STRINGER/ITALY / Reuters

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi reacts during a news conference at Chigi Palace in Rome on Sept.23, 2010.

By NBC News’ Claudio Lavanga

Did you hear the one about Silvio and the Moroccan belly dancer?

Unfortunately, for the 74-year-old Italian leader, most of Italy has – and the people are not pleased.

A confidential new document containing lurid details about the investigation into the nature of Silvio Berlusconi’s relationship with Karima El Mahroug, an under-aged Moroccan belly dancer nicknamed “Ruby the Heart-Stealer,” could be the final straw for the seemingly indestructible Italian leader.

The 389-page investigation, leaked on the Web this week, contains wire taps of phone conversations full of candid details about backdoor dealings and wild parties that suggest the prime minister has lived a life of unconstrained debauchery aided by an entourage of teenage showgirls, television presenters and talent-scouts.

And it has led to a criminal investigation.

Prosecutors allege that Berlusconi paid for sex with the underage teen and then lied to authorities in order to cover it up.

The lengthy dossier was presented to Italy’s parliament on Monday in order to get special permission to search some of Berlusconi’s properties. Parliament said it will take at least a week to digest all of the information and issue a decision.

Some of the salacious quotes from the leaked wire tap include:

• “There were orgies in there – not with drugs, as far as I know. But they were all drinking, half undressed. Berlusconi started singing and telling jokes. Three [men] and 28 girls. By the end . . . the girls had no bras on and were wearing only those tight knickers.”
- Carlo Ferrigno, a former head of a police intelligence service and anti-racketeering commissioner

• “It’s unbelievable. You don’t know. All of them call him ‘love’ or ‘darling.’ You can’t begin to imagine what goes on there. The papers don’t tell the half of it, even when they’re massacring him.”
-  An unnamed party guest

Antonio Calanni / AP

Karima El Mahroug, an under-aged Moroccan belly dancer nicknamed “Ruby the Heart-Stealer,” whose encounters with Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi are at the base of a prostitution probe which is rocking Italian politics, is interviewed for a TV show in Milan, Italy, on Wednesday.

•  “[Berlusconi] called me and said, ‘Ruby, I’ll give you whatever amount you want. I’ll pay you. I’ll cover you in gold, but the important thing is to keep everything under wraps. Don’t say a thing to anyone.’”
- Karima El Mahroug, aka “Ruby the Heart Stealer,” to former boyfriend Sergio Corsaro on Oct. 7, 2010

• “I told Silvio I wanted 5 million euros for all this. He said that I should just keep making things up and pretend I’m mad – but not reveal anything and stay quiet.”
- El Mahroug to a friend

• “You either do everything or you take a taxi and leave. It’s a real whorehouse there. Berlusconi is touching all the girls’ bottoms. It’s worse than the papers say.”
-  Unidentified girl who went to party, to a friend

•  “If you do these things in your own bedroom, fine. But in front of everyone else? I ask how [he] can go to work the next day?”
- Unidentified girl who went to party to a friend

•  “I thought he’d put on weight; he looked uglier. Last year, [Berlusconi] was looking fitter; now he’s looking over the hill. And he’s ugly with it. He’s just got to cough up. Let’s hope he’s more generous.”
- Showgirl Imma De Vivo, to her twin sister, Eleonora, on Sept. 25, 2010

• “I’ve been going to the prime minister’s house since I was 16 years old, but I have always denied everything to protect him.”
- El Mahroug to a friend on Oct. 26, 2010

• “She [El Mahroug] said she was very friendly with the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. She often went to his house for dinner, to sing, dance, and she had sex with him, for which he gave her lots of money.”
- El Mahroug's roommate, Caterina Pasquina, to investigators

‘The Heart-stealer’
It all started with a minor incident that quickly snowballed into one of Italy’s biggest political scandal: In May of last year, El Mahroug, a runaway teenager, was arrested on suspicion of theft in the northern city of Milan.

While the police looked into the report that she stole thousands of euros and expensive watches from an Italian woman at a beauty parlour she briefly worked for, they thought they were dealing with a minor who got herself in trouble after running away from her family in Sicily. But even before they managed to contact her parents, they received a call from the most unlikely of guardian: Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

ALESSANDRO GAROFALO / Reuters

Nicole Minetti smiles during a meeting at the Lombardy regional headquarters in Milan on Jan. 18.

From Paris, he said that she was the niece of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and asked for her immediate release in order to avoid a diplomatic incident. The police obeyed without asking questions, and handed the girl over to another shady character in Berlusconi’s entourage: Nicole Minetti, a former showgirl and dental hygienist who treated Berlusconi’s injuries after he was attacked with a marble statue in 2009, and who was elected in the regional elections for his People of Freedom’s Party months later.

When it became clear that El Mahroug wasn’t related to the Egyptian president, and in fact wasn’t Egyptian at all, she was a 17-year-old Moroccan, investigators asked: Why would the prime minister go to such lengths, including lying to the police, to ensure the release of an unrelated teenager?

Cash, diamonds and Bunga-Bunga 
Back in September 2009, El Mahroug wasn’t a heart stealer, but was dreaming of becoming one.

She hit the catwalk at a local beauty contest in a small town in Sicily hoping her Mediterranean beauty would propel her into the world of show business, but only managed to win a minor ribbon.

However, one of the judges at the contest was said to be 80-year-old Emilio Fede, a trusted friend of Berlusconi and a journalist who makes no secret of his staunch support for the prime minister during his newscasts on Italy’s Channel 4.

According to El Mahroug’s testimony, she met Fede through Lele Mora, a show business talent-scout and close aide of Berlusconi, and was later invited to Arcore, Berlusconi’s private residence on the outskirts of Milan.

At first, she told investigators, she was invited for dinner and showered with expensive presents, such as 7,000 euros (about $9,400) and a diamond necklace. During one of her dinners at Berlusconi’s residence, she claims to have attended one of his after-parties, the infamous “bunga-bunga,” an erotic ritual that she says Berlusconi learnt from his friend Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader.

While El Mahroug has always maintained that she never had sex with the prime minister, she told magistrates that the bunga-bunga parties were hardcore orgies with tens of skimpily-dressed or naked aspiring showgirls flirting with the prime minister, who later would choose whom to have sex with.

Nevertheless, the main question investigators are looking into is: Was the  prime minister aware that El Mahroug was underage?

From BLTWY: How to party like Silvio Berlusconi

‘I just wanted to help’ 
When confronted about the allegations, Berlusconi initially downplayed the incident by claiming he took pity on the teenager and simply wanted to help her out. But magistrates following the case believe that his charitable work went beyond giving El Mahroug another shot at freedom and showering her with expensive presents.

Information about her movements, obtained by investigators who monitored her mobile phone, show that El Mahroug downplayed the extent of her relationship with the prime minister.

Instead of attending only a few parties, as El Mahroug claimed, the data revealed she spent whole weekends in Berlusconi’s private residence without leaving the premises, raising questions over the real nature of their relationship.

In Italy, paying for sex with an under-aged woman is a crime punishable with a maximum sentence of three years in prison.  

Is Berlusconi a projection of the average Italian?
When El Mahroug's scandal made headlines at the end of last year, it was easy to believe the prime minister would sail through the latest crisis in his typical defiant fashion. After all, it wasn’t the first time he was accused of having had sex with a prostitute, nor was it the first time his relationship with teenagers was called into question.

In 2009, an escort named Patrizia D'Addario claimed to have slept with Berlusconi at his Rome residence and released secret recordings of their conversations, which seemed to support her claim.

The same year, his wife filed for divorce saying she could no longer be with a man who “consorts with minors” after it emerged he attended the 18th birthday party of an aspiring model, Noemi Letizia. Scores of other women, some claiming to be prostitutes, have since come forward claiming to have attended Berlusconi’s parties.

And yet Italians don’t seem to mind. Most of his supporters have accepted his theory that he is the victim of a plot by “communist magistrates” who are out to get him.

But his apparent invincibility, according to one of sociologist Franco Ferrarotti, comes from the fact he is the projection of what most Italians would like to be.

“They see in him a lot of what they are,” Ferrarotti told msnbc.com. “Italians are hypocrites by nature: In public, they condemn his action. But in the privacy of their own bedroom, they are very, very liberal.”

Can the invincible Berlusconi survive this one?
Everyone is equal before the law.  But is Berlusconi “more equal” than others?

The investigation was announced just hours after Italy’s Constitutional Court ruled as unlawful parts of an immunity law that would have prevented Berlusconi from going on trial.

Faced with mounting pressure and the prospect of prosecution, Berlusconi has defended himself in typical fashion: by appearing on television.

As a media mogul, Berlusconi is credited with both building his wealth and his political fortunes on the exploitation of his three commercial television channels. So it didn’t come to anyone’s surprise when once again he professed his innocence to Italians by broadcasting a video message.

"There's nothing I should be ashamed of,” he said in the pre-recorded message. “I would like to go on trial immediately, but with impartial judges, not with prosecutors who want to use this case as a means of political fight."

The lower house of parliament now has one month to consider the request to search Berlusconi’s premises to find evidence against him.

But one thing is certain: Despite the fact he is the man who introduced variety shows, quiz games and drama serials to Italian audiences, no soap opera can match the twist and turns of his life. 

By Andy Hayman, NBC News counterterrorism analyst

LONDON - The pressure on the security and intelligence services is unrelenting. There hardly seems to be a month that goes by without a terrorist alert or an actual attack.

Nearly a decade on from the 9/11 atrocities, an attack by extremists remains one of the biggest threats to the safety of citizens in both the United States and United Kingdom.

However, during the early part of this decade, the U.S. appeared immune to a particularly dangerous form of terrorism well-known to authorities in the U.K. — home-grown, "lone-wolf" attackers.

Last year, that started to change.

In May, Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, tried to detonate a car bomb near New York's Times Square. In November — at the lighting of a community Christmas Tree in Portland, Ore. — Mohamed Osman Mohamud allegedly attempted to detonate a car bomb.

The lone-wolf terrorist is undoubtedly more challenging to detect and stop than the typical cell of six to 10 people.

Undercover operatives
With those kinds of numbers, there is a much greater chance that the cell's internal security will break down and a leak will occur, giving the authorities an opportunity to infiltrate the cell with undercover operatives or set up surveillance.

A lone attacker only has to look after themselves and ensure they talk to no one and keep under the radar of friends and the authorities.

Preventative techniques become more difficult to deploy which actually means the lone operator can present the greater danger to public safety than an organized cell of several people.

Home-grown Islamist terrorists struck in the U.K. in dramatic fashion five years ago when 52 people were killed in the so-called 7/7 attack on London's transport system.

The chilling sound of suicide bomber Mohammad Siddique Khan reciting his martyrdom video in a broad regional accent brought home to all the British authorities that, right under their noses, was a new breed of Islamist: English people radicalized within their own communities to the point where they were willing to kill.

The revelation prompted the U.K. to re-think what was needed to deal with this combined threat from the home-grown and international terrorist.

A slight twist on the homegrown, lone-wolf bomber was the attack in December by Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly. Although a Swedish citizen he had permanent resident status in the U.K. It is believed he became radicalized while in the U.K. and left his family home in Luton, England, to mount an attack in Stockholm, Sweden.

Focus diverted?
The worrying aspect is that there do not appear to be tangible lessons which can be shared with the U.S., which it could be argued is playing catch-up on how to deal with the threat of the home-grown bomber.

There is always the danger that trying to deal with the threat at home could divert focus away from plots being hatched overseas, and vice versa.

And we know that providing additional resources is not necessarily the answer and that focusing on community programs to prevent radicalization has only limited success.

Despite nearly five years of effort and £100 million ($160 million) of investment into counter-radicalization programs, terrorist cells are still emerging.

In December, nine terror suspects were charged with acts preparatory to the commission of acts of terrorism after they allegedly plotted to mount attacks on iconic London locations during the holiday period.

Such activities, if proved, raise questions about the merits of the British preventative program.

It might sound bleak, but it may simply be a case of conceding defeat within the preventative agenda and preserving scant resources to keep one step ahead of the terrorist with greater intelligence coverage and proactive security operations.

It is still not clear just how well prepared Britain and America are to deal with these types of attacks.

Whether the U.S. can find a better solution than the U.K.'s strategy to prevent the radicalization of its citizens alongside policing operations, remains to be seen.

Andy Hayman is a former assistant commissioner with London's Metropolitan Police. In that role, he was the highest-ranking police officer responsible for counterterrorism in the U.K.

By Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent
 
TUNIS, Tunisia – The Arab world has been changed by the uprising in Tunisia, but don’t expect to see the region’s government officials booking bulk rates on charter planes to Saudi Arabia any time soon. The changes that Tunisia’s popular revolt will bring to the Middle East will be slow, but profound, according to Middle East experts.
 
But what do they know? Middle East experts didn’t predict a month ago that Tunisia’s autocratic regime would fall like a cardiac case, so take their comments with a shaker of salt. 
 
Why did Tunis fall you ask again? Tunisia was an incongruous blend of poor people living in a rich country; educated people living in a boorish, outdated police state.

Thibault Camus / AP

Protestor holds a Tunisian flag as he shouts slogans during a demonstration against the party of deposed President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, in the center of Tunis, Wednesday.

Under the so-black-it’s-almost-purple-haired 74-year-old President Zine el-Abideen Ben Ali, currently cooling his heels in exile in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia’s economy was strong. But Tunisians lost their tolerance for old-fashioned repression and dictators’ timeworn favorites, like censorship, police intimidation and one-party rule. 

To the Tunisian kids, it felt oh so Stalin-like, so passé. Most Tunisians these days are on Facebook, that Web page some of you might have used that seems to want to take credit for every revolt on the planet, including the ones claimed by Twitter. Before Facebook and Twitter, students and other agitators with low boiling points organized revolts by talking. The tongue was the mighty weapon when a rallying cry was actually cried, but we didn’t call them Tongue Revolutions.
 
When not coming up with excuses for failing to predict the ouster of Tunisia’s president, most Middle East experts point to Egypt’s leaders as the next candidates to earn frequent flier miles on Saudi Arabian Airlines.
 
Like in Tunisia, Egypt’s population is rapidly losing interest in being told what to do.  But President Hosni Mubarak, who appears to share a colorist with Ben Ali, knows how to contain a revolt. Egypt has been in a state of emergency since 1981. Its security services are accused of being both brutal and efficient, with brutal playing the starring role. It seems unlikely that a few thousand protesters would send the Egyptian government shopping for suitcases.
 
The Tunisia effect could be a slow burn. Mubarak has made it as clear as Nile water (which is not that clear, yet clear enough) that he wants his son Gamal to follow him as president. Will that still be possible? 

The Egyptian people might not have accepted Gamal as the political waters stood a month ago.  Now that Ben Ali has left for his off-season pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, Egyptians’ tolerance for events that might have seemed inevitable could be lower. Even renowned fatalists like Egyptians might decide to decide their own futures.  (Note to readers based on this journalist’s experiences living in Egypt: It is best to avoid riding in taxis in places where people believe they do not control their own destinies. Fatalism may bring inner peace, but it is not good for defensive driving.)
 
Which other countries in the Middle East have educated, fed-up people, along with poverty, repressive regimes and high corruption you ask again? The list is long. Which will fall next, if any? 

Middle East experts will undoubtedly spend great amounts of time and limited brainpower guessing the wrong ones, not that that matters much. Facebook will take credit for the revolutions in any case.
 

By NBC News’ Claudio Lavanga

A 1997 letter from a Vatican official advising Irish bishops not to report suspected child abuse cases to the police has sent shockwaves across the Catholic world.

To child abuse victims, it’s the “smoking gun” that proves what they have claimed all along: that the Vatican actively tried to prevent criminal investigations against sexually abusive priests by instructing bishops not to report them to the police.

But to the Vatican, it’s just another example of how past mistakes in handling abuse cases have since been corrected.

Damaging evidence
The letter, published by the Irish broadcaster RTE on Monday, revealed that Archbishop Luciano Storero, then the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio to Ireland (the equivalent of a Vatican ambassador), told Irish bishops that the Vatican had doubts about their “mandatory reporting” policy for suspected abusers to civil authorities.

The new policy had been introduced by Irish bishops following revelations in the mid-1990s of the abuse of dozens of children. The scandal was so big at the time that it brought down the entire Irish government. 

The Vatican letter instructed bishops that abuse allegations and punishments were to be handled within the church through canon law. It warned that bishops who tried to pursue charges outside of canon law could have their actions overturned on appeal in Rome.

The newly revealed document undermines what the Vatican has said for years – that it never instructed local bishops to withhold evidence of suspected crimes from the police. It could be used as crucial evidence in multi-billion dollar lawsuits against archdioceses in the United States and across the world.

Vatican dismisses letter
The Vatican has downplayed the importance of the letter, claiming that it represents an outdated approach to sexual abuse cases and that much has changed since 1997 in the way the Vatican deals with them.  

“The letter does not in any way suggest that national laws must not be followed. It rightly emphasises (sic.) the importance of always respecting canonical legislation, precisely in order to ensure that guilty parties do not have justified grounds for an appeal and thus producing a result contrary to the one desired,” Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said in a letter sent to msnbc.com and released on the Vatican Radio web site.  

“Finally, it must be stated that the letter was written prior to the norms of 2001 which unified responsibility in this field under the jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a move which has certainly led to clearer guidelines and more effective procedures.” 

Victim: letter shows cover-up
But Colm O'Gorman, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse and founder of the Irish charity One-in-Four, said that it’s time the Catholic Church took responsibility for its mishandling of thousands of abuse cases.

“It’s just not credible to dismiss the letter because it’s 14 years old. It was 1997, not 1597, and nothing has changed since,” O’Gorman told msnbc.com. “This letter is important for a number of reasons: not only because it shows that the Vatican tried to cover-up abuse cases in Ireland, it also proves that Pope Benedict XVI was dishonest in his handling of the scandal.”

In 2009 a major Irish investigation proved that abuse among clerics in Ireland had been “endemic” for decades. As a result of the landmark investigation, Benedict accepted the resignation of some bishops and ordered an investigation into seminars and dioceses.
O’Gorman claims that the letter proves that the bishops weren’t to blame – but rather the Vatican.

“The pope said that the Church of Ireland failed to do their duty, but it turns out it was the Vatican that prevented them from doing the right thing. The Vatican is a state, and the pope is its head. As such, he needs to take responsibility for the church’s failures over the abuses,” said O’Gorman.

Pope Benedict implicated?
The newly revealed letter once again calls in to question the role of Pope Benedict in the alleged cover-up of the sexual abuse scandal. 

Before being elected pope in 2005, Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was in charge of the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for 24 years.

In 2001, he took over control of all investigations into claims of sexual abuse by the clergy. As a conservative theologian, he enforced the procedure set by canon law, which requires bishops to report all case of clerical sexual abuse of minors to the congregation.

While the Vatican has always maintained that Benedict introduced a more open and efficient system in the way the church deals with abuse cases, critics claim that many priests suspected of sexual abuse were simply moved to different parishes where they continued their abuse – even during his rule.

Geoffrey Robertson, a human rights lawyer based in London and author of "The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuse” believes the letter proves Benedict’s complicity. 

“This letter reveals a policy that was decided by the Vatican when Ratzinger was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the office in charge of disciplining priests worldwide. He insisted that canon law was to prevail over civil authorities,” Robertson said in a phone interview Wednesday. “The Vatican line of defense that this was an opinion of an archbishop like Storero, who was out of touch with the times, is nonsense. Ratzinger was head of the congregation since 1981, and all big decisions had to go through him”

Robertson believes the letter could be extremely damaging in a court of law. “I think that in terms of suing the Vatican for negligence in cases where there is no remedy against the local church, this letter will be useful as evidence of the Vatican’s policy. It might have been directed to Ireland but it applies throughout the world.”
  
One way or the other, O’Gorman still wants to see some justice for the victims of abuse.

“They need to come to terms with what they have done,” O’Gorman said. “They need to understand the scale of their negligent behavior on countless lives. It’s disingenuous and immoral.”

By Truus Bos, NBC News Producer 

LONDON – Prince William and Kate Middleton are still three months from tying the knot, but already British lawmakers are debating the Royal Baby!

More precisely they are debating whether the first royal child, if she is a girl, can succeed her father William on the throne.

Under the 309-year-old law which governs royal succession to this day, if William and Kate become the parents of three girls, and then a boy, the boy would leapfrog over the girls and
become the next in line to the throne.

This afternoon Labour MP Keith Vaz presented the House of Commons with a Ten Minute Rule Bill calling for the “removal of any distinction between the sexes in determining the succession to the throne.”

Even before the bill was introduced, Downing Street warned that changing the antiquated law would be a "difficult and complex matter.”

The reason seems to be that Queen Elizabeth II is still head of state in 15 Commonwealth countries, and the changes would have to be made in all these countries. 

The Prime Minister's office said discussions have been taking place in these countries, but it could be a lengthy process for any change to be approved.

"Amending the Act of Succession is a complex and difficult matter that requires careful and thoughtful consideration,” said a spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron who wished to remain anonymous.

“Absolute drivel,” said Lord Jeffrey Archer in a televised discussion on the issue last November.

In 1996 Lord Archer introduced his own bill to make sure that the first-born girls become the monarch. He asked the bill drawing specialists in the Public Bill Office to draft it for him, and "it was a beautiful little bill of one clause! I was allowed to present it to the House. If I was allowed to present it to the House, it must have been all right.”

"My bill is still there to pick up, and you know how long it would take to get through? A couple of hours! Who's gonna vote against it?" What about the Commonwealth countries making difficulties, Archer said a couple of phone calls should take care of them.

In Europe, Spain and Monaco are the only other countries who pass over princesses in favor of princes. Denmark was the last European country to make the change in 2009, when 85 percent of the Danish population voted for a referendum which put princesses on an even footing with princes in the succession rules for the Danish Throne.
Britain has been “ruled” by several strong women – including Queen Elizabeth II since 1953. She is much admired and loved by most of her "subjects,” so it’s doubtful that all but a few curmudgeonly old Lords would still object to allowing a change in the law.

Williams and Kate would no doubt support a change in the law that would bring equality into their future family. They seem a thoroughly modern couple – they've lived together quite openly before the marriage and announced that they won't surround themselves with a host of servants for a while afterwards.

This afternoon in the House of Commons the draft bill passed to a second reading by what's called a "voice vote,” which was unanimous, but the House was not full.  It will now be debated on May 13, two weeks after the royal wedding.

By Ghazi Balkiz, NBC News Producer
 
Another attack in Iraq, another deranged suicide bomber takes out dozens of would be policemen.

The suicide bomber on Tuesday killed at least 52 and wounded many others among a crowd of police recruits looking for work in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit. 
 
The message from the insurgents to the Iraqi people and government was clear: “We are still here. We are still strong. We can reach you when we want; not even your police force can protect you.”
 
Recruitment centers are very easy targets in Iraq. They are usually buildings surrounded by blast walls and sand bags, but the recruits who are lining up to go inside are not protected, making them sitting ducks.
 
I just came back from Iraq last Friday. On the ride back home from the airport in London, the taxi driver asked me, “Is it still dangerous there? Is the war still going? Is it safe now?”
 
I told him Iraq has been at war for a very long time. There was the Iraq-Iran war in the ‘80s, then there was the first Gulf War and then there was the invasion in 2003 and the mayhem that followed it.
 
Safety in Iraq is a relative term. A few years ago there was war on the streets of almost every major city in Iraq; there were car bombs, suicide bombers, improvised explosive devices, kidnappings, executions, sectarian violence and death squads.
 
Now the level of violence has dropped significantly, but it has not disappeared.

People still get killed, suicide bombers still blow themselves up and IEDs still explode.
 
Last week when I was sitting in the NBC News bureau in Baghdad, a blast killed some people just a few miles from our office. Some of our Iraqi employees looked at each other, shrugged, and carried on with whatever they were doing.
 
They have gotten used to it. Some of my Iraqi friends say if a few car bombs go off every month, the situation is OK; they figure at least it’s better than what it was a few years ago.
 
I told the taxi driver that I am not a social behavior analyst, but I think that people adapt to the circumstances that surround them.

The terror of the past nine years and the violence has numbed many Iraqis, but at the same time, their human nature has helped them carry on with their lives.

Matt Cardy / Getty Images

Peter and Hazelmary Bull, owners of the The Chymorvah guesthouse in Marazion near Penzance, Cornwalll pose with a Christian choir outside Bristol County Court on Dec.13, 2010.

By NBC News’ Peter Jeary

LONDON – The Cornish coast, in the southwest of England, has long been the haunt of outlaws. Its tradition of smuggling and piracy is part of English folklore, celebrated in the comic operetta Pirates of Penzance.

On Tuesday, an unlikely couple joined the ranks of Cornwall’s law-breakers: Hotel owners 70-year-old Peter Bull and his wife Hazelmary, 66, who were found guilty of discriminating against a gay couple.

The Bulls own a hotel in Marazion, a picture-postcard English seaside town a few miles from Penzance. In 2008, Martyn Hall and his civil partner, Steven Preddy, arrived at the hotel to check in.

To their surprise, they were denied the double room – which they had reserved over the telephone – because of a policy the owners say they have had since buying the bed and breakfast in 1986: Unmarried couples are banned from sharing a bedroom.

"We accept that the Bible is the holy living word of God and we endeavor to follow it as far as are able. We have a kind of routine we go through with folk. It is never our intention to offend," Hazelmary Bull told the court in her testimony on Tuesday.

Matt Cardy / Getty Images

Martyn Hall, right, and his civil partner Steven Preddy, left, outside Bristol County Court as they celebrate winning a landmark case Tuesday against the owners of a Christian hotel who refused them a room.

Hall and Preddy, however, claimed they were being discriminated against for their sexuality, suing for damages under Britain's 2007 Equality Act.

In a judgment handed down Tuesday, the Bulls were ordered to pay damages of $2,850 to each of the plaintiffs.
 
In Tuesday’s ruling, Judge Andrew Rutherford rejected suggestions that the Bulls had been “set-up” by gay rights activists seeking to force the issue.

Rutherford also described the views of the defendants as "perfectly orthodox Christian beliefs in the sanctity of marriage and the sinfulness of homosexuality."
 
However, the judge was at pains to say social attitudes in Britain had changed over the past 50 years and that in a parliamentary democracy, it is inevitable there will be laws that cut across deeply-held beliefs.

"We're really pleased that the judge has confirmed what we already know - that in these circumstances our civil partnership has the same status in law as a marriage between a man and a woman, and that, regardless of each person's religious beliefs, no-one is above the law," the couple said, according to Sky News.

By Charlene Gubash, NBC News Producer

Christophe Ena / AP

Protesters chant slogans against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunis, on Friday.

CAIRO –  Four months of rioting brought down one of the most authoritarian leaders in the Arab world, Tunisian President Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali, Friday. And many – from Arab analysts to average citizens – believe this may mark a turning point in the Arab World.  

After two decades of unaccountable leadership, Tunisians suffered from an increasingly unbearable degree of poverty, unemployment, widespread corruption and injustice at the hands of the powerful state security. On Friday they showed the world they’d had enough. But, unfortunately, their plight is a common one shared by the majority of citizens across the Arab world. 

Many in the region stayed glued to satellite channels Friday watching as Tunisian riot police beat and kicked demonstrators and shot tear gas canisters into crowds. They watched as injured demonstrators were carried away by their colleagues, as the prime minister announced that Ben Ali was no longer in power, and as anchors tried to determine exactly where Ben Ali had fled.

And many viewers outside Tunisia pondered what lessons their leaders took away.

“I think it has made governments around the region aware that uprising and revolution can happen in the world. It is a wake-up call for some. Definitely after what happened in Tunisia, things will not be the same as before,” Gamal Abdel Gawad, senior analyst at the al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. “There are many similar countries among non-oil producers, with a lack of democracy and a lack of civil institutions. After Tunisia, perhaps, we will be seeing a different Arab world on the side of the government and people.”

Gawad pointed out that the coverage of the government’s overthrow was unprecedented. 

“The last time this happened was in 1985 when the Sudanese overthrew Numeiri and then there was no satellite TV. This is the first upheaval of that sort watched around the clock instantly by everybody in the region, and its impact will be felt.”

A Cairo University political science professor, Dr. Horeya Megahed, agreed. “This might give a lesson to other governments. They might absorb the problems of the people and respond to them.” 

However, Hani Sabah, an Egyptian technician, could not imagine a similar reaction in his own country.

“The oppression the Tunisians faced was so much pressure that it made them explode and do what they did. They suffered from unemployment and high prices,” said Sabah. “But it would be hard for that to happen here with the president and his gang around him…The government’s attitude is: say whatever you want and we will do whatever we want.” 

Sabah doesn’t anticipate a people's rebellion in Egypt. “Everybody wants to change the system, but the government right now is completely protected … They will shoot at [protesters] with live ammunition. If they are planning to overthrow the government, they will finish them off.” 

Aly Ibrahim, a Cairo plumber, was glued to the TV on Friday and surfed channels to catch the latest developments. 

“The Egyptian news broadcast only a fraction of the story for fear people might get the message. Be sure that so many other countries will get the message and will say, ‘These people managed to do that.’ … The message people got is, ‘Enough is enough!’ They see prices rising, problems in society, and nobody is moving a finger.”

Boulders and other debris are seen Friday in Teresopolis, Brazil.

Survivors recounted Friday how hillsides crashed down on homes in towns near Rio de Janeiro, as the death toll continued to climb and now tops 500.

"The number of deaths is going to rise quite a bit. There are still a lot of people buried," Rubens Placido, a fireman in the hard-hit town of Nova Friburgo, was quoted by Reuters as saying. He added that continued rainfall was complicating the search efforts.

Images shot from a news helicopter showed a hand-written sign saying "Five people still buried" lying on a concrete athletic field partially covered by mud, Reuters correspondent Stuart Grudgings reported.

In the poor community of Campo Grande on the outskirts of Teresopolis, a wall of water, mud, and rocks the size of cars crashed down from the mountainside, destroying more than 100 houses, Reuters quoted residents as saying.

"Everything started shaking. It all happened in about five minutes," said Anisio Siqueira da Silva, a 52-year-old whose house remained standing because it was just outside the main path of destruction. "All of my neighbors near here died."

The area was mostly deserted apart from stray dogs and a few people salvaging belongings and guarding against looters.

"The chances of finding survivors here are zero," said Leandro Vabo, head of a medical team searching for bodies in Campo Grande.

Da Silva and others in the village said many of the houses that were swept away had been built too close to the river as the community's population grew in recent years.

The Associated Press provided this update from correspondent Juliana Barbassa, who is in Teresopolis:

• Officials said the death toll in four towns north of Rio de Janeiro was still rising and could jump further once rescuers can reach areas cut off by Wednesday's slides. They refused to even guess how many remain missing. Local reports put it in the hundreds.
• Fernando Perfista, a 31-year-old ranch hand, walked with friends for hours through the night, carrying the body of his 12-year-old boy, the only of his four children he had found. Perfista said uncovered bodies still lay on the ground and the injured were left to suffer because no relief had yet reached them. He said he found his son's body buried in the mud and had to put it in a refrigerator to keep it from dogs while he went out to search without success for his other three children. Friends helped Perfista haul the boy's body to town, where they buried him Friday. Like the scores of other survivors standing outside a morgue in Teresopolis, he was in shock. "My children are in there, in that river bank, under that mud," he said blankly, a hand held to his face.
• After morning rains caused delays Friday, rescuers resumed efforts, but manpower or resources had yet to reach many in Teresopolis, a mountain city of 163,000 alongside a national park. It holds ornate weekend homes where the wealthy of Rio escape the summer heat to enjoy horseback riding and rock climbing, as well as brick or wood houses built by the poor on denuded land.
• It is the worst natural disaster to hit Latin America's biggest nation since flooding and slides in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo states killed 785 people in 1967, according to the Brussels-based International Disaster Database, which has records of deadly natural events in Brazil since 1900.
• Rio state's Civil Defense department said 227 people were killed in Teresopolis and 230 in Nova Friburgo, a 45-mile drive to the west of Teresopolis that draws hikers and campers to mountain trails, waterfalls and dramatic views of lush green slopes. Another 41 died in neighboring Petropolis and 16 in Sumidouro. About 14,000 people were driven from their homes. An additional 37 people died in floods and mudslides since Christmas in other parts of southeastern Brazil.
• Despite the number of deaths, the relatively low number of injured has surprised officials. Carlos Eduardo Coelho, in charge of the Rio state's health services effort in Teresopolis, said hospitals have ample space. He said that on Thursday, 185 people were treated for injuries in two city hospitals, while 20 people sought treatment in a military field hospital. He said the injuries are not that severe but that he was worried about the health risks to come as even the survivors were "buried in contaminated water" and even people with minor cuts are developing infections.

Amauri Souza, a 38-year-old who helped Perfista hike his son's body to town, said a few helicopters are reaching remote areas, but "they're only taking down the wounded." He said they were not dropping off food, water or body bags, and he came to town to plead for help.

Souza said he pulled his wife and 6-month-old daughter to safety when the wall of mud and water hit early Wednesday. But his wife's parents were lost. He heard their screams for help as they were caught up in the mud. Their bodies has yet to be found.

It's a scene of war and total loss," he said of his area. "I heard my friends screaming for help in the night."

Now, after the initial disaster, he fears another from hunger, thirst and disease if officials do not act. "The water is rotten, but people are forced to drink it. There is no food. I had meat in my house, but it's all gone bad."

Flooding and mudslides are common in Brazil when the summer rains come, but this week's slides were among the worst in recent memory. The disasters punish the poor, who often live in rickety shacks perched perilously on steep hillsides with little or no foundations. But even the rich did not escape the damage in Teresopolis, where large homes were washed away.

More images from the disaster

BRISBANE, Australia – An elderly man stood beside the muddy water inundating his neighborhood, the tops of road signs the only evidence that 24 hours earlier the area had been a busy junction in Brisbane's Fairfield neighborhood. 

I expected, despair, anger even.

Simon Balmer / NBC News

Kayakers take to the flooded streets of Milton, a suburb of Brisbane, Australia.

Instead there was a smile: "I'm King Canute," he said, referring to the 11th century Viking king who legend said could command the tides. "There's no turning this back."

A little further along the road I met Catherine Dalton. She was standing beside her water-logged house, a frustrated look on her face. On seeing me, she brightened, and I soon realized why.

"Gotta save the barbie," she announced, recruiting me to help carry her substantial barbecue to a friend's house on higher ground across the street.

There's no doubting the severity of the floods in Australia's third largest city, even though they didn't quite peak Thursday as high as had been feared.

About 30 of Brisbane's suburbs have been inundated, affecting an estimated 35,000 homes, many of which will never be habitable again, even after the water recedes.

Queensland's Premier Anna Bligh has called it the worst natural disaster in the history of the state, possibly in Australian history.

Floods have been sweeping across Queensland since early December. The latest phase of the flooding hit the southeast part of the state and killed at least 14 people, with dozens still missing. The death toll is expected to rise.

Yet in spite of all this, there is tremendous resolve – and humor, much of it of the darker ilk – amid tragedy.

Simon Balmer / NBC News

Residents look at the flooded streets of Milton, a suburb of Brisbane.

‘Queensland spirit’
Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard called it the "Queensland spirit" when I met her Wednesday. I didn't take that too seriously at the time, but after two days traveling around the state's water-logged capital, I can see what she was getting at.

On one street corner a dive shop put out fresh signs: "Learn to dive now!" it invited passing motorists.

While in another district where several factories and a stadium were under water, a small group bemoaned that the floods represented an attack on the Australian way of life.

"It's taken out the footy stadium and the brewery. How can we recover from this?" one man asked me. Just down the cordoned off street was one of the city's main sports stadiums, across the road from the Castlemaine Brewery, purveyor of “XXXX,” one of Brisbane's most famous beers.

Across the city, suburban roads have become rivers. On Thursday the new waterways were plied by kayaks, small boats, as well as rescue teams – lifeguards, more used to patrolling the beach – looking for those stranded in their homes.

Most people did evacuate, as advised, before the peak flood hit, but some did stay. We witnessed a rescue team bringing to dry ground a young woman and her boyfriend, who had thought they could sit out the flood. A silly decision really, but nobody seemed to hold it against them.

Ian Williams / NBC News

Rescue workers prepare to take to the flooded streets of Milton, a suburb of Brisbane.

"No power, no phone – and then the beer ran out. It was getting pretty boring," the woman told me.

It will take a long time for Brisbane – and Queensland – to recover, but the prime minister is right. There is spirit here. They will bounce back.