Paris
Adieu, Depardieu: French actor Gérard Depardieu has set off a firestorm after moving just across the border to Belgium in a huff, to escape France’s recent large tax hike. In a scathing open letter to the French government, the acclaimed actor, a member of the French Legion of Honor, said he had paid $190 million in income taxes over 45 years and could not tolerate the new top rate of 75 percent. He charged the new Socialist government with believing that “success, creation, talent—difference, in fact—must be punished,” and said he was considering renouncing his French citizenship. Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called the actor’s departure unpatriotic and “pathetic.” Labor Minister Michel Sapin said he was exhibiting a “form of personal degeneration.”
Rome
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Berlusconi in love: Silvio Berlusconi, 76, announced on a Sunday talk show that he was in love with his new girlfriend, Francesca Pascale, 28, whom he called “beautiful inside and even more beautiful on the outside.” Because of a mistranslation, reports went out that he had announced their engagement, but the former Italian prime minister hasn’t yet gone that far. His divorce from his second wife, who left him because of his blatant philandering, is not yet final. Pascale is one of many young women with few qualifications who were given political jobs in Berlusconi’s party. She started a “Silvio, We Miss You” fan club after he left office in disgrace last year, accused of having sex with an underage prostitute.
Kiev, Ukraine
Brawl in parliament: Ukrainian lawmakers slugged away at each other last week during the first two days of the opening session of the newly elected parliament. After opposition lawmakers rushed the podium during the vote to elect a speaker, shoving quickly morphed into punching, elbowing, and at least one headlock. Opposition leader Vitali Klitschko, a heavyweight boxing champion who heads the UDAR (Punch) party, sat out the fight. “The fists of a world champion are considered nuclear weapons,” Klitschko said. “We will not use these weapons for now.” Volodymyr Rybak, of President Viktor Yanukovych’s pro-Russian ruling party, was eventually elected as speaker. Ukraine is deeply divided between pro-Russian and pro-Western factions.
