To Build a Road from Tunisia to Egypt

Reuters reports that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Monday condemned violence by Libyan forces against civilians as “unacceptable” and said he was “alarmed” over the situation in the North African state, after he was criticised widely for not speaking up earlier on Libya and saying that he did not want to “disturb” Gaddafi during the crisis. Berlusconi also called on the European Union and the international community to do everything to prevent the situation in Libya from degenerating into a civil war.

Not so long ago Italy’s prime minister, who has a permanent seat in the G8, has invited Gaddafi over who brought his tent to make a deal.

When he is away Qaddafi, who will participate in the third day of the G8 summit, prefers to stay in his own tent rather than in a hotel. According to Italian media, Qaddafi’s tent contains all home comforts, including a plasma television with a decoder. Qaddafi, whose security is provided by a team of female bodyguards.

It was only last summer that the two leaders held ‘amity talks’ in a big Bedouin tent in the center of Rome ‘focusing on trade relations’. They celebrated the big friendship agreement singed two years earlier.

And several young women who attended a separate meeting with Gaddafi on Monday, said he had told them that women are treated with greater respect in Libya than in the United States or Europe where, according to the Libyan leader, they are employed in work not suited to them like tram-drivers and miners. (monstersandcritics.com)

Looking back from 2011, when Berlusconi is facing a trial for his 7th sex scandal and Gaddafi is having protesters massacred while tyrannies fall in his neighborhood, it is astonishing that in 2010 these statesmen have celebrated their deal struck in 2008 where Italy pledged 5 billion dollars over 20 years to build a road across Libya from Tunisia to Egypt.

(To be continued and thanks to Radu)