Security... Much blabla, little boumboum.

Case #1:
Yesterday, Italian prime minister Berlusconi was hit by a guy hurling a statuette at him. He was taken away with blood all over his face. The hospital later confirmed he broke his nose and two teeth.

Berlusconi was amidst a crowd handing out autographs. Only last weekend tens of thousands marched in Rome to demand Berlusconi's resignation, accusing him of conflicts of interest and of tailoring laws to protect him from prosecution in cases involving his media, real estate and sports empire, and links to the mafia.


Case #2:
"EU leaders must show leadership!" shouted one while two others waved yellow flags reading "EU Save Copenhagen" and another started reading out a statement on the red carpet meant for the EU top officials: A bus load of Greenpeace activists stunned security officials at last Thursday's EU-summit in Brussels.

Eleven people dressed in suits, driving hired limousines, displaying look-alike security badges - displaying the Greenpeace logo and their real name -, were waved through at both a police and a private security firm's roadblock, before arriving at the red carpet amidst top politicians.

The reaction from the Belgian officials flabbergasted me: "If we would have thought anyone would be stupid enough to do this kind of dangerous stuff, then probably this would not have happened", said Christian De Coninck, the Brussels police spokesperson. "If people use heavy material like faked police cars, and ditto badges, than of course anyone can get in". He stressed the police had not made a single mistake and "there are no holes in the security system at the EU summit."

Securitas, the private security firm which staffed the last road block before entering the red carpet zone, stated: "It is our duty to check all delegate cars. For security reasons, none of these cars should stand still, so we can only do a superficial check." According to Paul Schoolmeesters, spokesman from Securitas, "we only did what the client asked of us".

My case:
Having worked for years in security constrained humanitarian operations, the comments in the last case have me rolling over in (cynical) laughter.

Both cases prove three things:

1. If anyone wants to 'hit' anything or anyone, they can do so. Easily. It only takes some guts, creativity and very few means.
   
2. Any security system has flows, flows which we don't see because we don't want to see them.
   
3. Any security system is only as strong as the weakest link. The weakest links are often the people who implement the security checks.

These instances made me think of the security apparatus in the humanitarian world, where a man dressed up in a police uniform walked into our Islamabad office and blew himself up killing five staff and where gunmen shot the guards at the entrance and blew up truck wih 500kgs of explosives destroying a hotel full of aidworkers, etc....

No matter how good we think our security system are, there are always flaws. For as far as I know, no humanitarian organisation employs a "dirty Bob": a person with the sole task to try and break existing security systems, exposing their weaknesses. The results would be astonishing.

Pictures courtesy BBC and De Redactie

Read the full post...

News: White House calls Berlusconi "an amateur"

Reporters travelling with President Bush to Japan received an interesting press kit in which the Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi was described as a political "amateur" who is "hated by many".

The "insulting" biography further depicted Berlusconi as "one of the most controversial leaders" of a country "known for governmental corruption and vice". It said Mr Berlusconi was "regarded by many as a political dilettante (amateur) who gained his high office only through use of his considerable influence on the national media".

Only last month, Mr Bush visited his old ally in Rome, calling him a "good friend".

The White House apologised for the goof. (Full)

Picture courtesy whitehouse.gov

Read the full post...

News: Berlusconi - Part III.

Last weekend, I wrote about Italian politics, as the first part of the series "Living in Italy", predicting ex-premier and current-billionaire politician Berlusconi would win. And he did.

Berlusconi's block takes 47% of the vote, compared with 38% for Mr Veltroni's centre-left, in both the Senate and the lower Chamber of Deputies. That translates into a 101-seat lead in the Chamber, and a 38-seat advantage in the Senate. (Full)

This means two things:
One- the political spectrum has shifted solidly to the right.
Secondly- last weekend's balloting wiped out the small parties. This might have been good as it eliminated the need for the governing party to make a fragile coalitions with several small parties. The latter haunted Italy's infamously unstable politics for 60 years as they had the power to make, break and paralyze the governing coalition.

I am saying "this might have been a good thing", as on one hand, a more solid step towards a two party deal, could bring more political stability. If only it was run by a "decent politician"..

Anyway. One thing caught my eye: In post-elections campaigning, Mr B announced "I will be in Naples three days a week" to solve the garbage crisis which left piles of stinking rubbish uncollected since December, due to incompetent governance and interests of the Comorra, the Mafia's local variant.
And today the Italian newspapers headlettered "Major Camorra sweep, 52 arrested" in Naples... A convenient coincidence?

Pictures courtesy CBC, Chris Warde-Jones, Bloomberg and Time magazine.

Read the full post...

Rumble: Living in Italy - part 1: Italian Politics

Since I moved here last year, people ask me "So how is it to live in Italy"? This prompts me to a series of blogs I want to start, to describe live in this Mediterranean country.

First let me start with the disclaimer: I love the culture, the climate, its people, its food, and the country. I love Italy. Punto. But it is a country 'with an edge', which makes it fun at times, frustrating in other times. So I might come across as critical (or cynical at times), do bear in mind: I loooove Italy.

As the Italians will vote for parliament tomorrow, maybe we should start this blog series with Italian politics. I can summarize this topic in a oneliner: Italy had 61 governments since World War II. That is an average of about one government per year. That says it all.

Critics say the current electoral law gives disproportionate power to small parties in Parliament, making stable government nearly impossible. Proof of the matter: the recent withdrawal of a tiny centrist party from the governing center-left coalition brought down the already wobbly government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi. In no other democratic country "can a party with 1 percent of the vote topple a government," says Piergiorgio Corbetta, a professor of sociology at the University of Bologna. (Full)

So, Italian politics are an odd kid on the block of democracy. But then we have some of the actual Italian political odd balls.

One I remember well was porn star La Cicciolina, elected to parliament for five years in the late 1980s on a platform of environmentalism and free love. Yes, she was a candidate from the Green party. For her part, the actress offered to sleep with Saddam Hussein in 2002 if he co-operated with the United Nations, saying: "I would do it holding my nose and closing my eyes."

But we do not have to go back that far. Tomorrow's elections are almost certain to favor a return to power by Berlusconi. Yep, THE Silvio Berlusconi. Now 71, the prime minister from 2002 to 2006 and briefly in the mid-1990s, and the country's richest man, will represent the center-right conservatives.
While he does not have the physical impact of La Cicciolina, he does have a way with words. I guess a trio of him, Sarkozy and Bush, and world politics is good hands... Sigh.

Just recently, he hit the news as saying that when he looked round parliament, he found that female politicians from the right were "more beautiful". "The left has no taste, even when it comes to women." I hope that is not the only pilar of his political campaign.(Full)

More of a reference however are some of his historical quotes. A selection, some of which might have even the likes of Sarkozy and all-time-winner Bush Junior roll their eyes (Full list):

• Promising to put family values at the centre of his campaign: "I will try to meet your expectations, and I promise from now on, two-and-a-half months of absolute sexual abstinence, until [election day on] 9 April."
• At the Brussels summit, at the end of Italy's EU presidency, in December 2003:
  "Let's talk about football and women." (Turning to four-times-married German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder.) "Gerhard, why don't you start?"
• At the New York stock exchange: "Italy is now a great country to invest in... today we have fewer communists and those who are still there deny having been one. Another reason to invest in Italy is that we have beautiful secretaries... superb girls."
• On himself: "I don't need to go into office for the power. I have houses all over the world, stupendous boats... beautiful airplanes, a beautiful wife, a beautiful family... I am making a sacrifice." "I am the Jesus Christ of politics. I am a patient victim, I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone."
• On a proposal to base an EU food standards agency in Finland, rather than the Italian city of Parma: "Parma is synonymous with good cuisine. The Finns don't even know what prosciutto is. I cannot accept this."

Some others are less innocent:

• In the wake of 11 September: "We must be aware of the superiority of our civilisation, a system that has guaranteed well-being, respect for human rights and - in contrast with Islamic countries - respect for religious and political rights, a system that has as its value understanding of diversity and tolerance... The West will continue to conquer peoples, even if it means a confrontation with another civilisation, Islam, firmly entrenched where it was 1,400 years ago."
• To German MEP Martin Schulz, at the start of Italy's EU presidency in July 2003:
  "I know that in Italy there is a man producing a film on Nazi concentration camps - I shall put you forward for the role of Kapo (guard chosen from among the prisoners) - you would be perfect."
• During the controversy raging over the above remark: "I'll try to soften it and become boring, maybe even very boring, but I am not sure I will be able to do it."

I mean in all of it, we can joke and laugh about it, but still... would we put the man this video in charge of our government?

Pictures courtesy wikipedia and tothepeople.com. With thanks to "E" for the links.

Read the full post...