ITALY

Guardian: Editor's resignation sparks strike in Italy
Corriere della Sera, Italy's most influential paper, was missing from newsstands yesterday after journalists went on strike over a change of editor that some have linked to the paper's line on the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.
The editor, Ferruccio de Bortoli, resigned last Thursday "for personal reasons", but accusations are flying that he came under fire because of the newspaper's increasingly critical articles about Mr Berlusconi's government.

Mr Berlusconi, speaking on Saturday to reporters in St Petersburg, where he was attending the Russian city's 300th anniversary celebrations, denied interfering at Corriere.

"We had no position on this, there was no intervention of any type," he said.