Sky TG24 is an Italian all-news channel, owned by Sky Italia, part of News Corporation.

Launched on July 31, 2003, and provides round-the-clock of the news, with updates on every hour and half-hour. The interactive version of SKY TG24, called Sky TG24 Active, was launched in January 2005.

Overview[link]

Part of its programming is available on the television channel cielo.

In the United States, SKY TG24 was available via satellite on DirecTV, launching in December 2004. On December 7, 2008, SKY TG24 was removed due to low subscriber levels. It is currently available on cable via RCN in Boston, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington D.C..

A local Canadianized version of Sky TG24 airs in Canada. It is owned by Telelatino Network Inc.. Most of its content are a simulcast from the Italian channel with Canadian content added as well.

Logos[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Sky TG24 on sky.it (Italian)

Carmine Schiavone is a former member of the Casalesi clan from Casal di Principe in the province of Caserta between Naples and Salerno. He is a cousin of former Camorra superboss, Francesco Schiavone. He became a pentito and collaborated with Italian Justice. He was the chief witness against the Casalesi clan during the Spartacus Maxi trial that culminated in sixteen senior Casalesi figures being sentenced to life imprisonment, among them Francesco Bidognetti, Michele Zagaria and Antonio Iovine. After living in the Witness Protection Program for some years, Schiavione retired to live in the province of Viterbo, with his wife and two children.^[1]

References[link]

Ilaria D'Amico
Birth name	Ilaria D'Amico
Born	(1973-08-30) August 30, 1973 (age 38) Rome, Italy

Ilaria D'Amico (born 30 August 1973) is a commentator and television host on Italian television. She is most known for her work on shows related to football.

Career[link]

Ilaria D'Amico was born in Rome.

After attending the University of Rome La Sapienza, she debuted on TV in 1997 with La giostra dei gol ("The carousel of goals"), a program that continued for six seasons on Rai International. Her passion for soccer opened up the possibility of covering the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France, and of hosting a 2000 special on the UEFA cup.

In 2001 she presented on Rai Tre a travel program called Cominciamo bene estate ("We're starting well, summer"), and the following year hosted a special for the FIFA World Cup. In November 2002 she also appeared on Stream TV with W l'Italia, moderating with journalists Vittorio Feltri and Sandro Curzi. From 2003 onward she has presented SKY Calcio Show ("SKY football Show"), covering and summing up the matches of Serie A.

Much of her recent popularity comes from having hosted, in 2004, the football-based reality TV show Campioni, il sogno ("Champions, The Dream"), on the TV channel Italia 1.

Victoria Beckham has reportedly laid down the law and refused D'Amico permission to interview her husband, AC Milan loan signing David Beckham. However, contrary to the rumour, D'Amico did interview Beckham on RAI Television in an approximately 27 minutes interview.

External links[link]

• Photo gallery

Beppe Grillo
Leader of the Five Star Movement
Incumbent
Assumed office October 4, 2009
Personal details
Born	(1948-07-21) 21 July 1948 (age 63) Genoa, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Political party	Five Star Movement
Relations	Married
Children	6
Occupation	Comedian, Activist, Politician
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Website	http://www.beppegrillo.it/

Giuseppe Piero Grillo, better known as Beppe Grillo (born 21 July 1948), is an Italian activist, blogger, comedian and actor. He has been involved in politics since 2009 as leader of the Five Star Movement.

Biography[link]

Grillo was born in Genoa, Liguria.

After receiving his degree as an accountant, Grillo became a comedian by chance, improvising a monologue in an audition. Two weeks later he was discovered and launched by Italian TV presenter Pippo Baudo. He subsequently participated in the variety show Secondo Voi for two years (1977–78). Later, in 1979, he participated in Luna Park by Enzo Trapani, and Fantastico.

In the 1980s his success rose further, thanks to shows like Te la do io l'America (1982, 4 episodes) and Te lo do io il Brasile (1984, six episodes). In these shows, he narrated his experiences of his visits to the United States and Brazil, with anecdotes and witticisms about the culture, lifestyle and beauty of these places.

As a result, his popularity grew more and more, and he became the protagonist of another show developed especially for him, called Grillometro (Grillometer). In 1986, he was the star of prize-winning advertisements for a brand of yogurt.

Soon after this, his performances began to be characterized by an increasing level of political satire, often expressed in such a direct way that he quickly offended a lot of Italian politicians. In 1987 during the Saturday night TV show Fantastico 7, he attacked the Italian Socialist Party and its leader Bettino Craxi, then Italy's Prime Minister, on the occasion of his visit in the People's Republic of China. Grillo said:

If the Chinese are all socialists, whom do they steal from?

The joke hinted at the totalitarianism of the PRC, but even more to the widespread corruption for which the Italian Socialist Party was known. As a consequence, Grillo was effectively and silently banished from publicly owned television; yet, he was vindicated a few years later when the Italian Socialist Party had to be disbanded in a welter of corruption scandals known as Tangentopoli, uncovered by the Mani pulite investigation. Craxi himself died in Tunisia, unable to return to Italy where he would have been jailed for several convictions.

Consequently, from the beginning of the 1990s his appearances on television became rare: according to many people, the reason for this is a silent ostracism by politicians offended by his revelations about their hidden financial activities, frauds and false claims. When one of his shows was finally allowed to be broadcast by RAI, in 1993, it obtained a record share of 16 million viewers. He was later banned definitively from Italian television.

He currently performs in theatres in Italy and abroad, often with outstanding success.^[1] Grillo's themes include energy usage, political and corporate corruption, finance, freedom of speech, child labour, globalization, and technology. Recently Grillo started to encourage the use of Wikipedia as the future of knowledge sharing, and generally he is a strong proponent of internet freedom.^[2]

Political activism[link]

Beppe Grillo in Bologna speaking at V-Day.

Grillo has spearheaded several national and international political campaigns. On Sept. 8, 2007, he organized a "V-Day Celebration" in Italy; the "V" stood for vendetta, vengeance, and vaffanculo ("fuck off"). During the rally, Grillo projected the names of two dozen Italian politicians who had been convicted of crimes ranging from corruption and tax evasion to abetting a murder. More than 2 million Italians participated in this rally.^[3] Grillo also used this rally to urge Italians to sign a petition calling for the introduction of a Bill of Popular Initiative to remove members of the Italian Parliament who have criminal convictions of any kind from their office.^[4] According to Internet scholars, V–day was the first case in Italian history of a political demonstration developed and promoted via word–of–mouth mobilization on the blogosphere and the social web.^[5]

This was followed by the second V-Day on 25 April 2008, in Turin, S.Carlo square. This V-Day was dedicated to the Italian press and its government financial support; Grillo heavily criticized the Italian press for the lack of freedom; Umberto Veronesi (about his support for incinerators); NATO bases in Italy, the politicians (Silvio Berlusconi had recently been re-elected) and Retequattro, still holding on to TV frequencies already assigned to Europa 7 [2].

Beppe Grillo in Turin during electoral campaign.

On 1 September 2005, thanks to contributions from readers of his blog, Grillo bought a full page advertisement in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica in which he called for the resignation of the Bank of Italy's (then) governor Antonio Fazio over the Antonveneta banking scandal. In October 2005, Time chose him as one of the "European Heroes 2005" for his constant battle against corruption and financial scandals.^[6]

On 22 November 2005 Grillo also bought a page in the International Herald Tribune, again claiming that members of the Italian Parliament ought not to represent citizens if they have ever been convicted in a court of law, even in the first degree of the three available in the Italian system.^[7] His blog now contains a regularly updated list of members of the Italian Parliament who have been convicted in all three degrees, in what he calls "operation Clean Parliament".^[8] Grillo claimed, in 2007, that data suggested that even Scampia, the most dangerous suburb of Naples and one of the areas with the highest crime rate in Europe, actually had a lower crime rate than the Italian parliament's membership.^[9]

On 26 July 2007 Grillo was permitted to speak to the members of the European Parliament in Brussels, where he drew attention to the dangerous, negative state of current Italian politics.^[10]

In August 2008, Grillo was the subject of a report on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC-TV) international affairs program "Foreign Correspondent". Titled "The Clown Prince" the report profiled Grillo's life, political activism, V Day campaign, and use of the internet as a political tool.^[11]

In 2010, he started a political movement called "Movimento 5 stelle" ("Movement five stars"), without the desire to be a leader and to be elected, but only to join, by the Internet, people who believe in ideals like honesty and direct democracy, and saying that politicians are only subordinates of the people and that they should work for the country only for a short time and only if they are not condemned for crimes, and thinking about the problems of their country without any other interest. The movement will be truly a party chance only from the next political round, when they will purpose their name not only in some regions but also in the political elections. The five stars represent the five basic points of the shared program: Water, Environment, Transport, Connectivity, Growth.

Beppegrillo.it[link]

Grillo maintains a blog (available in Italian, English and Japanese) at beppegrillo.it which is updated daily. Comments to posts regularly top the thousands (in the Italian version). According to Technorati, the blog is ranked among the 10 most visited blogs in the world. In 2008, The Guardian ranked Grillo's blog among the world's most powerful blogs.^[12]

Grillo often receives letters of appreciation and support from prominent figures, such as Antonio Di Pietro (former Italian Minister of Infrastructures), Fausto Bertinotti (former President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies), Renzo Piano, and even Nobel Prize Winners (like Dario Fo, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Dalai Lama, Muhammad Yunus).^[13]

Legal issues[link]

In 1980 he was found guilty of manslaughter for a car accident in which he was the driver; three passengers lost their lives.^[14]

During his shows Grillo never hesitates to name firms and personalities he considers corrupt, always supporting his views with data and documents^{[citation needed]}. For this reason he has been sued several times for libel by many people and organizations which he had exposed, such as Telecom Italia.

When Italian judges were investigating the Parmalat scandal, which was then the world's largest corporate bankruptcy scandal ever, Grillo was called to testify as he anticipated the imminent collapse of the dairy conglomerate in one of his shows. When he was asked by judges how he has been able to discover that, he simply said that Parmalat's financial holes were so evident that anybody who had enough ability to see them would see them, since the corporate accounting was easily accessible.^[15]

Criticism[link]

Grillo is often criticized for his lifestyle. In particular, critics blame him for owning a motor yacht and a Ferrari sports car, both being in contradiction with his well known ecologist stance. In his blog he admits that he did, in fact, acquire both but has since sold them.^[14]

Grillo is also criticized for taking advantage of the Condono Tombale, a fiscal amnesty granted by the first Berlusconi government in 2001, which Grillo publicly opposed.^[16] Grillo commented on this issue during the V-Day demonstration. He said that he had personally benefitted by only €500^{[citation needed]}.

Grillo has proposed that members of the Italian Parliament who have a criminal record should be barred from public office. As Grillo himself has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter caused by a car accident^[14] his critics^[who?] say he has no right to represent Italians either. Grillo has always stated that he is not interested in becoming a member of the Italian Parliament anyway.^[14] Despite this, in July 2009 he publicly expressed his intention to present himself as a candidate for the PD's primary elections^[17] which, however, does not imply automatic presence in the Italian parliament.

Another proposal of his is that members of Parliament be limited to two government terms of office after which they might not stand again. Detractors^[who?] argue that this would shorten the political life of competent and expert politicians, usually drawing Alcide De Gasperi, Aldo Moro and Enrico Berlinguer as examples of brilliant politicians who served more than two terms. Marco Travaglio replied that, for that sake, also the political life of much less popular Clemente Mastella would have suffered.^[18]

Grillo is criticized as being a mere demagogue who attacks politicians on superficial issues and their private lives while unable to provide a valid alternative. For instance, Daniele Luttazzi, famous Italian satirist, criticized Grillo in 2007 in an open letter published on the website of the news magazine Micromega. Luttazzi accused Grillo of being a "demagogue" and a "populist", suggesting Grillo to choose between satire and politics, asserting the two are incompatible.^[19]

In 2007 Grillo criticized the "Memorial Day of Foibe Massacres and Istrian-Dalmatian exodus" and the President of the Italian Repubblic Giorgio Napolitano^[20]

Filmography[link]

Grillo has appeared in three movies:

• Cercasi Gesù (1982)
• Scemo di Guerra (1985)
• Topo Galileo (1987)

In 2008, Grillo featured in the documentary, The Beppe Grillo Story, produced by Banyak Films for Al Jazeera English.

References[link]

External links[link]

Official websites[link]

• The English version of Beppe Grillo's personal blog
• Beppe Grillo's fans meeting map around the world

Other resources[link]

• 'Time' article about Grillo
• 'New York Times' video about Grillo
• 'New Yorker' Beppe’s Inferno

Renato Brunetta
Minister of Public Administration and Innovation
In office 8 May 2008 – 16 November 2011
Prime Minister	Silvio Berlusconi
Preceded by	Luigi Nicolais
Succeeded by	Filippo Patroni Griffi
Member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies
Incumbent
Assumed office 23 April 2008
Constituency	Veneto II
Member of the European Parliament for North-East Italy
In office 20 July 2004 – 28 April 2008
In office 20 July 1999 – 19 July 2004
Personal details
Born	(1950-05-26) 26 May 1950 (age 62) Venice, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Political party	Forza Italia, People of Freedom
Profession	Economist Politician

Renato Brunetta (Venice, May 26, 1950) is an Italian economist and politician and, as of May 2008, a minister in the Berlusconi government.

He is a former member of the Italian Socialist Party, Member of the European Parliament for the North-East from 2004 to 2009 with the Forza Italia, part of the European People's Party, and vice-chair of the European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.

Career[link]

• Economic adviser for three Italian Prime Ministers (Craxi, Amato, Ciampi), and a professor of Labour Economics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata.
• From 1985 to 1989, vice-chairman of the Labour and Social Affairs Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (in Paris).
• From 1983 to 1987 he was Ministry of Labour official responsible for all the strategies for employment and incomes policy.
• In 1989 founded the European Association of Labour Economists, of which he is the first chairman.
• In the 1980s and 1990s worked as an economic adviser to the Bettino Craxi, Giuliano Amato, and Carlo Azeglio Ciampi governments.
• From 1999 to 2008: Member of the European Parliament.
• Founder and editor of the journal Labour - Review of labour economics and industrial relations, he also wrote for the newspapers Il Sole 24 Ore, Il Giornale, and Avanti!.

See also[link]

• European Parliament election, 2004 (Italy)

External links[link]

• European Parliament biography of Renato Brunetta (incl. Speeches, Questions and Motions)
• Declaration (PDF) of financial interests (Italian)

v t e Berlusconi IV Cabinet (2008–2011) Berlusconi | Tremonti | Maroni | Alfano | Palma | Frattini | Sacconi | Fazio | Gelmini | La Russa | Scajola | Romani | Zaia | Romano | Prestigiacomo | Matteoli | Bondi | Galan | Bossi | Ronchi | Bernini | Vito | Brunetta | Calderoli | Fitto | Meloni | Carfagna | Rotondi | Brambilla | Brancher