A controversial law granting Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi legal immunity has been dramatically thrown out by the country's top court, raising the likelihood that the media mogul will again face prosecution on corruption charges.
As the political pressure mounted last night, the 73-year-old premier lambasted the Constitutional Court judges as "red toga-wearing tools of the left" and vowed not to quit, despite predictions by opponents that the ruling could force him to resign and hold a snap election. "We must govern for five years, with or without the law," Mr Berlusconi told reporters outside his residence in Rome.
And just how much does Italy really want to be a nation governed by law? How much of a chance does this ruling have of actually influencing the corrupt and dangerous regime of Berlusconi?
I posted a piece earlier this year regarding the forces that have influencesd the phenomena of piracy off the coast of Somalia. In the hysteria over the existence of the pirates, we overlook the destruction of the livelihood of the fishing industry of Somalia and the destruction of the environment caused by the illegal dumping of hazardous wastes by The Italian Mafia run waste disposal scams. Untold numbers of death ships have been sunk by the Italian Mafia in the last 15 years in a garbage scam that threatens the health of the Ocean. Barrels of toxic medical waste and radioactive matterials have polluted the shore, causing disease and toxic reations in the population. The fishing industry has been decimated as well.
The basic scam used by the Mafia controlled industry is to buy a rotting ship, take out the maximum insurance on it, load it with garbage to be disposed, then the ship is "lost" at sea, the Mafia company collects the fee for the disposal as well as the insurance money for the ship.
In the last month, graphic evidence has been uncovered by robot submarines of ships sunk in the same manner off the Calabrian coastline of Italy.
Pressure is growing on the Italian government to act over revelations that 30 or more ships with radioactive cargoes, deliberately sunk by the Mafia, may be polluting the Mediterranean.
The Calabrian region in the south of the country last night threatened to bypass Rome and petition the European Commission directly for help in dealing with the potential environmental disaster, while in another development investigators said that human remains may have been found on one ship – raising the possibility of a murder inquiry.
Silvestro Greco, head of the region's environment agency, lambasted the response by ministers to the apparent discovery of one of the missing toxic waste vessels, the Cunsky, 18 miles off the Calbrian coast.
"It has been 20 days since the boat was found and there has been not a single sign from the government," he said. "We do not believe this silence is normal."
Mr Greco added that "the entire Mediterranean, from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian sea and from the Strait of Sicily to the Aegean" could be threatened by sunken waste ships. "Cleaning and removing the load will be particularly complex in terms of cost, given the vast area involved," he said.
Sebastiano Venneri, vice-president of the environmental pressure group Legambiente, told The Independent there were fears that leaking radioactivity may already have been absorbed by plankton. If that is the case, there is a risk that it will make its way into the food chain.
Aurelio Garritano, the deputy-mayor of Longobardi, a town close to the Cunsky wreck, noted that no environmental tests for toxic waste had yet been carried out. "We cannot continue like this, the government must intervene," he said.
With this in mind, the Calabria region will write to the Italian environment minister, Stefania Prestigiacomo, calling for radical cabinet action. Failing that, Italy's council of regional governments would appeal directly to the EC, Mr Greco said.
The possibility of a murder inquiry also arose last night after it emerged that cameras sent down to investigate the Cunsky appeared to show human remains aboard.
Bruno Giordano, the public prosecutor for the Calabrian coastal town of Paola, told The Independent: "It appeared to show what were two human skulls. Obviously this will have to be investigated as well. As will claims that there are 30 or more other vessels out there in the Mediterranean."
The scandal of the sunken waste ships hit the headlines earlier this month after a former member of the 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate turned informer directed investigators to underwater remains thought to be those of the Cunsky, one of the missing vessels.
The informer, Francesco Fonti, told prosecutors he had been involved in the sinking of the ship in 1992, in order to dispose of 120 barrels of radioactive sludge. He added that he had also taken part in the sinking of two other ships, the Yvonne A and the Voriais.
Mr Fonti, who is now under house arrest, claimed that he knew of at least 30 more vessels sunk by the Calabrian mafia in Italian waters. He said the waste came from European pharmaceutical companies, and the Mafia was paid between $2m and $20m to sink the ships.
The Ansa news agency yesterday reported that up to 39 vessels carrying toxic or radioactive waste produced by European chemical or pharmaceutical companies may have been sunk in the racket.
While the world frets over the possibility that Iran might be developing nuclear arms, the corrupt facist government of Silvio Berlusconi is tacitly involved with organized crime in an obscene scheme that is a real imminent threat to the health of the plane. Yet, we watch Silvio cavort like an embarrassing relative at a family party.
The damage has been done, it is a planetary crime. How can Silvio Berlusconi be stopped before his corruption affects the quality of everyones life on this planet?
The event, complete with fake handouts on chamber letterhead, at least a couple of fake reporters, and a podium adorned with the chamber logo, broke up when a spokesman from the real chamber burst in. What followed was a spectacle not usually seen in the John Peter Zenger Room at the National Press Club: two men in business suits shouting at one another, each calling the other an impostor and demanding to see business cards. "This guy is a fake! He's lying! This is a stunt that I've never seen before," said Eric Wohlschlegel, an official at the actual Chamber of Commerce, who said he'd heard about the hoax event from a reporter who'd mistakenly shown up at the chamber's headquarters.
t
