MAINZ, Germany – Where did Germany's fairytale princesses go? Well, royals actually stopped playing a political and social role in Germany back in 1918, when the country's last emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, stepped down.

But, it certainly did not put an end to the Germans' strong interest in all things noble. More than 10 million people in Germany alone are expected to tune into one of the six German channels that will carry the British royal wedding live on April 29.

And some Germans will even make the trip across the channel to pay tribute to the newlyweds in London.

For a group of German aficionados of British culture and history, six men, who call themselves "Friends of British Royalty Germany Section," the upcoming royal wedding is truly special.
 
"We have been practicing a barber shop song for weeks, which we intend to perform in the streets of London on our upcoming trip to the British capital. This will be the highlight of the year for us," says 50-year old Bernhard Zanders, who heads the so-called “gentlemen's club.” 

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"You are the flower of my heart, sweet Catherine" is the main line of their altered version of an old tune called "Sweet Adeline," which these die-hard fans of the British monarchy have been re-writing and rehearsing for weeks.

On the wedding day, the German travel group plans to perform the four-voice serenade and a little lullaby after the ceremony, under a window of the building, where William and Kate are believed to be spending their wedding night.

Windsors are German
To get into the mood for their journey, Zanders and his friends held a special birthday party for the queen last Wednesday – an evening ceremony in which they played the British national anthem and raised the union jack flag.

“A rite that actually required the consent of the British consulate because it is considered an official state act,” Zanders explained, who has been meeting with his group every two weeks for the past 15 years.

But why the Windsors and not King Gustav of Sweden or King Juan Carlos of Spain?

"The Windsors have a truly German background," said Zanders, "which has always made me feel a special European connection to the British monarchy.”

As a matter of fact, Britain's Windsors are descended from German stock.
 
The royal family's bloodline reaches back to the German ducal house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. In the old days, the "Coburgs" were closely related to many European princely families and furnished the sovereigns of several royal dynasties in Europe, including Belgium, Portugal and Great Britain.

Eventually, Britain's royal family managed to shake off their German roots, but some of their German family members are still part of Europe's glamorous present-day aristocracy. Like Prince Ernst August V, the third husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco, and also the head of the deposed royal House of Hanover. He is the great-grandson of the last German emperor, Wilhelm II. He was 385th in the line of succession to the British throne – until he married Princess Caroline, according to Wikipedia.

Love for royalty
Short of German kings or queens to go crazy for, people in Germany simply look beyond the borders to European countries which still have active royal households – like Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, or yes, the mother-of-all-monarchies: England.

Republicanism and democratic systems are nice, but many Germans will tell you stylish princesses, golden wedding carriages and all the other glamour that surrounds these royal dynasties are sometimes even better.

"The love for anything royal reflects the yearning for an ideal world, it is a modern-day fairy tale for many people," says Norbert Loh, a royal expert at "die aktuelle" tabloid magazine in Munich, who has been reporting on European royals for more than 30 years.

While Loh admits that the majority of his readers are above age 50, he also says that the broad media coverage of royal celebrities makes today's monarchies no less popular among the younger generation.

"I get many, many letters from teenagers who read my 'royal moment' column. For them, especially the young royals, like Prince William and Prince Harry, are real pop stars," said Loh, who will be acting as a royal expert during German television ZDF's six-hour coverage of the royal wedding on April 29.

For all things Royal Wedding, see msnbc.com's Windsor Knot blog

By F. Brinley Bruton, msnbc.com

LONDON – Are you dreading the royal wedding?

If so, you’re not alone – plenty of people won’t be wrapping themselves in the Union Jack to celebrate the marriage of Catherine Middleton to Great Britain's second-in-line to the throne Prince William next week.

Richie Turnbull, a musician and house-painter from Scotland, has invited friends and friends of friends to collectively thumb their noses at the royal family during a special gig in East London on April 29.

"Instead of sitting around and complaining, we're going to celebrate being anti-monarchy," said the 51-year-old from Scotland, which, he said, was "conquered, raped and pillaged by the English."

"The party is for fun, for people to have a laugh," he said.

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The signs for the party have a picture of the happy couple with the words emblazoned on the top: "Not Wanted, Dead or Alive." Attendees will listen to electronica and are encouraged to wear costumes.

Quite a contrast to the thousands of block parties around the country where people will eat frothy cake, play soccer and compete in crown and tiara competitions, all the while watching the big event live on TV.

Turnbull isn't the only one to want to try and have a bit of fun at the royals' expense. A song entitled "Dreading the Wedding" by The Headlines making the rounds on the Internet starts off with:

"I'm dreading the wedding
I don’t know what to do
I think I'll leave the country
Or take up sniffing glue."

Sounds of vomiting and pictures of "B-list celebrities" accompany the cheery, if somewhat risque jig.

Others have a more serious take on the nuptials, however.

"There is this idea that they are a benign institution, that it is just a bunch of people in a big house," said Graham Smith of the anti-monarchist organization Republic. "It is actually a political institution."

Republic contends the monarchy is unaccountable to the population, expensive and, thanks to the lack of a written constitution, allows politicians too much power.

To add insult to injury, the royal wedding also embraces unsavory monarchs from around the world.

"The king (of Bahrain), who has reportedly received a personal invitation to the wedding from the queen, has violently crushed the pro-democracy movement in his country," Smith wrote in a recent article in The Guardian.

Smith contends that most Britons are at best indifferent to the royal nuptials, although the jury is out on that. According to a recent poll by Ipsos MORI, three-quarters of subjects support the monarchy, compared to 18 percent who would like the country to be a republic.

Talk of despots and democracy aside, Republic will try to get in on the fun in its own way by holding its own street party in central London on the day of the wedding. There'll be stalls selling merchandise – including "I'm not a royal wedding mug" mugs. People will be able to sign a card for the happy couple that says, essentially, "Good luck with your married life but don't assume you will be King or Queen."

"We're doing something quite fun, actually celebrating republicanism in a positive way," he said. And the anti-monarchist organization has good reason to celebrate – membership has jumped by half to 14,000 since William and Kate announced their engagement in November.

A few have found themselves cashing in on the wedding inadvertently.

Artist Lydia Leith, 24, designed the Royal Wedding "sick bag" in time for Valentine's Day. She's sold about 8,000, each personally signed, to people in countries as far away as Lithuania, Japan and Brazil.

"Before this happened I was quite poor," she said. "Now I've made quite a lot of money, hopefully enough to set up a business."

But Leith is adamant that she isn't anti-royal and is just "having a bit of fun."

"I made it to entertain myself and never thought it would get this popular," she said.

A bit like the main event itself, then?

Related links:

Kate who? Chinese factories cash in on the royal wedding

For all things Royal Wedding-related, read msnbc.com's Windsor Knot blog.

Surgeon Ahmed Radwan was finishing an operation in a Libyan city under siege by Gadhafi forces on Wednesday when he got the call: A man with massive bleeding needed his help.

The patient was Guy Martin, a British photographer affiliated with the Panos photo agency. He had been hit by shrapnel and had two main injuries: one to his bowel and major trauma to the arteries and veins in his pelvis. The surgery at the private hospital lasted six hours, said Radwan, a 35-year-old vascular surgeon from Cairo who is volunteering with the Arab Medical Union.

"The major vessels of the left (lower) limb usually come from the pelvis and go through the limb – those were totally cut. We ligated some of them to control the bleeding, because he was bleeding too much," he said in a Skype interview with msnbc.com. "We just reconstructed the major and the important ones with (synthetic) grafts."

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"The bleeding was controlled," he said, noting that Martin was in the intensive care unit. "He's doing fine. He's going to make it, inshallah."

Martin can be evacuated, but he is not fit for a long trip, Radwan said. "He cannot stay in a car for a long time ... he will suffer a lot of pain. Still he needs fluids and IV lines to be connected to him," the surgeon said.

Martin was with British-born Tim Hetherington, the Oscar-nominated co-director of the documentary "Restrepo" about U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan; Chris Hondros, a New York-based photographer for Getty Images; and American photographer Michael Christopher Brown on Wednesday when they were caught in an explosion. Hetherington and Hondros died from their injuries.

The Washington Post reported that the group had gone with rebel fighters to Tripoli Street in the center of Misrata, scene of the some of the most intense recent fighting in the city. Many circumstances of the incident were unclear, The Associated Press reported. A statement from Hetherington's family said he was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Radwan said he also saw – but did not treat – Brown.

"His function is good. ... I saw him visiting Guy. He was talking to him, checking on him to see that he was OK," Radwan said. "I didn't get a chance to talk to him a lot. ... He was not feeling good because of (what happened to) his friends."

The coastal city of Misrata lies on a road linking the capital, Tripoli, a Gadhafi stronghold, to the key oil town of Sirte in the east. It has been difficult for Western journalists to access the city because of weeks of heavy fighting.

Libyan-American describes harrowing escape from Misrata

No one can say how many people have been killed as Gadhafi’s forces have moved against the city. Medical facilities have tallied 257 people killed and 949 wounded – including 22 women and eight children – since Feb. 19, Human Rights Watch reported last week.

Misrata's opposition media committee reported late Thursday that Tripoli Street had been taken by the rebel fighters, a key breakthrough in ridding the area of Gadhafi snipers. A spokesman reported five deaths and 27 injuries, though it was not clear if those were of opposition fighters or Gadhafi forces.

"There are a lot of losses," said Radwan, who has been in Misrata for 15 days. "The price of this achievement is a lot of dead bodies, and a lot of blood."

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In a devastating blow to journalism, award-winning photojournalists Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros were killed while covering a battle between rebels and Libyan government forces in the city of Misrata on Wednesday.

Richard Engel, NBC News chief foreign correspondent, has spent over a decade reporting from war zones across the Middle East, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, and most recently on the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. 
 
In a phone interview while driving back into Libya from Egypt after a brief break, he discussed the tragic deaths of Hetherington and Hondros and why war reporters do what they do.

When something like the deaths of these two photojournalists happen, people always ask why do war reporters do it? What motivates them to risk their lives to tell the story?
Engel: I think Tim and Chris were doing this because they clearly loved it. They were in a position to experience world events first-hand and to make a difference. Their work portrayed war in a close-up fashion that showed the world what conflict is really like, what it’s like for the victims and what it’s like for the soldiers.

I think that unique experience and perspective compelled them to do what they did. And it inspires all of us to do it. And in this community of reporters, their loss is very deeply felt. There is a palpable feeling of loss among their colleagues today. 

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Did you ever work with either of them?
Engel: Tim was one of the co-directors of the documentary “Restrepo.” He and Sebastian Junger spent a lot of time in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. Coincidentally it was the same outpost that we made a documentary about it called “Tip of the Spear.” So I know what they went through because we also spent a great deal of time at the same outpost called Restrepo.

It was an incredibly dangerous place with very poor conditions – hiking for hours a day up and down mountain sides. To do this kind of work it takes tremendous dedication, tremendous willingness to put yourself at risk and tremendous physical stamina. Tim was 41 years old, but he was running up and down mountains alongside U.S. troops  who are on average 22, 23, 24 years old.

I unfortunately never had the pleasure of knowing Tim, but I know his work and was envious of the incredible material he got. We were at the same place, but he got so many pictures that I wish I had gotten myself.

Chris was definitely a part of the community of reporters;  everybody knew him. There is a very small group of war correspondents – people who you consistently see. In Baghdad, in South Lebanon, in Afghanistan, in Libya now – there are maybe a couple of hundred people – and that includes Europeans, Americans – that’s it.

Our community has taken an incredibly hard blow since 9/11. Every few months it seems, or certainly every year – but it seems now more like several times a year – we lose somebody. And that is difficult. Some new people join, but I’ve been covering the Middle East for 15 years and I can’t remember another period where every few months it seems like we lose another colleague. 

Iraq was terrible, Afghanistan has been terrible and Libya has been very rough on reporters.

Chris was one of the guys you saw everywhere. He knew everyone. We’d go out to the same restaurants and often hang out together in the same hotels. So there is a definite bond. While soldiers talk about a bond that develops in a platoon,  among this small group of reporters there is also the same kind of solidarity and feeling of family that grows.

Do you think that feeling of community among the reporters makes it possible to do what you do?
Engel: I think we definitely look out for each other. I’ve been in many circumstances where fellow colleagues put themselves at great risk to help other colleagues.

I remember in Iraq, a good friend of mine stayed behind and stopped reporting so he could try to get his colleagues out of jail. You see things like that.  In Iraq, when one of the media hotels was bombed, it was reporters who carried fellow reporters down the steps and into vehicles to try to help them get some medical attention.

And again yesterday, it was reporters, as well as some Libyans and hospital officials, who were carrying their colleagues to safety  to  this triage center in Misrata. So there certainly is a feeling of not only community  but of support. You are trying to look out for each other because when you are out in a war zone behind an enemy line,  there are only so many people you can rely on.

And this conflict in Libya is very different from Iraq or Afghanistan. Most of the time in Iraq or Afghanistan when Western reporters went out on the front lines, they went on embeds with American troops. Here you are going with the rebel movement that doesn’t have medics with them or any of those kinds of support mechanisms.

I know you are driving into Libya right now, but do you ever get scared? Think to yourself, 'Gee, should I keep going?'
Engel: I wouldn’t say it scares me or changes my perspective. I accepted this kind of life long ago, so I know what the dangers are. What I really feel today is a tragic loss for these colleagues.

It’s an incredible loss for their families, Chris was about to get married. Yes, it could happen to any of us, but yesterday it happened to them. It’s such a terrible event. My heart goes out not only to them individually, but to their families.

They were both young but so experienced. And there is nothing you can really do when you are running around in a war zone and people are firing shells from the sky and RPGs on the streets. You can take precautions – and I’m sure they did try to take cover – but you need to be there to get those images and to tell the story of what’s going on. Sometimes you can’t avoid the dangers and you are just exposed.  

The whole point of going to these places seems to be the hope that the stories and pictures have an impact? Is that what keeps people going?
Engel: I think we are all to a degree motivated by the fact that people will see these images and understand what war is all about. That people will understand what is happening right now. The costs that are associated with our military actions or military inactions. And I think that desire to expose current events for what they are motivates us.

No one who is professional – and these two were certainly professional – is motivated by some sort of chasing of a thrill or the adrenaline rush. Both Tim and Chris had been out there long enough that any naïve desire to chase adrenaline was long gone.

These were serious people who were professional and had tremendous experience. Maybe some people start out with the excitement of war – it seems new, it seems exciting, running around with flak jackets behind enemy lines. Once you’ve done that once or twice and you decide to stick with it, you are sticking with it not because you are chasing adrenaline, it’s because you believe what you are doing is important.

Otherwise, you could go bungee jumping for a living – it gives you much more of a rush and it is relatively safer. For these guys  that’s not what it was about.

The amazing thing about Libya is that you’ve got people who are really experienced – the New York Times journalists who were detained by Gadhafi’s forces and abused were among the most experienced reporters you could get. Tim and Chris were also among the most experienced war photographers that you are going to find anywhere. That is certainly sobering,  but at the end of the day it is just more tragic. They are a loss to their families and a loss to journalism.

But would the world be worse off if people didn’t have access to war zones and didn’t know what was going on in places like Misrata? Who would benefit from that? I can only imagine it would be war criminals, murderers, rapists, dictators, war profiteers – they would be the ones who would benefit by a lack of exposure in conflict zones.

We are heading into Tripoli now. Obviously when something like this happens you have to take precautions and think about what you are heading into. But I don’t think you are going to see a mass exodus quitting their profession.

I think people are mourning this loss. Certainly people are reflecting on the loss of a friend, a loss to our very tightly knit, but dwindling community. People are just very sorry about what happened. 

Related links:
See a slideshow of Tim Hetherington's photographs
See a slideshow of Chris Hondros images from Libya 
PhotoBlog: A loss for photojournalism 

By Marian Smith, msnbc.com

LONDON - "It's humiliating! They treated us like we were criminals," said Tracy Kuhns, who had traveled from Barataria Bay, La. to attend BP's annual shareholder meeting in London on Thursday.

She and her husband, Michael Roberts, had made the long trip with three other Gulf Coast residents hoping to address BP shareholders about their ongoing plight almost one year after the catastrophic oil spill began on April 20, 2010. But even with their proxy cards in hand, which they believed would allow their participation in the shareholders meeting, all five Gulf Coasters were denied entry.

"They asked us where we were from, we said Louisiana, and they said you can't go in," Kuhns told msnbc.com outside the massive Excel Center convention hall in east London. She described how the guards had lowered a metal security gate to stop them from entering the event.

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One woman from their contingent, Diane Wilson from Seadrift, Texas, didn't even get that far – after smearing black paint on herself at the convention center's entrance, she was promptly arrested by police.

For Kuhns and Roberts, however, it wasn't about protesting. "We wanted to tell the shareholders that all is not well in the Gulf of Mexico," explained Roberts, despite what BP says about the clean-up effort being a success. Before the oil spill he made a good living catching shrimp, crabs and fish, but today his family is living off the money he earned from  Vessels of Opportunity, the program that paid local boats to help with the clean-up. "And that's about to run out," he said.

Roberts said he was frustrated by BP's claims process, which he says wasn't compensating people adequately. "From my $100,000 claim, they gave me $6,000," he said. "We thought they would take care of us."

Another fisherman in the group of Americans, Byron Encalade, told a similar story. His small oyster fishing business in Pointe a la Hache, La. was devastated by the spill and time and time again BP denied his claims, he said. "I'm not out to destroy BP – they employ a lot of people. But they just need to keep their word," Encalade said.

He had wanted to urge BP to pay the interim claims. "Who are you giving the money to?" he said, addressing the oil company. "We're not getting it."

The group saw their trip to London, paid for by the Gulf Coast Fund charitable organization, as an opportunity to make sure BP's shareholders know that the disaster isn't over. "Everybody is sick, no one is talking about that," Kuhns said. She described the skin rashes people have and the respiratory difficulties – the "BP cough," as locals call it.

"They're scared of us, that's why they didn't let us in," Kuhns said. "The executives are scared to death that the stakeholders are going to find out the truth."

BP spokesman Robert Wine said the four Americans were turned away because they had been seen with Wilson, the woman who was arrested after staging the protest at the convention center's entrance. "The decision [to turn them away] was taken because of safety issues – because of the possible disruption," he said. "We weren't sure what might happen."

The company is entitled under law to turn people away over "appropriate grounds," Wine said, even if they hold proxy votes as the four Americans did.

About an hour into the meeting Kuhns, standing outside with the rest of her group, answered a call from someone inside the meeting. "He wants to know if we want to try to get in," she said to her husband. Roberts held up his proxy sheet, which he had torn into pieces.

He laughed. "Tell him their proxy is in 150 pieces."

 

Four months after refusing to leave the presidency – despite having lost internationally sanctioned elections – forces stormed the bunker where Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo was hanging on to power and arrested him.

The final fall from grace was not pretty.

 

The first images of Gbagbo in custody were aired on an Ivorian TV station Télévision Côte d’Ivoire, which supports Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognized winner of the disputed election.

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With the temperature in the tropical city at a high of 91 degrees Fahrenheit Monday, the former strongman looked hot and uncomfortable. 

He was interrogated and brought to the Golf Hotel, where Ouattara has been trying to run his presidency since the Nov. 28 election.

His next stop is unknown, but Ouattara’s ambassador to the U.N. has promised he will face justice – possibly before the International Criminal Court.

Gbagbo made a brief appearance on the TCI television station later in the day to call for all fighting to stop, according to Reuters. "I am calling for the fighting to stop," he said.

 

The body of a popular American teacher known as "Monty-san" has been found in the tiny coastal Japanese town where he worked, more than three weeks after the country was rocked by a powerful earthquake and devastating tsunami, his sister said Wednesday.

“We’ve got a big hole in our universe here,” said Shelley Fredrickson, a 44-year-old sales representative from Anchorage, Alaska, adding that the family was not accepting the confirmation of the death of her brother, Montgomery Dickson, officially until they travel to Japan, "for our own peace of mind."

The family received an email from the U.S. Consulate in Japan on Monday saying that police had recovered his body in the town of Rikuzentakata, said Gloria Shriver, Fredrickson's mother-in-law. Dickson's girlfriend, Naoko, then went to Rikuzentakata and identified his body.

The family knows little about the circumstances of Dickson's death. The last one to speak to the 26-year-old known as Monty was Naoko, whom he called after his students had evacuated from the school where he was teaching. Following evacuation procedure, Dickson -- a teacher with the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme (JET) -- then headed to the Board of Education office on the third floor at City Hall, which was believed to be a safe haven. Instead, it was overrun by the tsunami generated by the powerful earthquake that struck offshore.

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"They said his body was found a full kilometer away from the building ... and it was lucky that they found him," said Fredrickson. "Out of the 25 people that were at the Board of Education office, only five of them survived, and out of the 20 that were missing, only three of them were found so far.

"My intention is always to bring him home, regardless -- I need to bring him home."

Dickson is the second American confirmed by the U.S. State Department to have died in the disaster in Japan, out of 12,554 confirmed deaths. The other American fatality, 24-year-old Taylor Anderson of Richmond, Va., also was a JET teacher.

Rikuzentakata was devastated by the earthquake and tsunami. An International Medical Corps team that visited soon afterward said it “was completely destroyed by the tsunami and no persons were present. Showing the depth of the tsunami wave and extent of the destruction, water marks were observed at a height of up to 10 meters (nearly 33 feet) on the sides of hills."

Fredrickson said she and other relatives plan to travel to Japan to claim his body and return it to his native Alaska.

"The Japanese they want to hurry up and cremate and get moving forward," she said. "I don't want to just receive a box of ashes at the airport. What closure do I have that this is my brother? We want to be a part of the process, I suppose, and have our own confirmation, our own closure ... and know that we're accompanying him home."

Dickson, whose parents died at different times when he was a child, lived with Fredrickson in his late teens. She said he always worked hard in school to make his mother proud, excelling in academics, and continued to strive for academic achievement after her death -- finishing among the top of his class in high school and at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, where he received a bachelor's degree in language with an emphasis in Japanese.

The search had been a full-time operation for the family, and they were only able to plan usually a day ahead, Fredrickson said. They had family in England and Hawaii helping to post word online about his disappearance, and they had been in touch with several U.S. agencies and Japanese authorities about the search.

“He loved it there in Japan. He loved the students and he loved all the culture … He always called me or wrote through emails the joy he had of living there, and I know it was a place he wanted to be. I know he lived the life that he wanted,” she said. But, “he had a lot of goals still left to fulfill and … (his life) was cut too short.”

Despite the lack of word from Dickson, who loved to compete in bike races, friends and family hadn't given up hope of finding him safe.

A hot dog vendor in Anchorage held a fundraiser on Monday -- the same day police phoned to say they had recovered his body -- called "Monty Monday," with proceeds going to support the search effort.

"It was so touching to have had that going on, waiting for confirmation," Fredrickson said, adding that she didn't even tell anyone that his body may have been located because she was hanging on to the last bit of hope. “I still didn’t want to believe it."

She said many of her brother's friends were posting messages on his Facebook page, to which their brother, Ian Dickson, was responding.

“We were all hoping that he'd be found on a mountain top, or shelter, or to simply come striding out of the rubble. This is not the case,” Dickson wrote, noting that he had been trying to find “words of solace.”

“I guess there is a peace in knowing this is part of the human condition. We all live, and we all die. If we are lucky we have a happy life. Monty's life was happy.”

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By Claudio Lavanga, NBC News

ROME -- The "Rubygate" scandal opened Wednesday without a bang, but certainly not without a bunga.

For those not familiar with the neologisms emerging from the land who gave birth to the likes of Dante, "bunga bungas" are the infamous alleged sex-fueled post-dinner parties held at  Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's residence in Milan.

More than the divine comedy, it read like a hell of a tragedy.

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 The media scrum outside the high court in Milan this morning was epic:

From across the world, 110 journalists descended to the northern Italian city to witness the beginning of the biggest sex scandal to involve Italian politics since porn star Cicciolina was voted into parliament in the 1980s.

The trial is meant to establish whether the prime minister did have sex with a minor known as Ruby the Heart-stealer, and whether he abused his position as prime minister when he secured her release from police custody by claiming she was the granddaughter of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Bunga, bunga! Germans have a new attitude

Even Dante couldn't have come up with such a plot.

The three judges, all women, took less than 10 minutes to adjourn the trial. The real show, they established, will start on May 31. That day, the entrance of the high court in Milan might even roll out the red carpet, as the list of 190 witnesses reads like the Oscars line-up. One among many, George Clooney will be summoned to tell the judges whether he ever went to one of Berlusconi's dinners, as ruby claimed.

The prime minister sent a letter to the judges saying he was sorry he couldn't attend. These days he is dealing with a major crisis caused by hundreds of North-African refugees washing ashore off the coast of Sicily after they fled their revolution-torn countries. But in his mind, he must know that the only immigrant who might hold the key to his political career is a young Moroccan teenager called Karima El-Mahroug. 

Libyans in the besieged city of Misrata are suffering a host of horrors at the hands of forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi, including beatings, rapes, summary executions and worsening food and medicine shortages, a spokesman for the opposition said Tuesday.

More than 1,000 people have been killed or are presumed dead in Misrata since the conflict began in early February, and another 100 are listed as missing, said the spokesman, who spoke on condition that he not be identified. 

“The security situation remains grave, especially in particular areas where Gadhafi’s forces are still present -- whether in the form of heavy artillery tanks on the ground or in the form of groups of snipers positioned alongside some of the areas … very close to the city or in the suburbs,” he told msnbc.com via Skype from Libya’s third largest city. 

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Opposition fighters managed to repel an advance by Gadhafi forces from the east on Saturday, with the help of bombardments from coalition aircraft. But part of a food supply depot at the city’s port went up in flames. Though residents are grateful for the coalition’s help, they wanted to know why it did not act sooner.

“People are starting to question how come the response of the international coalition is not being … timely enough, but also well spread enough across the city boundaries and within the city center itself … to just eliminate this kind of threat to the city and its population,” the spokesman said.

If Gadhafi’s forces had taken the port – where many civilians have taken refuge -- it “could have had disastrous implications for the people of Misrata,” he said.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it evacuated 71 wounded people from the Misrata port on Sunday, including three on life support, 11 with major traumas and many others with abdominal wounds and open fractures. Intensive care was provided onboard until the boat reached Tunisia on Monday morning.

“We managed to dock at Misrata on Sunday afternoon, despite intense fighting in the city over the past few days,” Helmy Mekaoui, an MSF doctor who coordinated the medical evacuation, said in a statement. “The violence caused an influx of wounded people and it was fortunate we could be there and get them onboard.”

“There were burn victims, people with open fractures, and a variety of other injuries. Time was of the essence here, as we really needed to be back out in international waters before the sun went down,” said Annas Alamudi, a Doctors Without Borders logistician who participated in the emergency evacuation. “We got all the patients on board and were just about ready to depart when another group of patients arrived. It’s a good thing we were still there, as this group was the most critical. One man had an amputated leg and gunshot wounds; another man had a gunshot wound to the head.”

MSF said the hospital in Misrata reportedly came under bombardment early Sunday. Remaining clinics in the city were swamped with severely injured patients and were running desperately short of supplies.

The opposition spokesman said food shortages also were becoming common in the markets that are still operating. Fresh water is in short supply too, forcing people to rely “on really old methods in their water supply, whether digging wells or trying to just to operate old wells that have been abandoned for the last decade or so,” he said.

While the fighting remains a constant danger, residents are forced to take their lives into their hands in an effort to procure basic supplies, he said.

Schools were shuttered and few shops were open. People were trying to do their shopping between artillery barrages.

“There is no sign of back to normal life,” he said. “Everything is at a standstill in Misrata.”

Libyan officials deny attacking civilians in Misrata, saying they are fighting armed gangs linked to al Qaida, Reuters reported. The coalition has destroyed nearly one-third of Gadhafi's military since initiating air strikes last month, but NATO said it had to change bombing tactics because the Libyan forces were using civilians as human shields.

Misrata is now the priority for NATO air strikes, Reuters reported.

Amid the fighting, some of those abducted from Misrata by Gadhafi forces have been freed. One man, a farmer, reported being beaten with an electrical wire and being forced to chant “Gadhafi is God,” the opposition spokesman said. The farmer said an older man, a religious teacher, was summarily shot and killed for refusing to chant, while others, some of whom had opposition songs or images of the conflict in their cell phones -- were brutalized with cigarette burns and electric shocks, according to the spokesman. (As with nearly all reports from Misrata, the accounts could not be independently confirmed.)

The spokesman said there were known cases of gang-rape by Gadhafi mercenaries, including assaults on a married middle-aged woman and two sisters in their 20s.

“These are very, very sensitive issues for people to talk about in Libya generally, but in Misrata in particular … (it is) a very conservative society. People tend to not bring this up at all,” he said. “We’re pretty much sure that the large portion of the (rape) cases that took place are unreported because of this particular sensitivity.”

The spokesman said opposition forces were holding out hope that rebel fighters will reach Misrata soon, but they know a large battle looms first in Sirte, a major city to the east that is in control of Gadhafi loyalists. In the meantime, Misrata’s port was under heavy shelling and artillery fire once more on Tuesday, he said.

“The port area has always been a target by Gadhafi’s forces just to bring the city to its knees … just to make them starve,” he said. In addition, the Libyan army forces are attempting to completely encircle the city, “whereby we will surrender our lives to Gadhafi once again, which is basically something that will never happen as far as we are concerned.”

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The Ivory Coast has been gripped in a fierce battle for power since November elections intended to reunite the country ended in a stalemate.

The Independent Electoral Commission of Ivory Coast declared opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara the winner with 54.1 percent of the vote, compared to 45.9 percent for incumbent Laurent Gbagbo. But despite the U.N. and international observers declaring the election free and fair, the Constitutional Council, run by a Gbagbo ally, alleged massive fraud by Ouattara’s camp and declared Gbagbo the winner of the election on Dec. 3.

Since then the West African country has been stuck in limbo – with the two rivals both claiming the presidency. The economy has come to a virtual halt and violence has forced up to 1 million people to flee the commercial capital Abidjan.

So who is Ouattara, the internationally recognized president who will likely assume power when Gbagbo finally exits?

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International economist
Ouattara, 69, is a former prime minister, banker and top economist at the International Monetary Fund. A Muslim born in Dimborko, in the north of Ivory Coast   his years studying and working abroad have stymied his political ambitions at home, with questions surrounding his nationality constantly dogging him and twice preventing him from running for president. 

Educated in the United States, Ouattara received a bachelor’s of science degree from Drexel University in Philadelphia and both a master’s and Ph.D from the University of Pennsylvania. During the 1970s and 80s he rose through the ranks working as an economist at both the IMF and the Central Bank of West African States. He is married to a French woman, Dominique Folloroux-Ouattara.

President Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Ivory Coast’s founding father who led the country from independence from France on Aug. 7, 1960 until his death, tapped Ouattara to be prime minister in 1990. In an effort to reign in the country’s finances, he oversaw unpopular government cuts in an effort to balance the country’s budget.  

After Houphouet-Boigny died in 1993, there was a brief power struggle, but Henri Konan Bedie became president.

IVORY COAST TIMELINE

Ouattara tried to run for president in 1995 – but was denied the chance based on a new electoral rule – which many believe was implemented specifically to prevent him from running. The rule barred candidates if either of their parents were of a foreign nationality and if they had not lived in Ivory Coast during the preceding five years. Hailing from the north of the country, there were varying accusations that his mother (and at other times, his father) was from neighboring Burkina Faso – disqualifying him from running for president.

For decades Ivory Coast was a haven for migrant workers who came from neighboring countries like Mail and Burkina Faso to work on the coffee and cocoa plantations. But Bedie stirred-up a campaign of xenophobia called “Ivoirité,” judging who was considered truly Ivorian based on their ethnic heritage; mostly Christian Southerners were considered Ivorian, while northern Muslims were “foreigners.”

The argument over Ouattara’s nationality came to represent the political aspirations of all north Muslims and migrant workers who felt increasingly marginalized.

In 2000 Ouattara tried to run for president again – and was again denied based on questions surrounding his nationality. Laurent Gbagbo won the 2000 election – and refused Ouattara’s calls for a new poll. The controversy continued to divide the country along religious and ethnic lines, finally coming to a head when the country was split by civil war in 2002.

Gbagbo’s term was up in 2005, but he continually postponed elections, blaming logistical problems and debates over who was eligible to vote based on the question of who was and who was not considered “truly Ivorian.” 

Ouattara was finally allowed to stand as a candidate in the 2010 presidential election that was meant to reunite the broken country.

Ouattara has generally stayed out of the fray of fighting – but questions surrounding the massacre of an estimated 800 people in the Western town of Duekoue, allegedly at the hands of some of his supporters – may tarnish his reputation.  

But the international community has good reason to believe that Ouattara taking the helm in Ivory Coast is a positive development, according to John Campbell, Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow for African Policy Studies. 

 “There are a couple of points that I think are encouraging. The first is – he actually won the election. That   gives him a legitimacy that for example Gbagbo didn’t have. Secondly in the view of the international community he won the election. So he has a particular kind of legitimacy,” Campbell said, the former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria.  “Further he certainly has the technical expertise to manage an economy.”

“I may be looking at things through rose tinted glasses, but the drama in Ivory Coast has been so tragic for so long … This time I think we have grounds for hope. That’s why right now, I’m upbeat.”

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Deja vu all over again in Ivory Coast