Welcome to Italy, Huffington Post! (And you too, Arianna.)

Ms. Huffington herself, announcing the launch of L’Huffington Post

For those of you that aren’t familiar with The Huffington Post, it is an American news website and blog founded by Arianna Huffington (and others) in 2005. The site offers news and articles in all fields: politics, comedy, culture, technology, lifestyle, and much more. Joining the other non-American versions (UK, Canada, Spain, France), the Italian Huffington Post site launched this morning. Yay! (Read Arianna’s launch letter here.) Inaugurating today’s website launch is a huge photo and interview of Mr. Silvio Berlusconi himself.

At the helm of the HuffPost launch in Italy is well-known Italian journalist, Lucia Annunziata. She’s worked at all the main newspapers and at one point was even the president of RAI (the Italian state owned public service broadcaster, aka the biggest television company in Italy). Perhaps she is most famous for her ball-busting interviewing style, especially when hosting Silvio Berlusconi in 2006, which ended with Silvio walking off the set. (Watch a snippet of the video here, in Italian. Read about it here, in English.) Needless to say, this lady is hardcore.

In Italy, celebrating the site’s launch is bigwig Arianna Huffington herself. You can catch her tomorrow, September 26th at the MACRO museum, speaking as part of the series, ‘Leader. Femminile Singolare,’ which presents talks with important women who play key roles in society. The event begins at 6 PM, and is FREE. (MACRO – Via Nizza, 138.)