Category: The wider contexts

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Today And Tomorrow Are Really Key Days For The Italian Economy If Future Sums Are To Work

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Above: a demonstration against austerity, in Turin, one of several hundred in recent days]


The Italy central bank is selling a lot of bonds today and tomorrow to keep the government in business.

Today’s sale of 12-month bonds did not go well. It sold E6.5 billion of bonds at nearly 4 percent, almost double what it was charged just last month. And tomorrow’s sale of long-term bonds could be looking at interest rates so high that it puts real growth almost permanently out of reach.

In effect it could bake in youth unemployment up to 25 percent. The good news, if there is any, is that the disappointing sale today gave Prime Minister Monti a reason to light a fire under the parliament. 

talian Premier Mario Monti is urging lawmakers to accelerate passage of reforms to help the country escape the deepening debt crisis and assure international markets that the eurozone’s third largest economy will follow words with actions.

Monti addressed the lower house before a vote on anti-corruption measures, and the morning after meeting leaders of three main political forces to urge them to intensify the reform course.

Spain’s decision over the weekend to seek a bailout for its banks has heightened pressure on Italy. The Austrian finance minister suggested this week that Italy too will need a bailout, then backtracked under criticism.

Monti has firmly denied that Italy will need a bailout, and told lawmakers that Italy is on much better footing than a few months ago.

One thing going for Italy is that those bonds are largely purchased by Italians themselves. Savings have been flying out of Greece and Spain but Italians still seem optimistic at some level that their economy can get back to former heights

Mr Monti’s pruning and tightening of laws don’t seem a bad thing. His main growth-thrust idea for all of Europe, Italy included, is to press the pedal to the floor on rebuilding all the physical infrastructure. Angela Merkel might come around if that doesnt tank Germany’s own boom.

The notion that there should be a sort of skeleton Department of the Treasury or Ministry of Finance in Brussels to harmonize fiscal policies and oversee the banks seems to be taking hold.

Still only dim comprehension (as in the US) though of how the best kind of growth really works. Hint: economists and bankers are not the first professions one turns to, to find out all about that.

Saturday, June 02, 2012

Andrea Vogt Reports First-Hand On The Earthquakes That Have Hit Italy’s Economic Epicenter

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Images here are by Andrea Vogt and one each Getty Images and NBC.]


Italy’s previous large earthquake in 2009 resulted in 308 deaths around L’Aquila.

A lot of the extensive damage to that town occurred because L’Aquila is an old city (one hour south-east of Perugia) which had not yet been braced or modernised to withstand severe earthquakes.

The two quakes that hit the province of Modena (map at bottom) in the past two weeks resulted in less than two dozen deaths, but in all other respects their damage has been far greater. They were more severe on the Richter scale than the L’Aquila earthquake and tremors were felt all over northern Italy and up into Austria.

And they struck right in Italy’s economic-exports heartland.

Car-makes Maserati, Ferrari and Lamborghini and the mortorcycle maker Ducati are all based right there and all of their plants temporarily had to shut down. Maserati and Ferrari are now owned by FIAT (majority owner of the US’s Dodge-Chrysler) which also saw other assembly plants hit.

Modena also produces cheeses which are heavily exported, and not far away are the plants of the exporters of textile, leather and jewelery fashion goods, of ceramics, of foods other than cheeses, and of Italian wines.

On-the-spot reports by Andrea Vogt with more close-up human detail than most others have appeared on a number of media websites. Excerpts from the report Andrea Vogt filed with Tom Kington which appeared on the Guardian website:

The Italian government said 8,000 people were left homeless, adding to the 6,000 already sleeping in tents and temporary accommodation after the first, 6.0-magnitude quake, which struck the same area in the early hours and killed seven.

The latest quake occurred at 9am when more factories were open ““ causing the higher death toll…. Some of the victims died in factories that had just reopened after suffering damage in the earlier quake.

“I saw dust and smoke coming up from the factories and warehouses on the edge of town,” said Cavezzo resident Maurizio Bruschi. “Many told themselves that the worst was over. But we keep getting hammered.”,,,

The quakes are a serious blow for one of Italy’s most productive regions, just as the country struggles to lift itself out of recession.  “Fear will paralyse Emilia now,” wrote Mario Calabresi, editor of the newspaper La Stampa. “Who’s going to be willing to go back to work in a big warehouse now?” he asked…

Convoys of fire brigades and ambulances clogged tiny roads east of Modena, many littered with downed electrical lines and fallen debris. In the tent cities instructions were written in Italian and Arabic for the benefit of migrants working in local factories.

Other residents set up tents in their gardens, or made plans to head to relatives or to the Adriatic coast, where some hotels were opening up rooms to evacuees.”

More below.

From the same report, a story of a priest who was one of those killed by the unexpected double whammy.

In Rovereto sul Secchia a priest, Father Ivan Martini, was killed by a falling beam when his church partially collapsed on him. He was visiting the church, which had been damaged in the earlier quake, to see if he could salvage a statue of the Madonna.

“He was brilliant, and very dedicated, especially to the inmates incarcerated in Modena, where he was the prison chaplain,” said fellow priest Father Carlo Truzzi.

Andrea Vogt also posted a more detailed day-by-day report on her blog the Freelance Desk after combing the stricken areas. Her description below is what happened to the collapsed ceramics plant you can see in the first image below. .

Just a few hundred meters away, workers and curious onlookers came to see what was left of the twisted blue steel of the Sant’ Agostino Ceramics plant. They stared, the silence broken only by the eery sound of ceramic tiles clanking down from high scaffolding into the knot of bent metal.  Two workers, Nicola Cavicchi, 35, and Leonardo Ansaloni, 51, died under the rubble as they tried to escape.

When Italy looses, we all really loose. Tough time to now have to pay for re-building.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

A Second Earthquake Hits Italy One Week Later With Reported 17 Dead

Posted by Peter Quennell

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Why Didn’t Giulia Bongiorno Fight A Lot Harder - For Meredith Kercher, The Real Victim Here?

Posted by Peter Quennell

1. Bongiono as proponent for female victims

Sollecito lead lawyer and parliamentarian Giulia Bongiorno is persistently prominent in the Italian news.

Here she is captured by paparrazi while walking her baby son Ian around Rome.  She is also in the news a lot for her political activities as a former senior member of the party of Silvio Berlusconi and possible future mayor of Palermo Sicily.

And she is fighting hard in court and the media for the interests of the passengers who were on the wrecked cruise ship Costa Concordia, and for the families whose loved ones died. 

She also runs a group called Double Defense with Italian-speaking Swiss supermodel Michelle Hunziker (images of both above). Michelle just got engaged to the Italian fashion heir Tomaso Trussardi so she also is a lot in the news. 

To raise funds for Double Defense they just co-hosted a glittering gala event in Milan. Many of Italy’s richest and most famous attended. Lots of money was raised.

So what is Double Defense?

Giulia Bongiorno and Michelle Hunziker founded Double Defense specifically to tilt the law and the courts more toward women who are the victims of violent crime. As Barbie Nadeau reports, that is much needed in Italy right now.

This description of Double Defense is from the Italian website Beautiful World.

Double Defense aims to help women who have suffered and are suffering domestic violence, physical or psychological, through assistance in the interpretation of the rules and regulations in force.

In addition to that the non-profit organization, born from a chance encounter between the Swiss showgirl and Bongiorno the lawyer, wants to raise awareness of this terrible phenomenon, promote a culture of nonviolence, and prevent passive acceptance and silence from being the only refuge of those who suffer such terrible and barbaric mistreatment.

There are many names known and loved who have decided to put their fame at the service of Double Defense. Anna Tatangelo, Federica Pellegrini, Francesco Totti, Nek, Ilary Blasi and Silvia Toffanin are some of the celebrities who support the non-profit organization which was created by the duo of Hunziker and Bongiorno. .

The Foundation has a new partnership with the Italian brand Pandorine. Co-promotion will include a new marathon and relay race in Piazza Castello, and a special type of bag that is symbolically called Women: completely white, perfect for summer, and bearing a meaningful and touching inscription…

2. Female victim here be damned

We wonder. Did it never occur to Giulia Bongiorno that one of the most prominent women victims in many years was in fact Meredith Kercher? A victim of a cruel and gratuitous murder? Seemingly the MOST deserving victim for Bongiorno to wage a fight for?

Maybe the answer was yes - back at trial in 2009.

Sollecito’s father seemed to have wanted to retain Ms Bongiorno because of her political clout, from wiretap mentions made public which seem to show zero belief in Sollecito’s innocence. Ms Bongiorno often seemed disinterested at trial, and even disappeared or failed to show once or twice.

She seemed from photos in court to have poor chemistry with Raffaele Sollecito, and we heard that both she and Luciano Ghirga were so disbelieving in the innocence of their clients and so irritated at the PR that they might walk and leave Knox and Sollecito to find new defense counsel. 

But in 2011 we saw something entirely different.

During the first appeal under Judge Hellman, Ms Bongiorno seemed to have other things on her mind than the truth of her client’s guilt or innocence, or the fact that the victim in this case, was a super-achieving woman. Meredith’s family being in another country, with few resources of their own, helped to enable an arrogant callousness.

She presumably could have used a win right about then against the justice system of Italy, in support of the beleagured PM Berlusconi, and she may have had (and still have) on her mind that run for the office of mayor in Palermo, Sicily.

Who knows what else might have been on her mind? But in 2011 she certainly mounted a scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners defense of Raffaele Sollecito, and the female victim Meredith be damned..

Bongiorno introduced the bizarre witnesses Alessi and Aviello to discredit Rudy Guede, and one of them (Aviello) openly claimed that he had committed perjury because bribes were being offered in his prison in exchange for testimony helpful to Sollecito. (That is still being investigated.)

Ms Bongiorno also went to remarkable lengths, with witness after witness after witness, to discredit Antonio Curatolo, the claimed observer of Knox and Sollecito in the park. Impartial lawyers think that Curatolo did still emerge as having seen something on the correct night, but he was now openly tarred as a heroin dealer, and in his report Judge Hellman displayed suspicion towards all of the witnesses.

Ms Bongiorno’s performances at trial and at appeal were like night and day.

3. Bongiorno as contemptible hypocrite

So two people who Ms Bongiorno may have always disbelieved and had little time and respect for presently walk free. While the precise kind of victim Bongiono now claims to go to bat for is simply shrugged off, with absolutely no sign of her caring.

Obviously not all women victims in her eyes are equal. Winning at all costs no matter the hurt is what she is really about.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Rome Appeal Court Rejects Vanessa Sollecito’s Appeal For Reinstatement In The Carabinieri

Posted by Peter Quennell

[Above and below: Francesco, father of Vanessa and Raffaele, outside their Bisceglie family home late 2011]


In 2008 Vanessa Sollecito and her father Francesco were caught on tape discussing the manipulation of Rome politicians into forcing changes upon the investigation team in Perugia.

Vanessa was fired from the Carabinieri the prestigious Italian national civil-military police force in November 2009 for demonstrating behavior and psychology inappropriate to a law enforcement officer’s job.

Our Italian poster ncountriside has just alerted us to the posting of the official statement that her appeal has been turned down.

The European Court is quoted in that report as confirming that national members have the right to fire official staff for psychological and behavioral cause.

The Carabinieri carried out a very thorough investigation which included the secret bugging of her mobile phone and her father’s phone. Jools translated one key conversation here. Her father suspects they are being bugged by the police but she blithely talks on, digging them in deeper.

This ruling was probably posted when Vanessa Sollecito was already in the air bound for Seattle (see the post below) but she would have known it was coming. This does not bode well for the criminal trial she faces along with her close family, possibly starting in Bari at the end of this month. The charges could incur prison terms.

The Sollecito family arc has almost never been reported on in the English language press. In 21 June 2008 Tom Kington of the Guardian did file this brief report.

The investigation into the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Italy took a dramatic twist yesterday when the family of one of the suspects was accused of attempting to interfere with the inquiry.

Police tapping the phones of the father of Italian student Raffaele Sollecito overheard discussions that appeared to suggest plans being made to get senior politicians to use their influence and get detectives whom the Sollecitos considered hostile taken off the case. The phone tap information is in files handed over to lawyers as magistrate Giuliano Mignini officially completed the investigation into the strangling and stabbing of Kercher, from Surrey, who was found on 2 November semi-naked in a pool of blood in her bedroom in Perugia.

‘We’ve got to flay the Perugia flying squad,’ a family member was overheard saying, according to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. ‘If we can get rid of the head of homicide and that other one, we’ll be OK.’

Relatives of Sollecito, including his sister, a policewoman, were also overheard discussing politicians who could help their case. Giulia Buongiorno, a lawyer and MP in Silvio Berlusconi’s ruling coalition, has now been retained to represent Sollecito. ‘She can help out on this case at a political level,’ Sollecito’s father was overheard saying.

Sollecito’s father, Franco, a well-to-do doctor from Bari in southern Italy, has campaigned to prove his son’s innocence, even to the point of allegedly leaking to a TV station a video obtained from the crime scene showing Kercher’s corpse, as well as highlighting perceived errors by the investigators, including the delayed recovery of parts of Kercher’s bra strap which were found to carry Sollecito’s DNA.

Police are holding in custody Sollecito, 24; his former girlfriend and Kercher’s flatmate, American student Amanda Knox, 20; and a third suspect, Rudy Guede, 21. All three deny involvement in the vicious killing.

As you can see here, Italian reporting like that translated by Jools usually includes a lot more damning detail.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

In Desperation A Council Of War? All Of The Sollecito Family Suddenly Hop On Flights To Seattle

Posted by Our Main Posters

What’s going on here?

Sollecito has been in Los Angeles working on a book with a shadow writer. His father has said very firmly several times that Sollecito and Amanda Knox are through. Finito.

But Italian media are suddenly reporting that Sollecito is hopping on a plane for Seattle. And that his family, seemingly in a panic, is high-tailing it after him.

Are both families really nervous that the two will get back together for better or (probably) worse? Or is this a council of war between the Sollecitos, Knoxes, and Mellases?

Actually, this meet-up is no surprise at all to the close case watchers in Italy. They were wondering how else the two families and their loose-cannon kids could make it through the minefields ahead.  They seem to be facing a five-problem agenda.

Problem One For Discussion

The most immediate problem for the two families is described in the box at the top of the page here. Curt Knox and Edda Mellas are headed for a civil trial brought by aggrieved police, seemingly without an ounce of proof on the family’s side other than any testimony from Amanda Knox herself under cross-examination (for the first time) on the witness stand. 

Almost simultaneously the Sollecitos (five of them) are headed for a CRIMINAL trial for illegal release of evidence and attempted political interference which could eventually land them in prison. The two charges against them seem pretty cut and dried with hard evidence on film and audio tape to which they have not so far offered even a sliver of a rebuttal.

Problem Two For Discussion

The second problem is that officialdom in Rome and Perugia seem to almost universally believe that the two families have all along known that both of their kids were somehow involved in Meredith’s murder. Some of the suggestive evidence is out there in broad daylight and we suspect that prosecutors may be holding back more.

Contrary to the claims of Amanda Knox’s supporters that prosecutors maliciously threw the book at the defendants and their tribes to somehow save face, the truth is that prosecutors stopped short of taking all of the possible actions open to them. 

For example they turned down an offer by Guede to testify fully at first trial (after which he was beaten up in prison and reduced to a jelly which must have pleased him no end) and they seem to know more than they are saying about hard drugs - Knox apparently had a cocaine dealer’s number in her mobile phone. Also they chose not to investigate any of the rumors and backstories in Seattle which US prosecutors might well have done.

In the Sollecito case they may have felt they had no choice but to proceed. The released evidence tape showing Meredith’s naked body was repeatedly broadcast nationally, and the Carabinieri and Rome police are both involved in the political meddling component. Bari prosecutors will of course be trying the case.

Problem Three For Discussion

The third problem is that Judge Hellman has done the families no favors. On the day after he issued his verdict he contradicted himself in an unhelpful way. Then he published an emotional report explaining the surprise outcome of the first appeal which is short on logic and correct law, and full of innuendo and bizarre intellectual leaps.

PMF and TJMK will be posting a careful translation of the Hellman report with a full analysis of its weaknesses soon.

Problem Four For Discussion

Chief Prosecutor Galati has already filed a formidable Supreme Court appeal against the first appeal outcome, which argues in part that (1) the scope of Hellman’s report was illegal overreach; and that (2) his appointing of the two independent DNA experts was more illegal overreach. 

As it has done in many other cases in the past, the Supreme Court might send the outcome of the first appeal back to Perugia to be corrected just as soon as it reads that.

And if it reads further, it cannot help but note that Judge Hellman has brushed right by hundreds of questions that still remain open. The Supreme Court has ALREADY rejected Judge Hellman’s hypothesis that Rudy Guede broke in and attacked Meredith all by himself. It has sided with Judges Massei and Micheli that there were actually three perpetrators. 

Problem Five For Discussion

The blockbuster book offers required to pay for all this new legal action seemed very short on due diligence in the context of the calunnia minefield that Italian law creates for writers and publishers. Did the writers and publishers even know about that? 

Past explanations and alibis from Knox and Sollecito have repeatedly contradicted one another’s.  At one point, each seemed to be accusing the other of the crime. At trial, Knox seemed to want to talk all the time, while Sollecito barely ever said a word. Now we are seeing the exact opposite. Sollecito seemingly cannot keep quiet to save himself, while Knox seems petrified and terminally tongue-tied.

Their books are going to need to be line-by-line supportive of one another, and they will be disasters if they rely on slamming Italian officials and moping (Knox’s apparent angle) or on denying all the hard evidence and moping (Sollecito’s apparent angle).

There will be cancellation clauses in the publishers’ fine print, and what they are we may all soon find out.  From the two families’ point of view, this entire landscape must look very nasty and foreboding. An ill-advised legal and PR strategy has led them into this minefield.

Not surprising that they now find a sudden need to chat.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

International Monetary Fund Head Makes Encouraging Remarks About Italian Economy Turning Around

Posted by Peter Quennell

Nervous Italians with resources have in recent months been moving major sums to the UK and investing in the property market in London.

A recent survey published by agency Knight Frank shows that Italians have overtaken Russians as the leading buyers of prime London property. Since January, they have accounted for eight per cent of all sales in the area. Last year it was the Greeks, who more than doubled their spending on prime London as riots raged across Athens. This year, it is their cousins across the Adriatic who are opening their chequebooks. The total spend for Italians in prime London is estimated to be £408m for 2011, up from £185m in 2010…

Economic reports worsen daily. The Bank of Italy forecast the Italian economy to contract by 1.5 per cent this year, while employment is shrinking at its fastest rate since July 2009. The eurozone as a whole continues to be locked in crisis. Successive rescue packages have failed to improve things, and German lawmakers are reported to be preparing for Greece’s departure from the euro. Where Greece leads, there is a risk Spain, Portugal and Italy will follow…

Italians with the resources to do so have been taking their money out of the country as fast as they can. And where better to head than London? The capital’s history, shopping, culture and nightlife, as well as Britain’s reliable legal system, make it the clear target for a safe property investment.

Still, £408m is a drop in the bucket compared to the $2 trillion Italian economy.  And that take on the economy is somewhat behind the curve. Bloomberg business news reports that Italian government bond sales are now going really well.

Italian 10-year bonds rose for a ninth week, the longest run of gains since 1998, as the European Central Bank signaled the economy is stabilizing and Greece won the world’s biggest sovereign-debt restructuring.

And of Prime Minister Mario Monti, Christine Lagarde of the IMF just had this to say.

At a dinner for delegates to the Women in the World Summit in New York City on Thursday night, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde singled out one man as a beacon of hope in the bleak global economy.

Since the technocrat Mario Monti replaced the infamously irresponsible Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in November, Italy is no longer the most disastrous problem facing the European economy, she said.

The trust of investors is being restored and “it could well be that Italy is going to be the light of the European tunnel,” said Lagarde. “I would not short Italy, at all.”

Nobody responded yet to European leaders’ recent loud lament that austerity programs will not turn Europe around and a stronger sense of how growth works is required.

Next week we’ll give it a shot!

Friday, March 09, 2012

Cruise Ships Told To Keep Well Away From Picturesque But Fragile Coastal Points

Posted by Peter Quennell

New maritime instruction from the Italian government

Included are Venice, the Amalfi coast, Capri and some other islands, and the Italian Riviera, all below

Saturday, February 04, 2012

Good News For Hard-Pressed Italy On Economic Growth On Two Surprise Fronts

Posted by Peter Quennell

Demonstrations against forced austerity are happening daily in Italy, and along with all other arms of government justice is being impacted.

We hope this wont affect a just resolution of Meredith’s case - but who knows?  Two things happened last week that might help to keep justice on the rails.

At last week’s Euro summit European leaders (video above) showed they are waking up to the fact that austerity programs like Italy’‘s and Greece’s and Spain’s alone could do permanent nightmarish damage.

Italy’s youth unemployment has just passed 30 percent and Greece’s and Spain’s passed 50 percent a few weeks ago. High levels of unemployment like this could be permanently baked in if austerity is the only “solution” entered into.

The UN’s International Monetary Fund located in Washington United States has long been criticised for austerity and excessive concerns over equilibriums which often nip growth in the bud.

But at the annual economic forum in Davos Switzerland the head of the IMF of all people showed a promising new face. She actually came out and said European austerity is not enough and active growth measures are also absolutely vital.  Here is the BBC’s report.

But neither the European leaders nor the IMF head described last week what such active growth measures would look like. It’s still blind leading the blind. They are all late to the game that the Asian economies have got quite good at (at their present level) in recent years.

Next post: the art of the possible. What cutting-edge state-of-the-art growth measures actually look like.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

So What Can Seattle Offer Visitors That Arrive From Perugia? Fish Throwing!

Posted by Peter Quennell

This is a serious art form. All Seattle’s own. Seattle readers are very welcome to explain.

Images here of the terrific Pike’s Place Market in downtown Seattle (with its back incongruously to the sea - well, to the smallish bay off Puget Sound that goes by the name of Seattle harbor) because the Commune of Perugia still runs a an English-language web page promoting the tourism of Seattle.

Where is the fun at in Seattle? The real answer is everywhere, but just to name a few”¦.  The Pike Place Market is a must see, and trust that you won’t want to experience it just once.

It is nicknamed the “Soul of Seattle” for good reason.  With a never ending selection of food, including giant artichokes, specialty wines, and fresh fish caught from the sea that morning, let your taste buds lead the way.

Restaurants surround the market specializing in any type of food that you are craving, including several Italian restaurants.  You won’t go home hungry.

In between sampling every food there is to offer, you can watch the street musicians as well as visit any of the quirky shops that have everything from a store selling only books for women to a store that sells solely magic tricks.

If it is your first time visiting the market, consider signing up for the “Chef’s Tour of the Market” where some of Seattle’s top chefs lead groups through the market for a tour and follow up by taking the group back to their very own restaurant to cook lunch with the items they purchased on the tour.

To learn more about the market and the fun it has to offer, check out the website at http://www.pikeplacemarket.org/