Silvio

Italy's center-right government survived a vote of confidence Wednesday that nonetheless underscored Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's weakened political position after a key partner bolted from his ruling coalition last week. After a rowdy debate in the lower house, lawmakers voted 229 to 299 on a measure that would have censured an undersecretary in Berlusconi's government. A victory by the opposition probably would have prompted the collapse of the prime minister's 2-year-old coalition government and a realignment of right-wing and centrist parties.

LONDON - Prime Minister Mario Monti, the technocrat who guided Italy through economic turbulence for 13 months after scandal-plagued Silvio Berlusconi left office, resigned Friday to make way for new elections. Monti, a former economics professor and European Union commissioner, was appointed to the office, with a Cabinet of academics and economists and broad support to bring the country back from the brink of financial disaster. "A year ago this government was launched, and today - not because of a Maya prophecy - we must bring it to an end," Monti quipped as he spoke to colleagues at an annual reception.

ROME -- Against rancorous but impotent opposition, the Italian Parliament on Wednesday granted immunity from prosecution to the country's top five officials, in effect liberating Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi from an embarrassing corruption trial. Berlusconi's right-wing coalition, which controls both the upper and lower houses of Parliament, sponsored the legislation and rushed it into the law books at an unusually swift pace.

When Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi emerged from his bribery trial one recent day, a crowd awaited. "You'll end up like Ceausescu!" a heckler cried out, alluding to the reviled Romanian dictator who was summarily executed after a brief trial. His famous temper flaring, Berlusconi demanded that his aides get the man's name, and he promised to sue.

With a massive swing to the right, Italian voters overturned a half-century-old political system in a single election. In the heady aftermath Tuesday, two questions were paramount: How do you get the fragile new ship of state into the water? Will it float? Final official returns Tuesday gave a working majority in both houses of Parliament to Milan magnate Silvio Berlusconi and the fractious three-party, rightist pact he forged to take part in his first election.

SCENE: De Mori Restaurant, Beverly Hills. A cheery patio restaurant in the Rodeo Collection. Ivy curls around the trellis overhead and a fountain makes soothing sounds in the background. Owner Silvio de Mori, 55, with white-silver hair and eyes that crinkle up merrily, or wistfully, presides over the end of lunch with yours truly, MB, who is, for most intents and purposes, at this moment, an emotional wreck.

ROME - Weeks before Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation because of failing health, Italians were already bracing themselves for a change at the top. But the elections to pick a new Italian government this month have been overshadowed and potentially thrown for a loop by Benedict's shocking decision to be the first pontiff to step down in almost 600 years. The 85-year-old's final Mass on Wednesday, which drew the kind of cheering fans to St. Peter's Basilica that politicians dream of, dominated pages of newspapers that Italy's political candidates had hoped to fill with dramatic campaign promises and choice insults aimed at their opponents.

LONDON - Turmoil engulfed Italy on Monday as the country braced for the imminent resignation of its prime minister, the intended comeback of his disgraced predecessor and the prospect of months of political and financial instability after a period of relative calm. Elections originally expected to be held around April are now likely to take place in February, cutting short the present government's time to enact measures aimed at reviving Italy's moribund economy and bringing down its enormous public debt.

IN the 1980s, in an early indication of Silvio Berlusconi's plans to conquer and transform the Italian television audience, one of his networks broadcast the game show "Colpo Grosso," or "Big Hit." Call it "Big Hit," and it will become one -- so went the Berlusconi mantra. On the show, contestants had to take off a piece of clothing for each wrong answer.

LONDON - First, Silvio Berlusconi, who was driven from power last year by Italy's economic woes and his own scandals, said he wanted back his old job as prime minister. Then Mario Monti, an appointed technocrat who succeeded him at the head of an unelected government, kept the nation guessing for weeks before suddenly declaring that he would dive into politics and seek to lead the next government. They're only part of a perplexing lineup of political candidates voters will face in February's elections as political parties begin a frantic search for coalition partners.