‘Papi’ or Daddy was starlets and showgirls’ codename for Silvio Berlusconi

July 23rd, 2009 LONDON - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has laughed off juicy allegations surrounding his private life by simply saying "I am no saint". The business tycoon's comments follow the release of audiotapes on the net, which purportedly reveal conversations between him and a prostitute, reports The Telegraph.

July 19th, 2009 LONDON - Silvio Berlusconi's "scandals-filled" nightmare refuses to end. A former actress from Naples has given out details of a New Year's Eve party which was apparently held at the Italian Prime Minister's Sardinian villa, and featured 50 young women including naked lesbians.

July 1st, 2009 ROME - Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano has appealed to the politicians and media to observe a truce to ensure a smooth G8 summit. "It would be good, from here to the G8, given the delicacy of this huge international event, to have a truce in these controversies," The Telegraph quoted Napolitano, as saying.

June 15th, 2009 ROME - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said that subversives are planning a palace coup of sorts to impose an un-elected leader on the country. Addressing a business lobby group, Berlusconi said: "There is a campaign of scandals against me.

June 5th, 2009 LONDON - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's long and profitable friendship with medial mogul Rupert Murdoch is apparently over, as he has accused the latter of ordering negative stories about him. "I don't want to be nasty, but the episode of VAT on Sky created a rift with Sky and Murdoch which has been followed by a series of highly critical articles about me," the Independent quoted Berlusconi as saying on one of the three private television channels he owns through his company Mediaset.

May 28th, 2009 LONDON - The scandal surrounding Silvio Berlusconi's friendship with an 18-year-old aspiring model has started a new guessing game in Italy over its authenticity. His wife, however, is not happy with the news and has, infact, announced intentions of divorcing him in a newspaper.

May 22nd, 2009 LONDON - Emma Marcegaglia, the head of Italy's industrialists, was not pleased when prime minister Silvio Berlusconi joked that she was like a "showgirl". In his address to the annual meeting of Confindustra, Italy's elite industrialist grouping, Berlusconi jokingly used the word "velina" to refer to Marcegaglia, a term used in Italian television to denote a showgirl, reports The Scotsman.

May 14th, 2009 LONDON - A very public divorce and allegations of being an aspiring teenage model's "Papi" have put a dent in Silvio Berlusconi's popularity ratings, says a new poll. Italian Prime Minister's ratings have slipped by three points to 53 per cent nearly two weeks after his second wife, Veronica Lario, demanded a divorce over his relationships with starlets and with Noemi Letizia, to whom he gave a 5,400-poun pendant for her 18th birthday, reports The Times.

May 10th, 2009 LONDON - The teenage lingerie model who appears to have brought Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to the brink of divorce, says the controversial Italian leader wants her to be an MP. 'Papi [Daddy] Silvio will fix it,' Noemi Letizia was quoted as saying in an interview with the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica.

May 10th, 2009 LONDON - Noemi Letizia, the 18-year-old accused of being at the heart of Silvio Berlusconi's divorce, has claimed that the Italian prime minister will launch her into a career in politics. Letizia, who affectionately calls Berlusconi "Papi", came under media glare after Veronica Lario, the Italian leader's wife, announced their divorce with the words, "I cannot be with a man who spends time with under-age women".

May 7th, 2009 LONDON - Gaff-prone Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is once again in the news for making suggestive remarks to a female councillor while touring an earthquake-hit region. Lia Giovanzzi Beltrami, 41, has confirmed that the 72-year-old premier made the remark in the Abruzzo region.

May 6th, 2009 NEW YORK - Rumours are abuzz that the 18-year-old girl at the center of the storm surrounding Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is his daughter. As per sources, Noemi Letizia calls the Italian leader 'Papi' or 'Daddy', reports the New York Post.

May 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - After calling himself the Jesus Christ of Italian politics, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi boasted yesterday that he's the world's most popular leader. The 72-year-old said opinion poll findings in his possession showed his popularity at just over 75 per cent, making him far more popular than the American president, Barack Obama, or any other head of government.

April 30th, 2009 LONDON - Silvio Berlusconi's wife seems to have won the battle against Italian prime minister's eye for attractive young women. His party has decided not to promote the four starlets Berlusconi recommended as candidates for the European Parliament.

April 21st, 2009 LONDON - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and one of his female ministers, whom he once said he would like to marry, have been painted nude by an artist. Two years ago, in an interview to a TV channel, Berlusconi had told Equality Minister Mara Carfagna that he would marry her like a shot if he wasn't married already.