Strong presence of women expected in Prodi cabinet

[WhiteTara]

everywhere around the world change is taking place, except in provencial Amurka

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2006/April/theworld_April586.xml§ion=theworld&col=
ROME - Italy’s new government under center-left leader Romano Prodi is expected to include a sizable contingent of women ministers, in contrast to the male-dominated political world of his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi.

Prodi has promised that “at least” one in three members of his administration of about two dozen ministers will be women, a large improvement on the two women in Berlusconi’s government.

“There will surely be a strong presence of women” in the Prodi government, said Rina Gagliardi of the Refoundation Communists party, who won a seat in the Senate in last week’s elections. “And that will be a lovely thing.”
snip
It will be a sea change for Italy, which ranked 45th of 58 countries in a 2005 study on the gender gap by the World Economic Forum. It ranks 22nd in the 25-member European Union for the proportion of women in parliament.

More than 1,500 women vied for the 630 seats at stake in the lower house Chamber of Deputies in last week’s election, compared with 4,769 men, according to the Italian feminist association Arcidonna.

[saltpoint]

1. More women, fewer Berlusconi fascists -- sounds great to me!

[caligirl]

2. So Berlusconi's planning to vacate the office? He didn't seem to

think he had to.

[Kutjara]

3. I think there must be a lot of Italian judges...

...searching the statute books, trying to find the chapter headed "What To Do If The Leader Won't Leave." Hopefully, the drafters of the Italian constitution considered this possibility.

[MADem]

4. The baaastid refuses to leave!

Mr Berlusconi and his staff still occupy the Palazzo Chigi, the prime minister's palace in central Rome, one week after the election that gave Mr Prodi and the opposition the narrowest victory in Italy's modern history.

The deadlock is unsettling financial markets, with the yield spread between Italian and German 10-year bonds rising last week to 0.32 percentage points, its highest level in more than four years.

Mr Berlusconi has adopted a two-track approach to his defeat, arguing firstly that it was the result of fraud, and secondly that the election was so close that the centre-right and centre-left should work together on Italy's most pressing problems and even form a temporary coalition government.

...But in a letter published in Saturday's Corriere della Sera, Italy's leading newspaper, Mr Berlusconi wrote: "Nothing has changed, regardless of how the official recount ends and whoever gains the majority in the lower house of parliament. We are faced with a stalemate in which, at least on the basis of the popular vote, there are no winners or losers."
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=FT&Date=20060416&ID=5644715

[donsu]

5. Prodi is a smart man, he values women

nt