November 6, 2009 • 7:46 pm
By Guy Dinmore in Rome
Published: November 6 2009
Italy’s Eni group and Kazakhstan’s London-listed KazMunaiGas last night signed a preliminary agreement that could result in up to $50bn of investments in the central Asian state’s upstream and downstream oil and gas sectors.
Separately Paolo Scaroni, Eni’s chief executive, confirmed he had recently visited Turkmenistan where Eni has been labouring under a two-year visa ban for its employees following its purchase of Burren Energy of the UK, which operates an onshore Turkmen oil field.
Analysts said that while the memorandum of understanding signed in Rome was non-binding, it reflected Eni’s growing ambitions in the region and Kazakhstan’s intention to move away from being just an exporter of raw materials and to lessen its dependence on Russia. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Italian economy, Italian news , ENI, Financial Times, guy dinmore, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan
November 5, 2009 • 6:42 pm
By Guy Dinmore in Rome
Published: November 5 2009
Otto von Bismarck once derided Italians for having a “very large appetite and very bad teeth” and counting for nothing in the affairs of the world. But then the German chancellor had never met Silvio Berlusconi.
While an introspective Europe remains transfixed with sharing out Lisbon treaty positions of power, and critics at home are distracted by his alleged sex scandals and spats with ministers, Italy’s premier is successfully staking out national, and personal business, interests on the fringes of the European Union.
The billionaire media magnate attributes his efficacy to building close personal ties with fellow leaders – a strategy he calls cucù – peekaboo – after he once popped out from behind a fountain to greet Angela Merkel of Germany. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Italian economy, Italian politics , Berlusconi, Financial Times, guy dinmore
October 30, 2009 • 9:04 pm
By Guy Dinmore and Eleonora de Sabata in Rome, Oct 30, 2009
Italian prosecutors searching for the wreck of a ship allegedly scuttled by the mafia with toxic waste on board in 1992 say the vessel they surveyed this week in deep waters off the coast of Calabria turned out instead to be a passenger steamship sunk by a German submarine in 1917.
Fears of coastal pollution had led to protests by local fishermen, residents and mayors who accused the central government of not doing enough to resolve the issue.
Prosecutors told a news conference in Rome on Thursday evening that after finding the World War One wreck of the Catania they had decided to call off the search for a ship which Francesco Fonti, a mafia turncoat, claims to have sent to the bottom with dynamite in 1992. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Italian environment, Italian news, Italian politics , Eleonora de Sabata, Financial Times, guy dinmore, mafia, navi veleni, ndrangheta, toxic ships
October 29, 2009 • 9:04 pm
By Guy Dinmore in Rome and Haig Simonian in Lugano, Switzerland. Published on FT on Oct 29, 2009
Italy yesterday urged Switzerland not to retaliate over their deepening tax and banking dispute after Italian finance police raided local branches of Swiss banks and stood accused of spying on Italians holding secret accounts across the border.
“Counter-measures certainly do not help,” Franco Frattini, Italian foreign minister, told reporters, while also trying to calm matters by assuring Swizerland that it was not being discriminated against and that bilateral relations remained “excellent”.
Billions of undeclared euros – estimates range from upwards of 125bn — held by Italians in Swiss banks are the focus of attempts by Italy’s cash-strapped centre-right government to repatriate funds under a generous tax amnesty passed by parliament this month. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Italian economy, Italian news, Italian politics, Switzerland , Financial Times, guy dinmore, Italy
October 27, 2009 • 7:45 pm
by Guy Dinmore in Rome, published: October 27 2009
Silvio Berlusconi’s battles with the courts took a fresh twist on Tuesday when Milan judges rejected an appeal made by David Mills, his former UK lawyer who was convicted earlier this year of accepting a bribe to help the Italian prime minister.
Mr Mills, who is married to Tessa Jowell, the UK Olympics minister, was given a four and a half year sentence last February for allegedly receiving $600,000 as payment for giving false testimony during two trials in the 1990s to protect Mr Berlusconi’s offshore business interests. Lawyers for Mr Mills, who had denied the charges, on Tuesday told reporters that their client would lodge a second and final appeal as permitted under Italian law. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Italian news, Italian politics , Berlusconi, Financial Times, guy dinmore, Mills
October 26, 2009 • 8:17 pm
By Guy Dinmore in Rome
Published: October 26 2009
Pierluigi Bersani, a former communist and economic development minister, said on Monday he would return Italy’s Democratic party to fundamentals after becoming the fourth leader of the centre-left opposition in two years.
Mr Bersani comfortably defeated two rivals in a vote on Sunday which – in contrast to parties on the right – was open to all Italians and foreign residents over the age of 16. Party leaders declared themselves pleased at a turnout of close to 3m people.
The Democrats, trailing Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right coalition in opinion polls, have suffered a string of local election defeats and scandals since losing power in the 2008 general elections. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Italian news, Italian politics , Bersani, Financial Times, guy dinmore, Italian Democratic party
October 23, 2009 • 8:40 pm
By Guy Dinmore in Rome and James Boxell in London
Published: October 23 2009
Father Jeffrey Steenson is an unusual Roman Catholic priest. He is married, has children and used to be a bishop.
“It has been a long journey, a joyful one, and has meant a lot of adjustments,” the American priest says of his decision two years ago to leave the Anglican church. The issues of gay and women priests were “catalysts”, he says, but the main reason was his belief in the importance of his relationship with Rome, the Pope and St Peter. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: GD reporting on... , anglican church, Financial Times, guy dinmore, Pope
October 22, 2009 • 9:20 pm
by Guy Dinmore and Eleonora de Sabata in Rome and in Reggio Calabria
Published on FT: October 20 2009
A mission was launched on Tuesday off the Italian coast to investigate what anti-Mafia investigators have long
suspected was a conspiracy between organised crime, industrialists and government agencies to dump nuclear
and other toxic waste in the Mediterranean and off Africa.
An Italian marine survey ship under police protection started tests 12 miles off Calabria’s coast on the wreck of a
cargo ship 500 metres below.
According to Francesco Fonti, a Mafia turncoat, the ship was scuttled in 1992 carrying 120 barrels of toxic materials – much of it possibly radioactive. The ship, identified by Mr Fonti as the Cunski, is one of three vessels carrying toxic cargoes he says he sank as a service provided by the ’Ndrangheta, the Calabrian Mafia. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Italian environment, Italian news, Italian politics , Eleonora de Sabata, Financial Times, Francesco Fonti, guy dinmore, mafia, ndrangheta
By Tony Barber in Brussels and Guy Dinmore in Rome
Published: October 22 2009
Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister and media tycoon, escaped condemnation by the European parliament yesterday when MEPs narrowly rejected a motion deploring a lack of media freedom in Italy.
By 338 votes to 335 with 13 abstentions, Mr Berlusconi’s Italian supporters and other centre-right MEPs threw out a proposal for a European Commission law to protect media pluralism. The vote was a setback for Mr Berlusconi’s opponents in the Strasbourg-based parliament, who embarrassed his government in 2004 by adopting a report that attacked his dominance of Italy’s media.
The latest motion drew attention to Mr Berlusconi’s decision to take or threaten legal action against various Italian and other European news organisations that have reported extensively on alleged sex scandals in his private life. The motion asserted that Rai, the Italian state broadcaster, over which Mr Berlusconi exerts influence by virtue of his role as premier, had paid scarcely any attention to these scandals. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Europe, Italian news, Italian politics , Berlusconi, Financial Times, guy dinmore
October 21, 2009 • 9:11 pm
By Guy Dinmore Published: October 21 2009
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Speaking to the Financial Times yesterday in a secret location in northern Italy where he is under house arrest serving a 50-year sentence, Francesco Fonti recounted how he sank three ships in quick succession, writes Guy Dinmore. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: GD reporting on..., Italian environment, Italian news , Eleonora de Sabata, Financial Times, Francesco Fonti, guy dinmore, mafia, ndrangheta
