Veronica Lario

ROME (Reuters) - Reports that 30 women attended 18 parties hosted by Silvio Berlusconi and some were paid to have sex with guests have added to the Italian leader's problems at a time of speculation that his grip on power may be weakening. The 72-year-old prime minister is already being forced to counter talk that his 15-year-old domination of Italian politics could be brought to an end by the sex scandals besetting him since May, which have angered the powerful Catholic Church. A cabinet source said there was no comment on the reports on Wednesday in Corriere della Sera and La Stampa -- two ... Read Full Story

Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian premier engulfed in a sex scandal over alleged encounters with young women, has been taken to task by his daughter, who is quoted as saying in an interview that public officials should enhance moral values. Barbara Berlusconi also said that public officials cannot afford to differentiate between their public and private spheres, the Italian edition of Vanity Fair reports in an interview to be published Wednesday. Berlusconi, 72, has been entangled in scandal for months over his alleged encounters with women, including a call girl who says she spent the night with him. Recordings of purported conversations between Berlusconi and ... Read Full Story

ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, facing demands to explain his relationship with a teenage girl, denied on Thursday he had had a "steamy affair" and said he would have to resign if caught lying about it. The 72-year-old conservative leader's relationship with an 18-year-old has become an explosive political issue in Italy after his wife Veronica demanded a divorce because of his womanizing and said he was "not well." Berlusconi has denied any wrongdoing or lying in his apparently contradictory explanations of why he went to Noemi Letizia's 18th birthday and gave her an expensive necklace. He has promised to explain ... Read Full Story

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Thursday denied ever having a "spicy" relationship with an underage girl, saying he would resign if rumours about his ties to a teenage aspiring model were true. "I have answered the only question that anyone has the right to ask me: 'Prime minister, have you had a, let's say, spicy, or more than spicy, relationship with an underage girl?' Absolutely not," Berlusconi said. "I swore on the heads of my children," he told reporters. "I've also said that if all this was true, I would have to resign immediately. Beware of what you read in the newspapers." Berlusconi, 72, ... Read Full Story

A high-profile corruption case Wednesday came back to haunt Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, already reeling from disclosures over his links with a blonde teenager. With European Union elections less than three weeks away, the billionaire prime minister sees political motivations behind both scandals. A Milan court on Tuesday released its full reasoning for convicting Berlusconi's British tax lawyer David Mills of accepting a 600,000-dollar (440,000-euro) bribe from him in exchange for false testimony. Mills, the estranged husband of Britain's Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell, gave "false testimony... in order to grant impunity to Silvio Berlusconi and (his holding company) Fininvest... or at least to ... Read Full Story