Friday, July 5, 2013
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Former Italian PM Going to Jail for Underage Sex
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been sentenced to seven years in prison for abusing power and having sex with an underage prostitute. Judges also barred the flamboyant former prime minister from holding public office. The high-profile case centered on an exotic dancer nicknamed “Ruby the heart-stealer.”
Berlusconi’s attorney told reporters he plans to appeal the conviction. “What happened today is very serious,” defense attorney Nicolo Ghedini said, arguing that judges had not appropriately considered court proceedings.
Prosecutors had argued that Berlusconi had sex 13 times with underage dancer Karima el Mahroug and abused his position when he intervened in May 2010 to get her released from jail, where she was being held on charges of theft. According to prosecutors, Berlusconi paid el Mahroug and scores of other young women for taking part in “bunga bunga parties” at his private residence.
The women performed stripteases and erotic actions in exchange for money and gifts. Berlusconi says the parties were normal dinner gatherings where no one misbehaved. “It is absurd to suggest I have paid for a rapport with a woman. It is something I have never done, not even once in my life. It is something I find degrading to my dignity,” Berlusconi said. He accused prosecutors of conspiring against him in a left-wing plot. “Communism never changes in Italy. There are still people who use the penal code as a weapon in their ideological battles,” he said last year.
The underage sex trial verdict is the latest in a string of legal troubles the former prime minister has faced. Last month, an Italian appeals court in Milan upheld a four-year prison sentence for Berlusconi, who was convicted of tax evasion by a lower court last October. In that sentence, he was barred from public office for five years.
Berlusconi, who served on and off as prime minister between 1994 and 2011, is arguably one of the most colorful and controversial figures in the lively history of Italian politics. For years, he has been entangled in fraud, corruption and sex scandals that have often reached Italian courts.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Obama Now Supressing The Rights Of Innocent Citizens
"The president ordered his vice president to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions," Snowden is quoted as saying.
"This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me."
In the statement, Snowden describes himself as "a stateless person", accusing President Obama of stopping him from exercising the "basic right...to seek asylum".
On Sunday, the 30-year-old fugitive applied for asylum in Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow "never hands over anybody anywhere and has no intention of doing so".
Snowden also publicly thanked President Correa, praising Ecuador for guaranteeing "my rights would be protected upon departing Hong Kong - I could never have risked travel without that". He further acknowledged President Correa's "great personal admiration of [his] commitment to doing what is right rather than what is rewarding".