Fri, Feb 10 2012

Berlusconi serves up Pavlova ‘joke’

Mon, Jun 22 2009 15:17 CET

byClive Leviev-Sawyer

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Berlusconi serves up Pavlova ‘joke’

Darina Pavlova, photographed in 2001.

Photo: Nadezhda Chipeva

Berlusconi serves up Pavlova ‘joke’

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, with a just a few words, gave a group of male politicians a laugh, gave YouTube another clip, and Italian newspaper La Repubblica another stick to beat him.
 
At a summit of European leaders, Berlusconi – unaware that what reportedly was a Sky News camera was trained on them – entertained a group of male politicians, among them Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, with a few thoughts arising from reports that he had a relationship with Darina Pavlova, widow of Iliya Pavlov, the Bulgarian tycoon who was shot dead by a sniper in March 2003.
 
Asking a bystander to jog his memory about Pavlova’s name, Berlusconi referred to the Italian press – La Repubblica has been in the lead with allegations about Berlusconi’s supposed relationships with teenage girls – and laughed, "she is (sic) has a fantastic daughter".
 
He adds: "my interests for the under-age – you know!" to laughter from the group which in the YouTube clip is seen to include Stanishev, Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini and Latvian prime minister Valdis Dombrovskis.
 
On June 21 2009, Bulgarian mass-circulation daily Trud said that Stanishev had declined to comment on the incident, saying that the matter was "unserious". Trud quoted sources as saying that the conversation had included the topic of the campaign against Berlusconi in some quarters of the Italian media.

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