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  • In Italy, pressures are mounting for earlier elections because of corruption scandals that have rocked the governments of Italy's two most important regions: Lazio and Lombardy. Both regional governments have been brought down by shock waves of financial misdeeds, which have forced their governors to resign.
  • Grillo's exploit Oct. 10 was the official launch of his party, Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S), into the Sicilian regional election fray. In the event, Grillo had the last laugh, for when the Oct. 28 ballot boxes were opened, they showed that M5S has bounced up from zero to 14.7%, to become the single largest party in Sicily, well ahead of such rivals as Pier Luigi Bersani's Partito Democratico (PD) on the left and Silvio Berlusconi's Partito della Liberta' (PdL) on the right.
  • What has turned into a sort of Commedia all’Italo Americana for Santorum has shown that the Republican electorate can’t seem to figure out who they want to run in the general election. I still can’t figure out if he’s Pantalone, Dottor Balanzone, Tartaglia or a mix of all three (also referred to as “masks”, these three principle characters or archetypes are pivotal to the Italian Commedia dell'Arte). With time ticking down, it’s pretty much statistically impossible for “Puerto” Rico Santorum to win the GOP nomination. He has reverted to parlour gags accompanying the image he has created for himself as a modern day Savonarola.
  • Voting in three separate elections this May and June, Italians gave a black eye to the center-right government headed by the London Economist’s favorite Italian politician, Silvio Berlusconi. Here are this week's consequences...
  • Last week the doom sayers predicted that an earthquake would flatten Rome. They got it wrong. The earth did shake, but the seismic shocks took place Sunday and Monday in Milan, where voters took a slam at Premier Silvio Berlusconi and the center-right candidate he was touting for mayor, Letizia Moratti.
  • On Sunday, the president of the Chamber of Deputies Fini gave a much-awaited speech at Mirabello, in which he formally divorced Berlusconi’s Popolo della Libertà and invited his supporting members to join him in forming a new grouping. This is being seen as the first step toward creating a new and “normal” conservative political party in opposition to Berlusconi’s. Will Berlusconi government succumb? And will President Giorgio Napolitano finally call for new elections?
  • "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer".

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