Silvio Berlusconi chats up earthquake doctor

Only a few days after he suggested that the displaced victims of the Italian earthquake, forced to live in temporary tent cities, should treat their situation as a "camping weekend", Silvio Berlusconi is at it again. This time he's been caught chatting up a doctor and a victim of the quake.

The Italian Prime Minister approached one of the doctors working in the disaster zone to say: "I wouldn't mind being resuscitated by you". He then told a victim of the quake, who was recovering in hospital, to get better soon "so I can ask you to dance with me".
 
However, while the Italian press has berated their leader for similar quips in the past, Fabiola Carrieri, the doctor targeted by Berlusconi, has said that he was merely being "gallant" and that he had not offended her in any way. He was trying to "take the drama out of the situation," said Carrieri, "trying to raise a smile in the middle of all the sorrow we have all around us".
 
Previous compliments dished out by Berlusconi have not always gone down so well. In 2007 the septuagenarian premier was forced to make a public apology to his wife after admitting that he fantasised about marrying the beautiful Mara 'La Bella' Carfagna, a former Miss Italy contestant who later became the country's Equality Minister.

And last year he was caught passing a flirtatious note to two female members of parliament, Nunzia De Girolamo and Gabriella Giammanco, which he signed off: "Many kisses both of you!!! Your Prime Minister."
 ·