59, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

This is what happens when one tries to express concepts from one judicial system in another language. In Italian I would have said "Questa e` l'unica condanna ricevuta finora da S.B.". In all other trials he was either absolved due to statute of limitations ("prescrizione" in Italian), sometimes because the action in question is not illegal (e.g. if his company doesn't pay taxes, he knows it but didn't specifically tell his employees to avoid paying them it is not a crime) or in some rare cases because the the court found there wasn't enough proof that he had committed the alleged crime. But the P2 trial is the only one which left a criminal record for him. How should we say that in english? --Lou Crazy 02:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

(User BMF81, please note that) S.B. was decleared guilty in some senteces, not in all sentences. (User Luo Crazy, please note that) According to Italian law, "prescrizione" is different from absolution. Absolution is a sentence declaring absence of guiltiness. "Prescrizione" is a declaration of gultiness about an extinct crime. So, S.B was decleared guilty more than once. Gala.martin 15:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I didn't mean all the sentecences he received in his life, I meant all those I cited. I forgot to cite my souces: [12], just question 4. It's of several months ago, 2005, so there may be some more definitive guilty sentences. --BMF81 17:26, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Gala, actually "prescrizione" means that the time expired for getting a sentence on a crime. The court won't waste time saying if someone is guilty or not guilty. They move on to other business. A "prescrizione" is not a guilty verdict (even though sometimes the motivation for prescrizione will mention enough evidence to support a conviction...)

Anyway, how would you translate "Questa e` l'unica condanna ricevuta finora da S.B." in proper legal terms? --Lou Crazy 03:15, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Your description of the italian "prescrizione" (which is equivalent to the prescriptive period not to the statute of limitations) is not correct. Sometimes verdicts with prescrizione state completely that the respondent is guilty for a crime (not just give enough evidence to argue that he is). This is the case of the sentences I cited, and (for istance) also of the verdict that found Giulio Andreotti totally guilt of mafia untill Spring 1980; this happens when the trial lasts enough to come to a full verdict, even if the computation of the prescriptive period states that it is too late for a conviction.

In other cases, like the ones you were talking about, the prescriptive period imposes to end the trial too early to come to a full guilty verdict; the evidences found so far are provided in the verdict, and in some cases they are enough to support a conviction; but again, this is not the case of the trials I cited. --BMF81 09:45, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I do not know English proper legal terms (and think the whole article should be checked by a native English speaking reviewer). You both are right, "prescrizione" is not a declearation of guiltiness, I just meant that it could be (a declaration of guiltiness) in some cases. Gala.martin 20:51, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Private life

This article says nothing about Mr. Berlusconi's private life, past marriages and family. XanaX 14:44, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

This article is obviously Left-Oriented

Someone must rewrite this article, from a neutral POV if possible. Because the way it is now, is obviously not high enough for the Wikipedia standard. In some passages it sounds more like a political-attack text, rather than an encyclopedia article.

Many statement need sources.

Three times Prime Minister

Please note that Berlusconi has been Prime Minister three times, but the article states twice (on April 28th 2005 a new Government went on power, and S.B. was and is its Prime Minister). I did not want to edit the article by myself, since it is a delicate issue and I did not follow all the discussions related to it. Anyway, I think this is an important mistake to fix, and it is easy to be NPOV about that (just change the dates in the box etc). Gala.martin 00:28, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's true. Take a look here. Hill (from it.wiki)

Mangano NPOV

I agree with the anonymous who says the article is NPOV. In particular ther paragraph talking about mr.Mangano: it says clearly that Berlusconi is part of mafia. It is absolutely false: a lot of court sentences said he didn't know that Mangano was a member of the Mafia! If Berlusconi will read this article I think that Wikipedia will get a cause for slander 82.52.64.157 17:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I note that none answered me about Mangano. I read both English and Italian Wikipedia and I note down that Italian version is absolutely better! Many English articles are really approssimative, poor and less careful to contents. 82.54.143.134 14:51, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I wrote most of the paragraph about Mangano, so I'm the one to blame if you don't like it :) On a more serious note, I think that you have some problems with language, if you argue that “it says clearly that Berlusconi is part of mafia”. Please read it again and cite its exact phrases.
If you know any court sentence that states that “Berlusconi didn't know that Mangano was a member of the Mafia”, you are more than welcome, as anybody, to add an accurate reference to the article.--BMF81 19:11, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Driving code

Lou what are you saying?

• inheritance tax was effective for all people in Italy and in was at 4%
• the riform of driving code is a very old idea, but leftist administration didn't actualized it at all: in fact it has been approved by Parliament only 3 years after Berlusconi's elections winning.

82.52.64.157 17:33, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, inheritance tax was effective for everyone, then the leftist governmment exempted all inheritances below 400.000 euro or some figure like that. Which effectively meant almost no one had to pay it any more. One of the first laws of the right wing majority was to exempt those high incomes, too.
• The first law which insituted a point system for driver licences was a "Legge delega" approved by the former left wing parliament. After this there have been a "decreto legislativo" and later a "decreto legge" about it by Berlusconi's majority. The first application of "patente a punti" was in July 2003. By that time Berlusconi had had slightly more than 2 years in power, not 3.
  Lou Crazy 23:42, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

The things you are saying are wrong for both points. To approve a "Legge delega" doesn't mean at all that are approved regulaments; au contraire it means that government gets the power to approve a law. But they didn't at all! So, I think that everyone can understand what is the difference between getting the power to do something and doing it. Isn't it?
82.54.143.134 14:51, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course a "Legge delega" only gives the government the power to issue a "Decreto Legislativo" following the guidelines in the Legge Delega. And it is true that this power was left in the hands of Berlusconi's government because in the meanwhile it had won the election. But their Decreto Legislativo was so bad that the very same government had to issue a Decreto Legge do change it from top to bottom. So, on june 30 in Italy we had the old driving code. In July 1st the Decreto Legislativo came into effect, and a new driving code took the place of the older one. On July 2nd the Decreto Legge came into effect, and we had another different driving code. Three different driving codes in three consecutive days. That's a record! --Lou Crazy 01:05, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

NPOV?

I'm new to Wikipedia, but I wonder why a so-called "Free Encyclopedia" allows people to write an article like this one. This is clearly not NPOV, but I don't see any lines about it. Reading it, you see only political comments written against Berlusconi (it's funny to read lines where writers describe "good laws" putting, in the end, that the idea comes from "previuos governments"). Do you really think that people can consider Wikipedia a good source of information if you keep articles like this one? It's a shame to keep up this work under an unequal point of view. --82.50.122.195 10:03, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

If you want to be constructive, you should be more precise than that: please cite the exact phrases/words that you consider not true, or not neutral.
Here is my opinion about the only remark you made: it was pretty soft argument for a NPOV dispute; the section you mentioned was not about "good laws" but about "Legislative actions"; I also think that It's important to see facts in an "historical perspective", citing possible relevant works/omissions of previous goverments.
--BMF81 12:44, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

My aim wasn't to be constructive, because a "constructive person" would cancel almost the whole text of the article and re-write it under a real NPOV. I just wanted to be sure that I was (and am, in my personal opinion) right: people like the ones who defend such an article are driven by a political ideal and not by the principles of a NPOV. That ideal could be summarized like "I don't like Berlusconi, so I want to let people see him under a bad aspect. If he did something good, it's better to say that doesn't come from him, but he took the idea from somebody who was in the government before him". I do not even like people like Berlusconi, but I would never say I'm neutral while describing him only starting from my own political thoughts. That's all. And you know that's right (even if you will never admit it publicly)..
--82.50.124.61 14:30, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

If you think it isn't NPOV, add other material telling what he did good. I can't think of anything good he did, but of course there must have been something ;-) On a serious note, the law against smoking was effective, but it has already been mentioned. In other cases... it is a fact that inheritance taxes were abolished by the left wing administration for all inheritances below 400.000 euro (or something like that), which includes almost all inheritances, except for a small percentage of the population, including Berlusconi. Berlusconi abolished it for these people. It is a fact that the driver licence reform was approved by the leftist administration. One day after it entered into effect, the Berlusconi government changed it a bit with a sort of executive order, overriding the parliament. Not just the idea, also the actualization of the idea belongs to the previous administration. He is the only prime minister ever in Italy to assume office with a prior conviction. And so on. A NPOV means you can't hide these facts. Just mention other facts about any good thing he did. --Lou Crazy 00:50, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Missing information: money that Berlusconi made with politics

Here there is an article that summarizes all the available information about "Money that Berlusconi made with politics, before and after his campaigning". --BMF81 15:58, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

"Going Down into the Field", revision request

One important missing part of this section, is the long debated question about the reasons for Berlusconi entering in politics. Before adding it to the article, I ask for help on writing it in a proper english (some translation from italian is still missing) and making it neutral-POV.
--BMF81 15:32, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

the text:
One of the most debated matters about Berlusconi has been about which are the true reasons for Berlusconi entering in politics. Some critics argued that Berlusconi did it to take care of his own interest, being saving his own companies from bankrupt and himself from convictions. Berlusconi and his followers argued instead that he was so rich that he would had no interst in using politics to became even richer, and regarding his trials they argued that just after Berlusconi entering in politics, his opposers tried to get rid of him by a judicial persecution.

Investigating this questions some journalist cited some facts:
Mediobanca's annual report about the 10 biggest italian companies, showed that in 1992 Berlusconi's media and fincance group Fininvest had about 7140 bilion lire of debts, while its net worth amounted to 'just' 1053. Furthermore, the creditor banks started aksing money back and the advertising income stopped to grow after the big increases of the previous years.
Between 1992 and 1993, Fininvest encountered several judicial investigation by Milan, Turin and Rome prosecutors. They regarded: alleged bribes (to political parties and public officers in the aim of getting contracts), alleged fake invoices of Publitalia, political congress financing and television frequencies.

Further details about the Sources for Banca Rasini and money laundering

From the interview with Michele Sindona (bankrupted P2 member linked with Cosa Nostra and the laundering of Mafia money), made and published by NY Times journalist Nick Tosches: When asked which banks were used by the Mafia, he replied: "In Sicily sometimes the Banco di Sicilia. In Milan a little bank in Piazza Mercanti" that is, the Banca Rasini.

Furtermore (but not currently present in the article), according to the references L'odore dei soldi and multilanguage paper, "Well-known Mafia figures and Sicilian drug dealers held bank accounts at the Banca Rasini, including Antonio Virgilio, Salvatore Enea, and Luigi Monti, who is linked with Vittorio Mangano, the Mafia figure who worked as overseer in Berlusconi's villa".

In the cited interview ([13], [14]) of journalist Marco Travaglio, he says that "Banca Rasini [...] was among those banks that were cited by Palermo judges as those used for mafia money laundering" (originally in italian: "Banca Rasini [...] era una delle banche che è indicata dai giudici di Palermo come quelle utilizzate per il riciclaggio del denaro della mafia".
--BMF81 15:12, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Suspect contribution

I found nothing about this on the internet:

section Racism

Silvio Berlusconi in 1998 accused the United Kingdom of having a poor economy and of having a foul mouthed population who did nothing but drink beer and swear.Because of this act of hatered Silvio was given a formal warning by members of the EU and Tony Blair himself.

by John Nathan, New York, USA

To the anonimus author:Please provide some source. --BMF81 22:40, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Removed Italian text

(I removed the following text from the article as it's not English. I don't really know Italian so I can't tell whether it's of value. If it's of use in the article, could someone translate? --A bit iffy 09:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC))

What Italian Courts says about Berlusconi:

1) Bugie sulla loggia P2 (falsa testimonianza) La corte d'appello di Venezia, nel 1990, dichiara Berlusconi colpevole di aver giurato il falso davanti al Tribunale di Verona a proposito della sua iscrizione alla P2 (reato coperto da amnistia nel 1989)

2) Tangenti alla Guardia di Finanza (corruzione) 1° grado: condanna a 2 anni e 9 mesi per tutte e 4 le tangenti contestate Appello: prescrizione per 3 tangenti (grazie alle attenuanti generiche), assoluzione con formula dubitativa per la quarta. nella motivazione si legge: "Il giudizio di colpevolezza dell'imputato (Berlusconi) poggia su molteplici elementi indiziari, certi, univoci, precisi e concordanti, per ciò dotati di rilevante forza persuasiva, tali da assumere valenza probatoria" Cassazone: assoluzione

3) All Iberian 1 (finanziamento illecito ai partiti) 1° grado. condanna a 2 anni e 4 mesi per i 21 MILIARDI versati estero su estero, tramite il conto All Iberian, a Bettino Craxi appello: prescrizione, tra le motivazioni della sentenza:"per nessuno degli imputati emerge daglia atti evidenza dell'innocenza" Cassazione: prescrizione confermata, tra le motivazioni della sentenza: "le operazioni societarie e finanziarie prodromiche ai finanziamenti estero sue estero dal conto intestato alla All Iberian al conto di transito nothern Holding (Craxi) furono realizzati in Italia dai vertici del gruppo Fininvest spa, con rilevante concorso di Berlusconi quale proprietario e presidente (...) Non emerge negli atti processuali l'estraneità dell'imputato".

4) All Iberian 2 (falso in bilancio) Processo sospeso in attesa che si conosca se le nuove norme in materia di reati societari approvate dal governo Berlusconi si siano legittime (deciderà l'Alta Corte di giustizia europea e la Corte costituzionale italiana. In pratica Berlusconi si è fatto la legge per scagionarsi, bisogna vedere però se gli alti organi saranno d'accordo...

5) Medusa Cinema (falso in bilancio) 1° grado: condanna a 1 anno e 4 mesi (10 MILIARDI di fondi neri che, grazie alla compravendita, vengono accantonati su una serie di libretti al portatore di Silvio Berlusconi) Appello: assoluzione con formula dubitativa. Secondo il collegio Berlusconi è così ricco che potrebbe anche non essersi reso conto di come, nel corso della compravendita, il suo collaboratore Carlo Bernasconi (condannato) gli abbia versato 10 MILIARDI di lire in nero. Cassazione: sentenza d'appello confermata

6)Terreni di Macherio (appropriazione indebita, frode fiscale, falso in bilancio) 1° grado: assoluzione dall'appropriazione indebita e dalla frode fiscale (4, 4 MILIARDI pagati in nero), prescrizione per i falsi in bilancio di due società ai quali "indubbiamente ha concorso Berlusconi" Appello: confermata l'assoluzione dalle prime due accuse. Assoluzione anche per uno dei due reati di falso in bilancio, per il secondo è intervenuta l'amnistia. Cassazone: in corso.

7) Caso Lentini (falso in bilancio) 1°grado: reato prescritto per la legge su falso in bilancio (10 MILIARDI versati in nero al Torino Calcio per l'acquisto del giocatore Luigi Lentini) Appello: in corso

8) Consolidato gruppo Fininvest (falso in bilancio) Il gip Fabio Paparella ha dichiarato prescritti, sulla base della nuova legge sul faso in bilancio, i 1500 MILIARDI (!) di presunti fondi neri accantonati dal gruppo Berlusconi su 64 società off-shore della galassia All Iberian (comparto B della Fininvest). Il pm Francesco Greco ha però presentato ricorso in Cassazione

9) Lodo Mondadori (corruzione giudiziaria) 1° grado: concessione delle attenuanti generiche ("Berlusconi è diventato Presidente del Consiglio"), ma condanna a Cesare Previti Appello e Cassazione: prescrizione

10) Sme-Ariosto (falso in bilancio) Reato stralciato in seguito all'entrata in vigore delle nuove norme sul diritto societario, (Berlusconi avrebbe versato denaro ad alcuni giudici...). Il processo è fermo in attesa che l'Alta Corte di giustizia europea si pronunci, dato che queste nuove norme in vigore potrebbero essere in contrasto con quelle comunitarie. Ma anche in caso di risposta positiva per i giudici, resterà bloccato per il lodo Schifani. Come del resto tutti gli altri procedimenti ancora in corso a carico di Silvio Berlusconi.

11) Diritti televisivi (falso in bilancio e frode fiscale) Indagini preliminari in corso alla Procura di Milano a carico di numerosi manager del gruppo, più il presidente di Mediaset Fedele Confalonieri e il titolare Silvio Berlusconi, il quale - secondo l'ipotesi accusatoria - avrebbe continuato anche dopo l'ingresso in politica nel '94 ad esercitare di fatto il ruolo di dominus dell'azienda. Oggetto dell'indagine: una serie di operazioni finanziarie di acquisto di diritti cinematografici e televisivi da major americone, con vorticosi passaggi fra una società estera e l'altra del gruppo Berlusconi, con il risultato di far lievitare artificiosamente il prezzo dei beni compravenduti e beneficiare di sconti fiscali previsti dalla legge Tremonti, approvata dal primo governo dello stesso Berlusconi. Il presunto falso in bilancio è valutato intorno ai 180 milioni di Euro (circa 350 MILIARDI)

12) Telecinco (violazione delle leggi antitrusti e frode fiscale in Spagna) Il giudice anticorruzione di Madrid Baltasàr Garzòn Real, dopo aver chiesto nel 2001 al governo italiano di processare Berlusconi o, in alternativa, di privarlo dell'immunità in modo di poterlo giudicare in Spagna, non ha ancora ricevuto risposta. berlusconi in Spagna è accusato - insieme a Marcello dell'Utri (pregiudicato) e altri dirigenti Fininvest - di aver posseduto, grazie a vari prestanomi e operazioni finanziarie illecite, il controllo pressoché totalitario dell'emittente Telecinco, in violazione dell'antitrust spagnola.

13) Mafia (concorso esterno in associazione mafiosa e riciclaggio di denaro sporco) Indagini archiviate a Palermo su richiesta della Procura per scadenza termini massimi concessi per indagare.

14) Bombe del 1992 e del 1993 (concorso in strage) Le inchieste delle procure di firenze e Caltanissetta sui presunti "mandanti a volto coperto" delle stragi 1992 (Falcone e Borsellino) e del 1993 (Milano, Firenze, Roma) sono state archiviate per scadenza dei termini d'indagine. A firenze, il 14 novembre 1998, il gip Giuseppe Soresina ha però rilevato come Berlusconi e Dell'Utri abbiano "intrattenuto rapporti non meramente episodici con i soggetti criminali cui è riferibile il programma stragista realizzato". Cioè con il clan corleonese che da 20 anni guida Cosa Nostra, con centinaia di omicidi e una mezza dozzina di stragi. Il gip aggiunge: "Esiste un'obbiettiva convergenza degli interessi pubblici di Cosa Nostra rispetto ad alcune qualificate linee programmatiche della nuova formazione (forza Italia): articolo 41 bis, legislazione sui collaboratori di giustizia, recupero del garantismo processuale..."

There follows the translation - User paraw April 2nd 2006

There is the translation. I'd like also to point out a detail of Italian judiciary laws: when one is acquitted of the charges due to the time that has passed from the alleged crime to the trial (prescrizione), even though one is not sent to jail or fined, one is still considered guilty of the alleged crime, and one's criminal record is accordingly updated. If, instead, a person is judged completely innocent, then the sentence doesn't mention the prescrizione at all (and, of course, the criminal record is untouched). That is why it seems from the proceedings that the defendant has, in some cases, been acquitted because guilty; the fact is that, in those cases, he's been found guilty, but too much time had passed, therefore allowing him to claim the prescrizione. This is not clearly stated in the article. Anyway, translation follows.

1) Lies on freemasonry society P2 (perjury). The appeal court of Venice, in 1990, declares Berlusconi guilty of having spoken false statements under oath (falsa testimonianza) before the Tribunal of Verona about his enrollment in the P2 (felony pardoned by amnisty in 1989)

2) Bribes to the Guardia di Finanza, Italian financial police (corruption). 1st degree: sentenced to 2 years and 9 months after conviction for all the 4 allegiations of corruption. Appeal: prescrizione for 3 of the 4 allegiations (thanks to generic attenuating reasons), acquittal with doubt benefit for the remaining. The judge's explanation was: "The judgement of guilt for the defendant (Berlusconi) is founded onto many indiciary elements which are sure, univocous, precise and concordant, therefore having a relevant persuading strength, such to give them proof validity." Cassazione (Italian supreme court): acquittal

3) All Iberian, 1st proceeding (illegal funding of political parties). 1st degree: sentenced to 2 years and 4 months after conviction about 21 billions deposited from a foreign bank account (owned by All Iberian) to a foreign bank account owned by Bettino Craxi. Appeal: prescrizione; the judge's explanation: "There doesn't come out, from the proceedings, any evidence of innocence for any of the defendants." Cassazione: confirmed prescrizione; judge's explanation: "The financial and corporate operations preparing the foreign-to-foreign funding from the account owned by All Iberian to the checking account owned by Northern Holding (controlled by Craxi) were done in Italy by the top managers of the Fininvest S.p.A., with a relevant cooperation of Berlusconi as owner and president [...] From the trial proceedings there doesn't come out the defendant's extraneity."

4) All Iberian, 2nd proceeding (false statement of account). The proceeding has been suspended, pending another proceeding before the High Court of Justice of the EU and the Italian Constitutional Court, ruling over the constitutionality of the new laws passed by the Berlusconi government, which redefine many of the financial crimes and associated trials.

The next sentence is, IMHO, not neutral; I translated it, but suggest not to include it. Practically, Berlusconi made a law to acquit himself, but we should wait and see whether or not the other institutions will agree...

5) Medusa Cinema (false statement of account). 1st degree: sentenced to 1 year and 4 months after conviction about 10 undeclared billions laundered on many checking accounts owned by Silvio Berlusconi. Appeal: acquittal with doubt benefit.

The next sentence was, IMHO, not neutral; I translated it, using what I think is a more appropriate language. According to the judges, since he has a huge number of bank transactions, Berlusconi didn't realize that his collaborator Carlo Bernasconi, who was convicted, deposited the money on his accounts without declaring it.

Cassazione: the court confirmed the sentence of the appeal court.

6) Macherio real estates (unlawful appropriation, tax fraud, false statement of account). 1st degree: acquitted from unlawful appropriation and tax fraud, prescrizione for the 2 allegiations of false statement of account, for which, according to the sentence, "Berlusconi is guilty, together with others, beyond any reasonable doubt". Appeal: the court confirmed the acquittal from the first 2 allegiations, and acquitted him for one of the 2 allegiations of false statement of account. For the remaining allegiation he obtained an amnesty. Cassazone: pending.

7) Lentini trial (false statement of account). 1st degree: prescrizione according to the new law, turning the false statement of account from felony to a misdemeanour; the allegiation was having deposited 10 undeclared billions to the Torino Calcio (football club) for the purchase of the soccer player Luigi Lentini. Appeal: pending.

8) Fininvest holding (false statement of account). The GIP (Giudice per le Indagini Preliminari - Judge for the Preliminary Investigations) has declared valid the prescrizione for the alleged 1500 undeclared billions deposited by the group owned by Berlusconi onto accounts belonging to 64 off-shore companies controlled by the All Iberian group, in its turn controlled by Fininvest. The prosecutor Francesco Greco has appealed to the Cassazione.

9) Lodo Mondadori (corruption of judges). 1st degree: prescrizione because of the attenuating reasons (being Prime Minister). The appeal court and the Cassazione have confirmed the prescrizione.

10) Sme-Ariosto (false statement of account). The proceeding has been suspended, pending another proceeding before the High Court of Justice of the EU and the Italian Constitutional Court, ruling over the constitutionality of the new laws passed by the Berlusconi government, which redefine many of the financial crimes and associated trials. Actually, even if the aforementioned law will be cancelled, the proceeding will be blocked by means of the lodo Schifani.

The next sentence is, IMHO, not neutral; I translated it, but suggest not to include it. As it happens to all the proceedins still pending against Silvio Berlusconi.

11) Television rights (false statement of account and tax fraud). The preliminary investigations are still going on. The allegiations against Silvio Berlusconi are: with the help of the president of Mediaset, Fedele Confalonieri, and many other managers of the group, he would have kept governing the company even after starting his political party in 1994; he would have started a series of financial operations involving purchase of cinema and TV rights from American majors, using complicated steps between foreign companies owned by his group, with the goal of making the price of the purchased goods increase, thus obtaining tax discounts by the means of the Tremonti law, approved by his own government. The alleged false statement of account is estimated around 180 millions.

12) Telecinco (violation of antitrust laws and tax fraud - pending in Spain).

The entire number 12 was, IMHO, not neutral; I translated and edited it, using what I think is a more appropriate language.

Berlusconi has been charged in Spain together with Marcello dell'Utri and other Fininvest managers with obtaining the total control of the TV channel Telecinco using figureheads and illegal financial operations, thus violating the Spanish antitrust law.

13) Mafia (external participation in mafious conspiracy and money laundering). The proceedings has been closed on request of the Attorney General, since the deadline to finish the investigations has passed.

14) 1992 and 1993 bombings (complicity in massacre). The proceeding has been closed on request of the Attorney General, since the deadline to finish the investigations has passed. The allegiations were made within the investigations concerning the massacres of 1992 (in which the judges Falcone and Borsellino were killed by two high potential explosive devices) and the terror bombing of 1993 (in the cities of Milan, Florence and Rome). The judge for the preliminary investigations, Giuseppe Soresina, declared on November 14th 1998 that Berlusconi and Dell'Utri had "kept long term relationships with the criminals responsible of the massacres", i.e. with the Corleone clan, leading Cosa Nostra since 20 years ago. The judge also declared: "There is an objective convergence of the public interests of Cosa Nostra with some of the qualified points of the program of the new political movement Forza Italia: the article 41 bis, the laws on justice collaborators, reform of the presumption of innocence..."

Latest edits

IMHO the latest edits about conflict of interest and control of media, done without any discussion in this page on a text which wasn't changed since a long time, in an anti-B and anti-executive Point Of View justifies the nNPOV advice to be restored. Marius 05:16, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I tried to NPOVize a bit. Again, it is difficult to make it sound neutral when he actually first says one thing and then publicly does the others... but that's the man. --Orzetto 00:45, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate (no joke) your sincerity in owning your mislike about the man. Marius 05:00, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

A very simple question: why do you want to be "neutral" towards peoples who are not? I think that saying things like they are would be simple justice. Why do you want to respect peoples like Berlusconi who doesn't respect anyone but himself and his own dirty interests, like all Italians, at the end, understood? Good and evil are not the same thing,I think... [anon]

I do think that there is a lot of propaganda on WP masquerading as 'NPOV'. The facts presented should be weighed by evidence, not by media control, budget, or popular vote. If there is overwhelming evidence that somebody is first and foremost a ruthless criminal, the aricle should state that, pure and simple. This goes for Berlusconi, it goes for Saddam Hussein, and it goes for George W. Bush. Since Wikipedia isn't funded by either Fox or RAI, it should be possible to avoid state-sponsored propaganda. Baad 15:32, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Possible addition

I'm not sure this is encyclopedic, so I'm leaving it up to the editors of this article (you) whether it should be included:

A bar of soap made from Berlusconi's fat sold for 18,000 dollars last month. Here's the news article:[15]. Dave (talk) 04:32, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Dear Webmaster, I don't want to add anything about this man, but I've to protest against some prejudices you have about Italians. I rubbed out some offensive lines, but someone wrote them again. 1) I NEVER heard that "horns" are a common gesture amoung Italian pre-teens and I NEVER saw it by anyone! It's a very vulgar gesture possibly practiced in old times, when this man was young, but certainly no actual pre-teen or teen ever practice it (or know): boys and girls are too busy in front of PC or in gym or at dancing or in their other school and out-school activities. "Horns" are referred to a far past! 2) Italian youngmen are surely not machos in the way you mean, but only normally males. I read in history books about this kind of boys in the 1950s, but modern youngmen respect women and deal with them like every other European boy. There is NO macho imagine in Italy: maybe you are reffering to the time of emigrants or the times in which Berlusconi was a boy (which is, more or less, the same). I ask you to cancel these lines, offensive for all Italians, who are surely not represented by such a clown.

It is clear that you left Italy some time ago. I am Italian. 1) Horns are common use among teen and they are not vulgar anymore, much less than the middle finger. Horns in pictures are an evergreen, up to 30-years-old people. 2) It is oviously true that Italians are not all womanizers. However the degree of political corectness is much higher in scandinavian countries. The joke by Berlusconi, however, was considered unpolite also by the Italians and that's why it is reported here. Italians are represented by a "clown", given that they voted for him. --pippo2001 19:17, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

You may want to look here: [16],[17], [18]. ;) --pippo2001 19:31, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Pippo, I'm Italian, too, and I live in Italy, but I don't have experience of these strange behaviours. Can I ask where are you from and how old are you? Probably, there is some local surviving, in lower ambients, of this vulgarity, but you can't surely refer this to all actual young peoples! I'd very wondered to see a boy (or an older man) to do that gesture: probably it was common when the guy was young, I don't know. In every case, I don't see the needing to write such a thing, slandering our whole country: do you feel the needing to defend that guy in some way? Italians are NOT so, and this kind of behaviours DON'T represent Italian people and Italian culture. I wrote to the webmaster thinking he was an American, and it's known that Americans usually have prejudices about Italians, based over their knowledge of ancient culture of our emigrants (and their issue), while usually don't know actual Italian culture. I wonder to read that an Italian likes to support the surviving of these prejudices. About Berlusconi's representativity (and apart from the fact I was referred to his culture and not to politics) I can say I'm a free citizen, I surely didn't vote for him, I don't feel myself represented by him in any way, and I've the right to say. I hope you don't think (like him, who has no idea of what democracy is) that democracy is only voting, after that gov. has the right to rule in a dictatorial way, because it was elected! Democracy has to be applied in every day and in every circumstance! I'm actually represented by my Deputies and my Senators at the Parliament, and, after last local elections, by the largest part of Italian public opinion, tired of stupid jokes, vulgar talks and empty words.

Wikipedia is not a place for political debate. The sentence you keep deleting is This is a common joke among Italian pre-teens, and many felt it was utterly out of place in an international meeting. referred to Berlusconi doing corna. People in the rest of the world don't even know what 'corna' are and this sentence is needed to give contest. You may want to ask to a pre-teen about the usage of these gestures, that are not vulgar anymore. Please, restrain any consideration on my social status. Prejudice is very bad, but 'slight' refinements of true are annoying. Take care --pippo2001 12:18, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

I feel it's funny (and sad, at the same time) that two anti-B italian wikipedians (btw, I'm italian as well) dispute about the meaning and the usage of corna (horns) gesture, instead of trying to deal in a NPOV style about politics, programs and so on. From the beginning this article has been often used as a propaganda panel-board by either anti-B (more) or pro-B (less). It's not wiki. --Marius 07:20, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

From what do you infer that I am anti-B (whatever this word means)? I did not edit the original text. The anonymous editor deleted parts necessary to understand what the article is talking about. If you want to add something about politics and programs, whatever yout B status is, please go on. --pippo2001 08:11, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

done (see history). Ciao. --Marius 08:22, 22 August 2005 (UTC) I'm glad you did. --pippo2001 08:29, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Ongoing event tag

Why does this article carry this tag? Evil Monkey∴Hello 08:14, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

I suppose that's because of the results of the recent administrative elections (April 3-4), which caused an upheaval of sorts in his party and alliance. This goes beyond the somewhat longish undeclared crisis which ended when he formed his new government; the whole "house of freedom" strategy for the upcoming 2006 elections is still being redefined, for example right now it's said that he might consider retirement or a reduced role, there are plans to merge the whole "house of freedoms" alliance in a single party, etc. Anyway, I think the tag might be removed.

Is there still any problem with this page?

I've just completed a thorough reading of this article after noticing its NPOV warning and discovered, rather to my delight, that I was unable to find examples of significant POV writing in either direction, for or against him (unless one would like to construe the length at which his legal troubles and criticisms are discussed POV, but I submit that he is a very controversial Prime Minister and he does have an arseload of legal issues, and the fact that so much information exists on these subjects is not our fault). Unless anyone within, say, the next week has an outstanding objection, I see no reason for the POV warning to remain. It is guilty of the reverse of its intention — rather than ensuring questioning and critique of a suspect article, it casts doubt upon a legitimate one. Wally 23:17, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm the user who put the notice, the reason being that, imho, B's grip on italian media is highly overestimated here. However I've no obiection to remove it, given that the NPOV is not, imho again, a black or white issue, and this article can be regarded as NPOV enough. As a final consideration: yes, B has a long judicial history, but here in Italy we've a lot of politicians with similar pedigrees, but B's one has been strongly enphasized by his opponents, for his being in office. Marius @ 06:37, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Audio file

What's the problem with including a pronunciation file? (though I prefer {{audio}} for this) David.Monniaux 12:14, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

POV issues

Since there is no real POV discussion, but still the article is disputed, I am going to change the short POV to long POV, the one saying "please help by report possibly non-neutral passages". Since the issue has been raised, however, I have a point on a possible right-side POV which I would like to be addressed:

• In the meantime the competition between his own company Mediaset and RAI has become more intense with both groups trying hard to increase their own market share.

Source? I could not find any. It seems to me very hard to prove this statement, or for that matter its contrary, which would be

• In the meantime the competition between his own company Mediaset and RAI has decreased and both groups seem to have agreed to some kind of division of their market shares.

My personal impression, which is of course worth nothing, is more inclined towards the second statement. However, in the absence of any sources, wouldn't it be safe to say nothing about the issue, and just assume that the level of competition between RAI and Mediaset hasn't increased or decreased? If someone feels that, even if no sources can be found, something must be said about the issue, what about a statement like

• There are no signs of a decrease in competition for market shares between Mediaset and RAI (since Berlusconi went in charge).

Any thoughts or sources?

A source which could be used to support the view of a decrease in Mediaset-Rai competition is an Italian Antitrust report (in Italian, of course). It's actually an "indagine conoscitiva", but I really don't know how to translate it so I called it a "report". ;)

Anyway, currently I believe that the article's bias (or perceived bias) originates from the selection of "facts" rather than the way tehy're actually portrayed. A different selection of facts (and a different selection of omissions) could have a very different result. For example, the whole article revolves around his career as a politician and not around his career as a businessman (or, for what matters, a soccer team owner - I'm joking), and some traits of Berlusconi's personality are usually considered inappropriate for a politician but indifferent (or even appropriate) for a businessman.

By the way, Berlusconi did not found Italia 1 and Rete 4 as the article apparently implies (I think they were founded by Rusconi and Mondadori respectively, although I might be mistaken).

reply to Massimamanno

Massimamanno wrote:

If nothing is said about his trials and related issues in the main article people will flock and add something every other day. I would work on it while it is there. As for remoing the warnings, I mostly referenced the section and was waiting for the admin's approval but I think there should be no more factual accuracy disputes, maybe POV issues which I am not aware of, so the disputed label could be removed, I was just waiting some more.

If people see a link to a second article, even if it is a work-in-progress in the Talk space, they will be less likely to add information to the main article. As for "waiting for an admin", this isn't necessary; wikipedia doesn't work that way. I am also an admin, but neither I nor any other admin has any particular authority about article content (what we do have are certain tools to help resolve disputes). However, I do feel strongly that controversial material should either referenced or moved out of the article until such things are resolved. These warnings look very bad.

I am unsure if you understood what I said, or this article's history. The section on legal investigations needed to be referenced. Now it has been. Before removing the warning, though, I was waiting for the consensus of the person who added the warning. Who, also, happened to be an admin. But, first and foremost, it was a matter of courtesy and, sort of, democracy. Now I am removing the warning.

While I do not completely agree with your reorganization, I will tentatively leave it in place since it appears to have some merit, especially in the division between business and political career

Ok, but I want you to understand what I am trying to do. Over and over again on Wikipedia, these big, important articles to which many people contribute end up looking like ragged quilts, with bits and pieces of information ("factoids") inserted in an almost random way throughout the text. In addition to supplying various kinds of information, an encyclopedia article, IMO, should also have a well-organized narrative with a certain structural unity. One way to do this is to break into down into topical sections; another is to rewrite the material from scratch as an organic whole, but this takes consumate skill as a editor. What I found yesterday was an article that -- in one way or another -- needed extensive organization.

I disagree with your method of working, but, given the way wikipedia works, I have no choice but to accept, revert or edit what you write. Being a very controversial article, the one on Berlusconi must in my opinion reach an acceptable equilibrium state in content, before being tweaked in form and shape. This is the same way the articles on other controversal leaders are being worked, and suggestion to break the article are being rejected until there is consensus on what is to be written and what not in the first place, and what is to be kept in the main article and what not in the second place. G.W.Bush is 72 Kb, Bill Clinton is 49 Kb, Tony Blair is 46 Kb, etc. Berlusconi is a media mogul AND a twice prime minister of Italy, and the page is not too long. In the end, maybe, the list of his trials may have to be moved, but not, is my firm opinion, the disussion of them and related issues.

As for the legal section, it just seems rather dense and reader-unfriendly. An encylopedia article on a complicated issue should, IMO, first and foremost offer a good overview of the subject and not necessarily strive to be a comprehensive repository, ie, not offer "too much" information (although listings also have their place). IOW, we should distill the legal section to a couple of paragraphs, with salient examples, and move the rest, especially that list, to an ancilliary article for people who want more. This would be a "reader-friendly" approach.

I disagree

"Media ownership" is a big issue, it earned some pronunciations from the european council and debates in the european parliament and I am unsure if it fits in the general class of "berlusconi and controversy" which mostly was meant to deal with the gaffes and minor diplomatical incidents mostly caused (imo) by inexperience in international diplomacy, and contained some points of appreciation/criticism on berlusconi related to personality matters. If it is left there, should be moved to the first part of the paragraph since it is the major international source of controversy on Berlusconi, while the "strange remarks" he sometimes makes, however they may be fit for the media attention, are not generally seen as a so big issue.

I see your point. A separate section on Media ownership might also be appropriate.

in the last paragraph, controversy about Berlusconi's personality is understated. Overall, I still think that paragraph fits best in "berlusconi and controversy" but will take somet time to think about it before editing.

I am not sure what you mean by here "understated. Too little information? In any case, some of the material could go elsewhere, but factoids like his facelift need to given a suitable home or left out. -- Viajero 13:20, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It was mildly stated already (the part on controversy about him centralizing power, not his facelift and hair implant) looking for a difficult compromise. There was an ongoing discussion on that sentence and you further understated it without bothering to look at the discussion. That may be the way you work on all of your edits. Sure that way you can gather many edits to show on your personal page but do not expect them to last long, or have a positive effect.

---

Massimamanno: For someone who has made like twenty edits in the main article space, all of them in this article, you speak with impressive authority about "how things are done here"; I don't have your self-assurance about such matters even after contributing for more than a year. You may know a great deal about Berlusconi and you may be Italian, but neither of those factors makes you the final arbiter of what this article should look like. As I am sure you realize, this article needs work. It is missing information in some places; in other places, the existing material needs to be presented in a better way. If you don't fix these things, others will. Just because the GW Bush article has bloated to 72Kb does not mean clarity and concision should be sacrificed here. Wikipedia is not a dumpster.

You wrote above:

I disagree with your method of working, but, given the way wikipedia works, I have no choice but to accept, revert or edit what you write.

Yep, that the way things work here. Welcome to Wikipedia. -- Viajero 15:17, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Welcome to this article. If you wish so you can find basic information (in english) on what should be said on controversies about Berlusconi in the documentary movie "Citizen Berlusconi" aired in the USA by PBS and broadcast in all Europe, except Italy.

I never said (or thought) I'd be the final arbiter on anything. Actually, it's you who popped up and thought you'd change everything, while obviously knowing little about the subject, just relying on supposedly superior editing skills. Now, let me bring serious matters back on top in this discussion page.

reorganization, refactoring

I have taken the liberty of reorganizing this article; I felt it was getting unwieldy. For one thing, I have tried to consolidate the information about his business undertakings in one section and that concerning his political career in another. (IMO, the business section is pretty anemic and could use some additional material).

Also, seeing that they were making the article overly long (>32Kb) and cumbersome, I have moved "Legal investigations of Berlusconi" and its subsections on Trials and so into a temporary sub-document:

/Berlusconi and the law

At the top of this section was an inline comment from someone:

This section contains controversial paragraphs which are not backed up with sources. The section needs to be updated with links and references or corrected before it can be seen to meet Wikipedia's standards.

I agree, and furthermore propose that if this information is to be reintroduced into the encyclopedia it be done so in a separate article, ie "Silvio Berlusconi and the law" or whatever.

Finally, I have taken the liberty of commenting out the NPOV tag, but if anyone feels strongly that the article is still biased, they are welcome to uncomment it. -- Viajero 17:17, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Too much liberty. Some of your proposals I am willing to discuss but take into account that 1) George W. Bush's page is, for example, 72Kb long and 2) discussion about berlusconi's reaction to legal issues, and legislative action connected or perceived as connected with them has dominated the political debate in Italy in the past 3 years, so something must be said about it in the main article.

I agree, however, that this article needs some reorganization and I am willing to discuss proposals

the "disputed" tag has been set by an admin (Ta bu Shi Da Yu) who should come back one of these days to say something about the issue. If he does not, the tag will possibly be removed.

the "POV" tag is currently being discussed.

Ok, I merged some of my edits back into the earlier version with the Legal section, but I would still suggest that it might be useful to spin this off into a separate article, with a course a brief overview of the issues in the main text. As it now stands, it is a very dense looking section and all of those warnings make it look worse. Couldn't we take that section offline for awhile and work on it in the Talk space? There is precedent for proceeding this way. Wikipedia articles are by definintion works in progress, but when too much of the scaffolding is visible that isn't good. -- Viajero 23:06, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If nothing is said about his trials and related issues in the main article people will flock and add something every other day. I would work on it while it is there. As for remoing the warnings, I mostly referenced the section and was waiting for the admin's approval but I think there should be no more factual accuracy disputes, maybe POV issues which I am not aware of, so the disputed label could be removed, I was just waiting some more.

While I do not completely agree with your reorganization, I will tentatively leave it in place since it appears to have some merit, especially in the division between business and political career

"Media ownership" is a big issue, it earned some pronunciations from the european council and debates in the european parliament and I am unsure if it fits in the general class of "berlusconi and controversy" which mostly was meant to deal with the gaffes and minor diplomatical incidents mostly caused (imo) by inexperience in international diplomacy, and contained some points of appreciation/criticism on berlusconi related to personality matters. If it is left there, should be moved to the first part of the paragraph since it is the major international source of controversy on Berlusconi, while the "strange remarks" he sometimes makes, however they may be fit for the media attention, are not generally seen as a so big issue.

in the last paragraph, controversy about Berlusconi's personality is understated. Overall, I still think that paragraph fits best in "berlusconi and controversy" but will take somet time to think about it before editing. -- Massimamanno

Pls, NO edit wars

The latest edits demonstrate that in such a sensible article any substantial edit should be filtered through the present discussion page. Otherwise the usual game of:
seen from right side
vs
seen from left side
will start again, and the POV warning should be restored. Marius @ 09:33, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I (81.208.74.180 is me, I sometimes forget to log in) reverted the changes made by 62.101.126.224 because the vast majority of them were POV without a source given. It would be acceptable to write "Berlusconi claims that a vast majiority of the press is center left controlled" but not "It's true that a vast majority of the press is center left controlled". And so on for other similar statements. Regarding the claim that RAI is, even _now_, centre left controlled, I find it hilarious. However, a statement such as "Traditionally, however, in Italy the state television has always been more or less controlled or influenced by the parties who held the majority at a given time" would be acceptable and would be a mitigating circumstance of the influence now exerted by the centre-right over RAI.

I have no objection on the insertion of positive characteristics of Berlusconi as seen from his supporters. Infact I am going to more or less restore that part, which I at first did not notice when I reverted. Massimamanno

Do you think that a statement like:

A general disregard for democratic rules and a tendency towards authoritarianism.

is NPOV, without backing it with some real substantiation? That is acceptable for all italian voters, even if quoted as an opinion of some B's opponents? Pls note that one couldn't write:

some people think that B. is the worst criminal mind of either XX and XXI century

even if some B's political opponents, probably, believe that.

No question that in wiki edits are free, but, IMO, an article with such a long and complicated history should be dealt with by using some more discretion, to avoid useless disputations. I insist that some previous discussion here is highly appropriate. Edit wars are anti-wiki stuff. Marius @ 17:22, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

the original person who edited, wrote this sentence in place of what I wrote: "Being not much democratic and too much authoritative". Now, maybe I enforced the concept too much, however it is clearly stated that this is claimed by his opponents and critics. That part is meant to give the "2 sides" of how berlusconi is seen, in brief. I would not say that berlusconi has very innovative ideas at all, but that's what is stated in the positive comments made by his supporters. However, what would you propose in place of that sentence?

IMO B's administration, democratically elected, fully complies with democratic rules and with the Italian Constitution. On the other hand, the position of B as chief of his own party (Forza Italia) may be considered authoritarian. So the statement could be changed into:

An excessive centralization of Forza Italia, the party founded by Berlusconi

Marius @ 21:50, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This is undoubtedly one aspect. But it must be noted that at least some of his opponents argue that there is something of more profoundly undemocratic in berlusconi's attitude, notably, among others, the Italian poet laureate and lifelong senator Mario Luzi [19]. Would you accept a statement on the general lines that "the moderate side of his opponents note an excessive centralization in Forza Italia" while "some of the more radical ones go as far as suggesting that Berlusconi may lead Italy to some "soft" kind of regime"? The above statements are not very good as a matter of language in the first place, but would you accept the general idea? Massimamanno

This talk can't be a dialog between Massimamanno and me only, and, therefore, I hope that some other user will express his own opinion. I'd just like to fix once again, that wiki is not a forum to deploy political propaganda, not even in a soft style, as, imho, is the style of Massimamanno, whose ideas I respect 100%, but I invite him not to use wikipedia to promote them. We've had the same problem on it.wiki, where we're now editing a draft copy, and its relevant talk page, before validating edits to the article. If Massimamanno is an italian-speaking user, then I invite him to visit this page, and, preferably, to use here, if not the same method, at least the same approach. In the meantime I'll restore the POV warning. Marius @ 05:20, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Mh, I have started editing mostly because there was an 1 month alert to reference parts of the article that were basically correct and valuable for the most part, or they would have been deleted. I think I referenced them, or corrected them when false. Of course I have political views; I try my best to be neutral but it's clear that they may at times "sneak" into what I write. In such cases I'm happy to be corrected, and I think that's the way an article about politics should be written, as a dialectic process between supporters of both views, all of them trying their best to achieve neutrality. Otherwise the only persons who could write about politics are persons with no definite political views.

About the italian article, I've seen it, and seems to me very poor. Restricting access to a wiki page is, in my opinion, an inherent contraddiction and an admission to defeat.

About the POV alert you introduced: what specifically would you like to be changed? What are the POV points you see? I think it would be fair from your part to give a chance to ponder your objections, since you introduced the alert.

Disputed

I'm going to give this section on the Legal investigations of Berlusconi a month to be improved, then if no sources can be given I'm removing the disputed passages. - Ta bu shi da yu 01:51, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Many crimes

He has been accused for many crimes related to his firms (Mediaset, Fininvest): he was accused of many cases of false accounting, tax fraud, bribery and corruption but the conviction yielded no actual prison sentences, as the trials took so long that they were closed because of the statute of limitations. A number of trials are still running, however.

• Who says this?
• What is the source?
• What trials are still running?

Berlusconi's character and past

Many suspects on his person are risen by his enduring refuse to explain his past: apparently, his empire was founded and developed with money (about 250 millions Euro) coming from nowhere and he never ever explained anything about where that money came from. More, he was part in the last 1970 decade and first '80 years of the freemason lodge "Propaganda 2", a large subversive association aiming to take control over the Italian government. More, in his very home of Arcore, Berlusconi had employed for two years, as stableman, the mafia boss Vittorio Mangano.

• "Apparently" his empire was founded from money coming from "nowhere"? That doesn't make any sense! How can that money come from nowhere? Is this implying that he founded his empire on money that he never disclosed his source? If so, what's the big deal here? If I founded an empire, would I wouldn't necessarily disclose the source of my initial capital, and I'd never gather if from illegal sources. This could be quite innocent.
• "More, he was part in the last 1970 decade and first '80 years of the freemason lodge "Propaganda 2", a large subversive association aiming to take control over the Italian government." Source? Sounds like a conspiracy theory.

He actually got convicted in 1990 by the Venice "Corte d'Appello", with the accuse of "False Witness" about this. He said to the judges that he was not involved in the P2, but it was proven otherwise. It's not a theory, it's history.

P2 is part of Italian history. You can find a lot about that in any history book about Italy, or in wikipedia itself. And it is sure Berlusconi was affiliated with P2 (you can also find a pictures of his card on www.berlusconisilvio.it ). Some politicians of Berlusconi's party were affiliated with P2 as well. Gala.martin 14:55, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• "More, in his very home of Arcore, Berlusconi had employed for two years, as stableman, the mafia boss Vittorio Mangano." - firstly, was this illegal? Secondly, where is the source for this information?

It is illegal as far as Berlusconi knew Mangano was affiliated with Mafia. I do not know the source of the author, but you can find a lot of material about that from "Procura di Caltanissetta". Gala.martin 14:55, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Italian history 1946-1990 is extremely complicated, the full truth on a number of events is not known yet, and the borders between historical facts and "conspiracy theories" are often very blurred. However, the existance of the P2 lodge and Berlusconi's affiliation to it are proven and undisputed facts, though judgement may vary on the degree of "eversiveness" of such an association. Overall I tried my best to clarify and reference this section.

Mani Pulite affair

During the Mani Pulite affair, many top level executive in Mediaset and Berlusconi's very brother, Paolo, were charged and condemned for tens and even hundreds of accusations of bribery, false accounting, tax fraud and so on: this could be seen as a shield to relieve him from any responsibility, since it would be very odd that a CEO really ignores anything about what is happening within his firms.

• Sources please.
• Why do we have speculation in here? This can only be added if provide a source of the speculation!

Offshore slush funds

Judicial and customs investigators claim to have uncovered large offshore slush funds controlled by Berlusconi and his companies which were expected to lead prosecutions for financial and tax evasion offences. So far he has avoided prosecution, in part as a result of legislation his government majority has introduced such as de-criminalising "false" accounting and making it more difficult to obtain legal documents from overseas. Documentation from the Swiss government which Italian judges required for a corruption trial were only handed over after Italy agreed not to use them to prosecute Berlusconi for the Tax evasion offences they were accused of.

• Sources please!

External links

What was the point behind this link? The slashdot article barely mentions Berlusconi and there is no text about P2P in our text. It just doesn't seem relevant. I removed it.

• Italy Approves Jail for P2P Users

Azikala

Freedom of the Press 2004 Global Survey

I don't think that Freedom of the Press can be quoted as authoritative on an Encyclopedia. Italy is a fully democratic country also in the press and media. If someone think different he has to give the evidence of his own Point Of View (=POV), just a quote of a minor survey institute is not factual enough. Re to Adhib's comment in the Page History: I'm not a Mussolini's fan: keep NPOV please. You wrote I'm lacking substantiation I say that Freedom of the Press is lacking substantiation. W

I'm removing the statement "It's should be noted, however, that Freedom of the Press 2004 Global Survey is a disputed source as well."; The reason I do this is that this simply states a view about this organisation without saying who disputes the survey. The statement that it covered was not POV, it was a referenced fact; Freedom House did state what they stated. Rather than simply stating that this is "disputed", we need a statement of who disputes Freedom Houses claim, or who makes a different claim and what that claim is. . More importantly, there is nothing on the Freedom house entry to suggest that it would be biased against Berlusconi. Rather, it seems to be a right wing CIA backed organisation rather likely to support Berlusconi (as an American ally). Before we criticise it's report, we should gather more evidence about the organisation on its own page.

My opinion is that the user who added the paragraph about Freedom of the Press 2004 Global Survey should provide more information about the reason of the downrating of Italy: newspapers owned, control of the TV networks, shares and so on. If one read the article about Berlusconi all these matters are already dealt with, without reaching to the same conclusions of this survey institute. If one believes that FP2004 is more authoritative than Wikipedia then we'd remove the whole section about Media ownership and just put a link to Freedom of Press website with the comment:
if you want to learn about the italian situation of media, please click here
Regards. Marius @ 04:55, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

P.S.=I suggest an arrangment: to remove from the article the reference to FP2004 and add it to the External links section. @ 04:55, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I personally feel that the meaning of the two suggestions is the opposite of what you seem to feel. When we put a link in the see also section then we are recommending it (here is a good thing to see). That would suggest we agree with Freedom House. If, on the other hand, we just put the plain statement that "Freedom House said XXX" then people can decide for themselves based on their view of freedom house. Finally, if we could put some specific reasons why someone in particular doubts freedom house that would be valuable. The main accusation against Freedom House seems to be that they are CIA backed. Also American/CIA allegiance is seen by many as a problem with Berlusconi. Normally it would seem Freedom House should support Berlusconi and their accusations against him become more striking.

taken overall; if we want to show other views than that of Freedom House then we need some examples of independent external sources which say that Italy's media is free and explanations of why they say so. Azikala 14:59, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi, thank-you for your reply. I don't care whether FP2004 is backed by CIA or KGB, just I don't see the need to quote it within the article as an authoritative source. My goal is to make the article more NPOV and also to defend the reputation of my Country, Italy. I'm not interested at all in making the article pro-Berlusconi or anti-B. In the article the situation of italian media is, imho, explained deeply enough, so I don't see the need to back the article with external opinions of some survey institute. If some contributor think that in Italy we've not freedom of press, then he, or she, should substantiate his opinion by quoting facts not opinions. You can back any kind of opinion by quoting some particular source, if you search for an appropriate source, the world is large enough, but this is not the wiki NPOV style. My suggestions are just compromise proposals in an attempt to prevent edit wars, given that the best solution, imho again, should be to remove the whole reference to FP2004.

As an end of my post: I find it very odd that you think that some evidence should be produced to demonstrate that in Italy there is freedom of press. Normally one is innocent until it's proven he's guilty, not the contrary! Did you read carefully the article about the control commissions on italian TV networks? Do you know that the two italian largest printed dailies (La Repubblica and Il Corriere della Sera) are more or less anti-B or anti-Government coalition biased? Why don't you look for the the same evidence for other countries? On which basis? On the base FP2004's ratings? Very singular indeed (imho for the third time). Sorry for my being too animate, bye. Marius @ 18:52, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Nothing to be sorry about; as long as we're happy to discuss on the talk page before making a mess of the article then we can probably do a pretty good job together. The most important policy here, it seems to me, is not WP:NPOV, but rather Wikipedia:No original research. As we try to improve this article we should attempt to provide sources for each section and covering different viewpoints. In this case, Freedom House is, even if we want to claim it's biased, the best source we have for the section so far. We shouldn't remove it; instead we should provide other different sources until we can achieve a reasonable balance. Now, your statement, that the daily newspapers are anti-B biased should be something for which we can easily find a source to supoport. However, newspapers are not so important in Italy compared to most other european countries[20] so I don't think that, in its self it's enough to completely discredit Freedom Houses claims.

The WP:NPOV does mean that we have to "write for the enemy". In this case, your "enemy" is Freedom House. Since they are a well known organisation which gives this opinion we should mention and say what they think. If we have a disagreement with them, then simply missing them out will only show that we are ignorant; showing a counter point will make it clear to people where they might be wrong and why they might have chosen to be wrong. In fact the person who put this in was doing a fairly good job of following the fundamental NPOV principle: Where we might want to state opinions, we convert that opinion into a fact by attributing the opinion to someone. We can complete their job, not by deleting, but by also giving other views and sources.

My guess about what annoys you about this, though, is not the statement, but rather the fact that it's at the end of the paragraph as if it were a conclusion. I'd suggest that reordering might be needed. If this put in one of the first paragraphs of the section, it will probably make a better introduction and then followed by the facts as we can find them and/or other points of view.

I've just gone looking for an organisation which might be considered more neutral. A good example would be Reporters Without Borders. They have an Italy report here http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=10148&Valider=OK which seems to me to be a better source. What do you think of this?

Azikala 19:13, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm now logged from a public access point with little time left to reply. Tnx again for the attention you give to the matter. I need more time to examine the sources you've quoted. In the meantime just a couple of considerations:

1. For an italian who thinks independently and knows from inside the real situation of italian media and democracy is really frustrating and disturbing to be mentioned as a citizen of a country in which human rights are not granted.
2. Also among B's hardest opponents there are many who shouldn't agree with FP2004 ratings (I hope that they will post some comments here)
3. It's true that in Italy newspapers are less influent than elsewhere, but I think you underestimate the two dailies I mentioned, as they have a very strong tradition and a large diffusion and furthermore they're owned and backed by very influent and mighty subjects, who also control some TV networks.
4. I believe that the FP2004 statements should be backed by the figures its rating is based on: channels, shares, controls and so on, otherwise it must be accepted as a kind of oracle, and this is not right, imho, even if this survey institute has a good reputation.

I'll post other comments when I'm back in Italy (hoping to receive other comments as well). Regards. Marius 16:46, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sorry to have caused such a commotion with this Freedom House nugget (and apologies to W for my Mussolini jibe - I jumped to the conclusion after noticing that Il Duce's was the only other page his anon IP had edited). I think the compromise now reached works very well. The Freedom House survey - like all such evaluations - must take into account both quantitative and qualitative information to come to a sensible view. The qualitative aspect should not be enough to dismiss it (though it certainly opens up the potential for criticism). What would be required to substantiate W's desire to cast doubt on FH2004 would be (a) a quote or referenced article in which FH2004's evaluation of Italy is disputed, (b) proof (or plausible hearsay) that the Freedom House evaluation criteria have been applied in a prejudicial manner in the case of Italy, or (c) evidence that the Freedom House survey process is flawed, routinely causing nations with vibrant, free media sectors to be ranked as 2nd class. None of these substantiations was forthcoming. We are left with the impression that W is in fact the source of the alleged dispute, and that his objection is motivated primarily by faith in his country. I can respect that, but would encourage him to dig deeper. Adhib 17:09, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Remaining POV

I am now going to remove the POV notice. There are still some minor issues but not, I think, sufficient to justify a POV notice.

• reform - this word is inherently positive and many of Berlusconi's pension changes have been matters of dispute in Italy. Please aim to use either proper names Berlusconi's Sheep Trading Reform or attributed links or more neutral terms.

Strange language

In the section Trials the word "prescripted" is used; it doesn't seem to mean what the person thought it meant. What is the meaning which is wanted here?

It is probably because of the similarity with the Italian prescrizione. The concept is reaching statutory time limits. This is a technical term which I don't really know how to translate exactly; if you have an Italian-English legalese dictionary at hand, the word is prescritto. AFAIK it might even be different between UK and US English, who knows. Berlusconi has long been accused (fairly, if you ask me) of pursuing delaying tactics and passing laws in order to get his trials ended this way, instead of proving his innocence.

Orzetto 14:03, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Good; that's what I thought. I've been changing it to "the statute of limitations expired" since that's more or less a clear english phrase. There's an english word prescribed, but that has a different meaning. I've also been changing other stuff in the case list. It would really help if people who were translating from Italian would ask about words they aren't sure of. Please could people who know this stuff (or is good at Google :-) help check each case in turn. For example:

• "false in budget" sounds like it means "false accounting" but I can't be sure?
• "with formulation of doubt" sounds like "not proven", does that verdict exist in the Italian legal system?
• "paid offhand" sounds like "paid under the table" or "paid secretly"?

are these right?? Azikala 09:17, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Micro POV removal

I removed this

"in a public management style reminiscent of a private entrepreneur"

I tried rewriting it as

"in a style which XXXX described as being reminiscent of a private entrepreneur"

but I couldn't find any XXXX. Could someone please provide a link. I think several descriptions of his style of legislative action have been made.

Hi Azikala.

imo you did a great job as the article is now by far better and more NPOV than it was some time ago. I agree to remove NPOV warning, even if, here and there, the anti-B taste re-surfaces. I'm not interested in triggering flames or edit-wars between italians (we've enough on it.wiki!) as I'm not B.'s lawyer and furthermore I see the faults of the guy too. It's evident he pays the scot to be rich, influencial, conservative, and, above all, in office. By sure, when he'll be out, (I guess very soon) all this attention he's subjected to, will fade out. But that's it: it's democracy. A biography is very encyclopedic when the personage is much known, no matter about his real historical relevance. About the micro-POV: you could write:

in a style which his supporters described as being reminiscent of a private entrepreneur

By the way: B's opponents too agree he has a private entrepreneur style, but, ironically, they use this very argument to criticize him  :-) Bye. Marius @ 09:36, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Trials added

In the "Legal investigations" section I added data on trials completed and in progress. I think the legal terms are correct but I would like a confirmation by some english user law-aware :) Kormoran 22:09, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

what about adding the latest senteces?

I mean the process for financial fraud which ended because that kind of fraud was no more a crime becouse of a law that the same B asked; and another prescription too...

Paskal007r 12:58, 8 oct 2005

Satirical edits

Yesterday Mr.Berlusconi's portrait has been replaced by a photo of himself and Mrs. Cherie Blair during a summer party.
Ok, political satire is always welcome in democracy, but what has that got to do with an Encyclopaedia?
Personally I like funny-dressed politicians more than thieving and/or tiresome ones anyway. Marius 06:57, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Vandalism and propaganda

To protect the article from frequents attacks I propose to allow editing only to Wiki administrators and move proposals of modifications to this discussion page (like italian version)

W.R.

I don't see the vandalism. Current picture is a recent (2004-08-15) picture of Silvio Berlusconi, taken in a public place and with Berlusconi's permission. Surely better than a 15 year old picture that was more opera of photoshop than of a camera. Not so different from this picture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bushaircraft.jpg used in Bush article.

G.P.

I leave to Wikipedia responsibles the judgment whether your real goal in editing is information or propaganda. Only notice that all targets of your attentions are right-wing politicians. I think you're abusing the ospitality of a respected web site to make propaganda.

W.R.

targets? this is paranoia, I just reverted to the picture someone inserted tuesday.

G.P.

This is a small, good test to check if the majority of Wikipedians want that Wikipedia remains an independent source of culture or changes into a stage for leftist ideologists.

I do want independent articles. But pretending that there should not be leftist majority here is a nonsense. This is free stuff, and free is usually promoted and done by altruists. Don't tell me that the rightists like not paid work :)) Not saying there're not rightists, just less. And stop this flames, otherwise italians risk to be banned from wikipedia too (like in many irc channels).

M.P.

W.R.

he was right, this is paranoia. did you ever consider calling a good physician?

Francesco S.

W.R. you call test all in your own? The only way to keep wikipedia indipendent is discussing and contributing. Make your point and try to convince others instead of invoking special measures when not required.

Also in my opinion the locking of the page in the italian wiki is a defeat, and, as I argued there, i strongly oppose going that way unless there's a really unmanageable situation. Worths noting that english version is by far more balanced and informative. --Balubino 17:21, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

100% right, Balubino. But watch the page history: sometime it seemed unmanageable and frustrating. I'm glad I was wrong. Bye.

Different ways of dealing

In my opinion the biography of an influent political man inside an Encyclopaedia CAN, and, more then that, MUST, quote also judicial proceedings the politician is subjected to, provided that they are given the appropriate weight in the general context of the article.

In this case the whole Berlusconi's career seems to pivot just around trials and allegations, thus painting the article with an an unmistakable partisan color.

Please look the different way this issue is handled in articles concerning other politicians who had minor or major judicial involvments too (in Italy a could quote Giulio Andreotti, but you have only the embarassment of choosing all around the world).

As a matter of fact the debate around the balance between political and judicial powers is a critical (and very important) issue in the modern democracies, and the issue of the conflict of interests is important as well.

Very often these issues are used as political 'weapons of mass destruction' in political contests: this is perfectly legitimate (in my opinion) but an article of an Encyclopaedia doesn't seem to me the most appropriate place for them.

As far as it concerns the Berlusconi-the-man personal character I think that, beeing italian voters more than 18 years old, they're able to develop an opinion without beeing plagiarized by some TV-spots.

My personal idea is that Mr.Berlusconi has a fighting and rash character, with the indisputable merit of beeing able to let himself understood by his audience: this is not little in a country where politicians usually speek using an alien language.

By the way: I'm not 'berlusconian'.

Marius 13:31, 19 Jul 2004

This is a problem of language. Too much italians are just political supporters, they support parties as they were football teams. You say '...understood by his audience' ? Tell us the profile of the majority of this people! Aren't those the same people that run in a trip when they are told that somewhere in Italy (or abroad) a statue of the Holly Mother lacrimates blood? Aren't those the same people that give millions (of old lira, 1E=2000L) to the magicians for having better life, find love, win the national lottery etc. In Italy we say 'qualunquismo' o 'relativismo assoluto', so many different commanders in the history, that italians think - could not be worser -, but times have changed and people begin to understand that isn't the same, in spite of growing stupidity in the national media. If somebody does not write a good page about -Italian mentality-, many people cannot understand this page. The role of the Vatican in Italy too. The directive of the church whom to vote (for those prayers that always vote those indicated by the church). As for the balance political-judicial, you cannot debate over the balance with a man & company charged and already condemned.

my friend, let me say something (no flames please :-)

• not all our italian fellow citizen are so deeply learned, intelligent, high-profiled as you probably are, (or you believe you are), but imho it's not a reason why claiming they're stupid children unable to understand politics.
• I don't believe to Holy Mother's lacrimations too, but I respect people who believe them. Democracy is also to respect your neighbour's ideas even if (let me say particularly if) they're different. In dictatorships the problem doesn't exist as everyone think the same way, and all Saints, Holy Mothers, Magicians, Lotteries and other stupid stuff like these is banned by law.
• if you want to write a wiki page about italic temper, do it, just be carefull to keep NPOV, as we are an encyclopedia, not a political forum.
• semantic issue: when I wrote I'm not berlusconian I meant I don't vote Forza Italia (the Berlusconi's party, for non italian politics aware Wikipedians). I don't vote at all since 20 years and I think I'm not partisan. You can be partisan, but you can't use wikipedia for deploying your beliefs.
• if you're interested in contributing to the new article of Silvio Berlusconi on it.wiki, jump here and partecipate to the discussion. All contributes are welcome, and in the discussion pages you are not compelled to be NPOV, of course. Bye. Marius @ post 06:56, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think you have profoundly misunderstood. The anomympus editor who posted that comment was not suggetsing that ALL Italian are idiotic, superstious, and empty-headed sheep, but only that Berlusoni supporters are idiotic, superstitious, authoritaian and empty-headed sheep. Now put the remarks in context please: my friend above is only a private citizen referring to a certain (admittedly very large) part of the Italian population. Berlusoconi, who is the PRIME MINISTER of the F**** Nation referred to all of those who do not vote for him as "coglioni!!" As the Guardian correctly represented this expression in English, he called them dickheads. Coglioni literally means "balls" of course. But that does not come close to accurately portraying the extreme vulgarity, arrogance and offensiveness that Berlusoni intended to convey with this expression. "Dickheads" is about right. Why isn't this represneted in the article? It's extremely POV to leave it out, I should think.

Imagine if Geoger W. Bush or John Kerry called his opponent's supporrtes a bunch of "losers" or even "idiots" and the reaction that would have followed from that. He would have dropped yto abut 2% of the vote. Also, one of Berlu's major acheivements is not mentioned: he changed the electoral law three months before the election!! Imagine if,in the US ot UK, the majprity governement decided to rewrrite the Costituotion three months before the election so as to esnsure that they would have a grrater chance for victory. Sickening!! And what about the famous "Kapò" statement with recpet to the German foreign minister. Are you going to whitewash that as well. I don't have time to get to all the ad personam laws which are not mentioned here but occupied about the first three years of his regime.--Lacatosias 09:38, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Get your facts straight - his infamous "Kapò" statement was not directed at the German foreign minister, but rather at a german member of the European Parliament, Schulz. It came after Schulz had been attacking him for about 15 min aboout italian legislation instead of focusing on european issues...

Disappointing - but extremely hard to write

In fact, one of the reasons that make this page rather uninformative is that any public statement about Mr. B. or his tenure appears to turn instantaneously in a partisan row. Avoiding this requires an amount of careful tiptoeing such as to eventually bowdlerize anything that can be said about the man. Please note that avoiding partisan clashes often requires the omission of very well known facts.

Point in case: the current version of the page states that no evidence exists linking Mr. B. to the removal of some well known journalists from national television. What it does not say, however, is that Mr B. very publicly stated that these journalists were biased and should have been taken off the air, and did - equally publicly - express his satisfaction when said removal did in fact happen. All this is factual and readily verifiable, but I have no doubt that would spark an outcry if it were to be inserted in the article.

Anther proof of the problems of this page is your statement:

" ...but notice the inherent presupposition that a reform would automatically involve ownership limits..."

Unless one is very informed on the italian situation he or she would be hard pressed to understand that:

o) Media reform in Italy for the last 10 years or so actually revolves around antitrust issues, because more than 90% of the airwaves ownership is split among state controlled media and the Mediaset group (controlled by Mr. Berluisconi and his family). Antitrust regulation *everywhere* involves ownership limits.

o) Because of the very special position of Mr. B. - who is at the same time owner of the major private media group, and prime minister with a huge saying on what goes on at state television level - the issue also touches heavily on what is called "his conflict of interests", which - by general consensus - has no equals in contemporary western democracies.

o) The law itself comes on the heels of a number of court orders (including one from Italy's supreme court) that mandate one of Mr. Berlusconi's televisions to become a satellite broadcast and awards its current frequencies to another (private) television which - according to the courts - should have won that same frequency from the beginning. The law that the government proposed very conveniently overrides all these court orders, keeps the threatened television on the air, all the while not redressing the original plaintiff.

You see the problem here: all the circumstances I stated above are factual enough and would require very scant commentary, at least from my perspective. A lot of Italians though, will feel that what above is partisan for failing to state some mitigating circumstance - for instance, that the law mentions future expansions of the media offering that would dilute and change the current situation.

This is a totally insane situation that removes any chance of being perceived unbiased and informative about the whole issue (reason for which I refrain to edit)

But a differing point of view is that this article,taken together with its commentary, is in fact extremely informative on the state - and quality - of the Italian discourse about Mr. Berlusconi, for which I feel the man - never shy about being a divisive character - bears a good share of resposibility.

Alessandro

Disappointing Page

By long custom, of course, I don't edit, but having recently returned from Italy, and eager to learn more about the country, I turned to this page to learn about Silvio Berlusconi, and I must confess that I found it most disappointing. I was neither a Berlusconi supporter or opponent before I read this piece, and I found myself most thoroughly unenlightened by the article in its present form.

There are a handful of essentials that one seeks to learn about any political leader, and this article does a terrible job on all of them except, as I say, on the legal irregularities of various kinds. I do not know, after reading the article, what Berlusconi's policies actually are. I do understand that he is more or less "center right", but this is too vague. I do not know, after reading the article, what his supporters (apparently a majority of Italians, if just barely, at the time of his election) might say about him. What do people like about him? What does he represent to them, what appeal did he have that his opponents did not?

Additionaly, some of the commentary is just transparently biased. "His government has presented a new legislation for a reform of the media, but this actually increased the percentage share that an individual was allowed to control..." I do not know the details of this legisluation, but notice the inherent presupposition that a reform would automatically involve ownership limits.

Notice that since I and many other people believe that the freedom of speech, including the freedom to publish newspapers to as many people who are willing to buy them, the freedom to broadcast television programs to as many people who will watch them, automatically implies that ownership limits are a grave human rights violation.

You need not agree with me on this. Your own view may be that freedom of speech is best guaranteed when people are not allowed to speak too much, or to too many people. Or that freedom of speech is best guaranteed when the government uses force to take money from some people to give it to others in order to promote points of view that would not have been voluntarily supported in the first place.

Wow, these are blatant strawmen. How about "freedom of speech is best guaranteed when having a thousand times as much money does not allow you to be a thousand times as loud"? DanielCristofani 09:25, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

But what is necessary, for NPOV, is that Wikipedia articles in themselves take neither political position at all. We need to both be able to read the article and understand the facts on the ground, without the implied and presupposed political analysis. Jimbo Wales 21:59, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I do think this article was a bit strange, dedicating about three quarters of it to completely unfounded conspiracy theories, and much of the rest to left-wing ranting. Then again, Wikipedia is heavily left-wing, so it can't really be avoided.

You obviously haven't spent a lot of time around Wikipedia. Saying Wikipedia's heavily left-wing is like saying French people hate America — not only untrue, but a gross oversimplification of a complex relationship. Wally 00:53, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, reading Wikipedia is sort of like a hobby for me. I agree with the metaphor of French anti-Americanism, though: you can call it a gross oversimplification, but it's there, it's pretty obvious, and it's not going away. Anyway, this is way off topic already.

Analysing Wealth

Gianfranco, pretty all the sources I can find indicate Berlusconi is the wealthiest man in Italy, Consider this from the Forbes site: http://www.forbes.com/static_html/bill/2002/print/rank.html which puts him at 600 million more than the next Italian. In addition The Economist regularly refers to him as the richest Italian.

Dear Mark, Gianni Agnelli ("Mr. Fiat" - #180 in the list of the page you indicated), together with the members of his family, owns litterally thousands of companies that in turn own houses, cars, boats, helicopters, planes, shops, factories and really any other valuable good, all recorded as separate property of each company, in 5 Continents on 5; maybe then that Forbes cannot consider him the wealthiest man in Italy, because it records only official personal incomes the way they are declared to tax office. But I would wait a minute before considering he's poorer than our homo novus or than other folks there listed.

This kind of datum, the official declaration to tax office (this is a general rule), would not be a concrete indication in our country, since we are usually very... "shy" about our incomes ;-)))

So, my deep esteem for the two papers you mentioned remains unaltered, but I can tell you that I cannot assume those data as effectively describing italian positions on more than a "partial", perhaps formal aspect.

As a common practice, here we evaluate a patrimony upon the number of companies that belong to or are otherwise controlled by the main holder company, up to fourth grade and yes, we do this way because we know that our tax office will not be receiving the veritable truth about our money, but perhaps... a more pleasant interpretations of economical facts.

Moreover: the same tax administration uses similar indexes and effectively does not take into the least account what personally one declares. An alternative index is number of employees or involved workers. Fiat in Italy is a state within the state.

Mr. Del Vecchio, with only a dozen relevant companies, is indeed very high in that ranking, but it is quite difficult to consider that his groups is more important than Benetton's and that respective personal fortunes are not proportionally in a different sequence.

So, you'll have noticed that I didn't say who was the wealthiest one; I just said that Berlusconi is, for sure, one among them. Any italian could not proof it, but would immediately tell you. :-)))

BTW, the owner of one of most important european car factories, declared to tax office that he only owns 12 Fiat "Fiorino" pick-ups (see [21]) for the staff gardening in his villa. He says he has no other cars but 12 Fiorinos. Funny people these italian tycoons, one of these days I'll have to become one, I like pick-ups!

Seriously, I would perhaps keep the note on a more general tone, despite the not discussed prestige of sources. We are dealing with some data that are not enough "scientific" to describe a precise scheme the way we are used to read here.

Ciao --Gianfranco

I have changed the article a little to state this in terms of the source, i.e. forbes. You're right in that it's impossible to get an accurate net worth of these people. I'm sure all of these men you mention spend a considerable amount of time understating the value of these assets! I enjoyed reading your note! -- Dze27

On the other hand, there is no reason to believe that Berlusconi doesn't own assets and companies which are under his family members' names too. Vince In Milan 10:40, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I think that Berlusconi is far enough the richest man in Italy, at present. And any reasonable way of evaluating worth, would rank Berlusconi as the richest man in Italy (the number of employees is not a reasonable estimate of personal worth; this is due to the fact that one generally owns shares of companies that own shares of companies that own shares.........). Forbes is considered a good source of this kind of estimates, so I think it was a good idea to cite it.

It would be interesting to have a chart (or somethink similar) of Berlusconi's worth in the last years. In fact, this article is not precise about that, and looks like more biased than it is. Gala.martin 00:07, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

The 1989 amnesty and Berlusconi's perjury conviction

Berlosconi's perjury conviction was commuted by a 1989 amnesty he passed for that purpose. I can find no specific information on that law. The economist says that the law commuted his perjury conviction. This would mean that the convictions stands. I think that his status as a convicted perjurer is of equal importance to his ownership of newspaper companies, under npov —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.96.148.42 (talk) 05:21, 7 July 2008 (UTC) The conviction has been changed to extinguished with no explanation. As the economist uses commuted, which has a different meaning I shall change it back.93.96.148.42 (talk) 01:50, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

In Italy, when an amnesty is passed, the wrongdoing is considered EXTINGUISHED even if a conviction has already been sentenced.

The 1989 amnesty was voted by more than 2/3 of the MPs... It was strongly wanted by the Italian Communist Party to avoid investigations over the money coming from the Soviet Union to their italian cousins. The Economist knows it very well, but it avoided deliberatedly to make it clear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.80.197.101 (talk) 14:56, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Could you please provide more details of this ammnesty, and how criminals qualified for it, perhaps add a link, as I have been unable to find anything about it.

As I understand it, an Italian Amnesty does not extinguish an Italian Conviction in the USA, and other juristictions, and wikipedia is an International encyclopedia.

93.96.148.42 (talk) 00:06, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Reply: what you have written is absolutely a nonsense... In Europe even if a scottish court rules "something" it is not automatically "guaranteed" that the english counterpart would accept the "order" from the scottish one -and Scotland and England are parts of the United Kingdom- and you argue that "an Italian Amnesty does not extinguish an Italian Conviction in the USA"? Italy is not an american colony, these two legal systems are COMPLETELY different!!! The italian legal system was heavily influenced from fascism, therefore in Italy is almost as you are guily until innocent, not innocent until guilty... The only link you can find is in the italian wikipedia definition of amnesty:

Amnistia

...

L'amnistia [dal greco <αμνηστία> (<amnīstía>), "dimenticanza"] è una causa di estinzione del reato e della pena, e consiste nella rinuncia, da parte dello Stato, a perseguire determinati reati. Si tratta di un provvedimento generale di clemenza, ispirato, almeno originariamente, a ragioni di opportunità politica e pacificazione sociale, ma a volte degenerato nella prassi in strumento di periodico sfoltimento delle cause pendenti e anche delle carceri.

Mentre l'amnistia estingue il reato, l'indulto estingue solo la pena: quest'ultimo perciò non comporta una sentenza di assoluzione.

SHORT TRANSLATION: the amnesty extinguishes wrongdoing (It. reato) and sentence (It. pena) -and sometimes it obliterates both-; the pardon (It. indulto) "commutes" a sentence instead, but does not "extinguish" the wrongdoing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.225.39.135 (talk) 14:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

You misunderstand my point. Berloscuni was found guilty by an Italian Appeal court of Perjury. In someway he qualified for an amnesty. how did he qualify for the ammnesty, and how does it relate to his perjury? Did Rapists qualify as well? I can find no details of the particular amnesty that he qualified for. As I understand it, there is no argument that he did not commit perjury. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.140.0.29 (talk) 21:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Given the agreement here, I shall restore mention of his perjury to the lead.93.96.148.42 (talk) 04:48, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

New information about POV disputes should be added directly to this page.

Is he PM now?

Has Berlusconi taken over as PM yet? It`s been a while since the election. --Oddeivind (talk) 08:20, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

No. Or at least if he has, it's rather stunning that Corriere della Sera has not seen fit to make it a big headline (I've been scanning the headlines recently, not so much reading the stories in depth -- check it out at http://www.corriere.it, if you can read a little Italian). --Trovatore (talk) 08:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

The correct term for the next week or so is 'Italy's Premier-elect Silvio Berlusconi'. Shortly, the text may resume the wording used rather prematurely before it was, with pedantic rectitude, contested as inappropriate to this interim.Nishidani (talk) 08:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a "premier-elect". --Trovatore (talk) 16:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I Italy the population votes for the Parliament, not for the President of the Council, which is elected by the President of the Republic (not by the citizens). See the Italian Constitution. Paolotacchi (talk) 13:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, of course, I know. I just thought it was strange that it takes som much time before he takes over. --Oddeivind (talk) 15:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

So what should we do? It's very easy to check here on the institutional webpage [22]. All the English Wikipedia is wrong about italian cabinets. Paolotacchi (talk) 13:25, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Very few English speakers are likely to count the outcome of a cabinet reshuffle as a new term in office, even if you can argue that it legally is. We should say that he's been PM twice before, but with a note about the cabinet reshuffle. That's what I've done. --Trovatore (talk) 18:28, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Is it really anyone that count a cabinet reshuffle as a new time as prime minister?? As long as he remains in office without a break, that is clearly one single term in office. Thus, he will now be a PM the third time. --Oddeivind (talk) 14:21, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't know about the "without a break" formulation -- I think if there's a new parliament, even without a different PM, I would probably count that as a separate term. --Trovatore (talk) 17:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

There is nothing to invent in the count. This is the official count Governi Italiani. We can't have "opinions" about it. The next one will be the 4' Berlusconi cabinet. Paolotacchi (talk) 20:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

It will be the fourth cabinet, but that is not necessarily the same thing as Berlusconi's fourth time in office. --Trovatore 20:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

What would be the difference? And moreover: the article on the history of Italian cabinets is completely mistaken. Paolotacchi (talk) 13:40, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

What article is that? As far as I know, there is no article called history of Italian cabinets or history of Italian governments or list of Italian cabinets or list of Italian governments. Nope, they all came up red. What we do have is a list of prime ministers of Italy. Prime ministers, not governments. This will be, by the way most people are going to be counting, the third time Berlusconi has been prime minister, even if it's technically his fourth government. --Trovatore (talk) 15:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

By that logic, Gordon Brown is in his second term with his shuffle. A new cabinet is not a new term. Therequiembellishere (talk) 22:19, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I was referring to the article list of prime ministers of Italy (the title too is uncorrect, because in the Italian Constitution there isn't the idea of "Prime" minister). Moreover the count is uncorrect (you can verify it at the link to Governi Italiani) and it doesn't matter if abroad the most of people don't know how we count the Presidents and their cabinets. The most of Italian Wikipedians write "perchè" instead of "perché", but not for this reason "perchè" becomes correct. Paolotacchi (talk) 07:42, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Dear Therequiembellishere, there is a big difference between Italy and the United Kingdom. Every time that a PM forms a new government there are a new oath of office and a vote of confidence in Parliament, so that only at that point the new term starts. Italian PM is a very weak figure: he cannot fire his ministers and thus reshuffle the cabinet. --Checco (talk) 11:23, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

This is because Italian PM does not exist. It's not a Premier, but only a President of the Council of Ministers. Paolotacchi (talk) 16:41, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Exact date?

I just heard on the news (BBC) that Berlusconi has taken over as prime minister, but according to the information here on Wikipedia he toook over on the 8. of May. What is the correct date? --Oddeivind (talk) 06:33, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

8 of May, when he did the oath in front of the President of the Republic who named/elect him. Paolotacchi (talk) 21:53, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Silvio Berlusconi's stance on the EU

Does anyone know what his views on the European Union are? I think this should be part of the article, especially with the upcoming vote on the Treaty of Lisbon. I would appreciate if someone added this to the article. Thank you. Artur Buchhorn (talk) 21:20, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I can only tell you that the general consensus is that SB doesn't have any views on most things beyond his business calculations, but is ready to accommodate every view, depending on necessity, political lobbies etc. His major ally, the Northern League, was historically opposed to the E.U., since it wants regional devolution along the lines of Catalan. Under the influence of Giulio Tremonti, the economist, who was against the E.U. in the 90s but has now changed tack, the E.U. will be supported for (1) its potential as a legislative and economic block to put pressure on fair trade, perhaps tariffs on esp.Chihnese goods, and (2) for stricter immigration laws and collective border policing of the Mediterranean. Whether they join America ('I agree with American policy even before it has been formulated' SB) in using the Eastern E.U. newby block to create havoc, is unknown. They will, however, press for a E.U. repositioning of traditional geostrategic diffidence with GWB's aggressively 'pro-active' interference in the oil-producing Arab world, and will eliminate the slightly pro-Arab, pro-Palestinian traditions of Italy diplomacy, in line with Merkel, Sarkozy, and others. I will try to find something on this when it emerges, to include it.Nishidani (talk) 09:38, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I am afraid to say, but it's true. Our government apparently has no clue how to do a 'serious' and responsable guideline'. The stuff is so unbeleavable, but true. It seems Berlusconi (or Cai admins, or both) now is on the way to marry (sell?) Alitalia/Cai to Air France, the same company called as inadeguate (to defend 'italianity') last spring. And in the same time, it seems he wants to do the same thing to Lufthansa, that has shown no interest. This could be umbeleavable, but it results by a lot of sources, and to be more accurate, it's almost sure Cai will be merged in Air France-KLM. It's only one of the many things that are happening now, in these days. In Italy the things are getting worse and worse quickly, economy is a mess, the glorious Nord-Est (the Italy 'economic engine') is falling apart. In the same time, we have the Villari issue, the war between Salerno and Catanzaro judges (with the highest policians involved to this time, a really dirty thing), the Gelmini's school reform (strongly adversed) ecc,ecc. A lot of 'hot stuff' and apparently the government has no idea how to face it. And just three months ago, Tremonti was saying 'look, Italy is not seriously endagered by economical crisis'. Last days, insthead, Sacconi leaved a word: default. He told about italian economy, do you have the clue? So we are swiftly fallen in the troubles, and nobody have done something to avoid this catastrophe. I am very afraid to say it, believe me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.104.203.102 (talk) 21:10, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Please stop this systematic bullshitting!

• CAI/Airfrace issue cocluded with Airfrace as minority holder (that's different that selling to Airfrance, and say "bye byeanyone")
• "economy is a mess, the glorious Nord-Est (the Italy 'economic engine') is falling apart" Provide sources. Facts are that this is not a NorthEsat fact. It's a problem for the entire world. And That SB increased cosensus in 2009 regional elections. Fell free to don't like it, but don' spread your shits againt honest Italy. Shame on you! Have respect to the people that are providing 75% of your sustain.
• "the war between Salerno and Catanzaro judges" cannot be addressed by the government, since judes are independent. And you're are prrobaly one of the same person who start to cry every time a right wing deputy speacks about justice. Two weights, two misure. Very objective!
• "the Gelmini's school reform (strongly adversed)" is really adversed only by extraparlamentar self-defining "social centers" and from a bouch of 30 to 40 year old students and professors of one-student ony courses. "Real" students (who spend their days in reaserces and on books to graduate on time) have no clue in adversing it.
• "So we are swiftly fallen in the troubles, and nobody have done something to avoid this catastrophe" I don't see any catastrophe. Only a slow-down of certain activity due to difficulties from banks to give credits. May be you are one of the people who's suffering for this, but you cannot extend your personal trouble to the entire Italy.

Matter from orig.lead to be trimmed down and reintroduced or relocated

I have excerpted the following from the lead, which was far too long, like the article itself. I suggest the key points lacking in lead be written briefly from this. The rest of the material can be integrated into the relevant section of the page.Nishidani (talk) 08:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

In economics, Berlusconi has endorsed conservative policies, such as lowering taxes and generally placing fewer constraints on enterprise, in an effort to encourage growth. In foreign policy, his views have been strongly pro-American, even at the expense of causing some damage to relations with other European countries. In particular he supported George W. Bush in the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq, and though constitutionally impeded from taking part in the war, sent a contingent of Italian troops to join the "Coalition of the willing" , in a peacekeeping role. In several key social policy areas, the Berlusconi government has implemented a conservative, rather than a liberal, program by passing stricter laws concerning immigration, artificial insemination, and drug use.

Considerable controversy surrounds both the constitutional legality of his television network, and its role in his political success. According to Berlusconi's adversaries, the Mediaset (Fininvest's media division) TV channels have played a crucial role in his political success by airing propaganda during news or other information-oriented programming. His supporters assert that the networks have always maintained a neutral political stance. After Berlusconi's election as Prime Minister, the left accused him of also abusing his position as premier to control the publicly owned RAI TV channels. In practice, they maintain, this permits him to control almost all TV sources of information, while the right insists that the RAI channels are, if anything, biased in favor of the centre-left. According to independent observers, two of the State channels (Rai 1 and Rai 2) had been indeed controlled by Berlusconi's government, while Rai 3 managed to retain independence and a critical stance. Such control, in a famous example, was displayed when Berlusconi called Member of European Parliament Martin Schultz a "Nazi kapo", and the Rai 1 news program showed the incident with no audio and offering a misleading account. Political debate in Italy has become rather alienating, as the contenders often seem to completely lack a shared information source regarded as neutral and reliable. Although Berlusconi officially resigned from all functions in his commercial group in 1994 upon entering political office, he is the largest shareholder and is believed to retain at least some control.

Assistance in disentangling this for a thumbnail précis would be appreciated Nishidani (talk) 08:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Here it would be appropriate to cite the phone call between Berlusconi and the RAI administrator Saccà:

http://espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio/Pronto-Silvio-sono-Sacca/1917587

--Pokipsy76 (talk) 10:22, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

That should go in (there is also an audio link, I believe) but in an appropriate section on his Conflict of Interest in the Media (which would include the Bulgarian Edict etc., the power to hire, intimidate asnd fire journalists who do not toe the line, also in Public Media). My problem with the article is not so much the general content, but its organization, which is episodic rather than thematic. For example, we have 'The Economist' but in May 2001, a whole series of Western mags and newspapers, El Mundo, El Pais, Der Spiegel, Le Monde etc., made similar comments. Hence we need a section along the lines of 'Foreign Newspaper Criticism', as we need one on 'Diplomatic Incidents'. This is going to take some work and patience. Regards Nishidani (talk) 11:09, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Travaglio

The parenthetic remark, '(who is a columnist of the left official newspaper l'Unita)' is POV because Travaglio is a classical right-leaning liberal who does indeed contribute to Unità, but also to La Repubblica and to Corriere della Sera. While true therefore, it gives the impression he is writing from a leftwing ideological perspective Nishidani (talk) 07:16, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

You are right, so go and correct it.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 07:42, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Already had corrected it before noting down my edit here. Unfortunately there is much to correct, and I don't know if clearing every edit here beforehand would prove functional. If I find anything really controversial, I hope to register the problem here beforehand though.Nishidani (talk) 21:36, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

References

I tried to diminuish them and I succeeded, but something has gone wrong. the numbers starting beneath no. 18 belong to no. 33. Can somebody please correct? I can't fix that 11347TCroa (talk) 16:31, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Austerlitz -- 88.72.20.61 (talk) 23:34, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

done --dvdb 20:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dodo von den Bergen (talk • contribs)

Wrong sentence

One of the first sentences is wrong: "Berlusconi has twice held office as prime minister of Italy, most recently from 2001 to 2006". He was president for three times because in 2005 the governament fell but after that he led another one (the third one) from 2005 to 2006. Paolotacchi (talk) 17:47, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I removed a second wrong sentence, according to which he winned the 2008 elections "with a large majority". This is wrong because his party was voted exactly by 36,66% of electors and 47% of voters, according to the official site of the Italian Home Affairs Ministry. So he is leading a minority government, which can rule only because he previously modified the electoral law. In fact, in past times, the relative majority party needed to find allies to reach almost the 51% of representation in the Parliament. Eric —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.53.113.106 (talk) 13:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

"because he previously modified the electoral law..." That's not correct and also illogical, since to modify the electoral law you have to govern and if he governs because he modified the electoral law .... how could he modify the law? The electoral law was modified a number of time by a number of governments. Saying "he leads a minority government" is either a tautology and at the same time wrong: he leads a majority goverment since it has been approved by the majority of the parliament. Voters are not important here because the Italian institution is conceived differently. And it is from more than 60 years. No party can be "Majority" and never has been in all the Italian Republic history (there are more than two parties, hence having a single one more than 50% is practically impossible). Please be correct at leat with aspects that has precise formalism nd definitions. Don't play with words and number to sustain a political champaign. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.81.199.93 (talk) 08:09, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Question

Berlu was on French TV a few days ago, and I was shocked by his command of the French language. It's basically flawless. Perfect grammar, astonishing vocabulary, and near perfect pronunciation. Granted, speaking French when you're Italian is not exactly a huge challenge (and vice versa, because French and Italian are closely related languages). But it looks to me as though Berlusconi lived in France at some point in his life. Anyone has any info on this? Thanx! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.58.147.83 (talk) 17:06, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Was it dubbed?24.1.30.186 (talk) 04:40, 3 June 2009 (UTC)energyturtle

He always studied French, as people did in Italy once. By the other side, his command of English is not really great.--Dans (talk) 20:42, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

He studied at La Sorbonne too. Yes, it would be interesting to put into the article, but I don't have references and I should find them on the Internet, but he is very proud of it and he is used to remind his "years in France" when he meets a French motherlangue. On You Tube there's also an interview with Berlusconi on Nessma TV in French (search Berlusconi Nessma)

Berlusconi's relationship with a minor

I quote what is currently writen in the article from the last sentece in the "private life" section: "I cannot stay with a man who frequents minors".[5] It was reported that Veronica Lario was referring to Berlusconi's relationship with 18-year-old Noemi Letizia.[6][7]"

first, even if Veronica Lario said such thing (though, correct me if i'm wrong, she didn't refered to minors, she refered to other women in general since the Noemi controvercy came after her public annoucement), Berlusconi's intimate relationship with this girl, Noemi; has not been proved yet. Please, correct this and do not take as references articles from newspapers such as la Repubblica, known for making lies (an example is saying that Pope Benedict XVI was part of hitler's youth when young) and Il Corriere della Sera for being impartial, even more regarding that the european elections are near.

thank you 93.34.50.11 (talk) 09:52, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Pope Benedict was part of Hitler's youth, although that's irrelevant to this article. 24.1.30.186 (talk) 04:39, 3 June 2009 (UTC)energyturtle

^------ Above obviously written by a member of Berlusconi's communications staff.

Please show proof that la Repubblica [is] known for making lies.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.239.43.241 (talk) 12:30, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

So even Wikipedia makes up lies? Anyway, does Il Messaggero (another Italian newspaper) have enough credibility, or is it another bunch of communists? [[23]] (third paragraph stating "[...] non posso stare con un uomo che frequenta le minorenni» riferendosi alla partecipazione del premier al compleanno in discoteca di una diciottenne, Noemi Letizia." ("[...] I cannot stay with a man who frequents minors» referring to the participation of the premier to the birthday party in a disco of an eighteen-year old, Noemi Letizia.")

Il Messaggero has no link with the left; its property (Caltagirone family) has made his fortune with construction building, as Berlusconi did, and they have familiar links with the UDC centrist, demo-christian party, former Berlusconi ally. Anyway, that phrase was reported on any media in Italy. --Dans (talk) 20:39, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

"Entering the field"...

"In the early 1990s, the two largest Italian political parties, the Christian Democrats (Democrazia Cristiana) and the Socialist Party (Partito Socialista Italiano) lost much of their electoral strength..." Wasn't the Communist Party always larger than the Socialist Party? From what I read, the Communist Party has surpassed the Socialist Party in every general election to date...Aran|heru|nar 14:05, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

References

The references are a mess. I started a clean up to link them clearly. - Mafia Expert 14:22, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Forza Corp and Forza/Fininvest ?

Never heard either of a Forza Corp or a Forza/Fininvest corporation. In case this are true could you please include some references? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.140.6.110 (talk) 10:02, August 23, 2007 (UTC)

Introduction

This is by far the most ridiculous introduction to a wikipedia article i have ever seen...has nobody else commented on it? It is far, far too long.--CombatRock 21:06, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I came to the talk page to make exactly the same comment. 80% of it needs to be absorbed into the main body of the article. Unschool 00:10, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Berlusconi is not Italian Prime Minister any more

I would like to let you know that Mr. Berlusconi actually is not Italian Prime MInister. I Typed "Silvio Berlusconi" on google.com and the first link I had was the wikipedia one, which says: "Hyperlinked encyclopedia article about the Prime Minister of Italy.". So the presentation is wrong and Prime Minister is not the right traslation of Italian "Presidente del Consiglio". Thank you Manbolo —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.18.66.26 (talk) 12:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC).

I can confirm the strange Google result, but as far as I can tell, it's not the fault of this article. Google's algorithms are a very close secret, and while they work amazingly well much of the time, there are bound to be bugs in them. --Trovatore 20:44, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

At least if they click through to the full article they can easily find the current Prime Minister via the information box. Google does have its limits... --Mike 01:11, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

He is the Prime Minister now.--86.45.152.184 (talk) 15:41, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, no he's not. It is expected that he will be prime minister in the near future. Only after he is appointed by Napolitano and has won a vote of confidence in both houses should the article be updated to say he is prime minister. --Trovatore (talk) 16:05, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Picture

Can someone upload a better picture of Silvio Berlusconi? The current one is very low resolution and looks bad, especially since its the first thing you see when you load the page. thebandman 23:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I would like to let you know that Mr. Berlusconi actually is not Italian Prime MInister. I Typed "Silvio Berlusconi" on google.com and the first link I had was the wikipedia one, which says: "Hyperlinked encyclopedia article about the Prime Minister of Italy.". So the presentation is wrong and Prime Minister is not the right traslation of Italian "Presidente del Consiglio". Thank you

Er...guys...the real problem with the picture is THE HUGE AMERICAN FLAG !!!!...Remember Italy is not yet an american colony ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.165.232.66 (talk) 02:12, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree: the picture with the American flag must change. I've have no idea what it's implying, but it's distracting Lio 07:55, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I just replaced the image with one I "made" myself, showing only Silvio Berlusconi, cropped out from this image. I hope no one had any objections, but it is no doubt lightyears better than the previous image used where one, if looking carefully, could spot a human beneath a giant american flag. --Ojan (talk) 21:35, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I still think it's a little distracting that Berlusconi is reaching across his body, holding that disembodied hand. (Paging Tom Lehrer.) Somewhere there's got to be a free picture of Silvio by himself, no? --Trovatore (talk) 21:43, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Certainly there ought to be a lot better images, but the problem is, as we know that they need to be free. The old image was very bad with the american flag in the background. If you can find a better, I'd be the first to celebrate. Or why not remove the "disembodied" hand with GIMP as the image is in public domain? --Ojan (talk) 22:00, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm not too enthusiastic about using digitally manipulated photos on articles about living (or even just non-fictional) figures -- that sounds like a can of worms to me. Of course even cropping is technically "digital manipulation" I suppose, but I think we can all see the difference. --Trovatore (talk) 22:04, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I think this picture is just fine, great job! Lio (talk) 07:55, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

CRIME ACCUSATIONS AND MISCELLANEOUS ATTACKS NEED VERIFIABLE REFERENCES

I am going to request semiprotection for this page.Massimamanno 01:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Too long

This article needs editing

Really too unbalanced

I am Italian and personally left-wing, in the past I contributed heavily to this article. It has clearly drifted left since the last time I read it, even in the parts I myself wrote, which were already originated by a left-wing person trying his best to be neutral. The section on "legislative actions" is especially embarassing. I seriously believe editors should try harder to achieve NPOV, and/or that more informed right-wing people should come here and discuss. No offence meant, just my impression. Massimamanno 01:50, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

It is worse than I expected at first sight. Guys, take very seriously what I am saying: be very careful of what you write. There are loads of unsourced or poorly sourced statements, some of which are simply wrong, others may be true but are still unsourced. Worst of all, there was an unsourced, partly clearly wrong, statement describing a crime! It was the following:

"One of the best men for the wedding was former Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, during whose government was passed a law named after Berlusconi himself, and who later fled Italy on corruption charges, with proven payments from Berlusconi."

Now first of all the writer was refering to the "Legge Mammì" which was widely regarded as a pro-berlusconi law but never took his name. But more importantly, the writer accuses someone of a crime for which he has never been found guilty, with no source at all, in a Wikipedia article! And this someone is the richest man in Italy, with an army of lawyers. Is there someone who wishes to destroy this place? Please read the very first banner on this talk page, the Wikipedia policy on biographies of living persons. Seriously people, I know what the political debate in Italy is like at present, but try to leave it out when you contribute on this page. Be objective ... but more importantly if you really are unable to be objective, at least be careful! Massimamanno 00:16, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The article as it is, is a total mess, a disgrace and urgently needs sorting out because a lot of it looks like quite heavily potential libel. Renaming the article a Far-left view of Silvio Berlusconi would be suitable at this moment in time. - Gennarous (talk) 16:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

It is indeed messy, though not quite a disgrace. So welcome aboard, if you wish to help improve it.Nishidani (talk) 18:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Article ignores Berlusconi 's film career

Berlusconi produced several films including the academy award winning film Mediterraneo. This should be included in the article. I plan to add a small section that should be expanded --Ted-m 04:22, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

That strikes me as not extremely encyclopedic, borderline at best, unless he had some serious creative involvement with the film, which I can't rule out but kind of doubt. The producer (film) article says that major investors sometimes get an honorary "producer" credit. I'm guessing the real producers were the Cecchi Gori brothers. --Trovatore 04:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

"Flirting" section

Come on, should this really be the second thing after the table of contents? This isn't People magazine; let's stay away from the personal trivia (and I think that includes the pacemaker too). Birth, marriages, children; all that's OK, treated briefly, but details in this area are not particularly "encyclopedic", I think -- they're not of much interest to scholars, and will be forgotten ten years from now. A small mention of the flirting thing could conceivably go in "Controversies". The pacemaker I think I'd simply drop; it strikes me as recentism to mention it at all. --Trovatore 03:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

About POV and citing sources

I blinked at the legislative action and there are some unclaimed statements. Remembering how wikipedia is not original research, please post the sources or we'll have to delete some statements that are clearly not neutral. This isn't the place for political activism, please cite the facts and restrain from personal comments and your original research unless you can support them. Sir Dante 14:28, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Singer

Someone should add some information on his career as a singer . Translation from the Italian Wikipedia on this subject:he worked as a singer and entertainer on cruise ships when he was young and in 2004 he relesead an album of Neapolitan songs written with the help of a Neapolitan composer named Mariano Apicella.--Raggiante 19:29, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Someone might add some more RELEVANT info about the latest development and the NEW trials .. it is more important than his "singing career"

EVERYTHING about a person is relevant, his singer career as well his trials. I don't know how many countries in the world had a PM undergoing trials and meanwhile writing songs. Finally, please sign when you write a post. --Raggiante 17:02, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Unbalanced

This is one of the most unbalanced articles in en.Wiki. It seems that it was written to GLORIFY that convicted criminal .. Berlusconi. Very sad and shameful for Italy Checco 17:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

It is dangerous, undemocratic, nazo-fascist to claim that an electorate is "Ignorant". Someone here commented that people that vote for Berlusconis were less educated. That is really really dangerous, it draws us back some centuries. I have two degrees, and I am very well educated. Many friends and colleagues of mine are very well educated. Most of the italian lawyers, not the judges maybe, vote for berlusconis. Just like 40% of the doctors, 95% of the finance sector, many many people in other areas as well, and we all know it ... 95% of the entrpreneurial sector (that can be very well educated but not always in phylosophy, history, latin or anthropology.....), not to forget the great majority of the Officers of the italian armed forces (all of them hold equivalent of 5/6 research degrees plus something like 20 technical /engineering/scientific degrees, and are all capable to manage up to 1 million people marching to an objective. Also, don't forget that most of the educated middle-class is split in two coalitions.... the difference is now 20 thousand votes between them... how can you label these variagated electorate?

I am not saying anything political here. I laugh at the vanity of the people that claim to be in the position to judge an electorate, and label it, just like Hitler did with the Jews, like Stalin with the rest of his country, like the Hutus said of the tutsis in Rwanda. I know there are a lot of dangerous people around the world, including in my lovely holyday resort and native country, Italy. Never label a group of countrymen - YOU are always one of them.

I don't know if it's the case, but if there had been a serious study showing that statistically voting for Berlusconi correlates to a certain degree with lower education, it would be not "dangerous, undemocratic, nazo-fascist": it would be simply a fact. "dangerous, undemocratic, nazo-fascist" would be implying that these votes count less, but it isn't the case. In fact, the most widespread comment I heard on this matter is "the left lost its ability to speak to the poor". (I take for a fact that poverty highly correlates to lower education)

"great majority of the Officers of the italian armed forces (all of them hold equivalent of 5/6 research degrees plus something like 20 technical /engineering/scientific degrees..."

Sorry but this claim is a bit too far off to go unnoticed... I have been in the army, officers usually have one university degree of equivalent level to a M.S. sometimes not even that, there are Lt. Colonels promoted by career whose level of education is high school. Very high officers may sometimes have more than one university degree or equivalent, of course. Massimamanno 23:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

---

I am italian and I don't share that was saying here on Berlusconi. this section isn't neutral and is against Berlusconi, evidently . You should modify it, please. If I could modify it, I would have already made it, but my English does not allow me. Good bye Col 84.222.17.8 14:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean "this section" of the talk page? There is no requirement that comments on talk pages be neutral. If you have a complaint about the neutrality of some section of the article, that's different, but you'll need to be more specific. Volendo si puo' scrivermi in italiano, alla mia pagina discussione. --Trovatore 18:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Personality

Is it not important to also say that as much as he is loathed a large percentage of the Italian population strongly support him?

Yes, but you should notice that he controls information. The nazist party was strongly supported, too.

• • • Logical fallacy above, as an Italian citizen, I can say he has strong support from the academic community who to say the least are know for critical thinking.--Caligvla 08:14, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Academic support?? Jeez, are you serius?? Are you really Italian?? Everybody in Italy knows that educated people for the most do not favorite the Berlusconi. Even Berlusconi knows that. In fact he accused "communists" to have infiltrated schools and university. http://www.aidanews.it/articoli.asp?IDArticolo=2624 "Anche a causa di questa polarizzazione di età si è accentuato in questi dieci anni il connotato che più caratterizza l'elettorato azzurro: la presenza maggiore di elettori con titoli di studio medio- bassi (che si trovano più frequentemente tra i meno giovani) e un minor successo tra diplomati e, specialmente, tra i laureati."

Neutrality on Religion

Sorry, but at the bottom of the page there is a line that says that it was blasphemous for Berlusconi to compare himself to the Lord Savior. In the first place, one must consider that this is a fallacy since it is begging the question. How do we know that Jesus really was the lord savior? I just think we should change this to maybe just Jesus.

POV FORK on the Trials !

The guy that eliminated the trials from the articles made an unacceptable breach of Wikipedia Policy

Content forking

A POV fork is an attempt to evade NPOV guidelines by creating a new article about a certain subject that is already treated in an article, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. This is generally considered unacceptable.

The generally accepted policy is that all facts and majority Points of View on a certain subject are treated in one article.

Splitting off a subtopic is not a POV fork. A POV fork is when you write a competing article on the same topic. It wasn't done perfectly in this instance; a fair summary of the "trials" article should have been left in this article, not just a pointer, but that can easily be rectified. --Trovatore 21:40, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Trovatore .. hope you can do that !

It was me who moved away the list of trials, and I don't like Berlusconi. --Army1987 18:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Decriminalization of false account statements

Why this grave fact is noted with just a single line as "other pieces of legislation"

   * the decriminalization of false account statements;

together with some other similarly serious legislative acts such as

* the suspension of trials against the highest officers of the state during their terms 

(this law was later declared unconstitutional);

* a much shorter statute of limitation for white-collar crimes;

I hope there is a valid reason for these under-statements.. there's a ill drive to conceal bad things .. uh ?

This article is biased

Why the so many trials, investigations and crimes are kind of "understated" ?

The overall tone is overtly adulatory throughout the whole article.

Is there some reason for this ?

I'll go with biased, but adulatory? Why does his ownership of media sources and conflict get 1/4 of the introductory paragraphs? Is this really the best summary of a person? Obviously someone wants to drown him scandal. -cb 1/27/08 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.220.238.40 (talk) 19:18, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

There is obvious bias in the joke section around the Kapo comment. Why is the author making a defense of the guy because he's socialist? What do you think Nazi stands for? I can't honestly believe the author thought he wrote this with a neutral point of view. -CB —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.220.238.40 (talk) 19:26, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Why the trials are only quoted as a link ?

The guy is a convicted criminal and still has many trials running both in italy and abroad.. why they are quoted only as a link ... kind of concealing them ?

It was me who moved the list to a separate article. I did that because the article was very long, and the full list was boring for somebody just looking for a bio of him. (Articles should be kept shorter than 32 KB, see WP:SIZE.) However, I agree that the fact that he has committed so many crimes is important, so a brief summary could be added to the main article and would be very useful. --Army1987 22:34, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

There should be a section at least summarizing all his crimes and indictments, and also his political shenanigans to duck charges-instead of this being buried in "entreprenurial career". I dont think there is even a mention of the law he pushed through parliament granting him total legal immunity (although this was thankfully struck down by the supreme court). sorry dont know how to sign

You can sign with four tildes ( ~ ), or with the button "Your signature with timestamp" at the top of the edit box. --Army1987 12:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

The TRIALS section has been AGAIN REMOVED and cut out of the article .. ( by Mr.ARMY ) .. moreover the trials list is also NOT updated .. the article is disgustingly biased..

This Article is Unbalanced

In my humble opinion it seems a bit too "pink" and easy in the way it depicts berlusconi and it is NON UP-TO_DATE

I would like to ask at the very least to update the picture .. mr.berlusconi is 70 y.o that picture has been taken some 20 years ago, there should be a real picture of berlusconi in place.

That photo is not too old. (He looks like that in TV, too.) The fact is that that man looks much younger than he is because he has his face lifted more often than his hair cut... --Army1987 22:18, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Controversies

There was another reported controversy involving Berlusconi and then Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany. Berlusconi was apparently at a state dinner with several leaders of European Union nations and, after having made a sexist remark about sleeping with many women, nudged Schroeder, who had been divorced and remarried at least 3 times before, and said something to the equivalent of, "you ought to know about getting around with the women, eh, Gerhard?"

This article will be neutral in year 2100 (maybe)

By long experience I know it's not the worth while trying to make this article neutral: there is a majority of so-called contributors (mostly left-winged italians) who are physiologically unable to distinguish their political views (=POV) from neutrality (=NPOV) and wikipedia from their own party political broadcast. If this is "democracy", well, wikipedia is democratic, but I do believe that wikipedia should be at first an "encyclopedia". Now, IMHO, for politically-sensible articles, it isn't -- @ ^hi 12:37, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Totally agree. Checco 17:03, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

An error

There is a typograpgical,possbily even a data error that needs to be addressed.

According to Forbes magazine, Berlusconi is Italy's richest person, an allegedly self-made man (see section) with personal assets worth $120,000 (USD) in 2005, making him the 11th richest person in italy [1].

I deleted the "contributions" under this paragraph because it was just a load of reciprocal insults. Sirio.a (talk) 15:41, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I would like to remind all contributors that this IS an encyclopedia.

... and therefore we shouldn't be here fighting each other to impose our personal views. There are many great pages for political discussions but wiki isn't one of them. The neutrality of this page is questionable at best. I'll take as an example the "personality" section has NO scientific background or any factual statement, and it doesn't even give facts. First, his connection with Mafia and Craxi doesn't belong to that section, secondly i hardly see any connection between wearing a bandana and the personality of a man, third when he compares himself to famous historical figures he is CLEARLY joking.

Apart from neutrality, the article is a big mess. Facts, opinions and personal statements are freely blended in sections whose title differs from the content of the section itself (personality was only an example).

I hope some wikipedians more skilled and more resourceful than me will try to fix this page, at its current state it is maybe the worst page of a living politician. Sir_Dante

Your points here (for the record, please sign your name in the future with four tildes) are valid, but they could themselves be taken to be POV. For example, 'scientific background' in the personality section? What would you have us do, offer his psychotherapists' notes on the man's character? Personality in general is a matter of interpretation and extrapolation; the most we can do is attempt to offer our views.

Secondly, though you suggest he is joking about his comparisons to many famous historical figures, a great many Italians (and people in general) do not agree that they are jokes, and do not seem to take them as such. Many people see them as tasteless grandiloquence — in the interests of full disclosure, I am one of them — and might wonder if that alone is enough to disqualify him from running the government of such a prominent nation on the world's stage.

Neutrality at Wikipedia does not mean displaying no bias so much as it does being equally-biased, such that all manner of opinions are taken into account and synthesized in the article. This is so a coherent but nuanced picture of the figure is acheived. It is bias to say, "Berlusconi is a criminal"; however, it is not bias to reference someone who holds that opinion (for a famous example, The Economist).

I think, personally, the article is quite neutral as it stands. Why? Because we've received complaints at about parity that it is not neutral from Berlusconi supporters and detractors. That both sides think the article is biased against their view suggests that some glimmers of unpleasant truth are being exposed.

My opinion and mine alone, obviously. Wally 22:28, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for not signing in, i'm still new to editing & writing in Wiki. I tried to leave out my personal opinions and nationality from my writing, but it seems it's needed. I'm Italian and strongly against Berlusconi. However, this is an encyclopedia!

I didn't say that any comment or opinion or fact about Berlusconi in this article is wrong (did I?). Let's make some examples:

-personality. Personality section MUST have some scientific background. Otherwise it's better to call it "people's opinions on B. personality". This is a living person, history hasn't already discovered his personality (IF it will be discovered). -Berlusconi joking about himself: we (as we, italians) know that Berlusconi has a high opinion of himself but i can't remember anyone taking him seriously (apart from extreme left newspapers, and still not including left leaning newspapers).

- Lets put the FACTS, this guy got RICH making business protected by CRAXI, who scaped to Tunisia!!! - Is a fact that B. will be in jail if himself would not make new laws. - Is a fact that his tv is protected by all ministers and goverments, being a monopoly. - Is a fact he is a bold darf old guy. lol —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.140.6.120 (talk) 19:12, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

NPOV isn't only a matter of WHAT you say but of HOW you say it. Your Economist example is very good, showing the difference between the two variants "X said Y about W" and "I think that Y is W". This page falls very often in the second category.

And as i said, it doesn't need only a NPOV, but a general cleanup too.

Sir_Dante

Neutrality Issue

From reading the main article, I can not believe how one-sided the writing is. It is although Mr Berlusconi himself has written it.

I can only assume that pro Berlusconi supporters are behind this article and I hope that in the very near future that we can remove the warning on the front. Please can someone chance the article and make it more 'balanced' and realistic, rather than reading like a CV? Hayday 10:16, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

It does not appear to me to have been written by "supporters"; there's lots of information on criticisms of him, and on his legal troubles. Seems fairly neutral. It's true that you have to read through a lot of text before you get to the critical part; perhaps a sentence or two alluding to it could be added to the lead section, or earlier in the lead section. The lead section is a bit long (see WP:LEAD); ideally it should be shortened, and then if it contained references to the criticisms, they would be more prominent. --Trovatore 14:34, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Indeed, I think you'll find that most of the people involved here on this article are lukewarm to Berlusconi (at best). Don't let's confuse a thorough article with a positive one. Wally 19:08, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

In the "influence on media" section it is reported that RAI was fined by the Authority on Communications. It lacks also the information that Rete4 and Italia1 (two Berlusconi-owned televisions) were in fact fined at least twice for violating the par condicio. The fines were the highest to date. It should be fair to insert it so that the information would be less oriented on defending Berlusconi and more towards presenting all the facts. See [this article]. Italian articles are here: [Rai News 24 article]. Without this this part of the article is biased, imho. Matteo 16:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, add it, then. If it starts getting too long, condense it (say, give a count of violations of each type, rather than explaining each violation). --Trovatore 15:51, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Every ' Lecislative Actions area statements are true,If You see L'Espressoor other non-filoBerlusconian newspaper You will be confirmed! (ex-Giannizx1)

Weak traitor

I deleted some "contributions" under this paragraph because it was just a load of reciprocal insults. Sirio.a (talk) 15:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't like Berlusconi at all, but I think a Wikipedian shall not be firing at him. This is a neutral place, and if we call him SOB, we can't blame him (as we do) for calling foes "assholes". M-I-Rite? --Frank87 14:20, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I think you may not fully appreciate the subtleties of Dzoni's position. He appears to take the view that Berlusconi should have held on to power, legal niceties or no; his treason was in not doing so, and thereby handing over Italy to the "Comunistas". This is, shall we say, an interesting position to take, given that Dzoni makes no secret of his support for Slobodan Milosevic. I guess there are comunistas and comunistas. --Trovatore 17:45, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

See, that's what you all are missing. Milosevic was a good communist, yeah? None of this income redistribution to combat inequality or national healthcare crap. Just good old crusades towards ethnic purity. And isn't that really what Marx and Lenin wanted in the first place anyway? Wally 19:06, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Ignore the troll, guys. Dzoni is a self-admitted fascist whose only purpose on wikipedia is to call people "smelly comunistas". john k 00:30, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Ridiculous. I bathe quite frequently, thank you. Wally 04:41, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, rats. So would it be impolite for me to point out that Milosevic is a good communist, now? Nothing personal intended towards present company, I assure you :-). --Trovatore

Usually Romano Prodi is the designated "smelly comunista," not any wikipedians. john k 05:47, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Prodi is a social democrat, not a communist. User:Merlov 11:57, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Even "social democrat" might be pushing it; he has a pretty free-market rep. Maybe "third way" wouldn't be a bad description. However he does have self-described communists in his coalition (in fact one of them is the new president of the chamber of deputies). --Trovatore 22:20, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Prodi is a centrist europhile, he's associated with the strongly eurofederalist European Democratic Party... Which is good news for the Union. =] —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 00:46, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I know he's centrist. He's been hanging around with Blair since 1998, the smae with the rest of the 'third way' cabal of Europe. He's not even center-left in my view. User:Merlov 10:37, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Berlusconi's resignation

Berlusconi has announced that he will resign on Tuesday, 2 May 2006 [24] [25]. We should maybe talk about how the article will change when that happens, given that Berlusconi will have resigned, but his successor will not yet have taken office. Will Berlusconi then be a caretaker prime minister, or will there no longer be a prime minister? --Trovatore 17:48, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't exactly know what you mean by caretaker, but I guess that the premiership will formally be vacant. --Army1987 19:34, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Caretaker sounds like an accurate characterization. Otherwise we can just call it an interregnum. Wally 21:48, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, there's a question of fact here. Is the office vacant, or does he continue to exercise its functions until his successor takes over? For example, what if the President of the Italian Republic (currently Ciampi) takes some action that needs to be countersigned by the prime minister; would Berlusconi do it, or can it just not be done? --Trovatore 21:59, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

He'll be in charge for current affairs only. --Lou Crazy 20:51, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's not really an answer. Will he be, formally speaking, prime minister, or not? Surely this is a yes-or-no question. --Trovatore 22:00, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The question is more basically Will there be an interim Prime Minister? Answer that and the Berlusconi question is not so obtuse. Wally 05:00, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, OK, that would be a start. Do you know the answer to that? Or how to find out? --Trovatore 05:12, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

If one looks at a list of prime ministers along with the dates of previous elections, one sees that the 2001 election was held on May 13, and Amato remained prime minister until June 11. The 1996 elections were held on April 21, and Dini remained PM until May 18. The 1994 election was held on March 27, and Ciampi remained PM until May 11. In none of these cases does there appear to have been a separate caretaker prime minister. This suggests to me that the old prime minister generally remains as caretaker PM until the new government is formed. john k 07:08, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

As someone who lives in Italy and has been following it's politics for 15 years, I would take the opportunity to clarify the resignation. Once an Italian PM has resigned, the President of the Repubblic starts the procedure to form a new government. Note that this actually starts when the PM hands in his **notice** of resignation. In practice there must always be someone covering the office, and in the case of a change of government the PM will (at the request of the president) stay at his post until the newcomer is sworn in. If the ex PM is not available or new elections are required an interim PM will be found, however, as Prodi is ready and waiting in the wings, this is unlikely to be the case. Under normal circumstances, with a new government ready, this interim (or caretaker role) would only last 2 or 3 days. It may take longer this time because there is the complication of electing a new President (Ciampi's mandate expires on the 18th March). It appears that both left and right are split on this issue, with people from both sides preffering to elect President before the new government or visa-versa. Either way, it will only delay iterations by a few days as there are strict time limits on the procedures. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.117.158.42 (talk • contribs) 11:15, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that's helpful. --Trovatore 15:53, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

From today's Corsera:

Ciampi ha invitato Berlusconi - si legge in una nota del Quirinale diffusa al termine del faccia a faccia - «a rimanere in carica per il disbrigo degli affari correnti».

So that seems to answer the question—we should continue to note that Berlusconi is pm (perhaps with an explanation of his limited role), and remove that notation only when Prodi actually takes office. --Trovatore 17:19, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Then the current wording of that sentence is ok. --Army1987 13:10, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Just go

I deleted some "contributions" under this paragraph because it was just a load of reciprocal insults. Sirio.a (talk) 15:47, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia's no personal attacks policy. Comment on content, not on the contributor; personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Note that continued personal attacks may lead to blocks for disruption. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you. --Army1987 19:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

This is irrelevant, yes? Prodi is now to be commissioned as PM. Wally 18:47, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

The press aren't talking about the Italian Communist Parties 'stealing' the election. Despite the fact most of it is owned and controlled by Berlusconi! International observers aren't in an uproar, so please restrain your colourful imagination. User:Merlov 10:24, 24 April 2006

Grand coalition, governing "against the will" of the people, percentages

Trovatore, first of all, please don't delete all of a contribution just because you feel that one of the many sentences in it could be tendentious.

Anyway, were you asking for sources for all the facts in the edit you deleted or just for the suppposedly tendentious sentence?

Just to be safe, I'll substantiate everything

• Berlusconi asked for a german style "grand coalition": see article on Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by Berlusconi.
• Berlusconi said one can't govern against half the italian people: see article on Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by Berlusconi.
• Berlusconi won the 2001 elections: do you really need a source? ;-)
• Berlusconi got 42.5% of the Senate vote in 2001: the results are on the web site of the Ministero dell'Interno, but are mentioned in Silvio Berlusconi#Electoral Victory of 2001
• Berlusconi governed for five years: again, do you really need a source? ;-)
• 57.5% of Senate electors had voted against him: it is the result of 100% - 42.5% (does elementary maths count as original research?)

Unless there are abstains. --Gerrit

Unless it is a "yes/no" vote, they cannot have voted "against" him, but for someone else. The phrasing implies a 57.5% majority of a united opposition. User:Wee_Jimmy

^CUTEDH 18:05, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• Berlusconi wasn't deterred by this: again, it is evident that he governed for five years.
• Paragraph on the Cassazione: I just moved it, it was already there
• The UDC conceded victory: teletext page on the national TV (I hope the link is stable, anyway the news item is dated 19/04/2006 18:39 and can be found browsing from [26])
• Other elements of the CdL didn't concede: see Teletext again: Calderoli still wants to fight the result and Tremonti thinks the same
• UDC is a centrist party: it sits in the center of parliament, all other parties of the Casa delle Liberta` sit to its right, i.e. they are more right wing. See Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (Italy).

About the Original Research issue: which original research? Just a mention of facts which are every day on newspapers or are already mentioned in this Wikipedia entry. Unless you consider elementary maths to be OR ;-)

This leaves the "tendentious" accusation. It only concerns one sentence. This sentence is needed to balance the POV of Berlusconi's position (which is faithfully reported). So, removing this sentence would make the paragraph NPOV.

Is it clearer now?

--Lou Crazy 03:22, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Leave the whole thing out, and it won't be tendentious. As it is, you're violating WP:NOR, by giving an original synthesis of the facts. Now lots of times you get away with that, but I think this is precisely the sort of situation that's aimed at. --Trovatore 03:30, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

WP:NOR#Example_of_a_new_synthesis_of_published_material_serving_to_advance_a_position is very clear. It happens when fact A is from a reliable source, fact B is from another reliable source, and someone writes: "A and B, therefore C". In this case, there is no C. Hence, WP:NOR doesn't apply here. --Lou Crazy 03:48, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

The "C" is clearly implied. You can't hide behind the fact that you're not openly stating it. Now, if you could find a commentator who's pointed out that incongruity, you can quote him or her. But a coy "it should be noted" is not consistent with an intellectually honest denial that you're putting forth a thesis. --Trovatore 03:54, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

If we were to remove from Wikipedia all facts which "clearly imply" something else, there would be nothing left. That's why WP:NOR#Example_of_a_new_synthesis_of_published_material_serving_to_advance_a_position is so clear in only condemning the stating of any conclusion "C". WP:NOR means Wikipedia shouldn't publish original research, it doesn't mean we should remove all means for a reader to do his original research on his own. --Lou Crazy 04:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I've cut out the most tendentious part of the wording; it now states the facts rather than your conclusion about whether he had "problems" governing in that situation. It's still problematic with respect to WP:NOR, but less so. --Trovatore 04:12, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Facts cannot be removed from an article just because they allow for a conclusion to be drawn, but they should not be presented in a way that leads to a conclusion either. If you have truely left just the facts and removed the conclusion than there is no WP:NOR problem at all. - Kuzain 19:21, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I like the way Trovatore reformulated the concept, it is much more succint, I just nit picked on it a bit in my latest edit. --Lou Crazy 02:18, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I live in Italy, those percentages are pure bullshit, where have you find them? how could he govern without majority at senato? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.4.37.179 (talk) 21:40, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Silvioconnoi web site removal

the site http://www.silvioconnoi.splinder.com/ is not a real site of Silvio's fans but only a (extremely well done) joke. On the 18/04/06 the site authors revealed the joke, therefore i think that it should be removed. ALoopingIcon 20:00, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Archived

I've archived this discussion, as clearly nobody was paying attention to that "don't feed the troll" warning. A hint: Dzoni is a troll. Don't respond to him and he'll go away. john k 04:18, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

If only the British National Party could be dealt with so easily... ;) Wally 20:10, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

John,I really,really dont like you.You sound to me like a little ugly trollDzoni 07:58, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

The Singing Prime Minister

Berlusconi accepted his defeat by serenading a custom made song at a hotel in Trieste. Or did he? Many news agencies believed so, but some otherwise.

Pro: ABC News (Australia) (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200604/s1621740.htm)

Con: The Guardian (UK) (http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,,1759827,00.html)

I think currently only Mr. Berlusconi knows. Talamus 00:47, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

• He did. I read it on an Italian paper. The song was something like "Let's go away, from everyone, parties, TVs, papers an' leave 'em this way with their afflicted feel and let's move to a far away island...in another hemisphere..." --Frank87 14:15, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Silvio Berlusconi, intelligence, stupidity, populism, partial truth, journalism, Web information online, public opinion, morality or ipocritsia?

Looking Portugesa Berlusconi's version of Google had the impression their front pages to find just the negative of Berlusconi. The first suggestion that appears is "Berlusconi Ruby. " The first notizia international scandals seem to me to banality: Berlusconi continues to do private parties after the scandal, Ruby says she received many gifts from Berlusconi, he lied about his age but never had sex with him. On 06.11.2011 I visited dozens of versions of the encyclopedia Vikipédia Berlusconi in various languages and dialects. The most positive (or less negative) on Berlusconi seemed to be French. The most negative it seemed the Portuguese. Not only in Vikipedia but also in infrmation and public opinion. Never have I found a portuguise with positiv opinion about Berlusconi. The most negative opinion about Berlusconi: "Macho Latin that sucks. Come on stuffed with young people. " If is true that Berlusconi don’t make sex with Ruby will be the bigest mistake of the web-information? Suks of Berlusconi or giustice and information? In various versions of Vikipedia I found a note to consider a policy of "not neutral ", "of course ipertrofia asppectos controversial treated in a journalistic style not suitable for an encyclopedia. "... « The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (February 2011)”. More in portuguese: http://onu-w-gov.blogspot.com/search?q=Berlusconi, Mensagens mais recentes. Mensagens antigas. Silvio Berlusconi, inteligência, populismo, verdade parcial, jornalismo, Vikipedia, Web-informação-online, opinião pública, preconceitos, moralidade ou ipocrisia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.81.225.100 (talk) 19:04, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Split Controversies to Controversies of Silvio Berlusconi

I propose we split off the "Controversies" section into a separate article. Right now it occupies about two-thirds of this one making it needlessly hard to navigate comfortably, shifts the emphasis to that aspect rather any part of his political career or policies (which has already been moved it seems), and is more than lengthy enough for its own article.--Morgan Hauser (talk) 05:39, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Silvio Berlusconi is undoubtedly the most controversial Italian political figure since the foundation of the Italian Republic (1946). As much as the strong support of his voters, his political action and his public persona generate the frustration and the indignation of millions of Italian citizens. To remove the "controversies" from the main article would mean to deny this reality. Agostino. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.130.190.179 (talk) 07:40, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Dear Agostino, I had the same initial reaction, but the comment can be implemented without any censorship, allowing to convey better the bad image of Berlusconi. --Blaisorblade (talk) 14:50, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

HI Blaisorblade, what censorship do to you refer to? I am not sure to understand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.130.190.179 (talk) 02:17, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I am a left-wing Italian voter and experienced Wikipedia editor, aware of the NPOV policy, and yet, after looking at the article as of today, it might make sense to split the section on Controversies, as long as a good summary is left. I contend that navigation in the article is a problem - that's what the table of contents is for. However, there are single subsections without any finer division than paragraphs, and those are problematic. Moreover, because of its huge size, this section is hard to review and to make coherent - a few problems are shown below.

Writing such a summary is however a massive undertaking. For a comparison, the summary on the political activity strikes me as void of significant remarks.

I would for now mark this TODO with an appropriate template, if it exists.

A major reason for the split is that the excessive length limits the number of readers who will browse it, and thus damages the diffusion of the truth. It would be more important to discuss e.g. comparisons between Berlusconi and Mussolini, which have surely been made and can be sourced. The article does not even mention Berlusconism, a phenomenon discussed at length in Italy and with longer-term effects than Berlusconi himself.

A few problems of the section:

• The subsection on "Jokes, gestures and blunders" alone is longer than the article section on "Legal problems".
• The division between "Conflicts of interest" and "Media control" seems to have little sense. If there are separate problems at all, they are still connected.
• The sections about "Belarus", "Russia" and "Libya" should be grouped together, under "Relations with non-democratic leaders" (not sure if that is non-NPOV about Putin though).
• Similarly should the various sex scandals be discussed together.
• "Legislative changes" is partially redundant with "Legal problems".

To start, I propose a structure of the summary. Quite a few main problems must be mentioned in the article. OTOH, on such an article the mention needs to be detailed enough to have a reference.

• Conflict of interest, media control, and Italy's status of "partially free" country.
• Doubts on his financial career, including links with Craxi and the Mafia.
• Legislative changes affecting his own trials.
• Sex scandals involving sex with underage prostitutes, and other women who entered politics at some level.
• Maybe I would mention the relationships with dictators.
• Maybe I would briefly mention "Jokes, gestures and blunders".
• I would move to the side article without mention here: "Assault at rally", "Right-to-die case" (which maybe belongs to the politics subsection, it's not really about Berlusconi himself), "Remarks on western civilization and Islam", because of the smaller notability of the subjects, which are single episodes and not repeated behavior. This includes also the visit to Belarus and Lukashenko.

Any comments about the proposal? --Blaisorblade (talk) 14:50, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I moved sections around to make the order more meaningful. Any duplicated content (e.g. between "Conflicts of interest" and "Media control") is still to merge.--Blaisorblade (talk) 15:03, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Ip 24.130.190.179, you’re misinterpreting my intentions, which is not to censor this aspect. The political career of this man has already been split from the main article, so why not this? The endless list of controversies and questionable actions is so notable and prominent as a standalone topic that it only makes sense to cover it more thoroughly in a separate one rather than lumping it here. Of course the main article would need a comprehensive summary of that content; that’s the whole point. In any case, I won’t be participating myself – it was merely a proposal on my part.--Morgan Hauser (talk) 08:13, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Legal problems

We read at the top that This article [...] has now been updated to try to solve those debates. If you feel that the article is biased or inaccurate, please add a section with specific problems to the end of this page where it can be discussed and a better form can be found.

There is an article Trials involving Silvio Berlusconi -- and rightly so, I believe. Yet the section here on "Legal problems" is longer than about "Business career", let alone "Political career". This strikes me as ridiculous. The material here should be added to that in Trials involving Silvio Berlusconi where appropriate, hived off into other Berlusconi articles where appropriated, and turned into a shorter summary here. -- Hoary (talk) 14:01, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

After declaring I'm politically left-wing and against Berlusconi, the section on "Legal problems" seems reasonably long and has a good summary, followed by some representative cases, while the real problem is the section on Controversies. --Blaisorblade (talk) 14:01, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:NPOV

This article violates NPOV and WP:BLP.. Most of the stuff written is "allegedly" and "supposedly". It must be removed immediately! - ~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.19.146.10 (talk) 11:30, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

When experts do not reach consensus, Wikipedia is supposed to describe the different opinions. From WP:NPOV:

Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources.

Allegations described in Silvio Berlusconi#Alleged links to the Mafia are a significant view published by reputable sources. NPOV would be violated by omitting mention of those allegations - no consensus has been reached that they are not founded.--Blaisorblade (talk) 22:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Unsubstantiated claims

This article reports unverified or dismissed claims of pentitos, i.e. mafiosi, against Berlusconi. How is this relevant in Wikipedia? Ditto for D'Addario and Noemi Letizia's case . Nothing of what has been said about them has been verified in a meaningful way by objective sources. Carlo --151.47.210.72 (talk) 12:54, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

The article does not assert that these claims "have been verified in a meaningful way by objective sources". It does not need to. Berlusconi is a public figure, the claims (true or not) are relevant to him, have been presented in respected publications, are clearly taken seriously by many people (witness the large demonstrations against him), and are clearly noteworthy. -- Hoary (talk) 13:24, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

The "large demonstrations", compared to what?, have been large independently from the relevancy of those claims. This is like asserting that public demonstrations and journalistic scandals count more than facts, that what is voiced is more important that what actually happened. Vox populi vox dei? Sorry, this is still an encyclopaedia, not a gossip forum. Moreover it's on the border of liability to report the unverified claims of pentitos. They're treacherous criminals whose words have been proven false several times in several trials (and I'm not referring only to B.'s ones). Reporting them just helps propagating the idea that Berlusconi is a clever criminal and that Italy is unable to stop such kind of villains, making it look like a banana republic of the worst kind. Sorry, for such amount of crap I dare to ask more solid proofs. Carlo --151.47.210.72 (talk) 13:45, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

"Italian women demonstrate against Silvio Berlusconi", "Berlusconi implicated in deal with godfathers". The notion that Italy is unable to stop villains long predated Wikipedia, and those brave Italians who work hardest to stop villains are also written up by the same newspapers that dispassionately summarize allegations of sleaze at the very top. ¶ Precisely how do you suggest that this article should be revised? -- Hoary (talk) 14:46, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

There have been lots of demonstrations against Berlusconi. In 2001 Cofferati brought, IIRC, more people on squares against Berlusconi than any other subsequent demonstration. Still those demnonstrations prove nothing; morever they're not big enough to be relevant. We're not discussing an oppressing regime being overthrown by the population by people-wide riots, but just one among many (legitimate) demonstration against Berlusconi. There have been demonstrations against other politicians in France, US, ... and the protesters' views on those politicians or the pieces of news that rallied them are not reported on such politicians' pages. If something is not proven objectively it can't be reported as such.

The latest mafia allegations have been largely disproved, as does the recent Dell'Utri verdict. In the article, though, the last sentence says "He once employed a Mafia boss at his villa near Milan, and his party won every Sicilian seat at the 2001 general election." But this was already known when the verdict was pronounced, hence it's not relevant, and is also exaggerated. The man Berlusconi hired, Vittorio Mangano, was never said to be a "boos", and its role in Cosa Nostra was almost negligible when he started working for Berlusconi in the 70s . And Forza Italia didn't won every seat in Sicily, it won a lot of them, as this [Repubblica] says.

The article you linked is disproved by a lots of facts. Number one: the most effective laws against mafia were deployed and strengthened under Berlusconi's governments: 41 bis and the Anti-Mafia 2010 plan, Number two: the recent success against mafia "despite" 7 years of Berlusconi's governments. To actually see whether their allegations are right or wrong, we should wait and see what happens. Berlusconi wasn't the first making cuts on public security, Prodi did as well, and people complaint the same way, so what?

As for what I would remove from this article, well, perhaps nothing. But dubious information should be moved in separate pages. Still, the sections about Noemi, D'Addario, the one about Obama's "tan" and the like appear to be pure gossip, so I'd delete them. Carlo--151.47.210.72 (talk) 16:48, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

EDIT: linked La Repubblica article about Forza Italia success in Sicily in 1994. Carlo --151.47.221.54 (talk) 16:04, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

[Bouncing leftward] Well, one thing at a time. I'd agree that the stuff about mafia allegations is overdone for an article such as this. But right now I lack the time to think more about the matter. I hope to return more usefully a few hours from now. -- Hoary (talk) 00:46, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think that this material should be hived off to another article and replaced in this one by a much shorter summary. -- Hoary (talk) 14:01, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Please do not. Carlo's argument have a number of weaknesses, to the point that they prove none of their claims. WP:NPOV requires significant views published by reputable sources to be represented. Carlo argues, in short, that Berlusconi can't be a mafioso because he fought mafia. That's just Carlo's argument here (Original Research), and it can be refuted. It could be sourced by sources near to Berlusconi's party. But even the article Carlo quotes from the Libero newspaper, about the "success" of Berlusconi against mafia, talks about the contradicting actions of the government. Libero is well-known as a right-wing newspaper. Reputable sources claim that other of his laws, in more occasions, helped mafia. So there is no consensus that the mafia allegations are "disproved". More specifically, the police has had great success against the mafia even though it has not received enough funding, recent laws (e.g. against wiretapping) made investigations more difficult, and Berlusconi claiming that Vittorio Mangano, proved to be a mafioso, is a hero.

Obama's tan was a diplomatic problem widely discussed by political news - not by tabloids. Same for the Noemi and D'Addario scandals, they have not been discussed exclusively by tabloids; it is again Berlusconi's party to claim that these scandals have no political implications. In general, Carlo exposes the arguments of one side of the debate. Some of the facts mentioned might deserve being added to the article. I find no violation of WP:NPOV or WP:BLP in the article. Quoting from WP:BLP:

If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it. If it is not documented by reliable third-party sources, leave it out.

So please refrain from removing from the article what Carlo suggested, and do not allow unfounded arguments to convince you to make the article worse. I'm talking of the current version and of the claims by Carlo - I do not claim the article to be perfect, but Carlo's reasoning to be fatally flawed. --Blaisorblade (talk) 23:24, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Berlusconi and babes

We read at the top that This article [...] has now been updated to try to solve those debates. If you feel that the article is biased or inaccurate, please add a section with specific problems to the end of this page where it can be discussed and a better form can be found.

There is now more in the article about "Prostitution scandal and divorce" than about "Business career", let alone "Political career". For a start, the title is sensationalist, in that it seems to assume prostitution, whereas prostitution is instead merely a matter of allegations. But more importantly it's hugely, ridiculously long.

There's an article, Ruby-gate, about one part of this. There should be a more general article (probably titled something other than "Berlusconi and babes" -- to which this material should be hived off; it can then be replaced here by a much shorter summary. -- Hoary (talk) 14:01, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Indictment

I'm a little surprised that his indictment isn't mentioned at all. Given it made WP:ITN, it should be covered adequately here, and I would imagine it is sufficiently notable to make the lead. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:55, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The "in the news" section of the Main Page mentioned this, but I had the same problem at that time: Is it really correct, in English, to call it an indictment? To me indictments are delivered by a grand jury, an institution that as far as I know does not exist in Italy. (In the States, a grand jury indictment is often unnecessary in the case that a preliminary hearing is held instead, but I do not believe that the outcome of such a hearing is referred to as an indictment). --Trovatore (talk) 22:18, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't know. I was going by what the BBC said. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:29, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

In Greece indictments are delivered by a body of three judges. There is no Grand Jury. So, maybe this is also the case in Italy, and the term is correct.--Yannismarou (talk) 22:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The Italian article on Berlusconi says la procura [gli] ha contestato i reati di... or something like that. The news article says e` stato messo sotto inchiesta penale. There is no article it:inchiesta penale, so I don't know whether that's a legal term. I have not succeeded in determining the formal Italian term for what the procura has done. It seems that the English press is calling it an "indictment" so I suppose we have to go with that, but in my opinion it's a dodgy translation, at least by American English standards. --Trovatore (talk) 23:19, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

If you are talking about the incoming trial of 6 april, about having paid an underage girl and about the abuse of office, see the "Ongoing Trials".--Svello89 (talk) 17:20, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

A degree of protection

I have some sympathy with the original complaint in the section above. Berlusconi's notability is as media mogul and prime minister, not the other stuff. Irrelevantly, I have just now changed the status of the article, which now requires that proposed changes by the unregistered and newly registered are approved before they're adopted. That's because of a series of edits that are either silly or involve the addition of yet more unsourced allegations. Don't infer from this any approval of the article as it is now. -- Hoary (talk) 01:03, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

NPOV?

This article is a complete an utter joke. It seems to me that this article consists almost entirely of "controversies" and the euphemistically-named "legal problems". His political career consists of a single paragraph with the rest relegated to two article links.

You only have to make a quick comparison to Sarkozy or Zapatero's page to see the huge difference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.72.183.221 (talk) 15:35, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Nicolas Sarkozy and Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero are not involved in anything like the level of controversy that Berlusconi is. Jim Michael (talk) 20:56, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I concour. Here seems that every bit of scandal regarding Berlusconi gets reported, independently from its actual relevance as an encyclopedical fact.

There's a huge difference between what the press may want to report and what is actually informative. Remember that publishers need to sell copies, and I dare you to deny that articles on Berlusconi don't help selling copies, and carry a position on facts, e.g. left vs right-winged stances, but wikipedia doesn't and just can't. Andrea. 151.47.210.67 (talk) 16:13, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Nevertheless, you shall know that during his life Berlusconi has been primarily an enterpreneur involved in legal controversies (perhaps starting since P2 in '80, an era before his politcal experiences) and later a politician (since 1994). Moreover the idea that he "came in politics" also in order to change laws about its controversies may not be a easily proven but it remains not just a little journalist speculation, due also to the changes he made to italian law. That's why we can't deal with Berlusconi just as with Nicolas Sarkozy and Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.--Nickanc (talk) 16:19, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned I fully agree with the remark of the anonymous editor. The structure is completely wrong and raises serious questions of NPOV. You can't devote seven lines for the whole political career of Berlusconi (and even worse: no text for his policies; only a wikilink!), and then devote an endless list of sections with hundreds of lines for the controversies, legal problems etc. etc. Yes, of course, he has had many legal and other issues, but first and above everything he is a politician. Reading this article, I learn almost nothing about his political career! Nothing! One could tell me, of course, that they wrote only 7 lines for his political career per WP:SS. Ok! Then why didn't you do the same thing for the controversies? 7 lines for his political career + 7 lines for his controversies and the article is over!

My last sentence of the last paragraph intends to indicate the irrationality of the current status of the article in terms of structure. I don't say that its editors are intentionally NPOV against Berlusconi, but this is the wrong impression they give; and this impression arises from the very bad structure. And, when there is no section, no line, no word for his policies, then nobody can convince me that the structure of the article is not bad.--Yannismarou (talk) 15:55, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

This article is not a joke, but very ill structured. It is unbalanced because of this structure: while his political career is in a separate article, his numerous scandals is in this page. Isn't it better if it was the other way around, i.e. that the article contains a longer sketch of his business and political career, and that the scandals are interspersed as short notes which are linked up to a specific scandal page? As it is now, it is hard to put the scandals in a specific context. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 06:25, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Concur.--Yannismarou (talk) 07:58, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I concur as well. This needs balance. I'm not pro- or anti-Berlusconi, but this reads as like a gossip rag rather than a comprehensive look at his life. I'd say summarize the scandals briefly, and leave the detail to separate pages on the scandals, and add more detail to the politics. Jbower47 (talk) 14:11, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm fervently anti-Berlusconi, but I'd have to say that this is a pretty POV page, that focuses excessively on criticism and not on policy. The fact that this page is without a POV tag when a page like Hugo Chavez (which in comparison is less POV) has had one for months is surprising.(Midnightblueowl (talk) 17:44, 16 February 2011 (UTC))

Well, in it wiki Berlusconi is explained as follows: firstly the section about his economical activity (with purely economical controversies inside), then political career widely treaten, and then other controversies (e.g. Mills corruption in Tessa Jowell financial allegations). Would you like to import this scheme in order to improve the article?--Nickanc (talk) 21:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

'Rubygate'

Hi all - i created today a new entry for the latest scandal involving Berlusconi dubbed as Rubygate. In my opinion this scandal is very important and a separate article is needed since it will be considered the final nail in the coffin for Berlusconi, his political life is about to end. Help is needed to expand the article.--Itemirus^{Message me!} 08:11, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

You're too optimistic Itemirus. Remember we should avoid recentism. Ruby is already quoted in the "Prostitution scandal and divorce" paragraph. Please consider merging the two sections. --Dans (talk) 08:42, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe i am )) But given the political reactions to this latest scandal, i am quite positive that this time we'll finally get rid of him - he has lost support from the clergy and his strongest allies, the North League, are quite nervous and have repeatedly said that at this point it is better to vote again; they have also told Berlusconi to get some rest for the time being and that they will take care of the reforms. --Itemirus^{Message me!} 12:26, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I understand your opinions, but this is not a blog. Have you thought about merging the two paragraphs?--Dans (talk) 18:55, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Can I remind everyone please that Wikipedia articles must not be written with an eye to influencing political campaigns, in any direction? If the Ruby thing brings Berlusconi down, it will be notable then, for sure. Per WP:CRYSTAL, that doesn't make it notable now. Most pointedly, Wikipedia articles are not to be used as a tool to help the process along.

The Ruby article is likely not worse recentism than a lot of what gets kept, so I'm not going to nominate it for deletion or anything, but the point should be kept in mind in this article, particularly the appalling "jokes and blunders" section, which is filled with continually updated trivia. It seems a reasonable inference that many editors who rush to include the most recent silly thing Berlusconi said do so because they want to get rid of him. They're allowed to want to get rid of him. They're not allowed to instrumentalize Wikipedia for that goal. --Trovatore (talk) 19:42, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

"Bunga bunga"

Berlusconi-watchers may know more about the term "bunga bunga" than I do. Anyway, puzzled by the contrast between (a) its frequent use in the press and (b) the variety among the few explanations of it that I saw there, I created the article bunga bunga, which people here may be able to clarify or augment.

Though I'm not entirely sure that the article is warranted. Certainly the term is in the news, but perhaps it's merely a new (I think) umbrella term for a general idea that's entirely unoriginal. Perhaps the article will end up at AfD. -- Hoary (talk) 05:08, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi. I am a user of Italian Wikipedia, and I apologize in advance for my bad english writing. I think I can be useful for give a better definition of the birth of the term. According to some revelations, it seems that the idea and the name of the "Bunga-bunga" is originated from a conversation between Gaddafi and S. Berlusconi, in which the first explained the customs of feasts held in private residences of the political. Berlusconi has thus decided to charge to turn these feasts. Now, if you want to talk of "bunga-bunga" Berlusconi, one must refer to what the first survey of prosecutors in Milan have revealed. In practice, during these feasts, dozens of young girls (sometimes even minors) will perform with costumes sexy, nude or semi-nude, strip-tease or lap-dance in front of the President and a few other friends of Berlusconi. After several minutes of show, the "best " were chosen to have sex with the president, thus being paid more than the others.

The veracity of these facts are proved by testimonies of girls who attended, even photos and movies collected from maggistrati. Hopefully I can provide some minutes (in Italian) for an encyclopedic accuracy of the information. I hope this will be useful for a better definition of the term. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.25.227.147 (talk) 16:26, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the comments. What you say all makes sense and thus is prima facie convincing. (Incidentally, your English is excellent; please don't feel hesitant about editing articles, or anyway don't feel hesitant on this score.) However, there are two problems about this. First, the obvious one: we need sources. Secondly, we have to be very careful (in talk pages as well as in articles) about attributing any controversial (let alone illegal) activities to anyone. Careful reading of newspaper articles of course shows that the articles do not say that this or that Libyan, Italian or Czech statesman did this or that, but rather that this or that party (person or organization) has made such an allegation. And Wikipedia can't simply aggregate allegations, even if these are identified as allegations. So please be cautious in what you write. -- Hoary (talk) 01:07, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

PS "all makes sense and thus is prima facie convincing"? Clearly I was suffering from caffeine deficiency when I wrote that. (Making sense is of course merely one stage toward credibility.) But my main point stands. -- Hoary (talk) 09:33, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Mahroug prostitution allegations

Shouldn't there be more serious coverage of these allegations, now that it looks like it's going to court? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.214.43.76 (talk) 06:25, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Purpose of P2

The sentence introducing the lodge highlights anti-communism as the sole purpose of Propaganda 2. The main purpose of it was instead to seize power (Licio Gelli didn't have anything against communism in principle, as proven by his links with communist spies during WWII, when it was unclear who would have prevailed in Italy)

The article reads: In 1981, a scandal arose after the police discovery of Licio Gelli's secret freemasonry lodge Propaganda 2 (P2), which aimed to change the Italian political system to a more authoritarian regime to oppose communism[citation needed].

I suggest to write something like: [...] regime and oppose communism. Or even to erase the last bit altogheter.

Astabada (talk) 21:56, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

what about and to oppose communism ?--Dans (talk) 00:00, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

XX1

D'Addario also stated that XX1 knows that she was a paid escort ... what does XX1 stand for? is it a typo or what?--Melaen (talk) 01:27, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. The subject was Berlusconi--Svello89 (talk) 20:56, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Not only Berlusconi... Robin Williams: Obama is a tan Kennedy

As Italian, I want to apologize for the US comedian Robian Williams, who said that: <<Obama is a TAN Kennedy.>>...
Don't you believe it? Watch it: http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=oEFR-eYaot0
Silvio Berlusconi: a nice wild bunch of people all in just ONE PERSON!!!!!!!!

As a wikipedian, i remind you that you MUST sign and date every participation you make.

As Italian, i hope you'll quit to come on the EN Wiki to post meaningless contributions like this one. As a smart person, i invite you to consider the difference between a joke made by a comedian in a humorous TV show and a similar joke made by an important political exponent in an international summit. Willyminor (talk) 00:40, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Two separate sections bear the same title: Conflict of interest

Having noticed this I can't think of a way to fix it right away (merge or rename?) So could someone please pay attention? But, boy, the article in general is quite a read! --Garik 11 (talk) 22:37, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Changes on False Accounting and Delying tactics

NOTE: English is not my native language and I never studied "legal" English, so I apologize for bad forms and misused words.

When the law on False Accounting changed in 2002 I found an italian article, written by attorneys on their professional blogs, that described the changes and how they fit with the rest of the civilized world. Unfortunately, I cannot find that article anymore. If you look for "falso in bilancio" you'll find lots of biased articles, in the sense that everyone tries to discards the new law as the "usual" asburd law written to legalize B.'s crimes. Most of them just repeat the same content, with little elaboration, so I don't have much material to bring here ATM.

Anyway, the article used to say the law fit the EU framework, in particular it was pretty similar to Spain's. The key points of the new laws are:

1) False accounting is penally persecuted only if someone is damaged by it and issues a complaint

2) If (1) doesn't hold, it is persecuted according to civil law if the miscounted amount accounts for more than a certain percentage over the total. The percentage should be less than 5% and the punishment amounts to a fee proportional to the miscounted amount.

Before 2002, the persecution was always penal, there were no exceptions. If you were found guilty of false accounting you ended up in jail. period. This is also reported on Corriere-Della-Sera article linked below, a newspaper known for being the neutral one by excellence.

Links (in italian):http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2005/09_Settembre/26/alliberian.shtml http://www.rolliblog.net/archives/2004/01/03/breve_storia_delluso_improprio_del_reato_di_falso_in_bilancio.htmlhttp://oggi.ilcannocchiale.it/?id_blogdoc=927896

I don't claim these sources to be unbiased or exhaustive. IMO we should get a neutral reference where the new law is discussed without jumping on the unlikely conclusion that is crazy and written only to help B. or criminals.

Finally, the so-called delaying strategy. Sorry but this one is totally incomprehensible. For one, the law system in italy is known to be extremely slow (http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Business/?id=3.1.840834245) leading lots of trials to be cancelled due to statute of limitation, it's not a Berlusconi's thing. Secondly, in civil countries like Italy and USA the defence is expected to do anything legal to protect its client. If this leads to a longer trial, so be it. In particular, during some of Berlusconi's trials there were some irregularities on part of the prosecutors that cause the process to start from scratch. Is defence's fault to have addressed those irregularities, moving the trials' conclusion further in time? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.47.220.98 (talk) 10:16, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Dear Svello89,

Check this: [27] before trying to sneak in edits with deceiving subjects, like you just did here: [28]. Thank you. Was it your beloved Silvio who taught you to just sweep things under the rug? -- Femmina (talk) 22:59, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Usually i don't answer to trolls, but since you honoured me creating a discussion just to accuse me, I'll make an exception. The fact is that there was not an allegation for Berlusconi for traffic of drug. The italian article simply says that during a criminal investigation his phones were put under control and that after that the investigation was closed and archived. An allegation was never formalized and so no criminal allegation for traffic of drug. Good day to you.--Svello89 (talk) 23:39, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you provide a source for your statement that "An allegation was never formalized"? It's undisputed that they put a tap on his phone line, so it's reasonable to think that they alleged something. Also, could you stop calling people names and reverting stuff before discussing? -- Femmina (talk) 00:07, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Usually is required to provide a source when you make a edit that could put wikimedia in legal trouble (like saying that a living person was charged of traffic of drug), not the contrary. I'm sorry I've called you a troll, but you insinuated i made a sneak attempt to change the facts, suggesting "was it your beloved Silvio who taught you to just sweep things under the rug?", when i simply did what the subject says: finishing the rollback done by several users after 51 changes in a day, mostly vandalic. I saw these many vandalisms in a day and I thought that particolary one slipped the attention. But even if it was not from a vandal, you know that for that kind of edit is necessary a source or at least a subject for the change--Svello89 (talk) 00:41, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I seem to remember that a proper allegation was made, but it didn't lead to a trial. I don't feel like hunting for newspapers from that time and I don't own Travaglio's book that's given as source on it.wiki, so I won't re-add about the drug trafficking allegations for now. I left the subject of my last edit blank by accident. It was supposed to be "revert to last version by Fastily". -- Femmina (talk) 01:11, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Update about juridical proceedings

I should like it if this article is updated by knowledgeable Italians about the juridical proceedings.

• What is the current state of affair about the bribery of the Prodi senator?
• What happened after Berlusconi sued a number of newspapers who were continuing publishing about his extramarital sexual affairs? Otto (talk) 19:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Status is: ongoing. Trials are proceeding at snail pace because it's kinda hard to convict as a matter of law somebody who can change the laws midway. Lately it seems that the focus is shifting from Berlusconi itself to his henchmen. -- Femmina (talk) 18:39, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

• 1st question: status ongoing (but his codefendants had their piece of trial archived - see http://www.corriere.it/politica/09_maggio_16/archiviazione_coindagati_berlusconi_3bef7b4c-4231-11de-bfa5-00144f02aabc.shtml (IT))
• 2nd question: status ongoing (the scandal was in 2009 so it's likely that you'll have to wait 'till 2011)

--Juanm aka-jm- (talk) 19:13, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Serious equity issues

This page seems markedly biased against Silvio Berlusconi and lacks the detached and impartial approach that a wikipedia page should have. We must remember that the content is public and we are talking about a country's Prime Minister, thefore, whathever our personal political ideas and our simpathies are, we have to act accordingly. Several controversies exist on Mr. Berlusconi professional, political and personal life, and this is an additional reason why the article should be even more impartial. I would like to invite the author to revise the article and, in particular, the attitude shown, that seems rather sectarian. If she or he wishes, I am available to collaborate. To conclude I would like to let the readers know, in case of any doubt, that I am not, I have never been nor I will probably ever be, a supporter or Mr. Berlusconi. However, I admit that as an Italian, I feel offendend by part of the content hereby published. --Nebu87 (talk) 22:50, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm italian too and what offends me most is Mr. Berlusconi's public behaviour, not this rather well written article. -- Femmina (talk) 08:34, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I may agree on that, but that is not at all the point of my objection. This is a wikipedia article, not a newspaper article: an impartial and detached approach is required and the article clearly lacks it. Whether the writer approves or not mr. Berlusconi's policies or public behavior is totally irrelevant. --Nebu87 (talk) 09:38, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Alleging unfair attitudes doesn't help anybody understand the point of your objection. Where the article "clearly lacks it"? -- Femmina (talk) 11:13, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually to address the point in its details, we would need an ad hoc page. Anyway, we can start talking about the way the article is structured (it is something you can see in the summary, so it should be 'clear'). 1. I have never seen an article that claims to be the biography of a statesman, a politician, a businessman, where the macroparagraphs 'legal problems' and 'controversies' occupy more than 2/3 of the article. 2. Even where the paragraph's heading is neutral (e.g. Fininvest), there is a clear evidence of the writer's aversion for mr. Berlusconi. For example, the first sentence about Fininvest presents a direct reference to P2. This reference is surely not necessary and can actually deceive the reader. 3. Much more space is devoted to list (LIST) trials than to describe the life of the man or its business career. 4. A disproportionate quantity of space is devoted as well to gestures and jokes. Most of the facts mentioned are trivial and unnecessary. 5. Quoted sentences, and even the main picture, have been selected to manipulate the image of the man.

In conclusion: I am not claiming that anything written in the article is false. I am stating that it is presented in an unfair manner, showing only what the author wants to show, hiding the rest. This is something that can absolutely be done in a newspaper article, but it cannot be done in a wikipedia page. Berlusconi has surely had a controversial life, but a wikipedia article CANNOT be based on controversies EXCLUSIVELY. I invite you (Femmina) to read the page devoted to mr. Tony Blair and to compare it with Berlusconi's, starting from comparing the summaries and the pictures. I hope that now the reasons of my objection are 'clear' to you. --Nebu87 (talk) 12:10, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Mr. Tony Blair doesn't act like a jackass on a regular basis. Mr. Berlusconi does. As a result, this article has a large section about his "Jokes, gestures and blunders". That doesn't seem unfair to me. And the same reasoning applies to the other controversies. -- Femmina (talk) 12:49, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I kindly invite you to moderate your language Femmina. If you want to read and write jokes, you are more than welcome to go on some blog. Please reply only if you have a serious and argumented response to the objection raised. Thank you. --Nebu87 (talk) 19:14, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

To a structured review, your answer is "The subject is a jackass, so the article is well written". Femmina: if's you don't have anything to say, stay silent.--Svello89 (talk) 19:39, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was arguing with the owners of the internets. -- Femmina (talk) 01:42, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Stop blowing hot air, Femmina. Send halo fleet.

98.230.60.95 (talk) 19:59, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Femmina isn't blowing hot air. What she puts forward is spot on and correct. That Nebu87 is offended by the article which correctly emphasizes the misbehaviour of the subject is not to blame on the editors.Otto (talk) 19:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. BTW there's a lot of interesting material on Berlusconi in Italian, English and other languages here, although I'm sure Nebu87 is going to find "serious equity issues" here too: http://www.giannivattimo.it/menu/libro_berl.html - Rez. 8:44, 2 Aug 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.98.50.15 (talk)

Prime Minister or President of the Council of Ministers?

Hi

Re the above, I have noticed that you have undone my changes to show "President of the Council of Ministers" instead of "Prime Minister" on the article about Silvio Berlusconi.

Whilst I understand your reasoning, the two expressions have different meanings. Saying that the role of an Italian President of the Council of Ministers is similar to that of, say, a British Prime Minister, does not necessarily mean that the two roles are identical.

If this article was on a blog, I would agree with you - "Prime Minister" might be slightly easier to understand but this is an encyclopaedia and we must be 100% accurate when deciding what words/titles we should use.

A good way around your point might be to create a link to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_Council_of_Ministers

Kind regards

Piero (unsigned comments by Witney79, Talk. 04 March 2010, copied from talk page of Boing! said Zebedee)

Hi Piero.

The focus of Wikipedia is actually notability (see WP:NOTE), not literal linguistic accuracy, so it needs to reflect the terminology actually used in the wider world, and not to try to improve on it or correct it. If you do a Google search of Berlusconi President Council Ministers there are about 61,000 hits, but for Berlusconi Prime Minister there are 1,610,000, including the BBC [29], the New York Times [30], the (London) Times [31], and a number of other major media sites - and those certainly aren't blogs. So I really think that is the title we have to use in this article. Looking at Prime Minister of Italy, I see it says (Italian: Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri, literally translated "President of the Council of Ministers"), so yes, I agree with your suggestion - make the opening statement link to that page.

Also, I have to disagree that the two terms have different meanings. See Prime Minister, which defines the role as "A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system", and that is an accurate description of the Italian Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri. Of course, there may be different powers and responsibilities attached to the office of Prime Minister in different countries, but those are given by the respective constitutions, not by the literal titles of the offices - calling Sivio Berlusconi "Prime Minister" in no way suggests he has exactly the same constitutional role as Gordon Brown.

Anyway, I've reverted your change again and have included the link - I hope you agree.

Best regards,

-- Boing! said Zebedee 07:58, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Boing!

I really appreciate the time you have taken to reply to my comment.

Your reasoning makes perfect sense and I do agree with your changes.

Kind regards

Witney79 (talk) 00:18, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me, but what about Taoiseach ? Wikipedia uses this specific word in the page about Ireland and Bertiespeak —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.251.167.18 (talk) 15:51, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

The rules are different for English-speaking versus non-English-speaking countries. As Ireland is an English-speaking country, according to WP:ENGVAR, we follow Irish English in pages that have strong national ties to Ireland. Therefore, if Taoiseach is what the Irish say when speaking English (a point as to which I cannot testify), then its use here is correct.

Because Italy is not an English-speaking country, that rule does not apply. There is no recognized variety called "Italian English", and it would not even matter if "President of the Council of Ministers" is what Italians are most likely to say when speaking English. --Trovatore (talk) 18:11, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

THIS PAGE IS NOT OBJECTIVE AND ABSOLUTELY FALSE ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.152.136.92 (talk) 17:15, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

NO U -- Femmina (talk) 08:35, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Beautiful girls can stay

Please consider adding the recent "immigrants are not welcome but beautiful girls can stay" after the immigration control treaty with albania, in the jokes/controersy section. 220.225.87.66 (talk) 23:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Failed terroristic attempt against Berlusconi and Tony Blair in Sardinia

you have forgotten the failed assassination plot against Silvio Berlusconi in Porto Rotondo (Sardinia), organised by a Sardinian Indipendent movement called OIR (organizzazione indipendentista rivoluzionaria) and the Nuclei Proletari per il Comunismo, in the August 2004 http://www.repubblica.it/2006/07/sezioni/cronaca/sardegna-indipendentisti/sardegna-indipendentisti/sardegna-indipendentisti.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.12.216.226 (talk) 16:29, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Merge tag

Neither the format nor the title of Silvio Berlusconi - Policies is acceptable as a Wikipedia spinoff article. It needs to be either substantially reformatted and renamed, or merged back into this article. Bearcat (talk) 04:52, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree, and the same goes for Silvio Berlusconi Political Career. They should be either merged back or reformatted to look more like Presidential transition of Barack Obama, Foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration, and similar spinoff articles (i.e. a proper lead section, title, categories, and so on). Mushroom (Talk) 05:42, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Rename to Foreign policy of Berlusconi administration sulmues (talk) --Sulmues 17:02, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Rename like sulmues says. It might need work but this article as it is is already too long. No point making it any longer by re-merging the spinoff articles. Better to just improve the quality of the spinoffs and rename them while you're at it. Munci (talk) 19:56, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Rename to Policies of the Berlusconi governments and Political career of Silvio Berlusconi, then. Mushroom (Talk) 20:08, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Attack in Milan

I was considering renaming the section 'Assassination attempt', but I guess it was just an assualt situation. GoodDay (talk) 17:55, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

No, it was not an assassination attempt. The guy assaulted him, and used a heavy object, but he wasn't charged with anything but assault. It would be incorrect to label it an assassination attempt.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 18:00, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

When did Wikipedia turn into a Forum? The talkpage must be used to discuss how to increment or change the article--Svello89 (talk) 14:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Appears to me that that's exactly what the two editors were doing — if it had verifiably been an assassination attempt, then it would have made sense to say so in the article, but as there's no evidence that it was, there's no need to change the article. Discussing that is perfectly within talk-page boundaries. If the discussion were to devolve into a long debate about whether there was an assassination attempt, uncoupled from considerations of how the article should appear, then you would be correct to point out that such debate is out of place here. --Trovatore (talk) 03:51, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

This discussion has been cleaned. The link shows how it was.--Svello89 (talk) 12:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Length

The article size is currently 169.295 Bytes; that is way too long.--Oneiros (talk) 20:03, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

The best thing to do would be to delete all (or almost all) the People-magazine stuff. Berlusconi's encyclopedic notability derives first and foremost from his actions in the political sphere, secondly from the business world, and a distant third as a personality. The article should break down something like this: 70% politics (formal role, elections history, policy positions, conflicts with the judiciary), 20% business (including legal troubles arising from his business dealings), 10% personal life. All the "jokes and gaffes" stuff should be compressed into maybe 1/4 of that last 10%. --Trovatore (talk) 21:14, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Rather than deleting wholesale, info should be condensed first. As this is about a living person, the article will surely come to a more stable form when its subject has passed away. And, Trovatore: many of B.'s gaffes have been committed on the international stage while dealing with heads or representatives of state and are therefore worth of note. B. is a business man first and foremost, and his entry into politics is argued by many to be conveniently covering his many sins. Brutal Deluxe (talk) 00:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The fact that he is prone to this sort of thing probably does deserve mention. It would be better to get a good secondary source or two, something that has already analyzed the notion Berlusconi is prone to gaffes, and cite them, rather than pulling in a lot of newspaper accounts.

While the general fact is notable, giving a whole long list of the incidents is not encyclopedic writing. It gives an air of triviality to the article. If the article size is to be reduced, this is the low-hanging fruit. Really it should be drastically and ruthlessly pruned even if size is not an issue.

On the point of whether Berlusconi scese in campo for the specific purpose of staying out of prison, I have to say that that hypothesis has considerable explanatory power. But it doesn't change the fact that, for whatever reason he went into politics, it is now as a politician that he is most notable for encyclopedic purposes. --Trovatore (talk) 00:26, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Just had a more critic look at the 'gaffes etc' section and I, for one, would reduce it to a 'skeleton' bullet point section, leaving the bits that are well sourced (did something similar for the Guglielmo Marconi 'places named after him' section recently). Not enough time... wrong time of the year to share Wiki with family, college, etc...Brutal Deluxe (talk) 02:21, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

33 times is the keyword "mafia" mentioned in the Berlusconi wikipedia-artikel

This is indeed remarkable. 92.224.134.229 19:30, 21 December 2009 (UTC) - Is this lean researched ? - This ist guinness record! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.224.134.229 (talk)

"he sent his opponents on holiday"

I do not have editing rights on Berlusconi's page so please somebody edit this for me. In the "Berlusconisms" section he is quoted saying that "Mussolini sent his opposers on holiday". "On holiday" redirects to "Italian concentration camps". The link is inaccurate as Berlusconi was referring to Mussolini's practice of sending political dissidents "in confino", that is, to involuntary retirement in rural areas or on islands (see: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confino). Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Artesios (talk • contribs) 08:19, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. This is one of the worst possible ways of using Wikimedia's "pipe" feature, as it hides what the editor is really saying in a link. Links need to be transparent; someone who doesn't see the link should get the same basic content as someone who does see it, just without the easy way of getting to the article about the thing linked. Accordingly I have removed the piped link.

I also removed the link to benign dictator; this one is less bad, but it's still generally a bad practice to link from inside direct quotes, especially to common phrases. It's hard to evaluate whether the original speaker has in mind the precise concept represented by the link. --Trovatore (talk) 19:36, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Automate archiving?

Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MizaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 60 days and keep at least four threads.--Oneiros (talk) 18:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Belusconi is the fourth time leader of Italy

First in 1994 second 2001-2005 third (intrim) 2005-2006 fourth (current) 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.80.123.38 (talk) 23:56, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

This is explained in footnote 1 — there was a minor cabinet reshuffle in 2005; most editors here don't think that constitutes a new "time in office". But you're free to argue the point if you like. --Trovatore (talk) 00:02, 30 September 2.009 (UTC)

The Anonymous user is correct from an Italian viewpoint, since every political scientist would consider a term in government by one swearing in of the ministries to the next one. But generally speaking, Berlusconi governed uniterruptedly from 2001 to 2006. Anyway, in this case en:wiki and it:wiki not necessarily have to have the same content--Dans (talk) 18:44, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Dans, please, the italian legal system does not depend from the English or US one. The "political scientist who said that" simply reveal their ignorance about it. There cannot be an "Italian viewpoint" or an "English viewpoint". Facts (in coherence with the running legal systam) are that:
- The PoC (President of Council, that's different from "Prime Minister" - yet another misconception) resigned, and all ministers resigned since the "council" ad been ceased.
- The PoR (president of Republic) check the position of the Parliament groups, then give mandate to SB (Silvio Berlusconi, in this specific case, but whatever name don't change the substance) to reform a government.
- SB propose to the PoC a new composition of ministers (many of them where the same, but this is conceptually irrelevant)
- The nominated ministers (inclding SB) sware to the PoR, and the PoR ask the parliament.
- The parliament voted and accepted the proposal.
- At that point (and only at that point) SB was again PoC.
During all those actions no government formally exist, hence saying "governed uninterruptedly from 2001 to 2006" is simply WRONG.
That's not a viewpoint. An interruption (although brief) existed. And must exist every time a PoC resign. Whoever (s)he is. Whatever "even estimated political scientist" who think the opposite, is just ignorant. The concept of "government reshuffle" in Italy cannot exist. It simply not allowed by the way institutions are conceived.
Describing this thing with the terminology and the metrics of other institution or legal system is good if done to show a comparison among the systems, but is wrong to define the systems themselves. Only the Italian way to count governments is "right" do define the Italian governments. There cannot be other, by definition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.96.3.242 (talk) 07:49, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

corrected source

I have fixed the external sources here, as I understand that that was the intention. Note that "www.larepubblica.it" is a site apparently completely unrelated to La Repubblica. Please don't link to that. -- Ekjon Lok (talk) 04:09, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

jokes and blunders section useful

I don't know how many jokes and blunders is appropriate but I do know it is useful. If there are too many, eventually a separate article might be created. However, some may try to AFD that. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 16:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

It would be a waste of time as the article would most likely be deleted or merged. I'd just add a section to this article.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:20, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Phoenician necropolis?

I found this sentence in the section about allegations of prostitution and his divorce: "Though, more severe is the undeclared archaeological detection of a Phoenician necropolis under the Berlusconi estate near it:Porto Rotondo (Costa Smeralda), which was not recorded to the Government officials in Olbia:"Sotto qua abbiamo scoperto 30 tombe fenice ... del 300 avanti cristo" (English: Under here we have found 30 phoenician tombs ... from 300 BC).[163]" This has absolutely nothing to do with his divorce OR allegations of prostitution. I'm removing it. Mmagdalene722 (talk) 18:46, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

The following sentence was deleted without any valuable reason: "He is unanimously recognized as the best politician of the world of every time". User:PravoSlav.

WTF?! --M4gnum0n (talk) 14:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

So it should, its a POV sentence Ijanderson977 (talk) 15:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

The only truth is, that Berlusconi called himself so, he reconized only Napoleone to have done more than him, and these are his words not mine.. truly, in 2001 he was claimed to be the best, the most intelligent, the more hard-working man of the world, and his supporters often thinked really he was so. This was mainly before the 2001 elections. But even so, the sentence could be the stuff thinked by his supporters, surely not the 'absolute truth'.— Preceding unsigned comment added by User:Stefanomencarelli (talk)

Berlusconi in fact IS the greatest living politician, he did not hesitate to rubbish the arrogant U.S. great leader Führer president. He is not frightened by the U.S., and therefore the Europeans love him. --84.141.3.164 (talk) 12:40, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

They mispelled the word criminal, and instead wrote politician, other than that the sentence is perfectly true.

"He is unanimously recognized as the best politician of the world of every time"- What planet must you be living on to think this is an acceptable thing to write on Wikipedia? Aside from the fact it is the most POV statement I have had the mispleasure of ever reading on this site, it is a view which the vast ,vast, majority of the world certainly do not hold. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.254.49.12 (talk) 00:59, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Another series of blunders...

sorry i dont give you a source (i've read it in my local language) but it seems that Mr.Berlusconi doesn't know that Czechoslovakia doesnt exist for some 16 years (he was talking about the american rocket defence shield which was to be built in Czech Republic and Poland), doesn't know that the Kaliningrad Oblast belongs to Russian not Lithuanian and thought that the american shield was to be establish in... Georgia (the country which hit the headlines because the Osetia conflict). Please find the source of recent misfortunate statmentes - they are so funny ;D

never heard of such stuff.--Dans (talk) 17:45, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Controversies of Berlusconi

Isnt it better if the article were split up and give the controversies of Berlusconi a seperate page? The controversy section is extremely large compared to other sections in this article. Omegastar (talk) 19:25, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The post-Berlusconi era?

New news story: "Silvio Berlusconi faces new sex party allegations", telegraph.co.uk 09 Sep 2009

"The leader of an opposition conservative Catholic party, Pierferdinando Casini, declared: 'The post-Berlusconi era has begun.'"

-- Someone who apparently doesn't shy from making controversial statements. :-) (Our article at Pierferdinando Casini)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/6164221/Silvio-Berlusconi-faces-new-sex-party-allegations.html -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 23:43, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

So watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kSKVJ_OPFA&feature=related

And it was 1994... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.202.108.242 (talk) 03:42, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Chair of G8 template

Is that template correct? Italy is always preceded by Japan and followed by France, but in 2001 Italy seemed to be preceded by itself (S.B. preceded by Giuliano Amato). Of course, no mention of the chair of G8 is reported inside Giuliano Amato Page (I would expect G.A followed by S.B ...) Which of the two is wrong ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.80.247.251 (talk) 13:34, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Family background and private life: the last section

There is too much carelessness and sheer nonsense in this for it to stay on the page in its current form, so I have moved it here. It should be returned to the article when it has been fixed. The problems include [certainly there are others, not least that the escort girl scandals have extended far beyond the question of NL’s birthday party]:

• Veronica Lario did not file for divorce in May, she merely announced plans, saying that she had hired a lawyer.
• Noemi Letizia’s birthday party was not ‘weeks after this happened’, it was on on 26 April
• Being a ‘minor’ is absolutely not the same as being ‘under age’
• At least one of the references makes no reference at all to what we write

In May 2009 Veronica Lario filed for divorce saying "I cannot stay with a man who frequents minors". It was reported that Veronica Lario was referring to Berlusconi's relationship with Noemi Letizia. Noemi Letizia turned 18 weeks after this happened and Berlusconi attended her birthday. Therefore Berlusconi knew Noemi Letizia when she was under age.

Ian Spackman (talk) 11:20, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

"Being a ‘minor’ is absolutely not the same as being ‘under age’" -- It may be that you're not on the firmest ground here. I suspect that this definition/usage varies between jurisdictions, dialects, and languages. Our own Underage and Under-age redirect to Minor (law), which begins "In law, the term minor (also infant or infancy) is used to refer to a person who is under the age in which one legally assumes adulthood and is legally granted rights afforded to adults in society," and includes a brief mention "Examples of restrictions imposed on minors include statutory rape laws...." -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 22:55, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, what do you mean with "Our underage ... minor"? Berlusconi, Lario and Letizia are italian and fact are all happened in Italy. And the italian law doas a cleear distinction about these two concepts. "Your" definition is irrelevant in this context. And be a friend of a minor is not a crime, at least in the context where all actions are supposed to be taken. The only real fact that can be deduced by all this story is that V.L. does not like the fact her housband has as friends other women / girl. Every other assumption is only a presumption of commenters. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.68.145.211 (talk) 18:13, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Veronica Lario said "My husband frequents minorenni" and, in Italian minorenne is a person younger than 18 years. So that means "under the legal age". This is what VL said and this is what VL doesn't like of her husband.--Etrusko25 (talk) 19:53, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Your deductions are wrong, simply because there is no concept of "legal age" in Italy.

"Minorenni" simply means "not yet enabled to sustain official formal administrative acts".

And it is 18 years.

Anoter age is the age after that no presumption of violence can be defined about sexual activity or relation (an it is 14 years). Another age is the age you can be elecet to the Senate (its 25) and another the age you can become President of Republic (50).

In other word, translating "Minorenni" into "Minor" is already forcing a term, and associating the equation "minorenne = under-age" is a concept that exist in the English culture, but that doesn't have any correspondence in the Italian legal system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.112.58.128 (talk) 18:11, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Trials

Information regarding past and pending trials involving Mr Berlusconi is currently spread over two pages, which is quite confusing. The section entitled "Legal problems" in the Silvio Berlusconi article contains two subsections ("False testimony regarding membership of the "Propaganda 2" (P2) masonic lodge" and "Jowellgate"/David Mills bribery case") that refer to specific trials. This information should be merged with Trials involving Silvio Berlusconi which is likely to become the main article for trials involving Berlusconi. I suggest we keep the "Legal problems" section in the main article for declarations and general issues such as controversy on laws passed by the Berlusconi cabinet or conflict with magistrates, and move all trail-specific information to the other article. --DarTar (talk) 22:39, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Good idea.--Dans (talk) 16:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

--Etrusko25 (talk) 19:53, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

"The photos" supposedly published

FYI: "The pictures vetoed by Berlusconi" (sic). "EL PAÍS publishes exclusive images censored in Italy after the prime minister's legal action". 05/06/2009
- http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/The/pictures/vetoed/by/Berlusconi/elpepuint/20090605elpepuint_3/Tes -
These frankly struck me as pretty tame after all the hype. La Dolce Vita was wilder than this in 1960.:-) -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 23:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

It was bad enough for Jon Stewart to make fun of him on The Daily Show. Come on, dude: two topless women, one draped over his knee, with the Czech PM in the background with a boner? This is tame to you? Also, in context, the man is accused of committing adultery with an 18-year-old mistress. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 03:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Nope: he's not "accused of committing adultery with an 18-year-old mistress": there's no procedure open on that. Only talks by his political counterparts. His wife talked about "frequentation", but in Italian language "to frequent" does not necessarilly mean "to fuck".

And, in any case, that's not a crime (after 14 y.o. no presuption of violence exists), so he cannot be "accused".

Age of consent is 16, anyway. No direct accusations, only moral shadows.--Dans (talk) 23:28, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Fourteen according to Ages of consent in Europe#Italy, unless ‘Papi’ is taken to be more than a term of affection. Ian Spackman (talk) 06:22, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I would warn against conducting, in this article, daily updates on Mr Berlusconi's relations with the opposite gender : I have introduced here the D'Addario affair, because it seemed too important to be ignored, given also the relevance it has been given by international media. I don't think however that this particular soap opera should be followed day by day.

Also, because I'm sure we will yet have many other coups de theatre ....Giordaano (talk) 13:56, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, I have tried to condense slightly recent information. What would be useful (if someone had time) would be to give an idea of reactions in the Catholic press (Famiglia cristiana) and perhaps some idea of international reactions to the affair.

The best, however, would be to let it rest for a few days, or we really risk falling into "recentism". Giordaano (talk) 14:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that there is any point in hiding the fact that D'Addario is an "escort girl". She has publicly recognized it, and all Italian media use this definition. This, for some reason, sounds more acceptable than "squillo" or "call girl". Power of words.Giordaano (talk) 10:57, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Clarification warranted, needs source

"Subsequently Berlusconi succeeded in blocking the publication of potentially embarrassing photos of young women at the party." - IMHO this is "weasel" -- just what was so embarrassing about these photos? Our cite for this is BBC News at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8075276.stm , which says "Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Serra described some of the images as showing 'bikini-clad or topless girls' relaxing in the gardens or taking showers." Can anyone check the original in Il Corriere della Serra? Thanks. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 20:06, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I made that edit, treating the BBC as a reliable source, rather than a weaselly one, and silently noting what I imagined would seem obvious to any reader: if they there wasn’t a potential for embarrassment there wouldn’t have been any reason to supress them, would there? So of course you are welcome to take out the words ‘potentially embarrassing’ as redundant. But I look at it this way: if Gordon Brown, or David Cameron, or even a very minor British politician had resorted to the services of m’learned friends—after having made a point of publishing photographs of himself at the other party—it would have made a sufficient stir to remain in his or her Wikipedia article for ever. —Ian Spackman (talk) 21:31, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I meant simply that "potentially embarrassing" could mean almost anything. (Wearing "black metal" T-shirts like some embarrassing young people that I know? Junior Nazis? Holding up signs saying "Impeach Berlusconi!"? XXX-rated?)
IMHO, rather than "silently noting what we imagined would seem obvious to any reader", if we have a reliable source that specifies what was in said photos, we should just specify and cite.
I have no idea what you mean about other politicians here. Went right over my little head. :-) My own inclinations are to clearly distinguish between those things which are specific and reliably sourced (which IMHO should remain in his or her Wikipedia article for ever), and hearsay and POV, which IMHO we should mercilessly expunge. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 02:09, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I really wish people would quit treating this article like a celebrity mag or scandal sheet. These are not the things people will care about, when they study Berlusconi fifty years from now. Oh, I suppose they'll care a little (same as the interest in Warren G. Harding's affairs) but a few examples will suffice — we don't need la cazzata del giorno continually updated. --Trovatore (talk) 02:13, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

WP:CRYSTAL - We have no idea what people will care about fifty years from now. The Watergate scandal which eventually resulted in the only resignation of a U.S. president first came to light when a security guard noticed that a door lock had been taped open. We can go only by the reliable sources already published. If we have 'em, they can go in an article. If we don't have 'em, we don't have an article. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 03:27, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, come on, you can't be serious. Certainly some trivial fact could turn out, in retrospect, to have been very interesting. That doesn't justify inclusion of trivia before it's discovered to be interesting. The crystal-ball argument actually works the opposite way from what you're suggesting.

The scandal-rag tone of this article is just embarrassing; way below encyclopedic standards. I'm not saying that to protect Berlusconi particularly (I'm not nearly as opposed to him as probably a fair number of people here are, but I'm also not particularly a fan). But Wikipedia is supposed to be a scholarly resource. The focus needs to be put on more serious things. --Trovatore (talk) 04:02, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

"Interesting" is in the mind of the beholder. IMHO, 99% percent of what is popularly considered to be "interesting" is crap. For the past two days one of the front-page stories on the news services that I monitor was a person dying in a balloon crash. I am unable to see how this could be relevant in any way to 99% of the population. But for some reason, this was considered noteworthy by news professionals.

I'm very strongly against the inclusion of "trivia" on Wikipedia. I don't think that scandal-rag material and gossip should be included in Wikipedia. However, I do think that it's possible to draw a line somewhere between this sort of material and material which is actually noteworthy. Wikipedia's standards for this aren't extremely clear, but I don't think that it's crazy to say that if we can cite professional news services on a matter, then we can include it in Wikipedia. Wikipedia:Verifiability says that "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth - that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true." Similarly, if we have reliable sources for something, then IMHO our standard for including should not be whether we find it interesting or important, but whether the public does.

I don't think that my opinion or your opinion about what is or isn't interesting matters very much (the opinion of every Wikipedia editor is of approximately equal importance, so the opinion of any one editor is worth approximately 1/the total number of Wikipedia editors). My personal interest in the Berlusconi-Letizia affair is just about nil. However, I see over 900,000 Google hits for "Noemi Letizia". I see just under 5,000 hits on Google News. Although this is not a subject of great interest to me, it's apparently of interest to the public and the news services, and that means that it is in all likelihood worthy of inclusion on Wikipedia.

IMHO, WP:CRYSTAL argues about equally for and against the inclusion of apparently unimportant matters. The import of WP:CRYSTAL, IMHO, is that we should decide to include or exclude material based on what has already been said about it, not on our guesses about how important or trivial it may be considered in the future.

-- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 13:38, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

"Can" include it on Wikipedia does not mean "should". We want a certain scholarly tone here, especially in important articles. Of course we never know what will be viewed as important in the years to come, but I think there's a clear presumption that individual instances of this sort of personality-journalism material will not be. --Trovatore (talk) 18:46, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with File:Forza Italia.png

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• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
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The following images also have this problem:

• File:Logo ForzaItalia 2006.png

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --12:42, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

This article needs to be PROTECTED

There are far too many destructive edits by new users.93.96.148.42 (talk) 04:54, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

The problem came from the victory of Berlusconi's Sardinian gubernatorial candidate Ugo Cappellacci and the subsequent resignation of Parliamentary Oppostion's leader and Shadow Prime Minister Walter Veltroni. Since then the supporters of Berlusconi's opposition insist in their attempts to "vandalize" this page. It seems that the opposition and their supporters went nuts and became harshly pissed off.

Dont'lie. Elections in Sardinia took place on 15th and 16th of February, the edit wars became before this date (and it's clearly visible from the article's history), when some people disagreed with your edits. --79.32.155.157 (talk) 14:41, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely untrue claim. Moreover I have only added information together with the duly documentation and external references.
Some people may disagree, external references from the main Italian newspapers, and with English references too, agree. Verba volant, scripta manent.

Like I said above, it's not like references make an edit neutral. In my opinion, and not only mine as I see from other users' edits, you're deliberately trying to unbalance some articles in favour of Berlusconi. And it's clearly this the origin of the edit war, not the electoral result in Sardinia. Everyone can see this from the article's history, and accusing others won't change a thing. --79.32.155.157 (talk) 19:31, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Statute of limitations - guilty or not guilty?

Is this true?

• This is incorrect. The statutory limitation does not mean he is not guilty; at the very least it says nothing about guilt, and in fact it may indicate that he is guilty if the statute of limitations is applied after conceding benefits for previous good conduct (i.e. it would be the first verdict of guilt), because such benefits can be granted only after guilt is ascertained. See sentence #5069 of the Corte di Cassazione, May 21, 199693.96.148.42 (talk) 04:46, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

(restored the above paragraph deleted by 151.16.64.206. Please argue your point. Removing the opinion of other users with different views is not the best way to support your claim. --DarTar (talk) 19:02, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I have removed nothing.
The Italian Constitution stated that, <<the defendant is not considered guily before the issuing of a final and unappealable sentence of guiltiness>> (Italian Constitution, Articolo 27, Comma 2: L'imputato non è considerato colpevole sino alla condanna definitiva).
Therefore Silvio Berlusconi has a clear record up to now because he has been never declared guilty in an enforceable judgement.
(See also: Presumption of innocence)

I write it even more clearly: according to the Italian Constitution Silvio Berlusconi is CLEARLY not guilty and has a clear record up to now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.16.66.99 (talk) 23:40, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Answer

Not guilty.
The fact is simple. That definition (not guilty) is not used in the Italian legal system, which has strong fascist roots: in the Italian judicial system it is almost you are guilty until innocent, not innocent until guilty.
So, if you watch the problem on an Anglo-Saxon perspective you get an answer, if you watch it on an Italian point of view you obtain an other response.

This is untrue. In Italy defendants are considered innocent until found guilty, not the contrary. Whatever your opinion may be, this is the law. --Galaxia92 ^{may the force be with you} 18:22, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

His criminal conviction for perjury should be in the lead

This is important. Perjury is a serious criminal offence. The amnesty does not mean that he was innocent, rather that he was not sentenced.93.96.148.42 (talk) 04:43, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

No conviction for perjury

Silvio Berlusconi was not convicted for perjury, simply because "perjury" does not exist in the Italian legal system, as it does not exist in the French legal system and in the German legal system.
It is false testimony and it is not a criminal offence.
"Perjury" in Italy is pronounced only during Perry Mason's TV movies.

How many times has he been taken to court?

How many times has he been

1. Charged

2. Convicted

3. Amnestied

in criminal and civil proceedings?93.96.148.42 (talk) 04:36, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Answer

1. Charged : 13 times (at least)

2. Convited : none (therefore he has a clear record up to now)

3. Amnestied : one for false testimony. In Italy the amnesty extinguishes wrongdoing (It. reato) and sentence (It. pena) -and sometimes it obliterates both.
As a defendant you cannot choose to go on trial if an amnesty has passed. The trial immediately came to a halt.

POV edits

I reverted some edits which IMO were POV.

1. It is a fact that laws promoted by Berlusconi's government influenced trials in which Berlusconi is involved. These laws should be cited among the facts which influenced the outcomes of the trials, not in another sentence. For the explanation of the laws, there's the "legislative actions" section, and this other page.
2. Lodo Alfano is one of these laws, since it stops all trials involving the four highest offices of Italian government.
3. Is the number of the prosecutors who have worked in the trials really relevant? It looks like a support to Berlusconi's claims of judicial persecution.
4. "Politely"? Who says that?

--79.18.14.84 (talk) 23:22, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I have removed his claim to be the victim of the greatest number of trials -clearly pov since no balance!

The claim cannot be POV

Cited quotes by Berlusconi himself.
It cannot be POV because this is what Berlusconi said. I am shure there are many other pages on other politicians who claim the opposite, in the page of Silvio Berlusconi let Berlusconi speak for himself.

Putting the claim on the top of the section is POV, it seems that Wikipedia agrees with that. There's already his claim about the judicial persecution where Berlusconi speaks for himself. And since the other POV edits are still there, I'm reverting them again. --79.33.152.16 (talk) 10:36, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

This is the claim you refer:

I'm the universal record-holder for the number of trials in the entire history of man, and of the other creatures who live on the other planets

This is not POV. In this statement Berlusconi did not claim to be a victim, he just said he went on trial many, many times, and that is a fact, not a POV

What I said is that putting the claim on top of the section is POV, not that the claim itself is. Reverted again. --79.32.155.157 (talk) 13:46, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

For the umpteenth time, I'm reverting the parts I consider POV, because even if I have explained the motivation of my edits the only answer I've received is an accusation of vandalism. In addition, I'm deleting "running board revolution" from the title of the section; the term has been used by newspapers, but the event is not called commonly that way. --79.33.152.16 (talk) 16:39, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

As you said, the term "running board revolution" was created and used by the newspapers, both from opposition and leftish newspapers as "La Repubblica" and from Paolo Berlusconi's newspaper "Il Giornale". Therefore this term became commonly used as you can see from the external references which I duly added.
Instead, I used the precise term with which the speech held by Berlusconi on 18th November 2007 in Piazza San Babila was named by the main Italian newspapers the day after that speech.
So, your claim is unconsistent.

About Berlusconi's citation.
This is the claim you refer:

I'm the universal record-holder for the number of trials in the entire history of man, and of the other creatures who live on the other planets

I did answer. As you concede, the disputed claim is not POV.
Therefore putting that claim on top of the section is not POV.
Instead that claim only stresses the fact that Silvio Berlusconi went on many legal proceedings.
So, it is not POV at all.

Are you kidding? Opening the section about Berlusconi's trials with his complaining is clearly POV, since the section starts with his POV. It's not like references make an edit neutral. About the "rivoluzione del predellino", think about "marcia su Roma": the latter is commonly used, by people and by history books, the former, for the moment, is nothing more than a newspaper title. The title of a newspaper article and a title of an encyclopedia article are not the same thing. It's cited in the text, that's enough. --79.32.155.157 (talk) 19:31, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I am not kidding, in fact that quote is not about a complaining made by Silvio Berlusconi, is about the number of trials and only about the number of trials:

I'm the universal record-holder for the number of trials in the entire history of man, and of the other creatures who live on the other planets

There is no complaining here: Silvio Berlusconi went on trials a number of times, and that is a fact, and Berlusconi only underlined the fact the he went on trials many times.
So, the quote is not POV, because in this quote there only the expression of the number of trials involving Silvio Berlusconi. No complaining, so no POV.

About the running board revolution
The same definition is already present on the Italian page about The People of Freedom:
paragraph title: La "rivoluzione del predellino": nasce il PdL
(http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popolo_della_Libertà) But wikipedia is not considered a primal source of information, so I made a quick research on google.

It is not anything more than A newspaper title, because there is more that just one article or news:

from Il Foglio 24 April 2008:
(http://www.ilfoglio.it/soloqui/191)
...che ha segnato l’alba della rivoluzione del predellino, espressioni rinfoderate con tutto l’armamentario antiberlusconiano una volta che Fini ha nuovamente scantonato – et pour cause – verso la reggia di Arcore...

from La Repubblica 18 September 2008:
(http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2008/09/18/berlusconi-veltroni-inesistente-il-pd-ora-un.html)
ROMA - Nell' antico tempio di Adriano, lo stesso luogo da cui spiegò un anno fa la "rivoluzione del predellino", Silvio Berlusconi battezza l' avvio della fase costituente del Pdl...

from Il Corriere della Sera 17 December 2008:
(http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/2007/dicembre/17/Senatur_pompiere_Silvio_tra_suoi_co_9_071217021.shtml)
...Di fronte alla rivoluzione del predellino, al nuovo Berlusconi che strattona gli alleati e minaccia di farsi da solo un partito, è ovvio che ci sia freddezza da parte di Fini e Casini...

from La repubblica 24 January 2008:
(http://www.repubblica.it/2008/01/sezioni/politica/crisi-governo/caduta-prodi-giannini/caduta-prodi-giannini.html)
...Per il centrodestra, in mille pezzi solo fino a due settimane fa, quando le mura della Casa delle libertà erano crollate sotto i colpi di piccone della "rivoluzione del predellino" del Cavaliere, si rivede invece un orizzonte unitario...

from Il Sole 24 Ore 25 March 2008:
(http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/SoleOnLine4/SpecialiDossier/2008/elezioni-politiche-2008/articoli/giovani-ed-elezioni-pdl-centrodestra.shtml?uuid=9fad2fe8-ffd5-11dc-bbec-00000e251029)
...L'insuccesso elettorale del 2006 e gli scontri tra il Cavaliere e gli alleati rallentarono però il processo di unificazione, che fu poi rilanciato da Berlusconi nel comizio di Piazza San Babila il 18 novembre scorso. «La rivoluzione del predellino» (così fu ribattezzata perché l'ex premier utilizzò la sua auto come palco) non ottenne inizialmente il sostegno degli alleati storici del Cavaliere a partire da An che aveva fatto sapere di non essere interessata alle «annessioni»...

from La repubblica 15 April 2008:
(http://www.repubblica.it/2008/04/sezioni/politica/elezioni-2008-uno/giannini-voto/giannini-voto.html)
...La "rivoluzione del predellino", uguale e contraria alla scelta del Pd di correre da solo, è stata un salto nel cerchio di fuoco. Ha obbligato la ex Cdl alla sterzata a destra. Ha regalato a Bossi un nuovo patto di sangue. Ha imposto a Fini l'annessione di An, a Casini la cacciata dal tempio. Per il Pdl è stata una scelta potenzialmente arrischiata: ha reciso le già logore radici moderate al suo centro (con l'Udc) e ha aperto un'insidiosa deriva radicale alla sua destra (con Storace-Santanché)...

from La Repubblica 8 February 2008:
(http://www.regione.sardegna.it/j/v/491?s=71269&v=2&c=1489&t=1)
...Costringe il Cavaliere a tornare a far politica, e a riprendere in mano, con una variante più realistica, la marinettiana «rivoluzione del predellino» che aveva inventato due mesi fa a Piazza San Babila. Stavolta, chiedendo ai suoi alleati ritrovati di fare oggi quello che Ds e Margherita avevano fatto oltre due anni fa...

from Il Tempo 5 July 2008:
(http://iltempo.ilsole24ore.com/politica/2008/07/05/898684-2005_stand_sono_arma.shtml)
...Ma il gazebo sarà protagonista anche il giorno della «rivoluzione del predellino», quando Berlusconi annunciò la nascita del Partito delle libertà, il nuovo soggetto politico unitario del centrodestra che mandò in soffitta la Cdl...

from La Stampa 6 February 2008:
(http://www.lastampa.it/redazione/cmsSezioni/politica/200802articoli/29869girata.asp)
...La «rivoluzione del predellino» sfuma all’orizzonte. Perfino il nome Popolo della libertà rischia di non trovare posto sul simbolo. «E’ 3 centimetri per 3», segnalano a via dell’Umiltà, «bisogna scrivere “Berlusconi presidente” e “Forza Italia”. Pdl dove lo ficchiamo?»...

from Il Foglio 23 November 2007:
(http://www.radicali.it/view.php?id=110444)
C’è qualcosa di sano, e anche di molto pazzo, in quel che sta succedendo in Italia dopo la rivoluzione del predellino e la fondazione in un week end della Repubblica delle mani libere. Troppa grazia, viene da dire...

from Il Giornale 5 February 2008
(http://www.ilgiornale.it/a.pic1?ID=238958)
...Premetto che la vera rivoluzione italiana, la fine della seconda Repubblica, è stata la nascita di Forza Italia, nel 1994. Ma la nascita del Pd completa il processo di rinnovamento anche sull’altro “piatto” della bilancia. Questo vuol dire che grazie alla rivoluzione del predellino il sistema è definitivamente sbloccato...

Plus the external references already present on this page:

http://www.ansa.it/opencms/export/site/notizie/rubriche/daassociare/visualizza_new.html_65041167.html

http://www.corriere.it/english/articoli/2008/01_Gennaio/02/casta.shtml

http://www.skylife.it/html/skylife/tg24/politica.html?idvideo=56053 Sky tg24 - Tutte le notizie in formato video

http://www.corriere.it/politica/07_novembre_18/berlusconi_partito_popolo_italiano.shtml «Oggi nasce il partito del popolo italiano». Corriere della Sera

http://www.ansa.it/opencms/export/site/visualizza_fdg.html_65043240.html

http://www.corriere.it/politica/08_gennaio_25/berlusconi_napoli_a48218f8-cb73-11dc-9e0e-0003ba99c667.shtml «Via l'Ici e stretta sulle intercettazioni» Corriere della Sera

http://www.tempi.it/editoriale/002715-il-futuro-della-rivoluzione-del-predellino

http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2007/12/16/per-la-rivoluzione-del-predellino-il.html

So, as you may see the definition of the running board revolution is largely used by a wide range of Italian national newspapers. The running board revolution is a definition used widely and commonly:
hence no POV, as usual.

The POV is not about the predellino (in fact, I disagreed about putting it as a title), but about Berlusconi's quote. It doesn't stress a fact, as Silvio Berlusconi isn't the "universal record-holder for the number of trials in the entire history of man, and of the other creatures who live on the other planets". He's being ironic, but he's complaining about the number of his trials (maybe hoping that someone takes pity on him). There's really no point in opening the section this way. Do you see any pages where the legal problems' section is opened with a quote from the accused person? --79.35.18.140 (talk) 10:57, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

People of Freedom

A sentence said "Before the 2008 Italian general elections he announced his intention to establish a new political party, The People of Freedom (Il Popolo della Libertà), to be formed by the merging of Forza Italia with the National Alliance party (Alleanza Nazionale) and other right wing parties on 27 March 2009." I think using right wing is more accurate than anti-communist, and more neutral. Besides of that, anti-communism is a topic widely used in mr. Berlusconi's speeches, more than a real political view, since the cold war is finished. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.35.31.58 (talk) 19:19, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Anti-communism

There is a wide wide range of political parties forming The People of Freedom. For example The New Italian Socialist Party is an anti-communist socialist party which decided to get in The People of Freedom, therefore the definition of "right wing" party is wrong, instead "anti-communist" is more specific AND appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.201.98.168 (talk) 20:48, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I disagree, since the POF is definitely a right wing party, even if there are some minor parties like New Socialist Party that aren't. However, anti-communism is definitely not the main characteristic of the party, 'cause like I said Cold War is over and communism is not a threat as big as before; parties mainly based on anti-communism don't exist anymore. Furthermore, this is a matter widely used in Berlusconi's propaganda, I think it should be avoided since Wikipedia should have a neutral point of view. I suggest to use "other parties" avoiding further cathegorizations. 79.35.31.58 (talk) 22:54, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Right wing is NOT neutral.
Anti-communist IS the right definition for The People of Freedom. In The People of Freedom there are about 20 parties, some from the left, some from the center, some from the right, and SOME (not all, just some) from the right-wing of the political spectrum. The only two things that these 20 parties have in common are the acceptance of Berlusconi as supremo and sole leader and the FACT that all these 20 parties have ANTI-COMMUNIST roots.
Denying this historical premise impedes to understand the fundamentals from which the political action of Silvio Berlusconi originate, i.e. the anti-communism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.201.135.204 (talk) 07:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Right wing is the faction the party belongs, therefore is definitely more neutral than simply saying "anti-communist". There could be a long discussion about the fundamentals from which the political action of Berlusconi originate, but this is not the place to do it. The main thing is that claiming a collection of parties to be "anti-communist" is mainly propaganda (in fact, anti-communism is one of mr. Berlusconi's favourite topics, but not a real political action since there's no communism to fight against like there was until 1990s), and therefore not allowed on Wikipedia. Of course they are, but saying anti-communism is PoF main characteristic is odd, it seems that its main concern is to fight an already defeated enemy... Even here anti-communism isn't among the ideologies, strange for a party whose "right definition is anti-communist".

Finally, this is not the PoF's page, describing the parties forming it isn't necessary, that's why I suggested to simply use "other parties". 79.18.16.7 (talk) 10:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Right wing is NOT the faction the party belongs: The People of Freedom is the Italian section of the European People's Party. EPP is a centre-right liberal conservative party, not a right-wing party. The People of Freedom is a centre-right liberal conservative party.
In this context the term anti-communist is not referred to The People of Freedom (or to Silvio Berlusconi), it is referred to Forza Italia, National Alliance and the other parties forming The People of Freedom. Therefore the term "anti-communist" is not used here for propagandistic or demagogic purposes, it is only and solely used in order to give a general definition concerning the common root which all these parties stem from.
This is not propaganda, this is an historical fact. It is a qualifying "point".

I think that even if "right wing" may be not completely appropriate for all the political subjects it is a fact that PDL is actually a rigt wing party. And the tem "anti-communist" is far more inapproprate because it is POV and because some of the minor political subjects which are now part of PDL (like "socialists" or "radicals") have been in the same coalition with the "communist" parties in the recent past.--pokipsy76 (talk) 13:17, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Socialist in The People of Freedom have NEVER been allied with the communists, more: they were considered the most hard-cored anti-communists of all. The Italian Communist Party generated from a quarrel that splitted the Italian Socialist Party into two antithetic political movements. A never reconciled division, which in the end pushed the anti-communist socialists into the arms of Berlusconi. Apart from personal exceptions (like Sandro Bondi, who whose a former communist) almost the 99% of the main pesonalities participating in The People of Freedom have anti-communist roots, so this definition is POV in this specific case.

Be serious: is there someone here that refuses the definition of "anti-communist" for the parties forming The People of Freedom, for The People of Freedom AND for Silvio Berlusconi?
This is the beginning of the first official political speech of Berlusconi:

<<Italy is the country I love. Here I have my roots, my hopes, my horizons. Here I have learned, from my father and from life, how to be an entrepreneur. Here I have also acquired the passion for liberty. I have chosen to enter the field and become a public servant because I do not want to live in an illiberal country, ruled by immature forces and by people who are well and truly bound to a past that proved both a political and economic failure>>.

There's more anti-communist rhetoric in this speech than water in the sea!!!

Socialists and radical have merged and splitted their parties several times and some of the parts of these splits and merges have been in the center-left coalition together with the communist parties. "Communism Vs Anti-communist" is nowadays a completely irrelevant issue in the italian political panorama.--pokipsy76 (talk) 11:43, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Communism vs anti-communism is nowadays a RELEVANT issue: Berlusconi has clearly stated his will to amend the Italian constitution as soon as possible because it is a constitution written under strong communist influences. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.201.129.98 (talk) 05:51, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Anti-Communism is not a relevant fact in italian politics. It is a propagandistic tool used by Berlusconi and some of his followers: if you don't agree in defining the PDL as a "right wing party" (Even if 1)the second major force in it are the direct descendent of the Fascist Party in it and 2)the third major force in the centre-right coalition and the more centristic, the UDC, didn't enter the party), at least you have to agree that centre-right is far more appropriate that anti-communist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spree85 (talk • contribs) 00:53, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Far-right, I would say, as one of the main forces in the new party descend directly from Mussolinis old fascist party. --Oddeivind (talk) 07:12, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Altough I think that "anti-communist" is appropriate, I have to concede that "centre-right" is way way better than "right wing". My opposition came from the use of the term "right wing", which is not correct for a political movement belonging to the European People's Party. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.201.107.112 (talk) 20:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Just for kicks

Cavaliere Caccola, uno stronzo con sprezzatura. --tickle me 09:45, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Hey man he is not Silvio Berlusconi, he is Maurizio Antonini, one of the most well-known sosia / doppelgangers of Berlusconi!!!
Anyway... Very funny!!!

Deleted information

Some information have been deleted by an IP with the motivation

Redundant. If you are MP it is obvious that you work as legislator. IMHO it is better not to start a list that could comprise more than 50 MPs

But this motivations are pointless:

1. There is no redundancy: it's not obvious at all that if you are both a lawyer and a legislator then you work to change the same very specific laws involved in your trials, that's rather strange
2. There is no list to be started, it was cited the most prominent individual which had been prosecutor and political rival of Berlusconi.

On this ground I claim that the informations should be reinserted.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 21:16, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Information deleted (2)

It is already clearly written that there are some of Berlusconi's lawyers who are MPs and MPs ARE legislators, so it is redundant.
About citing Antonio Di Pietro: I know that Berlusconi and Di Pietro are "two faces of the same coin", like Batman and The Joker because weren't Di Pietro Berlusconi never had the opportunity to enter politics, but if you cite Di Pietro you should cite some of Berlusconi's attorney too... More: Di Pietro was only a washer in a bigger clockwork, IMHO Di Pietro is NOT the most prominent political rival of Berlusconi who was a prosecutor too. Maybe Gerardo D'Ambrosio -with Francesco Saverio Borrelli and Luciano Violante- is a more prominent political rival of Berlusconi than Di Pietro and he is a former prosecutor too.

1. It cannot be redundant to add informations which are not obvous and not implicit in what is already "clearly written".
2. There is no one of the Berlusconi's lawyers and of Berlusconi's former prosecutor which has a political role which is remotely comparable with Di Pietro which is the leader of a politcal party and is one of the most popular people in italy (D'Ambrosio , Borrelli and Violante aren't leader of anything, never appear on the mainstream media and very few italian people know what is their activity or even know them)

I am Italian and I am surely aware of who is or is not prominent here.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 08:56, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

About D'Ambrosio and Violante

I am sure that Antonio Di Pietro is one of the most notorious former prosecutors in Italy, but I am sure that D'Ambrosio and Violante are two of the masterminds of strategies who devised the Mani Pulite plan and the fact that they appear rarely on the media means only that they can plot very well. Di Pietro has never played a strategic role, he is only the leader of the parliamentary opposition towards Veltroni's Parliamentary Opposition: he is the opposition of the opposition and has always sympatized for the Movimento Sociale Italiano, the heir of the Partito Nazionale Fascista, therefore he could not have a strategic role in a plot formed by Magistratura Democratica with the help of former communists and prosecutors like Luciano Violante and Gerardo D'Ambrosio.
Even Violalante and D'Ambrosio wrote pieces of legislation, so what??? All the MPs are legislators, thererefore it is a very redundant information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.203.11.220 (talk) 12:54, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

1) Luciano Violante has nothing to do with Mani Pulite

2) Your theory about the D'Ambrosio is irrelevant here: it makes sense to cite just Di Pietro because he is actually the most famous and prominent former prosecutor and political rival of Berlusconi, far more than Violante and D'Ambrosio

3) It is not true that "all the MPs are legislators": not all the MPs write laws

4) I don't know if D'Ambrosio and Violante did write any law but we can be sure that they didn't write any law while being working as prosecutors (because in Italy you cannot be both prosecutor and MP)

5) The non-redundant information whch you deleted is not "the Berlusconi's lawyesrs wrote pieces of legislation" but

have been working as both lawyers on his trials and members of the parliament rewriting the laws involved in those trials.

which is a rather strange thing because there is a clear conflict of interests.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 14:03, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Very incorrect on your side to revert my edit after having left this discussion about them and without having provided any objection to my arguments.--pokipsy76 (talk) 13:27, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Dubious phrase

Does anyone know who the phrase:

Some of his former prosecutors are members of the parliamentary opposition

refers to?--Pokipsy76 (talk) 13:42, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Answer

Yeah: Gerardo D'ambrosio at first... Plus Antonio Di Pietro.
But they are not the only ones... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.201.64.7 (talk) 13:46, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Apologies from an Italian user

Hi! I'm an Italian user. I want to apologize for the behaviour of our prime minister about Obama's election. I hope you don't think that every Italian person is like him, because I swear they are not. I also hope you'll forgive me if I don't sign. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.59.0.27 (talk) 17:14, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Answer for another Italian user

I think all of this "apologizements" are ridiculous. You hear SB talk and also hear the people laughing in the room. It was clear to ANYONE it was a joke. You can dislike the joke, you can think it was not good, but you don’t have any right to take it seriously as an “expressed opinion” with all the shitty theory of “racism” and whatever else. That phrase only means no “race” exist, just an ephemeral colorization not to take seriously care of. If you cannot understand it, that’s your problem. Not SB or Obahma problem. Many people ask SB to excuse for that. But not Obahma himself. So why do he should? Are newspaper opinionists superior to Obahma itself? As an Italian user I have to excuse the world for as many Italian ingnorants and Italian communist having “one way only understandment” of everything. Connect your brain and shut up!

1) Wikipedia is not a Forum

2) No personal attack are allowed

--Pokipsy76 (talk) 17:06, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Uhmmm... why not say the same also to the preceding post ? I find them two be equally offensive. Hence: none or both ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.225.149.12 (talk) 18:12, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Catholic?

I don't think he is catholic. I'd delete that information as italian wiki had done.--93.149.140.61 (talk) 15:32, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Removed bad edit

I removed an irrelevant sentance added by an unregistered user with IP: User:122.108.71.31 which also resulted in a broken link. IÅI 09:31, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Il Cavaliere (dimezzato)

Just to clarify why I reverted a recent edit: Although he may not be very widely known as Il Cavaliere in English-language media, he most certainly is in Italy [32], where he is almost universally referred to in the press by this nickname. And Il Cavaliere has been picked up by, for example, The Economist. MistyMorn (talk) 21:13, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Support - very common in Italian media to refer to him as such, in fact I have read shorter articles on major news sites that only refer to him as such without giving his name.Connolly15 (talk) 16:05, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. And like much else here, the information appears only in the lede. If Cav makes it into the main body of the article, I think it would be appropriate to mention that the title was conferred by Giovanni Leone. MistyMorn (talk) 20:17, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Vacant office?

My understanding is that, in line with the Italian Constitution, President Napolitano has formally requested Berlusconi and his ministers to remain in office to cover day-to-day responsibilities until such time as a new government can be formed and instated. Hope this helps--MistyMorn (talk) 16:05, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. They call this a caretaker government. In Belgium, for instance, a similar situation is going on for more than a year. Ivo von Rosenqvist (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:32, 13 November 2011 (UTC).

This was the official statement from the President's office (12 November 21.41): ...ha invitato il governo dimissionario di rimanere in carica per il disbrigo degli affari correnti.--MistyMorn (talk) 16:58, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

It's also spelt out in English in this BBC article: Mr Napolitano's spokesman Donato Marra said the president had invited the outgoing government to "remain in power in order to finish current business. So, for the time being, Berlusconi remains PM.--MistyMorn (talk) 17:37, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry but Silvio Berlusconi's Cabinet is still in office to deal ordinary affairs. See official statement of Quirinale: http://www.quirinale.it/elementi/Continua.aspx?tipo=Comunicato&key=12558 --PaoVac (talk) 18:25, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and we should finally be able to make this edit in the coming days. Until then...--MistyMorn (talk) 18:36, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

@Malarious: Unfortunately, B will officially remain PM until the moment the incoming government is sworn in. That's the protocol, not an opinion.--MistyMorn (talk) 19:13, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Therequiembellishere (talk) 22:11, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. I'm trying to confirm the exact moment a PM officially enters office.--MistyMorn (talk) 22:20, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Oddly enough, I don't see anything in this USAToday story that suggests he's still hanging around.[33] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:02, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

@MistyMorn: In Italy that happens just after the ministers are sworn in.--78.12.168.206 (talk) 19:47, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Successor

The news reports have said only that Mario Monti is expected to be confirmed as his successor. Please don't jump the gun on this.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 21:09, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

And this point still holds even though Monti has now been officially charged to form a government. Until Monti 1) succeeds in doing that and 2) is sworn in, he is not officially PM. Or at least that's my understanding. Monti is now "PM designate", as the BBC says, but in Italian politics figures asked to form a new government don't always succeed in doing so, in which case the President calls on someone else to try. That's the official constitutional procedure. In the current situation, it seems highly unlikely that Monti will not succeed in gaining parliamentary support to form a new government. But that's another question—we're not there yet.--MistyMorn (talk) 19:23, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Article split

I think it's high time the controversies of Berlusconi get their own article. Therequiembellishere (talk) 04:40, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I tested something in my sandbox: such article would become a 91k article with 157 notes, while this one is currently @141k with 194 notes. Splitting only Berlusconi jokes will generate a new 24k article with 42 notes. Any idea? --Juanm (talk) 21:04, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Did you consider the legal issues as controversies? Because that's the idea I had. I hadn't realized that his political career had recently been split too, and scrolling through the page, I can see that this would barely leave an article. However, as it stands, almost the entire article is legal and other controversies, and this needs to be amended somehow. I think if some more of the major content from his political career article was reflected here and do the same with the major legal/other controveries, we can still split the article and make the main one more concise (and less potentially libellous). Therequiembellishere (talk) 21:29, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Well ... I was referring to the whole section 6 (Silvio_Berlusconi#Controversies). The legal issues already have their own main article (Trials_involving_Silvio_Berlusconi). Maybe we can split such section in more than an article. --Juanm (talk) 06:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Either way, go for it. This article needs to be a more balanced overview than it is now. Rich Farmbrough, 15:53, 6 October 2011 (UTC).

Done. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 8:53pm • 10:53, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for helping to clean up. The article's flow looks much better now. - Mailer Diablo 16:39, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Broken references

The references in the 'Bettino Craxi' section are totally broken. For example, the article text 'including the Prime Minister, immunity from prosecution while in office2.' links to the reference section, and apparently is intended to point at the reference 'Technically, Berlusconi has been sworn in four times because after a cabinet reshuffle, as happened with Berlusconi in 2005, the new ministry is sworn in and subjected to a vote of confidence.'

Which is completely wrong, as it says nothing at all about immunity. This is not surprising, because when I look at the source for this section, I see wikimarkup which looks like "^{[[#References|2]]}". Needless to say, this is the stupidest and most broken reference style I have ever seen, and the other examples in that section are just as painful to look at. I couldn't bring myself to see whether the rest of the article is infected with this stuff. --Gwern (contribs) 15:18 23 July 2008 (GMT)

But WTF???? Are you trying to write a biography instead of a simple and concise biographical article??? That's longest than Nixon's one!!!

planned resignation and failure of "absolute majority" on financial bills

Hi, i'm an Australian editor who is interested in reading overseas political articles from time to time, I thought i'd come here for all the latest on this issue. I note the article is very big and has detailed sub-articles, i've attempted to find this information but all I can find is one sentence at the end of the lead. Is there any other information available or is this it, so far? Timeshift (talk) 05:12, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

While that is sometimes a reasonable strategy, please keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a news source; it's an encyclopedia. It reacts faster than Brittanica, but if you want news, you might consider CNN, or if you read Italian, http://www.corriere.it or http://www.repubblica.it . --Trovatore (talk) 05:19, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Whilst wikipedia is not a news source, I do tend to appreciate wikipedia's fullness over media outlet shallowness with it's typically extensive documentation of political events like an impending Prime Ministerial resignation as a result of a failure to pass legislation/losing confidence. I just thought that the article would have had it by now. Also, I went to the Main Page first, thinking it might have been in "in the news". The best I can get is translated wikinews :\ Timeshift (talk) 05:24, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

It's not about news. It's about comprehensive coverage of all the important events related to the fall of Berlusconi and the economic crisis which hit Italy during the last months of his premiership. I repeatedly visited this article the last month and the necessary information was not just there. I have already in the past expressed my concerns about the structure of the article which focuses on various controversies and legal problems but fails to present a comprehensive encyclopedic biography of Berlusconi.--Yannismarou (talk) 10:19, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

US 2011 Trafficking in Persons report

I have updated the article to include the accusations contained within the US State Department's 2011 Trafficking in Persons report. fr33kman 15:04, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Sources

• Severgnini, Beppe. "The Secret to Berlusconi's Dolce Vita." The Wall Street Journal. September 24, 2011.

WhisperToMe (talk) 17:25, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

US or British English swearwords?

I was wondering whether there is a convention for deciding whether this article (or any other) should adopt US or British English. In most articles there is no discernible difference in tone, but in this article Berlusconi's gaffes are translated using Americanisms ("lardass" instead of "lardarse", coglioni translated as "assholes") which read a bit oddly (particularly "assholes"/"arseholes" which doesn't really carry the same meaning in UK English - it's unpleasant people rather than morons). So we might be losing a bit of the accuracy here. Just a thought. - Peeper (talk) 09:54, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, first of all, there's way too much material on the "gaffes". It should be cut by a factor of at least three (last time I looked). We could preferentially remove the ones that cause translation difficulties; one is pretty much as good as another, so why not get rid of the ones that cause us problems?

However, if they're to be kept, surely some WP:COMMONALITY can be found. There is no particular reason to favor one variety of English over the other here. (By the way, in my US usage, "asshole" does indeed connote an unpleasant person -- more than unpleasant, really; someone who makes you lose control of your anger.) --Trovatore (talk) 09:58, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. I agree that this section is overlong - laboriously so - so I've made a tentative start at cutting out some of the less significant accounts. One wasn't really a gaffe, and one or two were basically silly stories (the Merkel "Oh, Silvio" story made famous by Have I Got News For You, for instance). These were of little importance in comparison with incidents that had diplomatic repercussions (eg his comments about Martin Schutz or Tarja Halonen), gave rise to allegations of racism or antisemitism (Obama's "suntan" or the Vatican criticism"), or caused major uproar in Italy (his comments about being unlikely to avoid rape or about the L'Aquila "camping weekend"). But I think we could do more to bring this down to manageable size. Peeper (talk) 11:58, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Peeper, the best policy is to use whatever words the reliable sources translate them as. IF there are UK and US sources reporting on the same words translating them differently, try to find the Italian words and present a list of translations (i.e.) Italian word (US: X, UK: Y) WhisperToMe (talk) 17:25, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Berlusconi ‘called Merkel an unfuckable lard-arse’

• Berlusconi ‘called Merkel an unfuckable lard-arse’ thefirstpost.co.uk. Are there any other sources on this?

216.172.135.21 (talk) 18:42, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Recent image

current pic is 9 years old, i added a more recent one on commons from last month--27.123.136.92 (talk) 06:06, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 March 2018

Change "the his" to "his"

Original: "Berlusconi has pledged to stay leader of Forza Italia throughout the his custodial sentence and public office ban." Hornesid37 (talk) 03:31, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

 Done Anon126 (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 05:23, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Original: ... and finally, being blackmail leader because of his turbulent private life.

Corrected: ... and finally, being blackmailed as leader because of his turbulent private life. — Preceding unsigned comment added by UpDater (talk • contribs) 05:23, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

 Done NiciVampireHeart 09:30, 8 April 2019 (UTC)