Brushing off questions about any possible resignation, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi insisted yesterday that he’s been Italy’s best premier ever and said he was considering suing the woman at the centre of his sex scandal.

Italy’s premier Silvio Berlusconi today attempted to dismiss the continuing sex scandal surrounding him by insisting he never paid for sex because that would remove the “joy”.

THE two Guantánamo Bay detainees being given refuge in Ireland are Uzbek nationals.

ROMA gypsies are being rounded up and expelled from Italy on foot of a decree rushed into law last week allowing the country to take such action against anybody who threatened security.

CENTRE-LEFT challenger Romano Prodi yesterday claimed an outright electoral victory yesterday over Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

Italy’s parliament today appeared to be heading for an unprecedented split between the conservative coalition led by Premier Silvio Berlusconi and one led by his centre-left challenger.

Centre-left challenger Romano Prodi was leading conservative Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi in parliamentary elections, an exit poll indicated today.

Italians had a final day of voting today to deliver a verdict on conservative Premier Silvio Berlusconi, the billionaire media mogul who failed to jump-start a flat economy in his tenure as the nation’s longest-serving premier since the Second World War.

A leftist leader’s assertion that dictator Benito Mussolini should have been tried instead of summarily executed by partisans in the waning weeks of the Second World War has sparked an outcry in Italy.

Italy’s president has asked Silvio Berlusconi to form a new government, two days after the conservative media mogul stepped down as Italy’s premier following a crushing defeat in a regional election.

ITALY’S president began a round of crisis talks between the country’s leading political figures yesterday aimed at averting early elections after the resignation of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Alessandra Rizzo, Rome

Premier Silvio Berlusconi today said he will resign and immediately form a new government in a bid to overcome a political crisis that has undermined his ruling coalition.

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi held last-minute talks today with the leader of a rebel centrist party in hopes of patching up divisions that have brought his four-year government to the brink of collapse.

Gianfranco Fini, a right-wing leader who has turned his party from Neo-Fascist to mainstream conservative, was appointed Italy’s new foreign minister today.

One of the two freed Italian aid workers said today that their abductors in Iraq taught them about Islam and reassured them they would not die.

WHITE-POWER groups are making a comeback in the US after losing support in the wake of the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York.

FIRST she left her right- wing party, furious about its leader’s denunciation of Italy’s fascist past.

ITALIAN prime minister Silvio Berlusconi desperately fought to save his coalition government last night.

ITALIAN prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, facing a German tourism boycott that would cost his country millions of pounds, yesterday came under fire from one of his closest political allies.

Silvio Berlusconi has formed Italy's 59th post-war Government.

Seven years after his first, stormy tenure, media baron and conservative leader Silvio Berlusconi was tonight poised to get his chance to govern Italy again.

Italians were lining up at the polls today to choose between conservative media baron Silvio Berlusconi as their next leader or the centre-left coalition that has governed for the last five years.

The Italian government has scheduled national elections for May 13 and says municipal elections would be held the same day.