"In Italy, we just lost Silvio Berlusconi, one of Bush's and America's best friends, in favour of left-winger Romano Ponti, and we don't know where he stands on preserving the international rule of law."
This one cracks me up. Really. Silvio Berlusconi, committed to the preservation of international rule of [i]law[/i] ?
You misread it, it's Prodi that we don't know where he stands -- or rather we do, right with the terrorists. One of his first acts was to declare withdrawal of Italy's troops from Iraq immediately.