Ex-premier Berlusconi drops out of Italy’s presidential election
ROME — Former premier Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday bowed out of Italy’s presidential election set for this week, claiming he had the votes to win but the country could ill-afford political divisions during the pandemic.
Berlusconi also announced that he was allies in a center-right bloc opposing any bid for the presidency by Premier Mario Draghi. Draghi, the former head of Europe’s central bank, is now leading a pandemic-unity government with wide political support.
Together, Berlusconi, anti-migrant League leader Matteo Salvini and nationalist Brothers of Italy leader Giorgia Meloni could command some 400 of the 1,009 grand electors who are set to start casting written ballots for Italy’s next president Monday.
The electors from the lower house of the Italian parliament, the Senate and special regional representatives are tasked with choosing a figure who could unite the country.
Berlusconi, 85, who founded the center-right Forza Italia party three decades ago and served as premier three times, long has been a lightning rod for protests.
His past includes a tax fraud conviction and a slew of sex scandals, while his business empire that includes three private TV stations raised conflict-of-interest concerns.
He spent weeks sounding out his own conservative allies as well as lawmakers from centrist forces to see if he had sufficient support to add Italy’s highest office to his political resume.
The prospect of Berlusconi
becoming president prompted a protest earlier this month in Rome, and another had been set for Monday.
In dropping his bid, Berlusconi said he had confirmed he would have had enough support to be elected to the seven-year term of president. He aid he was “honored and moved” but didn’t want to be the cause of “polemics or lacerations” in a nation still struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic.
With his characteristic lack of modesty, Berlusconi added that the presidency “represents the unity of the nation, of the country that I love and to whose service I placed myself for 30 years, with all my energies, my abilities, my competency.”
The term of the current president, Sergio Mattarella, term expires Feb. 3.
Airstrike in Yemen: The death toll from a Saudi-led coalition airstrike that hit a prison run by Yemen’s Houthi rebels has climbed to at least 82 detainees, the rebels and an aid group said Saturday.
The airstrike in the northern Saada province Friday was part of an intense air and ground offensive that marked an escalation in Yemen’s yearslong civil war. The conflict pits the internationally recognized government, aided by the Saudi-led coalition, against the Iranian-backed rebels.
The increase in hostilities follows a Houthi claim of a drone and missile attack that struck inside the United Arab Emirates’ capital last week.
Ahmed Mahat, head of Doctors Without Borders’s mission in Yemen, told The Associated Press his group counted at least 82 dead and more than 265 wounded in the airstrike.
The Houthis’ media office said rescuers were still searching for survivors and bodies in the rubble of the prison site in Saada on the border with Saudi Arabia.
Afghanistan bombing: A bomb attached to a packed minivan exploded in Afghanistan’s western Herat province on Saturday, killing at least seven civilians and wounding nine others, Taliban officials said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the explosion, but the Islamic State has claimed credit for similar attacks on civilians and the country’s new Taliban leaders elsewhere in the country since the group seized power on Aug. 15.
Saturday’s bombing was the first such attack in Herat. Naeemulhaq Haqqani, a local Taliban official, said investigations were ongoing.
California fire: More than 500 residents in the Big Sur area in California were told
to evacuate as a brush fire spread through the mountainous coastal region.
The fire was “stubbornly active overnight,” according to the National Weather Service, as intense winds up to 50 mph blew the flames erratically along the area’s steep canyons. By Saturday morning, the fire — known as the Colorado fire — grew to 1,500 acres after starting around 5 p.m. Friday in the Palo Colorado Canyon area.
The cause of the fire, which on Saturday afternoon was 5% contained, is under investigation.
On Friday night, the Monterey County Sheriff ’s Office issued an evacuation order to more than 500 people in a coastal stretch south of the small beach town of Carmel-by-the-Sea.
A section of Route 1 was closed as the fire raged along the famed coastal highway, obscuring the road’s dramatic bridges in smoke.
Deadly blaze in India: A major fire in a 19-story residential
building killed at least six people and injured 15 others on Saturday in Mumbai, officials said.
The fire was caused by a short-circuit in an air conditioner in one of the apartments, Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar said.
Residents said the fire started on the 15th floor and a column of black smoke soon enveloped the building. More than 90 people escaped the building, they said.
Ganesh Purnaik, a spokesman for the city government, said the fire left six people dead and 15 hospitalized with injuries.
Four of the injured were in critical condition, said police officer Saurabh Tripathi.
Nearly two dozen fire engines extinguished the blaze and controlled the smoke after a two-hour effort, media reports said.
In Ireland: Police are investigating reports that the body of a dead man was brought
to a post office in an attempt to collect his pension.
The Irish Times said a man who appeared to be in his 60s was dragged into the post office in Carlow on Friday, propped up by two younger men.
When questioned by staff, the two fled, leaving behind the older man, who was found to be dead.
Ireland’s national police force would not discuss the case but said officers were investigating circumstances surrounding the “unexplained death of an elderly male” in the Carlow area.
The force said an autopsy would be conducted to determine the cause of the man’s death.
According to the Irish Times, one of the younger men had inquired about collecting someone’s pension and was told that the recipient had to be present. With the help of a companion, he allegedly returned with the dead man’s body, the newspaper reported.