Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi announced his resignation Tuesday after Italy’s ruling coalition lost its majority in the lower house. Although parliament voted to pass a key austerity budget bill demanded by the European Union, the government suffered a series of defections which made Berlusconi’s long-term position untenable. As the London Daily Telegraph reported: More than half of the members of the Italian lower house refused to take part in the vote, laying bare Mr Berlusconi’s lack of support in parliament as financial pressure from the eurozone debt crisis continued …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahd-hJYF5ls[/youtube] “We have to decide to win [in Afghanistan],” said Ambassador Volker last week at the Heritage Foundation. He was quoting former Spanish President José Maria Aznar in the meeting they just had with Heritage officials, but the U.S.’s 19th Permanent Representative to NATO and Senior Fellow and Managing Director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University agrees. The will to win, combined with a counter-insurgency strategy that provides domestic security to Afghans is the first step, he says. From that point I think you have to listen to …
