Berlusconi Loses Majority After Ally Asks Him to Resign

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy won a budget vote in Parliament on Tuesday but the tally showed that he no longer has the support of the majority, a huge humiliation that raised the pressure on him to resign in the face of an escalating debt crisis that has hobbled Greece, threatens Italy and could infect the rest of Europe.

Mr. Berlusconi’s coalition received 308 votes in favor of passing the bill, but 321 lawmakers did not vote — a clear sign that “Mr. Berlusconi no longer has a majority,” said Pier Luigi Bersani, the leader of the opposition Democratic Party. He also called on the prime minister to immediately hand in his resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano.

“Let the president find a solution, we will do our part,” Mr. Bersani said.

Mr. Bossi asked the prime minister to relinquish his post in favor of Angelino Alfano, the secretary of Mr. Berlusconi’s Peoples of Liberty Party.

Expressing alarm about Italy’s rapidly rising borrowing costs, a reflection of investor fears over the country’s economic future, he said: “We all know that Italy runs the real risk of not being able to access the financial markets in the next few days.”

The vote came after yields on 10-year Italian government bonds — the price demanded by investors to loan Italy money — approached 7 percent, the highest levels since the adoption of the single euro currency 10 years ago and a far cry from the 0.3 percent that Germany pays.

Mr. Berlusconi had said earlier that he would decide his political future based on the outcome of the vote, a routine verification of the 2010 budget. The vote had taken on immense political importance for the prime minister after the defection in recent days of a number of lawmakers in his party.

Still, by late afternoon, Mr. Berlusconi had given no indication what course of action he was preparing to take.

The prime minister had reiterated repeatedly in recent days that the coalition must stick together to pass a series of austerity measures that will placate the financial markets that have targeted Italy’s financial vulnerabilities, just as they have done in Greece, the euro zone’s other crisis-ridden member. No less than the future of the euro and Europe is at risk, Mr. Berlusconi has said, playing on a national sense of responsibility to rein in his detractors.

But critics countered that Mr. Berlusconi was among the chief reasons for the financial attacks on Italy. The scandal-plagued prime minister, who is on trial for corruption, tax fraud and paying for sex with a minor, has worn away what had been left of his international credibility, they say. And after months of parliamentary deadlock, Mr. Berlusconi has shown that he does not have the political backing to push through the measures that are required of Italy to remedy its financial ills.

Italy has been under the watchful eye of its European counterparts and international organizations since the summer, when the government pushed through two sets of austerity measures that financial markets nonetheless deemed insufficient to bolster the country’s economy and make a dent in its huge public debt of 1.9 trillion euros. At 120 percent of gross domestic product, Italy’s debt level is second only to Greece’s in the euro zone.

Last month, Mr. Berlusconi pledged to the European Union that he would approve a new round of restructuring, including the privatization of state assets, liberalizations of the labor market and a modest pension change, but his promises did little to quell market anxieties.

Even the decision taken at the Group of 20 Summit last week to allow the International Monetary Fund to monitor Italy’s implementation of the pledged reforms did little to bolster investor confidence.

Opposition parties had said they would abstain from the vote on the budget, which meant that Mr. Berlusconi did not need to reach an absolute majority to pass the measure. But even so, the numbers were closely watched to see whether Mr. Berlusconi could muster a healthy majority that would ensure at least a measure of stability in the short run.

President Giorgio Napolitano, who is constitutionally required to manage a political crisis, has a number of options open to him.

Mr. Berlusconi and his coalition allies are pressing for new elections, though recent polls indicate that they would not win the numbers to return to power.

Some opposition leaders, numerically empowered by the poll predictions, are also tempted by a return to the polls 18 months ahead of the scheduled end of the legislature.

But neither the current majority or any of the opposition parties are likely to garner a solid majority on their own, and it is probable that a multiparty coalition with conflicting vested interests would not have the political cohesion necessary to pass unpopular measures.

Another option is to appoint a technocrat — Mario Monti, a former European commissioner, is commonly mentioned — as head of the government for a fixed period of time that would allow for reforms to be enacted.

Despite the crisis, it remains to be seen whether a government led by someone like Mr. Monti would actually come up with the unity to govern.

The country’s political crisis has been exacerbated by coalition partners in both the majority and the opposition that are openly hostile to Europe, remaining “at the margin of the European political network,” and making it more difficult to push through reforms demanded by Europe, said Sergio Fabbrini, director of the School of Government at Luiss University in Rome. In this situation, a changeover in government is unlikely to make much of a difference, he said.

Europe Seeks Chinese

A day after European leaders unveiled their latest plan to save the euro, top officials opened talks with China in an effort to lure tens of billions of dollars in additional cash, giving China perhaps its biggest opportunity yet to exercise financial clout in the Western world. A senior Chinese official, Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao, said China — like the rest of the world — was still waiting for the Europeans to deliver crucial details on how the rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, would operate and be profitable before deciding on whether to participate.

“This would be a tectonic shift,” said Pieter P. Bottelier, an expert on China who teaches at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. “It would be so important economically and politically.”

Arvind Subramanian, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said Europe’s appeal was another sign that China is already a dominant global power.

The fear is that a failure to contain the crisis would lead to contagion in global financial markets on par with the Lehman Brothers debacle, and deliver a blow not only to the economies of Europe, but also to the United States and other major trading partners.

Such a deterioration would certainly be bad news for China, which could hardly afford to see two of its biggest markets hobbled at the same time.

Talley Prepares Museum Exhibition

“Walls are being painted, all of the dresses are basically in place,” said André Leon Talley, on the phone from the Savannah College of Art and Design, where he was putting the finishing touches on the first exhibition in the André Leon Talley Gallery in the school’s new museum of art. The gallery will be one of the central features of the museum, which is reopening on Saturday within the ruins of a 19th-century Greek Revival building that was once home to the Central of Georgia Railway.

Mr. Talley, a longtime contributing editor of Vogue and a board member at the college, has recruited major designers like Miuccia Prada, Tom Ford and Manolo Blahnik to appear at the college over the years, and now he is helping to build a costume collection that will include many of his own archives and donations from friends. The first exhibition will focus on iconic designs by past recipients of the ALT Lifetime Achievement awards, which SCAD presents at a fashion show for its graduating class each year.

Oscar de la Renta sent long slim black gown that was worn by Penélope Cruz at a Costume Institute gala. Diane Von Furstenberg provided a black sequined wrap dress. There is a coat trimmed with plastic fringe and feathers from the fall 2007 Prada collection, and Mr. Ford’s evening column trimmed with natural string from his first signature women’s show. From Mr. Blahnik, he chose those blue satin shoes from the “Sex and the City” film.

“People love fashion exhibits because they can fantasize,” Mr. Talley said. “They can respond to a dress even if they can never wear a dress like that.”

Mr. Talley is becoming something of an expert in museums. With Mr. de la Renta, he is also preparing an exhibition of paintings by the Spanish artist Joaquín Sorolla, called “Joaquín Sorolla and the Glory of Spanish Dress,” that will open at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute in Manhattan in December.

The SCAD museum’s expansion, part of a $26 million project, also includes exhibition space for a range of contemporary artists. Mr. Talley’s gallery is sandwiched between works by Bill Viola and Kehinde Wiley. Naturally, he wanted his to stand out and added a video display that shows Mr. Blahnik making milkshakes on “The Martha Stewart Show.” Mr. Talley said he will have music from “2001: A Space Odyssey” playing in the background.

“The only thing I haven’t thrust upon them yet is that I want fragrance wafting through the ventilation system,” he said. “Either Oscar de la Renta’s Live in Love, or Diane Von Furstenberg’s Diane.”

Paula Wallace, the president and a founder of the college, later said that Mr. Talley could do anything he wants. “He has not mentioned that to me, but if André wants it, he gets it,” she said. “The multisensory concept is so important. We learn, we feel, we think, we smell. Actually, I think it’s a grand idea.”

Life as a Runway: African Style Glows in Brooklyn

A salvaged shipping container may seem an unpromising showcase for cutting-edge style. But not to Hekima Hapa, who set up shop in one of the rectangular spaces scattered throughout the Dekalb Market in Brooklyn on Saturday.

She deftly exploited her cramped quarters as an intimate backdrop for her African-themed, Brooklyn-sewn designs. Ms. Hapa and her retail partner, Alicia Piller, a jewelry designer, were participating in the Afrika21 Mixtape Project, part of the market conceived as a platform for emerging African artists of every stripe.

“All things African are high trend right now,” Ms. Hapa maintained. At one time, people who picked up African objects on their travels treated them as collectibles, she said. “They didn’t wear them. But they’re wearing them now.”

Her vibrant fashions were a hit with visitors strolling this sprawling parking-lot bazaar at Flatbush Avenue and Willoughby Street. Some, like Nomsa Mazwai, a South African pop star, festooned themselves in Ms. Piller’s jewelry. Delphine Fawundu piled tribal bangles atop colorful leg warmers she had repurposed as elbow-length gloves. Izetta Henderson, a fashion buyer and designer, said it was refreshing to see so much enterprise in the shadow of Forest City, the monolithic apartment towers. “This,” she said of the thrumming market, “is what Brooklyn used to be about.”

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Naughty Necklace

RISING hemlines get all the attention, but what about necklines? They’re one of the few things on the rise lately, reaching a recent high — on shirts buttoned all the way to the chin — on spring 2012 runways at Jason Wu, Céline and Dior. It makes a kind of sense, then, as the eye moves north of the collarbone, that chokers, those much maligned neckpieces synonymous with the 1990s, would stage a comeback.

These are not Victorian-style velvet ribbons adorned with cameos or hearts, but clean metal bands, tougher and more graphic. At Lanvin and Rag & Bone, many spring 2012 looks were accessorized with severe bands, tight to the neck. And just as with those buttoned-up collars, chokers confer a naughty/nice suggestiveness. Early proponents include anything-but-uptight dressers like Lauren Santo Domingo, Margherita Missoni and Taylor Tomasi Hill.

Zanna Roberts Rassi, the senior fashion editor of Marie Claire, has been wearing a minimalist metal choker — a half-inch silver band by Robert Lee Morris — day and night. By day, she wears it with a long skinny chain, a T-shirt and leather pants; by night, with off-the-shoulder sequins, her hair scruffily pinned up. “Earrings drag my face down, but a choker seems to frame it,” Ms. Rassi explained. “There is something elegant and a little sexy at the same time. It make you hold your head up high!”

Europe’s Deal Brings Cheer to Markets

World financial markets powered higher on Thursday in giddy hope that Europe’s plan to solve its sovereign debt crisis would finally lift the uncertainty over the global economy and markets. In the United States, a sharp jump in stocks continued what has become the biggest monthly rally in 47 years.

But even as stock markets from Paris to New York joined in the euphoria, some bond and credit market rates, especially in Italy, barely flinched. That suggests doubts that the agreement will be a long-term fix for Europe’s mountainous debt problem or the pressing challenge of restoring growth to the continent’s moribund economies.

“Clearly, there is a massive celebration going on, but there are lots of worries, too,” said Jens Nordvig, an analyst with Nomura Securities in New York, who said it was still not clear where the billions of euros in new money pledged by European leaders after overnight negotiations in Brussels were going to come from. “Not one new euro has been committed,” he said. “Not one.”

The same sort of lift was seen after the last grand European summit meeting in July. But stocks fell and the interest rates on European debt and the insurance against default on those bonds spiked in the following weeks, as Europe’s economies slowed and it soon became evident that the plan was not going to be enough.

After the July 21 deal, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index in the United States fell below 1,300 after about a week and eventually sank to its lowest level for the year.

Since Oct. 3, however, the S.& P. has been on the rebound on expectations of a European deal and slightly better economic conditions in the United States and China. On Thursday, the broad market index jumped 3.4 percent, moving back into positive territory for 2011. Financial stocks were up more than 6 percent. If stocks do not lose any ground again this month, the S.&P. 500 is on track for the biggest monthly rally since 1974.

In Europe, stock markets in France and Germany soared, by 5.4 percent in Germany and 6.3 percent in France. The stocks of European banks, which the crisis has threatened to overwhelm, bounced back by as much as 23 percent.

Some analysts and investors said they feared another set-back could happen again and that the markets would remain volatile.

“You still have these great problems with the global economy,” said Richard Cookson, global chief investment officer of Citi Private Bank in London. “Growth is going to fall, and I don’t think we have seen the European crisis solved. And if it is not solved, it will get worse, because these things do not stand still.”

Jonathan Loynes, an economist with Capital Economics, wrote in a research note: “Over all, then, while the plans represent a step forward, we suspect that they will soon be viewed in the same way as every other policy response during this crisis — as too little, too late.”

Mr. Loynes wrote that he still expected a “prolonged recession in the euro zone” and further market turbulence, and he continued to have doubts about the future of the euro itself “in its current form.”

Just a few weeks ago, stocks were dropping precipitously as the United States seemed headed toward a double-dip recession and Greece, and potentially other weakened European countries, appeared headed for default. But since then, stocks have risen as economic data suggest that the United States has fended off the immediate threat of a recession and that China appeared to be preparing for a soft economic landing as its economy slows. Stocks have also been helped by stronger than expected corporate earnings in the current reporting season.

There are still questions about whether the pickup in United States growth can be maintained, although gross domestic product figures released Thursday showed 2.5 percent annualized growth in the third quarter, the strongest showing in a year, boosting the stock market rally.

And now Europe has a three-pronged agreement to force private investors to write off half of the value of the Greek bonds they own, force European banks to raise about 106 billion euros ($150 billion) in new capital, and create on the face of it a much more powerful bailout fund to stop crises spreading to nations like Italy.

Slapping at Syria, Turkey Shelters Anti-Assad Fighters

ANTAKYA, Turkey — Once one of Syria’s closest allies, Turkey is hosting an armed opposition group waging an insurgency against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, providing shelter to the commander and dozens of members of the group, the Free Syrian Army, and allowing them to orchestrate attacks across the border from inside a camp guarded by the Turkish military.

The support for the insurgents comes amid a broader Turkish campaign to undermine Mr. Assad’s government. Turkey is expected to impose sanctions soon on Syria, and it has deepened its support for an umbrella political opposition group known as the Syrian National Council, which announced its formation in Istanbul. But its harboring of leaders in the Free Syrian Army, a militia composed of defectors from the Syrian armed forces, may be its most striking challenge so far to Damascus.

On Wednesday, the group, living in a heavily guarded refugee camp in Turkey, claimed responsibility for killing nine Syrian soldiers, including one uniformed officer, in an attack in restive central Syria.

Turkish officials describe their relationship with the group’s commander, Col. Riad al-As’aad, and the 60 to 70 members living in the “officers’ camp” as purely humanitarian. Turkey’s primary concern, the officials said, is for the physical safety of defectors. When asked specifically about allowing the group to organize military operations while under the protection of Turkey, a Foreign Ministry official said that their only concern was humanitarian protection and that they could not stop them from expressing their views.

“At the time all of these people escaped from Syria, we did not know who was who, it was not written on their heads ‘I am a soldier’ or ‘I am an opposition member,’ ” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on the condition of anonymity in keeping with diplomatic protocol. “We are providing these people with temporary residence on humanitarian grounds, and that will continue.”

At the moment, the group is too small to pose any real challenge to Mr. Assad’s government. But its Turkish support underlines how combustible, and resilient, Syria’s uprising has proven. The country sits at the intersection of influences in the region — with Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Israel — and Turkey’s involvement will be closely watched by Syria’s friends and foes.

“We will fight the regime until it falls and build a new period of stability and safety in Syria,” Colonel As’aad said in an interview arranged by the Turkish Foreign Ministry and conducted in the presence of a Foreign Ministry official. “We are the leaders of the Syrian people and we stand with the Syrian people.”

The interview was held in the office of a local government official, and Colonel As’aad arrived protected by a contingent of 10 heavily armed Turkish soldiers, including one sniper.

The colonel wore a business suit that an official with the Turkish Foreign Ministry said he purchased for him that morning. At the end of the meeting, citing security concerns, the colonel and a ministry official advised that all further contact with his group be channeled through the ministry.

Turkey once viewed its warm ties with Syria as its greatest foreign policy accomplishment, but relations have collapsed over the eight months of antigovernment protests there and a brutal crackdown that the United Nations says has killed more than 3,000 people.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey was personally offended by Mr. Assad’s repeated failure to abide by his assurances that he would undertake sweeping reform. Turkish officials predict that the Assad government may collapse within the next two years.

“This pushes Turkish policy further towards active intervention in Syria,” said Hugh Pope, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. He called Turkey’s apparent relationship with the Free Syrian Army “completely new territory.”

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