Newsmaker
Fed up with Berlusconi, Italians rally in Rome
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-12-05 21:49
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 A man walks past posters advertising Saturday's "No-Berlusconi Day" rally in Rome December 4, 2009. Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi goes back on trial for corruption on Friday, while in an unrelated Mafia case, a mobster-turned-witness may try to link him to the Cosa Nostra -- a connection he denies. The poster script reads in Italian "radioactive Berlusconi". [Agencies]
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ROME: Italians fed up with Silvio Berlusconi are rallying in Rome to peacefully push for the premier's resignation.
Organizers are calling Saturday afternoon's grass-roots protest "No B Day" with the "B" standing for Berlusconi, the billionaire businessman and conservative leader now in his third term.
Several political opposition leaders say they decided to stay away to keep the protest a citizens' one, not a partisan event. Organizers hope 300,000 people will join the march, the idea for which developed on the Internet.
Among other complaints, rally participants oppose what they say is the media mogul's conflict of interests.
