Silvio's Good Week

摘要

It could so easily have been a disastrous week for Silvio Berlusconi. Judges in Milan were winding up yet another trial that raised grave doubts about the prime minister's probity. And with Italy feeling the full brunt of the global economic downturn-the country's gdp dropped 2.6% in the last quarter of 2008-he faced a stiff test in regional elections in Sardinia.rnBut the prime minister is still grinning. On February 17th Walter Veltroni, the leader of the biggest opposition group, the Democratic Party (pd), stepped down after his party suffered a humiliating defeat in Sardinia. Even better for Mr Berlusconi, the resignation distracted attention from the judges in Milan, who sentenced his former adviser on offshore finance, David Mills-a lawyer and the estranged husband of a British minister, Tessa Jowell-to four and a half years in jail on bribery charges linked to Mr Berlusconi.