Karima El Mahroug’s testimony Friday at the trial of three former Berlusconi aides accused with procuring her and other woman for prostitution confirms a sexually charged atmosphere at the parties of the then-sitting premier. They deny the charges. The trial is separate from the one in which Berlusconi is charged with paying for sex with a minor — El Mahroug when she was 17 — and trying to cover it up.

El Mahroug, now 20, said she attended about a half-dozen parties, and that after each, he handed her an envelope with up to 3,000 euros ($3,900) in denominations of 500. She said she later received 30,000 euros cash from the former premier paid through an intermediary — money that she told Berlusconi she wanted to use to open a beautician salon, despite having no formal training.

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But the former Italian leader could appeal this verdict to a higher court, the Court of Cassation.

In October, a court convicted Berlusconi in a scheme that involved inflating the price his Mediaset media empire paid for TV rights to U.S. movies and pocketing the difference. Berlusconi denied the charges and says he's a victim of politically motivated prosecutors.

That verdict was upheld Wednesday by the appeals court in Milan.

The lower court, which began hearing the case in 2006, also said Berlusconi could not hold public office for five years or manage any company for three years, penalties that would take force only if the conviction is upheld on two levels of appeal.

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During the recent restoration of Pinturicchio‘s Resurrection fresco (1494) on the wall of the Hall of Mysteries in the Borgia Apartment at the Vatican has revealed what may be the first images of Native Americans in European art. Vatican Museums Director Antonio Paolucci believes a detail in the artwork refers to the natives of the American continent that explorer Christopher Columbus encountered when he travelled to the New World for the first time.

”Just behind the Resurrection, behind a soldier who is enthralled by the incredible event he is seeing, you are able to discern nude men wearing feathers who appear to be dancing,” Paolucci said.

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Knox was convicted for the murder of her study abroad roommate, Meredith Kercher, and released in 2011 when the charges were dismissed. Italian courts recently overturned Knox's acquittal, however, and viewers are reminded that "every word she says here and in the pages of her new book...could affect her freedom."

In the interview, Knox recounts the night of Kercher's death, maintaining that Knox was at her Italian boyfriend's home that night. When she learned of the death, the Italian media scrutinized her reaction as callous. Knox admits to Sawyer,"I wish I could have been more mature about it."

"I felt very lost, very alone and very vulnerable," she explained. "My friend had been murdered, and it could have just as easily been me."

Knox also appealed to Kercher's family, saying "Eventually I can have their permission to pay my respects at her grave and I would also like them to know that she talked about them to me," she said.

Watch Part I of the interview, below:

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Knox made headlines in 2009 when she was first suspected -- later, convicted -- of the grisly murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher, while the two were studying abroad in Italy. She was released from prison in 2011, but in March 2013, Italian courts overturned her acquittal.

“A Special Edition of 20/20: Murder. Mystery. Amanda Knox Speaks” airs on ABC at 10 p.m. ET Tuesday evening. The interview coincides with the release of her memoir, "Waiting to Be Heard."

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Dipendra Poudel of the Mountaineering Department said the three climbers -- from Italy, Switzerland and Britain -- were involved in arguments with some Sherpa guides on Sunday.

Poudel says both sides accuse each other of starting the fight, adding mountaineering officials based at the Everest base camp were investigating the incident.

Sherpa guides hired by the hundreds of Western climbers attempting to climb the world's highest mountain are the first ones to fix the ropes on the routes so their clients can climb to the peak.

The Sherpas are accusing the foreign climbers of starting the fight.

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Many Catholics believe the shroud is the cloth in which Jesus was buried, but others dismiss the relic as a forgery made in medieval times. If the Italian scientists are correct, the shroud could have been used during Jesus’ lifetime.

In a new book, "Il Mistero della Sindone" or “The Mystery of the Shroud,” Giulio Fanti, a professor of mechanical and thermal measurement at the University of Padua, and Saverio Gaeta, a journalist, explain how fibers from the shroud were analyzed using infrared light and spectroscopy, the Daily Telegraph reported.

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On one side was a U.S. courtroom, where a judge was handing down a 150-year sentence after a six-month trial. On the other, an Italian courtroom with a judge handing down a six-month sentence after a 150-year trial.

That's how the country's No. 1 newspaper summed up Italy's slow-moving, and at times inconclusive, justice system.

The decision by Italy's highest criminal appeals court to overturn the acquittals of American student Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend, and order a new trial in the 2007 slaying of her British roommate, is once again raising concerns both at home and abroad about how justice works in Italy.

It's a system where people cleared of serious crimes can have the threat of prison hanging over them for years, while powerful politicians such as former premier Silvio Berlusconi can avoid jail sentences almost indefinitely by filing appeal after appeal until the statute of limitations runs out.

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The Italian legal system has ordered a retrial for the highly-publicized murder case due to procedural missteps in the original trial. As the AP notes, it's not clear what would happen if Knox was convicted, but it could launch an extradition battle between the U.S. and Italy.

The news comes only weeks before Knox's first television interview, scheduled with ABC's Diane Sawyer. The interview coincides with the release of her tell-all memoir, "Waiting to be Heard," both to take place on April 30.

Though the acquittal adds another (metaphorical, for now) chapter in the book, publisher HarperCollins has a released a statement saying that it will "move forward with the interviews we have scheduled" and release the memoir as planned.

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The appellate court's new ruling came after prosecutors argued that the court, which acquitted Knox and her former lover in 2011, had not conducted proceedings properly. According to the AP, "Italian law cannot compel Knox to return for the new trial, and her lawyer said she had no plans to do so. The appellate court hearing the new case could declare her in contempt of court but that carries no additional penalties."

Knox's original trial fueled a media frenzy, especially in Italy and Britain, with salacious accusations of student group sex gone murderously awry. The rumors, although headline gold, infected public perception and -- commentators noted -- the court proceedings. The foreign exchange student, who was studying in Italy and shared a Perugia apartment with Kercher, earned the epithet "Foxy Knoxy" from the ravenous paparazzi.

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If “Reality” isn’t quite as impressive as Garrone’s 2008 “Gomorrah,” an operatic and many-stranded saga about the long tentacles of Naples’ criminal underworld, it makes clear that he’s a filmmaker who can take a familiar story and infuse it with strangeness and vitality. While “Gomorrah” seemed more akin to the big-canvas social and moral criticism of the late Michelangelo Antonioni, “Reality” recalls other models – a little bit Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita,” and a whole bunch Martin Scorsese’s “The King of Comedy.”

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The court sentenced him to one year in jail, but issued no orders on the carrying out of the sentence. In Italy, it is rare for anyone to be put behind bars pending a possible appeal except in the case of very serious crimes like murder.

Berlusconi's brother, Paolo Berlusconi, was convicted of the same charge and sentenced to two years and three months. Paolo Berlusconi is publisher of the Milan newspaper il Giornale, which published the transcript of the conversation.

Silvio Berlusconi's defense team had accused the court of seeking a speedy verdict for political impact.

Still, the verdict does not directly affect Berlusconi's eligibility to participate in a new government because Italy — despite several attempts to pass such legislation — has no law banning people convicted of minor crimes from parliament. His center-right coalition last week finished third in parliamentary elections that saw no clear winner. Talks on forming a new government are expected to begin March 20.

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Italy's parliamentary elections have ended in a stalemate, threatening the euro zone's already fragile economic state.

Though no group has a clear majority in parliament, the center-left coalition headed by Pier Luigi Bersani won a narrow victory in the lower house of parliament.

"The winner is: Ingovernability," a headline in one Rome newspaper read. It's a reflection of what the country would will likely be facing in the coming weeks, as sworn enemies are forced to form a coalition government, Reuters reported.

BBC's Europe editor, Gavin Hewitt, explained that though Bersani has control of the lower house, "even if he were to join forces with the former Prime Minister Mario Monti he would not be able to command a majority there."

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ROME, Italy — Rome is awash in political posters.

They're plastered on buses, billboards, even the Segways that bear footsore tourists through ancient cobbled streets, with messages from a seemingly baffling array of 25 parties and coalitions — from the Workers' Communist Party to the neo-Fascist Tricolor Flame — competing in parliamentary elections on Sunday and Monday.

Although actually a relatively simple contest, the elections could have a profound impact on the future of Italy and the entire euro zone.

The results will determine whether Italy maintains its policies of fiscal restraint and economic liberalization that have restored its credibility on financial markets over the past year, or if voter anger with austerity will usher in a government that would spend its way out of recession at the risk of clashing with Italy's euro zone partners, especially Germany.

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Pull into a gas station in rural Umbria and the black-shirted dictator glares down from the labels of special-edition wine bottles; browse souvenir shops in Basilicata and there's a phalanx of fake-marble busts of the bald-headed Duce; hunt through Roman antique stores and its easy to uncover hoards of Mussolini memorabilia.

Adolf Hitler's Italian henchman is enjoying a revival, 68 years after he was shot by resistance fighters and strung up in a Milan piazza.

Mussolini has always had a loyal following among the far-right fringe in post-War War II Italy. But now, even many ordinary Italians are defending the father of Fascism as a good leader with sound social policies and a knack for making trains run on time. Later, they say, he was led astray by Hitler and pressured to imposing the anti-Jewish 1938 Laws for the Defense of the Race.

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"The Missoni company today confirms that Vittorio Missoni and his wife are missing in Venezuela. The small plane they were travelling on has disappeared. This is all the information currently available. We are relying on the work of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and all the institutions involved, to whom we are gratetful for the prompt activities in the research. As more information becomes available the company will issue further statements. The company asks the press to kindly respect the family's privacy at this time."

The AP reports that the plane, only chartered for a 95-mile flight, went missing not long after takeoff. No wreckage has been found.

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Bitter party rivals buried their grievances to give a non-elected, technocratic government time to convince financial markets that the world's 8th-largest economy isn’t headed for a Greek-style meltdown.

But all that changed over the Christmas break, when the country was suddenly plunged into an election campaign that's seen as crucial not only for Italy’s future, but for the entire euro zone.

The head of Germany’s central bank warned the country would be flirting with disaster if it allowed the elections to derail efforts to reform its economy and reduce the euro zone' second-highest government debt.

"It would be disastrous if they [the reforms] were called into question by the outcome of the elections," Jens Weidmann told the business magazine Wirtschaftswoche on Thursday. "If the reform process comes to a halt, Italy would again lose investors’ confidence."

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“Ah, sì,” I replied in my barely passable Italian.

“Bene,” he answered. Good.

In front of us, a backhoe’s guttural engine whined into action and empty dump trucks rattled along a dirt track. The shouts of men vied for attention with the metallic whirring of drills and saws ringing in the distance. Nineteen immense cranes spread across the landscape, with the foothills of Italy’s Southern Alps in the background. More than 100 pieces of earthmoving equipment, 250 workers, and grids of scaffolding wrapped around what soon would be 34 new buildings.

We were standing in front of a massive 145-acre construction site for a “little America” rising in Vicenza, an architecturally renowned Italian city and UNESCO world heritage site near Venice. This was Dal Molin, the new military base the U.S. Army has been readying for the relocation of as many as 2,000 soldiers from Germany in 2013.

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In Italy, cases must pass two levels of appeal before the verdicts are final. Mr. Berlusconi was expected to appeal.

The conviction was in a case stemming from dealings of Mr. Berlusconi’s Mediaset business empire. Earlier in the week, Mr. Berlusconi announced that he would not run for a fourth term.

Mr. Berlusconi, 76, was not in the courtroom for the verdict.

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