A huge crowd gathered in Rome yesterday night to rally against the Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi as confidence votes on the conservative government looms in Parliament.
Pier Luigi Bersani, a leader of Italy’s centre-left opposition, the Democratic Party, drew cheers as he addressed the crowd in St John’s Lateran Square, packed with 100,000 supporters who’d marched for hours through the city.
Bersani is demanding that Berlusconi leave power.
The media mogul’s government has been weakened by the defection of allies, but Berlusconi boasts he will win the confidence votes on Tuesday. If not, he will have to resign. (PA)
Hillary Clinton expresses ‘regret’ over Middle East
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton expressed frustration with the Israel-Palestinian peace talks impasse but insisted the Obama administration would not lose hope.
She said the US would keep pressing for a solution and called on Israelis and Palestinians to set aside their differences.
In a speech in Washington at the Saban Forum, a Middle East policy seminar sponsored by the Brookings Institution think-tank, she said: “Like many of you, I regret that we have not gotten farther, faster.” (PA)
Giant stork roamed island
Fossils of a giant stork have been discovered on a far-flung Indonesian island that has been home to many extreme-sized creatures.
Flores is the same place where tiny human-like ‘hobbits’ and dwarf elephants once roamed, as well as the world’s largest-known rats and lizards.
In the December issue of the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, authors Hanneke Meijer and Rokus Due said the marabou stork lived 20,000 to 50,000 years ago. It stood about two metres tall and weighed almost 16 kg. (PA)
Mutilated dead teenager probably ‘fell from the sky’
A North Carolina teenager whose mutilated body was found in a Boston suburb probably fell from the sky after stowing away in a plane wheel well, a Massachusetts prosecutor said.
Norfolk district attorney William Keating said clothes believed to belong to Delvonte Tisdale, 16, were found when police searched the area in Milton where the body was discovered by a group of students last month.
A pair of trainers and a shirt were found along a path a Boston-bound plane would have taken while approaching the city, he said. Mr Keating said he expected the Transportation Security Administration to launch an investigation. (PA)
Couple arrested over dismemberment killing in Los Angeles
A couple have been arrested in connection with the death of a man cut into pieces and stashed in a backpack in a Los Angeles hotel room, authorities said.
A fugitive task force last Friday arrested Edward Garcia Jr, 36, and Melissa Hope Garcia, 25, who also goes by the name of Melissa Turner, said Matt Brown, a supervisor with the US Marshals Service.
The Garcias have been charged with murder and torture in the Thanksgiving killing of Herbert Tracy White, 49, of Los Angeles.A maid found his dismembered body stuffed in a backpack and under a bed in the Continental Hotel in the seedy downtown Skid Row area. (PA)
Chinese inflation rises to 5.1%
China’s inflation surged to a 28-month high last month, officials said yesterday, despite government efforts to increase food supplies and end diesel shortages.
The 5.1 per cent inflation rate was driven by a 11.7 per cent jump in food prices year on year.
The news comes as China’s leaders meet for the top economic planning conference of the year and as financial markets watch for a widely anticipated interest rate hike to help bring rapid economic growth to a more sustainable level.
China took the unusual move of releasing the inflation news on a Saturday, giving the markets time over the weekend to digest the news. (PA)
Man admits posting photo of corpse on Facebook
A former New York City emergency medical technician has pleaded guilty to misconduct charges after posting a mobile phone photograph of a corpse on Facebook.
Mark Musarella also pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.
Prosecutors say Musarella responded to a March 30, 2009 emergency call in Staten Island, where he took a picture of a woman who had been strangled, at the crime scene. He then posted the image on the social networking site.
Musarella was sacked by the hospital where he worked. Under the terms of his plea deal, he must complete 200 hours of community service and is barred from working as an emergency medical technician again.
He faced a year in jail had he been convicted at trial. (PA)