Four-time Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Sunday the Crimean people had made a democratic choice to split from Ukraine and hailed Russian President Vladimir Putin as the world's greatest political leader.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi goes into elections this weekend hoping nascent signs of economic recovery after years of recession will outweigh a corruption scandal that has dogged one of the main candidates of his centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
Italy's 89-year-old President Giorgio Napolitano said on Wednesday that he would step down soon because of his age, leaving Prime Minister Matteo Renzi facing a delicate political challenge to replace him.
The constitutional court of Italy shut down the harsh drug law that classifies marijuana and cannabis at par with heroin and cocaine, and said the law was unconstitutional.
