Italians furious over porn star Cicciolina's lavish pension rights...

She is famed for being the first woman to uncover her breasts live on Italian television; for recording a song entirely about the male organ and for offering sex to Osama bin Laden (in return, she said, for giving up the terrorism).

But now Ilona Staller, better known as "Cicciolina", is the unlikely protagonist in a bitter row over the cost to ordinary Italians of the perks enjoyed by their country's tens of thousands of politicians. It emerged on Monday that the Hungarian, who starred in almost 40 hardcore pornographic movies, will soon be enjoying a €39,000-a-year (£34,000-a-year) pension, provided by the taxpayers of her adoptive homeland.

The stipend, which is for life, is her reward for labouring as a member of parliament for all of five years, from 1987 to 1992. Staller was elected for the libertarian Radical party and sponsored a number of mainly sex-related bills, including one to set up "love parks and hotels". Full story...

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