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G8 & Berlusconi - keeping the media away
Thu Jul 09 12:48PM
Journalists covering the annual Group of Eight summit for the first time don't have the same frame of reference as old G8 hands, but even we suspected something was awry when we learned that we would be staying a two-hour bus ride away from the venue.
Hundreds of us are billeted in apartments at an athletic village built to house participants in the just-ended Mediterranean Games held in somewhat nearby Pescara on the Adriatic coast.
The set of cheap and cheerful public housing blocks -- still with quite a bit of landscaping yet to do -- are glorified with names like Bernini, Michelangelo and Tintoretto.
Even stranger than Pescara is the summit venue itself, outside the crippled city of L'Aquila that is still mourning the 299 people who lost their lives in an earthquake that struck on April 6.
The entire city of 70,000 remain evacuated from the disaster, many still living in tent camps dotted around the region three months on.
People familiar with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's woes, both public and private, have to wonder what really motivated the decision to shift the summit venue from a luxury cruise ship off of La Maddalena, a Sardinian island, to a disaster zone. He said it would save money and draw attention to the earthquake victims' plight, but you have to wonder whether the sympathy he seeks is for his own embattled self.
Buffeted by relentless revelations over his well-known penchant for starlets, the 72-year-old Berlusconi uses every opportunity to appear the statesman, as well as to deflect attention from Italy's nose-diving economy. So he seized on the idea of money better spent on rebuilding L'Aquila and moving the whole G8 show to a drab military barracks in a suburb of the quake city.
This inspired the unusual G8 slogan, "From La Maddalena to L'Aquila," which features on a logo suggesting a world traversed by migrating blue turtles. Huh? Is the idea that we, too, have migrated to the new venue? Whatever.
Ever since Berlusconi made the surprise announcement of the venue switch he has tried to allay concerns over the fact that aftershocks continue to rattle the area, the biggest so far measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale. So the G8 organisers came up with a plan to place a fleet of helicopters on standby to evacuate the summiteers to an alternative venue in Rome in case of a tremor of 4.0 or more.
Just a day or two before the summit opened, authorities announced that it would be cancelled altogether if that happened. A G8 summit cancelled? Go figure.
It's no wonder, then, that on Wednesday when Berlusconi met the world's press on the opening day he made short work of it. Inviting questions at the end of his spiel, he didn't skip a beat before deeming there were none, despite a number of raised hands.
The flamboyant premier stuck around long enough to share a parting nugget of information with us. A "very, very special" statue dating from the fourth century BC has pride of place in the G8 conference hall, he said, adding that it is securely mounted on an earthquake-proof pedestal.
Dolling up the Guardia di Finanza cadet training school and barracks clearly took a lot of money and effort, paint and grass sodding. Berlusconi claimed the cadets' digs had undergone a "miracle" transformation and invited us for a look in. Not. The road leading to the venue is sparkling, with roundabouts featuring G8 floral patterns.
All the prettifying has not been lost on the quake refugees. "The road on which all these world leaders are going to arrive in L'Aquila has been resurfaced, but we may still not be able to return home until September or October," one survivor fumed.
In this blog, reporters and editors for global news wire AFP blog about the news they report and the challenges they face covering events from Baghdad to Beijing, the White House to Darfur. Gina Doggett reports for AFP from Rome.
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Oh, I see that this year's G8 meeting may be over, although the media haven't said much about it from start to finish. Probably there's nothing much to report, I'm sure there's been the usual waffle about climate change as they flew in to the conference to be met by gas guzzling cars plus the attendant security cars to get them to the venue. And I'm sure they would discuss the poor in Africa and how we could help them, as the delegates wined and dined on the sort of menu that those poor in Africa and most of the rest of us can only dream of. I wonder how much such a meeting costs? Maybe next time they will hold a video conference, isn't that the point of new technology, although I suppose they'd miss the photo of all the "chums" together. And put the money they would have saved into a pot to help the poor they always talk about helping. If only, and call me a cynic if you wish.
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We are not citizens any more, we are merely seen as consumers fed by the junk dished out by politicians, bankers and the media who have to dance to their tune. We have no country to call our own. Millions died in the past to preserve and defend this country of ours - for what? So that we can be invaded secretly under the radar instead? We seem to be ruled by corrupt politicians, bankers and the like. We are mere ants to them, disposable and irrelevant. Whatever happened to freedom? I used to be proud of this country of my birth - but it has sold me and millions of others down the river of greed and corruption. G8 - for OUR benefit? I don't think so!
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If you think the European Union is/are corrupt, consider what the end-game is? Precisely, I knew you'ld get it quickly. The whole idea is that ALL the members enjoy equality of everything. I know that Orwell said that all animals are equal but some are more equal than others, but the basic premise is the "Grande Idee". So where better to start, given the Brits just don't want to play ball, than to wreck the banking system throughout the EU and start again. Share out all the stored wealth. Its a lot easier to do it if you've Nationalised the Banks. The multi-nationals have always considered themselves "mobile", but money is still their God and they go where the tax regime is favourable. G8? It appears to be the Original European Axis Allies with (again) a complicit and willing France, the odds and sods that were the jam in the sandwich of the Second World War, a would-be Axis partner in Spain but who couldn't join in as Franco couldn't decide who was going to win. In the "blue corner" - a plucky protestant England. Still providing the money for the Empire builders to get rich. When the English ran their own Country, such generosity was called "Noblesse oblige". Now the Scots and not a few Roman Catholics amongst them have really given the farm away. A "Son of the Manse" might have been doing a little more for good old Protestant Britain......but not a crypto Communist like Mr Brown, to whom Religion is anathema. Anyway, as God probably doesn't exist,( I used to be an Atheist but now I'm just agnostic about it) I don't suppose it matters to the Government. Given time, the C of E will stay the same but become the C of used-to BE, then the Not-the-C of E and, finally, RC.
I don't understand people who sell out their Countries. Although Mr Brown purports to be "of this Country" it is clear that he has been an Anglophobe from birth and has achieved what he set out to do, not the betrayal of "his" Country -his Country is "over the water" - but the destruction of everything the English have stood for over centuries. Where are you going to run to Mr Brown, when the game is finally up here?
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G8 SMIT TALKS ONLY BUT NO ACTION TAKEN!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHW7KR33IQ
WHY DO THEY REFUSE TO TELL THE TRUTH?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHW7KR33IQ
WHY DO THEY REFUSE TO TELL THE TRUTH?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHW7KR33IQ
WHY DO THEY REFUSE TO TELL THE TRUTH?
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Why do we think anything will be different. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Poverty and misery in the world could be wiped out. All these do-gooders who are very rich talk and talk, our leaders talk and talk. We should stop voting for anyone or worship these celebrities who give some just to ease their consciencesand ask the less well off to give their time and money.
I am afraid nothing will change while those of Church and State only care about money and power.
My thoughts are with those poor people still living in tents. No nothing will be done, just more talk.
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BERLUSCONI, BLAIR, & BUSH ARE MEMBERS OF A VERY SECRET RELIGIOUS RIGHT WING AMERICAN ORGANISATION THAT WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR ORDERING THE ASSASSINATION OF DOCTOR DAVID KELLY WHO EXPOSED THE TRUTH IN THE RUN UP TO THE ILEGAL INVASION OF IRAQ.
They also control most of the media, maybe even this web site, so I doubt if this will be on here very long.
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Why don't these uneducated idiots who say they will support the BNP understand all the G8 leaders think the same as the BNP or their own country's equivalent party.
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