A man has been arrested in the grounds of hospital where Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is being treated, police said.
A man of 26 was intercepted overnight by security guards at Milan’s San Raffaele hospital.
Mr Berlusconi is being treated for facial injuries after being attacked by a man with a souvenir on Sunday.
Doctors were due to examine the prime minister on Wednesday before deciding whether he could leave hospital.
BBC
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy is recovering in hospital after an assault left his face covered in blood following a rally in Milan.
He suffered two broken teeth, a minor nose fracture and cuts to his lip after being struck by a man wielding a souvenir model of the city’s cathedral.
Mr Berlusconi, 73, tried to assure supporters afterwards he was OK.
The alleged attacker, who has a history of mental illness, has been charged with throwing the souvenir.
Massimo Tartaglia, 42, had no previous criminal record, police were quoted as saying.
After the attack on Sunday evening the prime minister, looking dazed, was helped to his feet by aides and put in a car. He got out and tried to climb on the car to show he was all right, before being driven away.
It was a typical show of defiance by a political fighter, says the BBC’s Duncan Kennedy in Rome.
Mr Berlusconi insisted he was well at the hospital.
‘Metal or plaster’
Mr Berlusconi had been greeting supporters in a square in Milan when the assault took place.
There are said to have been scuffles between hecklers and security staff during the rally.
At one point in his speech, Mr Berlusconi responded to his critics in Italy by declaring himself to be “good-looking” and “a decent chap”.
The Italian leader was apparently signing autographs when he was struck with the souvenir.
Video of the assault shows Mr Berlusconi suddenly grimacing in pain.
It is not clear from the footage what happened but the object appears to have been thrown at his face.
Police charged Mr Tartaglia with aggravated assault for hurling the miniature replica at Mr Berlusconi.
The replica of the cathedral, famous for its gothic spires, was initially said to be made of metal but later reports suggested it was plaster.
Under pressure
The Italian prime minister was previously assaulted in the street on New Year’s Eve 2004, when a tourist visiting Rome struck him with a camera at a rally in the capital’s Piazza Navona.
His attacker, a bricklayer from northern Italy, reportedly told police he had attacked Mr Berlusconi because he hated him. The politician suffered a bruise.
Mr Berlusconi has been under pressure in recent months.
His private life has been in the spotlight, amid allegations that he slept with prostitutes, and after his wife filed for divorce.
He has dismissed accusations of ties to the Mafia, and criminal cases against him have resumed after a law giving him immunity was overturned.
A week ago tens of thousands of people attended an anti-Berlusconi rally in Rome.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8410946.stm
Published: August 6, 2009ISTANBUL — Russia and Turkey concluded energy agreements on Thursday that will support Turkey’s drive to become a regional hub for fuel transshipments while helping Moscow maintain its monopoly on natural gas shipments from Asia to Europe.
Turkey granted the Russian natural gas giant Gazprom use of its territorial waters in the Black Sea, under which the company wants to route its so-called South Stream pipeline to gas markets in Eastern and Southern Europe.
In return, a Russian oil pipeline operator agreed to join a consortium to build a pipeline across the Anatolian Peninsula, from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and Gazprom affirmed a commitment to expand an existing Black Sea gas pipeline for possible transshipment across Turkey to Cyprus or Israel.
Energy companies in both countries agreed to a joint venture to build conventional electric power plants, and the Interfax news agency in Russia reported that Prime MinisterVladimir V. Putin offered to reopen talks on Russian assistance to Turkey in building nuclear power reactors.
The agreements were signed in Ankara, the Turkish capital, in meetings between Mr. Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who has joined Mr. Putin on several energy projects, attended the ceremony. The Italian company Eni broke ground on the trans-Anatolian oil pipeline this year.
While the offer of specific pipeline deals and nuclear cooperation represented a new tactic by Mr. Putin, the wider struggle for dominance of the Eurasian pipelines is a long-running chess match in which he has often excelled.
As he has in the past, Mr. Putin traveled to Turkey with his basket of tempting strategic and economic benefits immediately after a similar mission by his opponents. A month ago, European governments signed an agreement in Turkey to support the Western-backed Nabucco pipeline, which would compete directly with the South Stream project.
By skirting Russian territory, the Nabucco pipeline would undercut Moscow’s monopoly on European natural gas shipments and the pricing power and political clout that come with it. That may explain why Nabucco, which cannot go forward without Turkey’s support, has encountered a variety of obstacles thrown up by the Russian government, including efforts to deny it vital gas supplies in the East and a customer base in the West.
Turkey and other countries in the path of Nabucco have been eager players in this geopolitical drama, entertaining offers from both sides. Turkish authorities have even tried, without much success, to leverage the pipeline negotiations to further Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, while keeping options with Russia open, too.
“These countries are more than happy to sign agreements with both parties,” Ana Jelenkovic, an analyst at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy, said in a telephone interview from London. “There’s no political benefit to shutting out or ceasing energy relations with Russia.”
Under the deal Mr. Putin obtained Thursday, Gazprom will be allowed to proceed with seismic and environmental tests in Turkey’s exclusive economic zone, necessary preliminary steps for laying the South Stream pipe, Prime Minister Erdogan said at a news conference.
After the meeting, Mr. Putin said, “We agreed on every issue.”
The trans-Anatolian oil pipeline also marginally improves Russia’s position in the region. The pipeline is one of two so-called Bosporus bypass systems circumventing the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, which are operating at capacity in tanker traffic.
The preferred Western route is the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which allows companies to ship Caspian Basin crude oil to the West without crossing Russian territory; the pipeline instead crosses the former Soviet republic of Georgia and avoids the crowded straits by cutting across Turkey to the Mediterranean.
Russia prefers northbound pipelines out of the Caspian region that terminate at tanker terminals on the Black Sea. The success of this plan depends, in turn, on creating additional capacity in the Bosporus bypass routes. Russia is backing two such pipelines.
Mr. Putin’s offer to move ahead with a Russian-built nuclear power plant in Turkey suggests a sweetening of the overall Russian offer on energy deals with Turkey, while both Western and Russian proposals are on the table.
The nuclear aspect of the deal drew protests. About a dozen Greenpeace protesters were surrounded by at least 200 armored police officers in central Ankara on Thursday.
Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Moscow.
