The saga of Silvio Berlusconi and his teenaged babes—-the 72-year-old prime minister apparently likes to party with 18-year-olds--is not just another story of Italian excess. Berlusconi’s soap opera illustrates what happens when one man overwhelms the airwaves, plays to the camera without much challenge and has big newspapers ready to color any public discourse.
News is just a handy political lever for this billionaire premier.
The latest press obsession with Berlusconi is his alleged dalliance with a particular teen beauty named Noemi Letizia. It is an telling episode in which the media magnate, once again, has been able to push back any full-court press challenge.
Berlusconi rose to power in large part because of his control of the Italian media market. He owns Mediaset, a company built on three national television channels. His brother owns and operates Il Giornale, a national right-wing paper. His wife Veronica Lario—-the other-woman when a married Berlusconi pursued her decades ago and who has been bleating to the press about suspected infidelities-—is listed as an owner of the influential Il Foglio daily.
Berlusconi also owns Mondadori Editore, the biggest publishing house in Italy which produces Panorama, a popular news magazine. He has holdings in the cinema, insurance and banking sectors. Over the years, there have been investigations of Berlusconi's business deals and allegations of corruption. The man who boasts about his political clout has never been convicted of any crime.
Large dailies—such as La Repubblica—are often critical of Berlusconi but such rebukes are no match for his media army. It is clear, at least when following daily news accounts, that some in the journalism ranks are not immune to basic realities in this media market.
Editors are appointed amid a raging political dynamic. Pressure comes in all sorts of ways in Italy. No one undertakes rigorous content analyses here but, since his party rose to power again last year, Berlusconi’s top political considerations have noticeably garnered front-page headlines.
Immigrants are routinely portrayed as a scourge, a policy embraced by Italy’s rightwing parties. Discussion of economic woes are explained as part of a global tremor—which means no one in this government can be tagged with blame. Hard questions are rarely followed by hard investigations.
The deadly earthquake in L’Aquila in April is a case in point. The disaster never lacked coverage in the first terrible days. What no station or paper has done since is probe why the devastation was so vast.
Which contractors built the modern buildings that tumbled, what building standards were followed, which firms had political or Mafia connections -- those questions have yet to be taken up in the journalistic quarter.
Berlusconi’s undue influence—in both television and print—-was noted with some alarm in 2004 by press watchdogs such as Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists. Berlusconi then and now sees no conflict in his press kingdom and certainly no shame.
Instead, he paints himself, when challenged with reasonable questions, as a victim of the press.
When reports circulated last month that the prime minister was giving gifts and much attention to 18-year-old girl Letizia, Berlusconi bristled. His wife was the source of the initial reports and Berlusconi quickly labeled the wifely outrage a political plot. Her remarks were not sparked by spousal revenge, he said. The political left had goaded his wife, he said, to such a terrible political betrayal.
When reports circulated over the weekend that the prime minister had a New Year’s Eve party a few years ago with topless young women—-Letizia was said to be among the crowd but she attended clothed—-Berlusconi again played himself a victim.
His privacy and a private party at his villa for friends and other politicians was breached, Berlusconi argued. A freelance photographer who had perched outside his villa had taken photos that were beyond the bounds of decency, he charged.
Well, perhaps. But it turns out that photos from the same party by the same freelancer had already been published, two years earlier, in Oggi magazine. Sixteen photos ran then.
Now the photographer, realizing the importance of Letizia and about three dozen other young women at the party, was trying to cash in on the 400+ prints he had taken that night and still had in his files.
The photographer lost out, however, as did the public that might have wanted to know more about what the prime minister was up to at that party.
A Roman judge sided with Berlusconi that the photographer with a long lens and a good sense of timing was taking unfair advantage of a public official who was giving a party with lots of other public officials in attendance. That is justice, Italian-style.
Berlusconi’s interest in young women, and Letizia in particular, may be lamentable, but most likely not a crime. There is no claim or evidence that the old man was physically aggressive. It appears, at least from most published reports, that he just craved their wide-eyed adulation. Press reports have quoted him as cooing at Letizia: "What an angel smile you have."
Young women enthralled with Berlusconi may be naive but they are also likely calculating. Letizia fits the bill. She was quoted as saying she hoped the big man could make her a TV starlet or, gulp, even a senator. So far, one film director had reportedly offered her a role in a movie.
A far more disturbing consideration in this mess is Berlusconi’s hold on the media and how that translates into power in Italy. Berlusconi is not shy about pointing out his personal grip on news and culture. He recently told a French TV reporter: “I am 90 percent of the media in Italy.”
No truer, or sadder, words can be said about this press circus.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Put the G8 on Solid Ground
This is the main government center for the city of L'Aquila. And this city is where G8 leaders might meet in July if Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has his way.
As anyone can see, a deadly earthquake in April has left L'Aquila devastated. Beyond this main city square, and what I saw on a recent visit, is only more hard luck. An estimated 35,000 men, women and children are living in tents, more than a month after tremors battered the Abruzzo region beginning on April 6. Another 30,000 people are living in hotels or bunking with nearby friends and family. Broken houses and buildings tremble from daily seismic jolts, aftershocks that still hit 4.0 on the Richter scale.
Monuments and churches, from hilltown to hilltown, are cracked and crumbled. The main university, about an hour's drive from Rome and a lifeblood for the economy, is shuttered. Thousands of volunteers and civil protection officers are working yeomen hours to forge basic repairs and help the displaced population.
All these good people are headquartered in the vast training police center of the Guardia di Finanza in town. And for some reason, that is exactly where the Italian prime minister plans to hold a G8 summit.
Berlusconi raised L'Aquila as a G8 venue in the early days after the 5.8 quake. His words were seen as sympathetic sentiment for L'Aquila. No one imagined that the leaders of industrial powers of the world would really end up sitting among the ruins.
But Berlusconi persisted. He swiftly scrapped the original site, near the Sardinian port city of La Maddalena, and appealed to G8 members to give L'Aquila a go as a worthy substitute. (Berlusconi's speed to abandon the planned venue--a former NATO and U.S. Naval base on the island of Santa Stefano that closed in 2008--raised eyebrows and some questions about whether preparations may have gone awry. Folks in La Maddalena, hurting economically since the base loss and hoping for a G8 boost, are irate.)
Berlusconi should walk through L'Aquila and talk to the hard workers there before he goes further. Every single person I met described the G8 as a huge distraction. It will hamper efforts to rebuild homes and offices, people said, in a mountainous region where snow can fall as early as September. The demands of a G8 summit will upend work at the Guardia di Finanza center, the nerve center for recovery, they said.
Police were already cutting off traffic routes to enforce security checks in order to be ready for July. Workmen told me that supply runs took twice as long because trucks had to maneuver detours. Every rooftop and abandoned building in the dusty, dilapidated town was seen as liability. How much time and money should be spent on making L'Aquila ready for primetime politics, people asked, instead of pushing forward on the recovery effort?
G8 member countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, have been publicly mute about the change but apparently quietly voiced concern. Berlusconi last week raised the idea that G8 leaders could bunk in Rome and be flown daily by helicopter to L'Aquila for talks.
G8 members should just say no.
Berlusconi needs to stick to business when it comes to L'Aquila: Document the region's losses to compete for European Union reconstruction grants. Investigate whether mafia-linked construction companies should be blamed for the way the city crumbled. Join in the hard work of rebuilding a tourist area that is on the edge of long-term disaster.
Italy should help L'Aquila and its cultural heritage rise from the dust as soon as possible. Berlusconi does not need this mid-summer photo op. Let the people who are engaged in that dawn-to-dusk effort work in peace.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Bailing on Benedict
The papal trip to the Holy Land so far has been a beautiful show of Catholic piety and thought. Pope Benedict’s XVI’s weeklong trip to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories also has been a wondrous display of irrelevance.
This pope, with his narrow vision of Catholic importance, has stepped onto the world stage to reveal yet again how little he knows of real-life challenges and, in this context, the competing religions and politics of the Middle East.
The big news story this weekend was that Pope Benedict pointed out that Christians—the Christian Palestinians caught between Israeli demands and Palestinian political forces framed around an Islamic agenda—were in danger of leaving the Holy Land.
Really? Where was the Vatican in 2002 and 2003 when the white-hot intifada sent such Palestinians scurrying for visas to any country that would take them? Seven years or so later, it is nice to know the Vatican has indeed heard the cries of the Christians—and yes, they are Palestinians--who lost businesses and homes and waved good bye to families in such towns as Bethlehem to avoid violence.
Sometimes it is difficult to know who to blame for this pontiff’s tin ear or his lack of knowledge about the world beyond Vatican City.
The U.S.-based press tried to drum up interest in and even an agenda for the pope's first trip to the troubled Middle East (perhaps reporters were trying, in part, to justify to their editors the jaw-dropping expenses for such Vatican forays). The New York Times in particular offered up news stories and opened op-ed space to John L. Allen, a New York-based reporter for the National Catholic Reporter and a CNN contributor.
Allen, who churns out books that explain the workings of Catholic leadership, tried mightily to cast the aging pope as a peace-maker in the crisis-ridden region. That took cerebral gymnastics even for a writer as well-regarded as Allen. Is there anybody who thinks this pope who offended both Arabs and Jews in the past four years could push, cajole or even chat frankly with either group?
The elderly Benedict that I have seen since 2006 in Rome has firmly focused on reaffirming traditional Catholic values as the world’s top Christian leader. He does not want to be a change-maker or anything like his predecessor Pope John Paul II.
The Polish pope charged ahead intellectually and personally to engage on the issues of the day, including Communism and domination by the Soviet Union. John Paul fell disastrously short on confronting some Catholic sins—pedophilia by priests was never fully addressed—but he made the Vatican and Christianity a force for the world to behold.
Benedict has undone that power. His sermons and letters are theologically interesting but they don't grab headlines for intellectual merit or political acumen. Instead, Benedict’s papal statements are increasingly read for possible missteps or outrage.
Benedict offended Muslims early on in his papacy with a reference to an ancient text that, at first look, appeared to demean Islam as a religion. This past January, Benedict managed to offend Jews by reaching out to far-right clerics who had been excommunicated – and unwittingly pulling in a Holocaust-denying priest among them. Uproar from both incidents drew weeks of terrible publicity.
Missteps were made, Vatican observers have said, because the pope, an intense scholar and shy man, was so focused on his main mission. Benedict sees himself as a pope who must shore up Catholic values. He believes the Church’s strength can be found in going back to the basics. He wants to be a force that reassures the faithful and he doesn't always calculate his statements beyond the Church.
That may be comforting to much of the Roman Catholic world. But the rest of the planet appears increasingly to see this pope as inconsequential to public debate or, just as problematic, too predictable in his approach. More worrisome, some may have already written off Benedict's papacy and, in turn, the Vatican's voice in moral persuasion.
In these troubled global times, that can't be good for anyone.
This pope, with his narrow vision of Catholic importance, has stepped onto the world stage to reveal yet again how little he knows of real-life challenges and, in this context, the competing religions and politics of the Middle East.
The big news story this weekend was that Pope Benedict pointed out that Christians—the Christian Palestinians caught between Israeli demands and Palestinian political forces framed around an Islamic agenda—were in danger of leaving the Holy Land.
Really? Where was the Vatican in 2002 and 2003 when the white-hot intifada sent such Palestinians scurrying for visas to any country that would take them? Seven years or so later, it is nice to know the Vatican has indeed heard the cries of the Christians—and yes, they are Palestinians--who lost businesses and homes and waved good bye to families in such towns as Bethlehem to avoid violence.
Sometimes it is difficult to know who to blame for this pontiff’s tin ear or his lack of knowledge about the world beyond Vatican City.
The U.S.-based press tried to drum up interest in and even an agenda for the pope's first trip to the troubled Middle East (perhaps reporters were trying, in part, to justify to their editors the jaw-dropping expenses for such Vatican forays). The New York Times in particular offered up news stories and opened op-ed space to John L. Allen, a New York-based reporter for the National Catholic Reporter and a CNN contributor.
Allen, who churns out books that explain the workings of Catholic leadership, tried mightily to cast the aging pope as a peace-maker in the crisis-ridden region. That took cerebral gymnastics even for a writer as well-regarded as Allen. Is there anybody who thinks this pope who offended both Arabs and Jews in the past four years could push, cajole or even chat frankly with either group?
The elderly Benedict that I have seen since 2006 in Rome has firmly focused on reaffirming traditional Catholic values as the world’s top Christian leader. He does not want to be a change-maker or anything like his predecessor Pope John Paul II.
The Polish pope charged ahead intellectually and personally to engage on the issues of the day, including Communism and domination by the Soviet Union. John Paul fell disastrously short on confronting some Catholic sins—pedophilia by priests was never fully addressed—but he made the Vatican and Christianity a force for the world to behold.
Benedict has undone that power. His sermons and letters are theologically interesting but they don't grab headlines for intellectual merit or political acumen. Instead, Benedict’s papal statements are increasingly read for possible missteps or outrage.
Benedict offended Muslims early on in his papacy with a reference to an ancient text that, at first look, appeared to demean Islam as a religion. This past January, Benedict managed to offend Jews by reaching out to far-right clerics who had been excommunicated – and unwittingly pulling in a Holocaust-denying priest among them. Uproar from both incidents drew weeks of terrible publicity.
Missteps were made, Vatican observers have said, because the pope, an intense scholar and shy man, was so focused on his main mission. Benedict sees himself as a pope who must shore up Catholic values. He believes the Church’s strength can be found in going back to the basics. He wants to be a force that reassures the faithful and he doesn't always calculate his statements beyond the Church.
That may be comforting to much of the Roman Catholic world. But the rest of the planet appears increasingly to see this pope as inconsequential to public debate or, just as problematic, too predictable in his approach. More worrisome, some may have already written off Benedict's papacy and, in turn, the Vatican's voice in moral persuasion.
In these troubled global times, that can't be good for anyone.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
The First 100 Days
Let's mark the first hundred days of Obama with a personal microeconomic case study.
On a cold day in January, I was in Washington to witness an inauguration that many Americans once thought unimaginable. In February, I experienced a very different cold and decidedly downbeat American moment. I joined the 651,000 people who lost jobs that month in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. At last count by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 12.5 million Americans are unemployed.
This month, as President Barack Obama spoke about glimmers of hope in these dour economic times, I indeed found a tiny lifeline in his still-to-be-judged $787-billion stimulus package.
My health-care premium, a new financial demand realized after my job loss, suddenly became manageable. With a kick from a stimulus bill signed Feb. 17 by the president, my hefty $419-a-month premium that I paid in March was pared to $149 this month. That savings—a 65 percent cut covered by federal funds—was welcome relief.
I know, in some ways, that I am strangely fortunate. I am getting a handout to preserve my standard of health care at a time when millions of other hard-working people have no insurance at all. I only have to look to my family to know the hardship. One 23-year-old nephew, a film major in college, has yet to secure a fullltime job that will contribute to health care coverage.
My nephew has worked on some notable films (although the appeal of the slasher hit, My Bloody Valentine, eludes this aunt) but always on contract. For more than a year now, he has been scraping together $350 a month to pay for health and prescription coverage. Over time, that burden on his slim income may prove unsustainable.
I always enjoyed health benefits from media employers who picked up much of the monthly tab. Every news organization that hired me, since 1979, offered comprehensive health packages. The Chicago Tribune, where I worked since 2002, offered health, dental and vision coverage. But signs of stress in the news business last year, and large ad losses realized by newspapers in particular, made me wonder whether such good times could last.
Well, the Tribune Co. tumbled into disaster by early December 2008. As the paper filed for bankruptcy protection, I pursued a personal financial reckoning that proved fortuitous. I shifted investments as they matured and I put money in the bank. I also took care of big-ticket health costs by Christmas.
I thought I was ready for the worst. I imagined that I, as a single woman with no major health concerns, would likely see a monthly bill of about $300 if I lost my job and had to extend health coverage under the federal COBRA program. (I had been paying about $45 while I was employed.) Still, when the Tribune lopped the foreign staff off its organizational chart this year, I was in for an unpleasant surprise.
My health care bill was more than a third higher than I planned —and topped even my first state unemployment check.
Tribune-based health care advisers were no great help. Several told me to take a wait-and-see approach before signing up for COBRA. (COBRA is a federally mandated guarantee that basically allows a laid-off worker to pick up the cost, up to 18 months, to continue existing group health care.)
Sign up if you become ill, Tribune advisers said, or if you need to see a doctor. That can save you money at a difficult time, they said. All were dumbfounded when I balked.
What if I was in a car accident and fell into a coma? Who would sign the qualification papers, I asked. The Tribune benefits people said they had never considered that possibility.
A phone call to Ceridian Corp., the company that oversees COBRA with the Tribune Co., cleared up much of my fear. On the first call, an agent demystified my options. She also explained the stimulus possibility and that the federal government might pump money into COBRA to give a hand to millons of newly unemployed people.
She helped me navigate the company website so that I was ready to take advantage of the money when, and if, it became available. This week, the money began flowing for me.
In about three minutes of computer time, I qualified for federal funds. I was suddenly richer by $270 a month. The infusion will last for nine months—right now, that is the time limit for stimulus money for health care—but that gives me time to maneuver.
Don't mistake my thoughts as an ode to the stimulus package. Obama's package may well prove to be a beast to manage. It may lack the necessary safeguards to make sure that tax dollars are well spent. It could fall short of jumpstarting the economy or repairing consumer confidence. But it has some personal charms in these hard times of 2009.
One hundred days and counting, the administration has gotten some things right.
On a cold day in January, I was in Washington to witness an inauguration that many Americans once thought unimaginable. In February, I experienced a very different cold and decidedly downbeat American moment. I joined the 651,000 people who lost jobs that month in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. At last count by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 12.5 million Americans are unemployed.
This month, as President Barack Obama spoke about glimmers of hope in these dour economic times, I indeed found a tiny lifeline in his still-to-be-judged $787-billion stimulus package.
My health-care premium, a new financial demand realized after my job loss, suddenly became manageable. With a kick from a stimulus bill signed Feb. 17 by the president, my hefty $419-a-month premium that I paid in March was pared to $149 this month. That savings—a 65 percent cut covered by federal funds—was welcome relief.
I know, in some ways, that I am strangely fortunate. I am getting a handout to preserve my standard of health care at a time when millions of other hard-working people have no insurance at all. I only have to look to my family to know the hardship. One 23-year-old nephew, a film major in college, has yet to secure a fullltime job that will contribute to health care coverage.
My nephew has worked on some notable films (although the appeal of the slasher hit, My Bloody Valentine, eludes this aunt) but always on contract. For more than a year now, he has been scraping together $350 a month to pay for health and prescription coverage. Over time, that burden on his slim income may prove unsustainable.
I always enjoyed health benefits from media employers who picked up much of the monthly tab. Every news organization that hired me, since 1979, offered comprehensive health packages. The Chicago Tribune, where I worked since 2002, offered health, dental and vision coverage. But signs of stress in the news business last year, and large ad losses realized by newspapers in particular, made me wonder whether such good times could last.
Well, the Tribune Co. tumbled into disaster by early December 2008. As the paper filed for bankruptcy protection, I pursued a personal financial reckoning that proved fortuitous. I shifted investments as they matured and I put money in the bank. I also took care of big-ticket health costs by Christmas.
I thought I was ready for the worst. I imagined that I, as a single woman with no major health concerns, would likely see a monthly bill of about $300 if I lost my job and had to extend health coverage under the federal COBRA program. (I had been paying about $45 while I was employed.) Still, when the Tribune lopped the foreign staff off its organizational chart this year, I was in for an unpleasant surprise.
My health care bill was more than a third higher than I planned —and topped even my first state unemployment check.
Tribune-based health care advisers were no great help. Several told me to take a wait-and-see approach before signing up for COBRA. (COBRA is a federally mandated guarantee that basically allows a laid-off worker to pick up the cost, up to 18 months, to continue existing group health care.)
Sign up if you become ill, Tribune advisers said, or if you need to see a doctor. That can save you money at a difficult time, they said. All were dumbfounded when I balked.
What if I was in a car accident and fell into a coma? Who would sign the qualification papers, I asked. The Tribune benefits people said they had never considered that possibility.
A phone call to Ceridian Corp., the company that oversees COBRA with the Tribune Co., cleared up much of my fear. On the first call, an agent demystified my options. She also explained the stimulus possibility and that the federal government might pump money into COBRA to give a hand to millons of newly unemployed people.
She helped me navigate the company website so that I was ready to take advantage of the money when, and if, it became available. This week, the money began flowing for me.
In about three minutes of computer time, I qualified for federal funds. I was suddenly richer by $270 a month. The infusion will last for nine months—right now, that is the time limit for stimulus money for health care—but that gives me time to maneuver.
Don't mistake my thoughts as an ode to the stimulus package. Obama's package may well prove to be a beast to manage. It may lack the necessary safeguards to make sure that tax dollars are well spent. It could fall short of jumpstarting the economy or repairing consumer confidence. But it has some personal charms in these hard times of 2009.
One hundred days and counting, the administration has gotten some things right.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
A Dangerous Munch Crunch
If the global economic crunch has directly affected your personal finances, consider the ripple effect on the world’s poorest countries. A scramble over food—a battle to afford the basic grains—may well be the world’s next big security risk.
The World Food Program this month updated a needs assessment for developing countries in light of the global financial tailspin. Leaders of the top industrialized countries, at a G8 agricultural meeting in Italy, read the forecast with some alarm. Just a year ago, there were riots in more than two dozen countries when food prices spiked to record highs. Emergency aid and subsequent robust harvests helped deflate that crisis. Now authorities see food risks spiraling again as wealthy countries struggle for economic equilibrium.
What happens when rich people steer away from risk, consumers stop spending and credit dries up? The faraway poor suffer the nastiest end of a financial whiplash. The WFP's report, relying on World Bank and International Monetary Fund figures, told this story:
Remittances in emerging countries—money sent home by family members working abroad—have shrunk significantly with the downturn. Primary exports in poor countries, and particularly African nations that sell goods such as copper and coffee, have fallen. Capital investments in emerging markets are shriveling.
WFP spokeswoman Brenda Barton told me that global food production has long been on the radar of the industrialized world as a humanitarian concern. Now sensitivities appear to have changed. U.S. agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack told the Financial Times at the G8 ministers meeting that global food output was coming into focus as a security risk. “This is not just about food security, this is about national security,” Vilsack said.
WFP is waiting to see if food production and hunger actually finds a place on agenda of the G8 summit now planned for July. High food prices persist—albeit lower than the crisis days of 2008—and the world’s hungry are not diminishing in number, Barton said.
More than a billion people go hungry everyday and the number is expected to climb under the current bleak economic conditions. To get a better idea of the problem, look at this data from WFP's April 24 fact sheet. Global cereal prices have fallen since the spike of 2008 but they are still 66 per cent higher than 2005.
“Unfortunately, there are always political and other forces at play when it comes to food,” Barton explained. ”It helps when there are riots on television and people see the human effect of high prices. But it was really straight-forward last year when people saw this as a price issue.
“Now, with the financial crisis, the situation has become much more complicated and far more difficult to track all factors,” Barton said. “And when you see this as a matter of security, well, that takes it to a whole new level.”
The World Food Program this month updated a needs assessment for developing countries in light of the global financial tailspin. Leaders of the top industrialized countries, at a G8 agricultural meeting in Italy, read the forecast with some alarm. Just a year ago, there were riots in more than two dozen countries when food prices spiked to record highs. Emergency aid and subsequent robust harvests helped deflate that crisis. Now authorities see food risks spiraling again as wealthy countries struggle for economic equilibrium.
What happens when rich people steer away from risk, consumers stop spending and credit dries up? The faraway poor suffer the nastiest end of a financial whiplash. The WFP's report, relying on World Bank and International Monetary Fund figures, told this story:
Remittances in emerging countries—money sent home by family members working abroad—have shrunk significantly with the downturn. Primary exports in poor countries, and particularly African nations that sell goods such as copper and coffee, have fallen. Capital investments in emerging markets are shriveling.
WFP spokeswoman Brenda Barton told me that global food production has long been on the radar of the industrialized world as a humanitarian concern. Now sensitivities appear to have changed. U.S. agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack told the Financial Times at the G8 ministers meeting that global food output was coming into focus as a security risk. “This is not just about food security, this is about national security,” Vilsack said.
WFP is waiting to see if food production and hunger actually finds a place on agenda of the G8 summit now planned for July. High food prices persist—albeit lower than the crisis days of 2008—and the world’s hungry are not diminishing in number, Barton said.
More than a billion people go hungry everyday and the number is expected to climb under the current bleak economic conditions. To get a better idea of the problem, look at this data from WFP's April 24 fact sheet. Global cereal prices have fallen since the spike of 2008 but they are still 66 per cent higher than 2005.
“Unfortunately, there are always political and other forces at play when it comes to food,” Barton explained. ”It helps when there are riots on television and people see the human effect of high prices. But it was really straight-forward last year when people saw this as a price issue.
“Now, with the financial crisis, the situation has become much more complicated and far more difficult to track all factors,” Barton said. “And when you see this as a matter of security, well, that takes it to a whole new level.”
Thursday, April 23, 2009
When Stones Bloom...
There is one week every spring when the Spanish Steps turns into a giddy garden of potted blooms. Brilliant purple and white azaleas crowd out--well, almost--the tourists. Just a snapshot from an afternoon stroll today down the Via dei Condotti, my gift of a mini Roman holiday to the armchair traveler.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tales from Tehran
Roxana Saberi--the American freelance journalist in Iran recently sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of espionage--worked for years as a reporter in Iran. Now the young woman is freeze-framed in a strange and frightening bit of Iranian diplomatic theater as a character useful to a regime seeking to engage with the United States.
Saberi, who worked for NPR and the BBC among other agencies, lost her press credentials in Iran in 2006 for reasons never really made clear to me. I imagine comparisons could be made to the riddle of reasons given after her arrest a few weeks ago.
Saberi was said to be taken in for buying alcohol, a forbidden purchase in the Islamic Republic. Then it was said that Saberi, who has dual U.S. and Iranian citizenship, was being held for working without press credentials -- a surprising turn since authorities were aware for some time of her status. Next came the charges and conviction: The young writer was an American spy. Confused? Well, welcome to Iran.
It might be helpful to know the difficulties that any Westerner encounters in trying to enter Iran as a journalist. I met Saberi once or perhaps twice in 2006 during visits to Iran as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Contact was initiated by me and was routine: On any foreign reporting trip, I stop to have coffee or dinner with smart local reporters.
Saberi was matter-of-fact when we met. Friendly and pleasant, she had chosen a rough road, trying to make a career in very hard place to report. She mentioned that she was having trouble getting her credentials renewed. As a fellow American--and one also bound to work in a headscarf, long pants and knee-skimming overcoat to fit government demands on women--I could understand that she would.
Iran was allowing some U.S. journalists in the country to report but I found gaining a journalist visa, even a temporary one, was an arduous process of repeated phone calls, multiple emails and faxes and unending requests for (often already-submitted) documents.
I never knew when or why a visa would be issued. It could take months. It might be ready in days. (I haven't been issued one for a couple years now--and no, I don't know the reason--so I cannot attest to the process now.) To report from Iran few years ago, I had to first file a written request to the Iranian mission to the United Nations, a letter or email including passport information and personal data such as my parents' names and country of residence.
That letter--and a letter from an editor at the paper--then had to be tracked by me with innumerable phone calls to the government's foreign press department. Many journalists, including myself, ended up relying on well-connected, for-profit translation services in Tehran to help push the visa through. I was usually told that the holdup was related to intelligence clearance and somehow these translation services--now, think about that--could smooth the way.
If the visa was suddenly issued, I had to drop everything and hurry to Iran before the visa ran out. When I landed in Iran, I already owed the translation service a couple hundred dollars for what in theory was a cost-free visa. I also would be fingerprinted, every finger pressed into dark-blue ink and recorded on paper, before leaving the airport.
Within days of my arrival, cash flow became a major consideration. I would need a visa extension to get a few more days or even another whole week of reporting time. That would cost. I was, of course, bound to work with the same translation agency to get that extension, a firm that was already charging $150 a day for a translator who may or may not be very good. Those translators were, of course, on the government's watch list. They would have to file or give oral reports on any given reporter. Tips for translators were no small consideration.
To be sure, I could and did send the official translator home so I could, on my own, meet with English-speaking analysts and even people on the street. I often ended up paying other English speakers, on the side, to help me with private interviews.
None of those people, of course, were foolish enough to think that this American journalist was not on somebody's radar. Hotels that catered to foreigners--and time-zone-challenged journalists who needed 24-hour internet--were equipped with closed-circuit cameras in their lobbies and on every floor. Everyone who crossed the threshold of these hotels knew they were caught on tape.
The regime has access to all phone lines, websites, closed-circuit videos and whatever reports or insinuations that neighbors or acquaintances or translators might make. People all along the line know the vulnerabilities. As Saberi's sad arrest shows, the system can manipulate anyone's reality at any time.
Saberi, who worked for NPR and the BBC among other agencies, lost her press credentials in Iran in 2006 for reasons never really made clear to me. I imagine comparisons could be made to the riddle of reasons given after her arrest a few weeks ago.
Saberi was said to be taken in for buying alcohol, a forbidden purchase in the Islamic Republic. Then it was said that Saberi, who has dual U.S. and Iranian citizenship, was being held for working without press credentials -- a surprising turn since authorities were aware for some time of her status. Next came the charges and conviction: The young writer was an American spy. Confused? Well, welcome to Iran.
It might be helpful to know the difficulties that any Westerner encounters in trying to enter Iran as a journalist. I met Saberi once or perhaps twice in 2006 during visits to Iran as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Contact was initiated by me and was routine: On any foreign reporting trip, I stop to have coffee or dinner with smart local reporters.
Saberi was matter-of-fact when we met. Friendly and pleasant, she had chosen a rough road, trying to make a career in very hard place to report. She mentioned that she was having trouble getting her credentials renewed. As a fellow American--and one also bound to work in a headscarf, long pants and knee-skimming overcoat to fit government demands on women--I could understand that she would.
Iran was allowing some U.S. journalists in the country to report but I found gaining a journalist visa, even a temporary one, was an arduous process of repeated phone calls, multiple emails and faxes and unending requests for (often already-submitted) documents.
I never knew when or why a visa would be issued. It could take months. It might be ready in days. (I haven't been issued one for a couple years now--and no, I don't know the reason--so I cannot attest to the process now.) To report from Iran few years ago, I had to first file a written request to the Iranian mission to the United Nations, a letter or email including passport information and personal data such as my parents' names and country of residence.
That letter--and a letter from an editor at the paper--then had to be tracked by me with innumerable phone calls to the government's foreign press department. Many journalists, including myself, ended up relying on well-connected, for-profit translation services in Tehran to help push the visa through. I was usually told that the holdup was related to intelligence clearance and somehow these translation services--now, think about that--could smooth the way.
If the visa was suddenly issued, I had to drop everything and hurry to Iran before the visa ran out. When I landed in Iran, I already owed the translation service a couple hundred dollars for what in theory was a cost-free visa. I also would be fingerprinted, every finger pressed into dark-blue ink and recorded on paper, before leaving the airport.
Within days of my arrival, cash flow became a major consideration. I would need a visa extension to get a few more days or even another whole week of reporting time. That would cost. I was, of course, bound to work with the same translation agency to get that extension, a firm that was already charging $150 a day for a translator who may or may not be very good. Those translators were, of course, on the government's watch list. They would have to file or give oral reports on any given reporter. Tips for translators were no small consideration.
To be sure, I could and did send the official translator home so I could, on my own, meet with English-speaking analysts and even people on the street. I often ended up paying other English speakers, on the side, to help me with private interviews.
None of those people, of course, were foolish enough to think that this American journalist was not on somebody's radar. Hotels that catered to foreigners--and time-zone-challenged journalists who needed 24-hour internet--were equipped with closed-circuit cameras in their lobbies and on every floor. Everyone who crossed the threshold of these hotels knew they were caught on tape.
The regime has access to all phone lines, websites, closed-circuit videos and whatever reports or insinuations that neighbors or acquaintances or translators might make. People all along the line know the vulnerabilities. As Saberi's sad arrest shows, the system can manipulate anyone's reality at any time.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Doing Right
The grand displays of sorrow in L'Aquila--a public televised funeral for hundreds and a national day of mourning-- are over. What remains beyond the dismal tent cities in this once-lovely medieval city are questions about whether Italy will do right by those suffering.
Specifically, will there be a hard look at why modern buildings in this earthquake-prone region turned into tombs during last Monday's temblor? Will authorities hold people accountable?
Prosecutors told journalists last week that they are investigating the collapse of at least two buildings: a student dormitory and the main hospital in L'Aquila. The brick dormitory essentially pancaked, killing about a dozen students. The hospital, the biggest in the Abruzzo region, was rendered useless when the earth shifted. The facility's pipes and walls cracked so badly that patients had to be evacuated at the city's acute moment of need.
As of this weekend, 289 people were known to have perished in the quake. As many as 70,000 people are said to be homeless.
L'Aquila is the biggest city in a region, about 80 miles from Rome, known for deadly tremors. Strict anti-seismic construction laws have been in place for years. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, visibly emotional at a state funeral on Friday, vowed to seek hundreds of millions of dollars in European funds to help rebuild this hilltown and its surrounding villages. The billionaire premier even offered to open his own home to displaced people -- although it was unclear which of his multiple residences (a villa in Sardinia, perhaps?) that he was actually offering.
So far, he has glossed over questions about who may share blame for some of the grief.
Specifically, in a country where organized crime fluorishes, did the Mafia have a hand in Abruzzo's loss? Who was tied to the companies that built public buildings? Did contractors adhere to seismic construction demands? More simply, where was the iron and concrete that was supposed to make these buildings safe?
L'Aquila suffered a quake that registered 5.8 on the Richter scale. The upheaval proved too much for masonry and designs dating from the 13th century and the most beautiful cathedrals and cultural monuments tumbled. But experts are rightly asking if modern construction shouldn't have defied that sort of bone-jolting.
Was L'Aquila twice a victim, of natural disaster and man-driven greed?
Berlusconi said on Italian radio that the week of sorrow in Abruzzo "was a devastating experience that I will never forget." One hopes he can get past his emotions and examine with vigor the causes behind the devastation.
Specifically, will there be a hard look at why modern buildings in this earthquake-prone region turned into tombs during last Monday's temblor? Will authorities hold people accountable?
Prosecutors told journalists last week that they are investigating the collapse of at least two buildings: a student dormitory and the main hospital in L'Aquila. The brick dormitory essentially pancaked, killing about a dozen students. The hospital, the biggest in the Abruzzo region, was rendered useless when the earth shifted. The facility's pipes and walls cracked so badly that patients had to be evacuated at the city's acute moment of need.
As of this weekend, 289 people were known to have perished in the quake. As many as 70,000 people are said to be homeless.
L'Aquila is the biggest city in a region, about 80 miles from Rome, known for deadly tremors. Strict anti-seismic construction laws have been in place for years. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, visibly emotional at a state funeral on Friday, vowed to seek hundreds of millions of dollars in European funds to help rebuild this hilltown and its surrounding villages. The billionaire premier even offered to open his own home to displaced people -- although it was unclear which of his multiple residences (a villa in Sardinia, perhaps?) that he was actually offering.
So far, he has glossed over questions about who may share blame for some of the grief.
Specifically, in a country where organized crime fluorishes, did the Mafia have a hand in Abruzzo's loss? Who was tied to the companies that built public buildings? Did contractors adhere to seismic construction demands? More simply, where was the iron and concrete that was supposed to make these buildings safe?
L'Aquila suffered a quake that registered 5.8 on the Richter scale. The upheaval proved too much for masonry and designs dating from the 13th century and the most beautiful cathedrals and cultural monuments tumbled. But experts are rightly asking if modern construction shouldn't have defied that sort of bone-jolting.
Was L'Aquila twice a victim, of natural disaster and man-driven greed?
Berlusconi said on Italian radio that the week of sorrow in Abruzzo "was a devastating experience that I will never forget." One hopes he can get past his emotions and examine with vigor the causes behind the devastation.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
The Next Tremor
Italy was strapped for money before the global financial meltdown and before Monday's deadly earthquake that swallowed whole villages in the Abruzzo region. Now as tents cities take over the medieval city of L'Aquila to make way for thousands of suddenly-homeless townspeople, financial demands are causing deep tremors of anxiety.
It will take millions, if not billions, of dollars to salvage the tiny hilltowns that once studded this mountainous countryside. L'Aquila, a 13th-century regional capital of stone streets and graceful domed churches, had just finished an initial stage of a multi-million renovation of its expansive Piazza del Duomo. All that hard work was buried under broken glass and dusty brick and mortar in a matter of seconds.
What nature did not crush Monday may well have to be demolished. Structural damage from the quake is so extensive---some buildings noticeably sway from daily aftershocks---that residents guess, in weepy conversations and interviews, that they won't be going home for years.
Some property owners, like Antonio Ponticello, wondered aloud if full recovery--of the local economy and its important tourist trade--was even a possibility. His own home was a bleak example. "Look at this. This is all I have," the 70-year-old said as we stood in front a two-story villa house that had literally been split open, its walls shorn from its foundation.
"Who could live here now?" Ponticello said quietly. "But even so, we are the fortunate ones. We were lucky to walk out."
Italy is blessed and cursed with centuries of man-made beauty. The world's greatest builders and sculptors graced so many regions of Il Bel Paese. That heritage is increasingly costly for those living in the modern age.
The state, rather than private donors, is bound by law to preserve and pay for the upkeep of cultural treasures. This past summer, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi warned that life-as-we-knew-it was over for the Italian cultural elite. Funds for restoration and archeological renovations were sharply cut back. Even sure-fire tourist draws, such as the vast grounds of Pompeii, were not safe. That venerable open-air museum lost $60 million in its yearly budget--a drop from $75 million to $15 million--for repairs.
In these dizzying emotional times, no one is even mentioning how much money will be needed to rescue the Abruzzo region. The death toll now hovers around 270 people. Close to 20,000 people are sleeping, for yet another cold and jittery night, in tents or their cars. Berlusconi, in an interview with German media Tuesday, tried to suggest that people should think of their time in the tent cities as a camping holiday.
Berlusconi said Wednesday he meant only to raise spirits with that questionable remark. He later, in an interview with CNN, dodged all questions about when L'Aquila and all the once-lovely villages of Abruzzo could possibly rise from the dust.
It will take millions, if not billions, of dollars to salvage the tiny hilltowns that once studded this mountainous countryside. L'Aquila, a 13th-century regional capital of stone streets and graceful domed churches, had just finished an initial stage of a multi-million renovation of its expansive Piazza del Duomo. All that hard work was buried under broken glass and dusty brick and mortar in a matter of seconds.
What nature did not crush Monday may well have to be demolished. Structural damage from the quake is so extensive---some buildings noticeably sway from daily aftershocks---that residents guess, in weepy conversations and interviews, that they won't be going home for years.
Some property owners, like Antonio Ponticello, wondered aloud if full recovery--of the local economy and its important tourist trade--was even a possibility. His own home was a bleak example. "Look at this. This is all I have," the 70-year-old said as we stood in front a two-story villa house that had literally been split open, its walls shorn from its foundation.
"Who could live here now?" Ponticello said quietly. "But even so, we are the fortunate ones. We were lucky to walk out."
Italy is blessed and cursed with centuries of man-made beauty. The world's greatest builders and sculptors graced so many regions of Il Bel Paese. That heritage is increasingly costly for those living in the modern age.
The state, rather than private donors, is bound by law to preserve and pay for the upkeep of cultural treasures. This past summer, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi warned that life-as-we-knew-it was over for the Italian cultural elite. Funds for restoration and archeological renovations were sharply cut back. Even sure-fire tourist draws, such as the vast grounds of Pompeii, were not safe. That venerable open-air museum lost $60 million in its yearly budget--a drop from $75 million to $15 million--for repairs.
In these dizzying emotional times, no one is even mentioning how much money will be needed to rescue the Abruzzo region. The death toll now hovers around 270 people. Close to 20,000 people are sleeping, for yet another cold and jittery night, in tents or their cars. Berlusconi, in an interview with German media Tuesday, tried to suggest that people should think of their time in the tent cities as a camping holiday.
Berlusconi said Wednesday he meant only to raise spirits with that questionable remark. He later, in an interview with CNN, dodged all questions about when L'Aquila and all the once-lovely villages of Abruzzo could possibly rise from the dust.
The Quake Zone
The earth continues to shake and so do nerves in central Italy. Even in Rome, an hour's drive away, aftershocks are stomach-churning. About 7 this morning, a strong tremor rattled through L'Aquila, the medieval city cracked and shattered by Monday morning's jolt. In my home yesterday in central Rome--a fourth-floor apartment--I was rattled by small tremors throughout the day, for several seconds, several times.
The reports of devastation shown on Italian media are stunning. Villages are reduced to dust and survivors are interviewed still wearing their pajamas. The rescue continues Wednesday morning -- searchers reportedly will carry on for another 36 hours.
The reports of devastation shown on Italian media are stunning. Villages are reduced to dust and survivors are interviewed still wearing their pajamas. The rescue continues Wednesday morning -- searchers reportedly will carry on for another 36 hours.
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