Italian PM's rap video ruffles allies

ROME, Oct 4: A pseudo-rap video starring Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi -- without his consent -- is infuriating allies who say the song degrades the government and should be stripped from state airwaves.

The video steals awkward moments from an embattled speech by Prodi before parliament last week, which had to be suspended after heckling from opponents interrupted him nine times.

''For me, for me, for me,'' Prodi stutters in the looped broadcast, with howls and booing audible in the background.

The video, crafted by a still anonymous DJ, has become a smash hit on the Internet, rebroadcast on Web sites like YouTube and circulated in Italy by left-leaning Repubblica's Web site http://espresso.repubblica.it/multimedia/italia/431171.

But it has also been broadcast on more staid TV stations like state-run RAI, prompting some centre-left lawmakers -- including members of RAI's parliamentary oversight committee -- to question whether it was breaking the rules by showing it.

In a letter to RAI's board, the lawmakers asked RAI to ''verify whether defamation of the institutions has taken place'' since the video was shown in ''an official and esteemed space''.

''RAI isn't a place for satire. Period,'' Giorgio Merlo, an MP for the Daisy party in Prodi's coalition, told Reuters.

REUTERS