Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: THE GUARDIAN: The Gaddafi-Berlusconi connection

The Gaddafi-Berlusconi connection
o There is more to the two leaders' chumminess than political expediency �
the pair have a common business interest
Before the hullabaloo over the celebrations in Libya passes away, it is
worth making a small but intriguing point.
As noted earlier this week, one of the few western leaders to turn up was
Silvio Berlusconi (though his government stressed it was to celebrate, not
Colonel Gaddafi's seizure of power, God forbid!, but the first anniversary
of a co-operation treaty with Libya). The conventional explanation of
Berlusconi's chumminess with Gaddafi (you may recall he had the colonel over
for a high-profile visit in June) is that he has no alternative.
The media tycoon returned to office last year mainly because of a promise to
crack down on crime and clandestine immigration. And if clandestine migrants
from Libya continue to land on Italy's southern shorelines and islands, he
will be accused of failing to deliver. In May, for the first time, Tripoli
agreed to take back migrants intercepted by the Italians in international
waters (controversially, because they do not have a chance to apply for
asylum). Libya's agreement was a direct outcome of the co-operation treaty
mentioned earlier and signed in August 2008 after a diplomatic operation
handled personally by Berlusconi, and from which Italy's professional envoys
were almost wholly excluded. Among other things, the treaty promised the
Libyans extensive investment, partly in reparation for Italy's colonial
wrongdoings.
But the two leaders are connected by something other than political
expediency. Their families have a common (and highly debatable) business
interest.
In June, the small Italian news agency Radiocor reported that a Libyan
company, Lafitrade, had taken a 10% stake in Quinta Communications, a cinema
production company founded by a Tunisian-born but French-based entrepreneur,
Tarak Ben Ammar. Lafitrade is controlled by the Gaddafi's family's
investment vehicle, Lafico.
So far, so uncontroversial. Except that a) one of the other firms invested
in Quinta Communications, with a stake of around 22%, is a
Luxembourg-registered investment company owned by the Berlusconi family
investment vehicle, Fininvest; and b) Quinta Communications and Mediaset,
the Berlusconi-founded TV empire, each own a one-quarter stake in a new
satellite TV channel for the Maghreb, Nessma TV.
This would seem to constitute a pretty staggering conflict of interest for
Berlusconi, to add to the many he already has in Italy. But even leaving
that aside, one of Nessma's target markets is Libya. And by letting the
colonel's minions into Quinta, Berlusconi and Ben Ammar have handed a share
in the ownership of the station to the Libyan regime. It will be interesting
to see the extent to which Nessma's journalists will feel free to criticise
Gaddafi's running of the country.
Ben Ammar, a businessman pure and simple, can do what he likes. But
Berlusconi is in a rather different position as prime minister of a
democratic nation.
What is as striking as anything about all this is the role played � or
rather, not played � by the Italian media. In all the thousands of words I
have read and heard since June about the dealings between the Berlusconi and
Gaddafi governments, I had not read even one that called attention to this
new link between the two leaders. My attention was drawn to it by a reader.
Libya's entry into Quinta, which I suspect would have been front-page news
in any other European country, was reported briefly by a couple of dailies,
but in their financial section. Neither piece made any allusion to the link
to Nessma.
When Berlusconi visited Tunisia last month, some of the reporters who
accompanied him chronicled his visit to a local satellite TV station and
described how he had chatted in his usual, apparently relaxed, fashion to
journalists in the newsroom. The station was Nessma. Only the Italian news
agency Ansa, as far as I can make out, was indelicate enough to mention that
the Berlusconi family's TV empire was one of the owners. And that was in the
last paragraph of its correspondent's dispatch.
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Inviato via 
http://arianna.libero.it/usenet/

 
Non sono 5 miliardi di Erri ma di dollari in 20 anni e in commesse che andranno alle nostre imprese che hanno gi� 20 miliardi di Euri di commesse. 
L'Italia non dorme e i tradizionali Paesi forti hanno capito che i loto interessi sono colpiti dal cancro dell'Italia che diventa soggetto di politica economica internazionali. L'Inghilterra ha liberato un terrorista per ricorrere gli interessi petroliferi dell'Italia che con l'ENI ha le maggiori concessioni in Libia. 
I giornali inglesi che da tempo attaccano l'Italia fingendo di attaccare Berlusconi e in questo foraggiati dai comunisti, continuano a frignare. Noi ce ne freghiamo perch� ci interessano solo gli interessi dell'Italia. 
Il povero vecchio squilibrato e maniaco cialtrone ernesto ciancialesto banana che odia profondamente il Berlusca che lo mise alla porta di Fininvest lasciandolo disoccupato, continua a vomitare bile e a fare il capofila della feccia rossa che infesta questo gruppo. 
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