ITALIAN FASCIST: Silvio Berlusconi’s conservatives suffered a major embarrassment this week as one of their candidates for April elections said he is an unrepentant and lifelong Fascist. “Fascism has given me joys and pains,” Giuseppe Ciarrapico was quoted as saying in an interview published Monday. “I’ve never renounced it.”
GEORGIA WARNINGS: The United States and Georgia advised Russia on Tuesday against supplying arms to separatists in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia. Russia’s envoy to NATO, meanwhile, warned against putting Georgia on track to join that alliance.
INDIA STRIKE: Some 15,000 airport workers across India went on strike Wednesday, a move that threatened to ground hundreds of domestic flights and leave tens of thousands of passengers stranded.
THAI PLEA: Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra pleaded not guilty Wednesday before the Supreme Court in one of two criminal corruption cases against him. Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 coup.
QUOTABLE
‘Of course it would be good to chop off that paw, like in the Middle Ages. That would probably be the best solution of all.’
– Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggesting a punishment for bribe-hungry bureaucrats: Off with their hands. His comment followed one by Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov, who stressed the severity of bribe-taking in Russia by saying that to put up housing, builders must “put something in the paw” of every official.
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Page compiled from Tribune news services
