From jewels and antiques to loans for young starlets, Italy’s billionaire Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi spent €34 million last year.
The 74-year old premier splashed out €120,000 on ties and another €65,000 on jewels, according to details from a bank account examined during a probe into his alleged relations with an underage prostitute.
The mogul also spent €675,000 on a castle he rents in northern Italy and €900,000 on gas and electricity bills at his Caribbean home in tax haven Antigua, as well as €650,000 at antiques shops and art galleries.
According to details of the account published by Corriere della Sera, the romancing prime minister gave €562,000 to 14 young women last year, as well as €40,000 as a wedding gift to one of his secretaries. (AFP)
Return of Dana
Flamboyant transsexual Israeli pop diva Dana International, who won the Eurovision in 1998, will once again represent her homeland at the European song contest – this time with a Ding Dong.
At least, that’s the name of the song she will perform at the contest which will be held in Germany later this year.
The singer, who brought Israel its last victory in the contest with the song “Diva”, was selected by viewers after a televised competition.
The 39-year-old entertainer, who was born Yaron Cohen, said she was elated to be going back to Eurovison with Ding Dong – a catchy pop number with lyrics in both Hebrew and English.
Her last win was hailed in Israel as a victory for those who promote a liberal, tolerant agenda and who often clash with the more conservative, religious elements.
Israel has won the Eurovision song contest two other times – in 1978 and 1979. (AFP)
Bottom line
A woman was arrested at New York’s JKF airport accused of hiding $170,000 in her underwear.
Claire Abdeldaim removed the underwear and placed it in her handbag during a stopover in Amsterdam on a flight from Khartoum last June.
The 64-year-old woman, originally from Haiti, faces up to 21 months in prison if convicted of trying to smuggle the money. (PA)
Misleading
A police sniffer dog found more than officers had bargained for on a field day at a Czech secondary school when the animal accidentally detected a stash of marijuana, the DNES daily reported yesterday.
Police doing a demonstration with the German shepherd named Quito had purposely planted a drug in a school locker to demonstrate to students how their anti-crime canine goes about sniffing out drugs.
But the animal stunned them by heading towards another locker and barking at its door.
Inside the locker, belonging to a 19-year-old girl, the police found a plastic bag full of marijuana.
The hapless student faces both punishment at school and possible criminal prosecution, the daily said. (AFP)
Thief is ‘sorry’
A Philippine thief left a letter of apology at a pawnshop after cleaning out its vaults and making off with more than $16,000 worth of pawned valuables, police said yesterday.
Detectives were hunting for a former employee of the Del Madel pawnshop, whose staff discovered the break-in when they returned to work on Monday, along with the letter, said provincial police chief Cornelio Defensor.
The owners of the shop, in New Aklan town in the central Philippines, told police the supposed letter-writer was a former employee whose penmanship and signature they recognised. (AFP)
Pest repellent
Tiger poo is an effective new weapon in warding off animal pests, scientists said yesterday, after years of experimenting with big cats’ faeces collected from Australian zoos.
A team from the University of Queensland made the discovery as they researched non-lethal ways to keep herbivores, such as goats and kangaroos, away from certain plants, Associate Professor Peter Murray said.
While such repellents are typically based on offensive smells like rotten eggs, blood or bone, using tiger poo came from the idea that “if you can smell a predator nearby you would probably want to go somewhere else,” he said.
Prof. Murray and his team, who have worked on the project for eight years, conducted tests on goats in a small paddock. They found big cats’ faeces a more effective deterrent than those of other predators. (AFP)
Railway fined
The Dutch government yesterday imposed a provisional fine of two million euros on the Dutch national railway after it said too many trains arrived late in 2010.
A statement by the Infrastructure and Environment Ministry said the network failed to meet the “objectives set by the government.”
“Too many trains were late and travellers were not satisfied with the information given and the number of seats available....”, the statement said.
According to the railway, which carries over a million travellers every day, 92.5 per cent of trains arrived on time in 2010, while the government’s target was 93 per cent.
“These delays can be explained by the extreme weather conditions at the start of 2010,” said spokesman Ronald Stevens. (AFP)