Politics News Event

(ANSA) - Rome, November 16 - Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was in fine form as he chaired Monday's world hunger summit in Rome, ribbing Libya's Colonel Gaddafi about his famously long speeches and telling a joke about Kark Marx.

"Five minutes from Colonel Gaddafi would be too much to hope for but I appeal to his good nature," Berlusconi said in calling the Libyan leader to the rostrum.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 16 - The suicide rate in Italian prisons is the highest it has been in some 20 years and could climb even higher before the end of the year, according to Luigi Manconi, a former interior undersecretary and chairman of an inmates' rights association.

So far this year 64 inmates have taken their own lives, the most recent in the Tolmezzo penitentiary on Saturday.

"Statistics confirm an atrocious fact: the suicide rate in prisons is 15-17 times higher than on the outside," Manconi said.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 16 - World food summits in the past have failed to make any real progress in stamping out hunger, Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi said Monday.

Addressing the 60 heads of state who turned out for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's food security summit in Rome, Gaddafi said that ''all of the resolutions and promises made during previous summits have been made in vain''.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 16 - The world's eight richest nations must make good on their pledge to invest $20 billion towards feeding the world's hungry, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said during a world food summit on Monday.

The premier made his appeal to the 60 world leaders who turned out for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's food security summit in Rome.

(ANSA) - Brussels, November 16 - The Italian government is fully behind ex-premier and ex-foreign minister Massimo D'Alema's bid to become the European Union's new foreign policy chief, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Monday after a government minister criticised D'Alema.

Frattini stressed that the opinion of Civil Service Minister Renato Brunetta, who claimed ex-Communist D'Alema's centre-left Democratic Party was not a social democratic party and "could not represent Italy's future," was strictly personal.

(ANSA) - Palermo, November 16 - Sicilian police on Monday arrested 34 people in connection with a family-run drug ring moving cocaine, hashish and heroin on the streets of Palermo.

Police said the suspects ran the racket like a family owned business with women responsible for book keeping and inventory while the fathers and sons peddled drugs on the streets.

Over the course of the three-year operation, dubbed Family Market, dealers were seen pushing their wares in front of local grade schools while children looked on in the background.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 16 - A world food summit aimed at helping the one billion people who suffer chronic hunger around the world opened in Rome Monday.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened the summit by telling delegates that more than 17,000 children will starve to death today.

''One every five seconds. Five million each year''.

''This is no longer acceptable. We must act".

He stressed that food security was ''profoundly linked'' to climate change.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 13 - Italy wants to regain its position as Serbia's second most important trading partner, Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Friday.

Following a Rome summit with top Serbian officials including President Boris Tadic, Berlusconi said Italy had fallen behind Germany and Russia, but wanted to regain the position it once held as Serbia's number two economic ally.

The premier said once a planned highway from Thessaloniki to Salzburg was complete, "we could even become number one".

(ANSA) - Rome, November 13 - Everything is ready in the Italian capital for next week's World Summit on Food Security, organised by the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The Colosseum will be lit up all night Sunday ahead of the November 16-18 summit.

Over 60 heads of state are set to take part in the summit which on Monday will see Pope Benedict XVI give the keynote speech.

Addresses will also be given by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf.

FAO said it had organised the World Food Security Summit ''to give a new momentum to the fight against hunger and malnutrition affecting 1.02 billion people''.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 13 - Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi will travel to Rome on Monday to meet Premier Silvio Berlusconi, the premier's office said on Friday.

The statement did not provide details but talks are expected to focus on a recent accord between the two countries to stem illegal immigration in the Mediterranean.

Gaddafi will be in Rome to attend a World summit on food security at the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation headquarters.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 13 - Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi set a jocular tone on Friday at a joint press conference with Serbian President Boris Tadic.

After commenting about their summit in Rome, Berlusconi jokingly yielded the floor to "President Clooney," a play on the 51-year-old leader's widely praised good looks.

The bantering continued as the conversation passed to soccer with Tadic saying it was a shame AC Milan, Berlusconi's soccer team, doesn't have any Serbian players.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 13 - The Vatican on Friday urged the United States to lift its embargo against Cuba and called on Havana to loosen restrictions against the Catholic Church.

Speaking to Vatican radio after his return from a visit to Cuba, the head of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Monsignor Claudio Maria Celli, urged US President Barack Obama to lift economic sanctions against the island.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 13 - A Latin teacher in southern Italy who had students translate phrases about Premier Silvio Berlusconi caused a furor on Friday when the story received front-page coverage in a right-wing newspaper.

Reported in Il Giornale, a daily owned by Berlusconi's brother, Angela Di Nanni's exercises referred to trials facing the premier after an constitutional court ruling last month quashing a law granting the premier immunity from persecution.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 13 - Italy's improved relations with Russia and other Eastern European nations have in no way had a negative effect on its ties with the United States, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said on Friday.

"There is no chance that our opening to these countries can in any way cast a shadow on our collaboration with the West," the premier told the press after his meeting with Serb President Boris Tadic.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 13 - Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Friday said it would be "politically shortsighted" for nations to use the global economic downturn as justification for cutting aid to the world's poorer countries.

Frattini made his remarks at a special session of parliament dedicated to next week's World Summit on Food Security at the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).