Berlusconi survives confidence vote

Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, has won a decisive victory in a confidence vote in the Italian parliament. Berlusconi won 342 votes in favor of his government, with 275 opposed and three members abstaining. The outcome came as little surprise after members of a breakaway group from Berlusconi's center-right coalition said earlier on Wednesday that they would back the prime minister. "We have different ideas from Berlusconi about the future of Italian politics, but we think now that Italy doesn't need a new election, Italy needs to be governed," Benedetto della Vedova, a member of the breakaway bloc, told Al Jazeera after the vote. Berlusconi called on parliamentarians to back him to spare Italy political instability at a time of financial woe.