Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi gestures at the end of a political meeting in Catania southern Italy May 7, 2005.  (Reuters photo)

BEIJING, May 20 (Xinhuanet) -- Italy's image-conscious leader Silvio Berlusconi, after beating baldness with a hair transplant, and rubbing out wrinkles with a face, is going on a diet.

    "Starting now, I'll be on a diet for the next month," Berlusconi told reporters. "I want to lose 5 kilos (about 10 pounds)," he was quoted as saying by AGI news service.

    Berlusconi, a media baron who is Italy's richest man, emerged from a monthlong absence last year and announced had undergone plastic surgery around the eyes.

    The 68-year-old premier said he made a bet with a fellow lawmaker from his Forza Italia party that he could lose 5 kilograms (11 pounds) within a month.

    Since taking office in 2001, interventions have included at least one drastic diet that wiped kilos off his waistline. Then there was a successful face lift and a hair transplant that returned dark hair to his too balding head.

    Berlusconi has insisted that his improved appearance is for the greater good.

    "When I look at myself in the mirror, I must feel that my looks on the outside correspond to my youth on the inside, which is absolute," he told reporters in December.

    (Agencies)