Italy a Spat Between Friends

Craxi re-forms his government with the old players

Now you see it, now you don't. With the deft touch of political prestidigitators, Italian party leaders last week made a government crisis disappear as if it had never happened. Two weeks after Prime Minister Bettino Craxi had marched up Rome's Quirinal Hill to present his resignation to Italy's President Francesco Cossiga over his handling of the Achille Lauro hijacking, Craxi returned to reclaim his place as leader of his five-party ruling coalition. The President and the four other coalition partners decided to consider Craxi's resignation provisional, thereby allowing the same government with the same policies to continue. After an expected...

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