Hiking through rubble-strewn streets, taking in a quake exhibit or bedding down in a concrete police compound — leaders at this week’s G8 summit in the Italian town of L’Aquila  are in for a change of pace from the routine luxury spa and resort experience of past summits.

    Devastated by an April earthquake that killed nearly 300 people and ringed by tent camps with portable toilets, L’Aquila is a far cry from previous G8 host cities like the Baltic seaside town of Heiligendamm, French lakeside resort Evian and Scottish golf resort Gleneagles.

    U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders are being housed in a grey police school building on the outskirts of the mountain town, where they are to stay in spartan rooms with granite floors and cream-coloured walls and furnished with little more than simlpe wooden beds with white sheets.

    “There won’t be the luxuries of hotels on (Sardinia’s) Emerald Coast or (Rome’s) Via Veneto, but there will be dignified accommodation worthy of welcoming such important people,” said Italy’s emergency services chief, Guido Bertolaso.

    Room service menus will be absent, but each room will be supplied with instructions on what to do in the event of another earthquake.  Aftershocks have been persistent and plentiful in the run-up to the summit.

    In their free time, leaders can browse through an exhibit on “100 years of earthquakes” in Italy or take up Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s offer of a guided tour of areas laid to waste by the tremor, like Germany’s Angela Merkel did on Wednesday.

Earthquake victims have even welcomed leaders with a giant sign on a hill near the summit site declaring “Yes we camp” to protest the slow pace of reconstruction in the area.

For all the lack of luxury, L’Aquila does guarantee voters back home will see images of their leaders rolling up their sleeves under the hot Abruzzo sun at a time of recession and financial turmoil.

    “I think it’s better to have (the summit) in a damaged zone than in an ultra-touristy region where people are spending millions of dollars on their vacations, while the leaders are there to discuss solutions to the global economic crisis,” said Dimitri Soudas, spokesman for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, ahead of the summit.

    Italy was initially set to host the annual summit of leaders from the world’s richest nations on the picturesque island of Sardinia, but hastily moved it to L’Aquila citing solidarity with victims when faced with complicated logistics and spiralling costs.

    One thing that won’t be lacking at the summit is fine Italian cuisine, since good food is not a luxury given up easily in Italy.  Among the local delicacies on offer are goat on skewers, baby lamb, rabbit from the small town of Goriano Valli, artichokes from Prezza and red garlic from nearby Sulmona.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is the consummate campaigner. No matter where he finds himself, the indefatigable 72-year-old always makes sure the cameras are squarely on him.

Although he is quick to flash a smile to his supporters, Berlusconi can be just as fast in delivering barbed words to his critics. And when he does not have the time to do it, his supporters are more than happy to oblige.

The newspaper Il Libero, for instance, uses its front page to wage war against his adversaries, old and new.

When his wife called for a divorce after criticising his party for considering former actresses and TV showgirls to run in the European elections, it lashed out. It published old photos of her baring her breasts on a theatrical stage and ran a headline telling her that she was of the same ilk.

Il Libero also uses inserts to great effect. Last week, it started publishing a serial recounting the life of Berlusconi.

Reminiscent of the booklet about his life that Berlusconi sent to voters’ homes ahead of the 2006 election, the serial highlights in glowing terms his transformation from cruise ship crooner to real estate mogul to media magnate to prime minister.

“He is not a common man,” Vittorio Feltri, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, tells Reuters.

The timing of its publication could not be better.

Not only does it come ahead of the European elections in June, but also at a time when Italy’s left-wing press is focusing on one of the reasons for his wife wanting a divorce: her accusation that he had an affair with a teenaged girl, something which Berlusconi denies.

Entitled “Berlusconi, as he is: (The) life, conquests, battles and passions of a political man unique in the world,” the serial is replete with photos of Berlusconi as well as articles illustrating every aspect of his life. There is one about him choosing the flowers for the garden at his villa, especially the crocus, which he cherishes for its “delicate colours and particular scent”.

One of the 16 inserts in the serial speaks of his admiration for Barack Obama despite the “privileged” relationship he enjoyed with former U.S. President George W. Bush. It nevertheless publishes his joke about Obama being “suntanned”, dismissing the outrage that it caused by criticising the scandalised “radical chic” for not being able to take a joke.

Il Giornale is even more fervent in its defence of Berlusconi, especially since the newspaper is owned by his brother, Paolo.

In its latest issue, it dedicates two pages to criticising foreign journalists for giving just as much attention to the wife’s accusation as the left-wing press.

As for the serial on Berlusconi, Il Libero’s Feltri says the newspaper decided to produce it because the upcoming European elections had heightened its readers’ interest in politics.

Its publication had already led to a 17 percent jump in sales, he says.

“Silvio is one of the biggest sellers,” he says.

Although the divorce from his wife has taken a few points away from his popularity, Berlusconi still finds favour among 53 percent of Italians surveyed in the latest independent poll.

Feltri says he would be willing to put out a serial about a left-wing politician but he had difficulty finding someone as compelling as Berlusconi.

“They don’t sell,” he says.

PHOTO: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi smiles to photographers after meeting Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Moscow May 16, 2009. REUTERS/Maxim Shipenikov

The shockwaves reverberating through Westminster as the MPs' expenses scandal unfolds have been compared with the "Clean Hands" bribery scandal that effectively demolished Italy's post-war political establishment in the space of a couple of years in the early 1990s.

If things are going to get that bad, the guilty politicians are going to have an uncomfortable time.

As a reporter in Rome at the time, I remember how surprise turned to anger then just as it has now as the public began to realise the sheer extent of the corruption that was helping to line the pockets of the country's leading politicians and their parties.

The morning newspapers brought fresh revelations almost daily of how the main political parties routinely demanded kickbacks in return for government contracts. There were the "golden sheets" for example in which invoices for linen and bedding were inflated to thousands of pounds, and the exorbitant demands placed on suppliers to hospitals, which caused particular anger.

People used to demonstrate in the streets wearing white gloves to show they had clean hands. They would try to scare MPs they felt were corrupt by sending them spoof versions of the "avviso," the official notice that warned potential offenders they were under investigation. The avviso itself became one of the enduring symbols of the scandal, almost like the guillotine in revolutionary France. Reproductions of it used to sell well as birthday and Christmas cards.

Another favourite amng the angry public, if any disgraced politician dared show his face his public, was to mockingly shower them with coins.

Such was the fate of one of those held to have been most deeply involved in the corruption, Socialist leader Bettino Craxi, who was forced to flee to his second home in Tunisia to escape jail in Italy. Other disgraced politicians and businessmen even took their own lives.

What was going on in Italy at that time was undoubtedly far more serious than the exploitation of MPs' expenses, but because the British have tended to be less cynical about their elected representatives, the sense of outrage has been much the same.

But before the calls for a complete shake-out of the British political establishment become so loud as to be unstoppable, it might be worth remembering, as former Labour minister Michael Meacher points out in his blog, that political vaccuums often produce surprise results.

Fringe parties, for example, can make big gains, as seems to be happening already in Britain.

And in the case of Italy, the net result of the collapse of its main parties was -- Silvio Berlusconi.

A month after an earthquake killed nearly 300 people in Italy, the initial goodwill towards authorities for their swift handling of the disaster appears to be giving way to anger as survivors face an uncertain wait for promised funds and the prospect of a long summer in tents.

Italy’s government is promising to start providing the thousands made homeless in the central Italian region of Abruzzo with new, furnished houses by September — in what would be record speed anywhere. But continued aftershocks, rain and chilly temperatures have made life increasingly difficult for survivors in tents, which left-leaning newspapers have seized upon to issue long accounts of the “nightmare” of life in the 170 tent camps.

“I feel like I’ve already spent an entire lifetime inside here but only 30 days have passed,” one tent-dweller, Claudio, told La Repubblica newspaper, which said the arrival of reconstruction funds in installments meant some people might have to wait nearly two years for a house.

    A government decree promising 8 billion euros ($10.7 billion) to rebuild the areas devastated by the earthquake has also fallen under a cloud of controversy. Mayors in quake-hit towns complain it undermines their role in rebuilding efforts and the opposition say it is inadequate. 

   Even normally pro-government bodies like the business lobby Confindustria are beginning to question how much money will actually arrive, and when.

   “The first thing that must be done is to understand well how much money is really and immediately available for spending, because businessmen have told us that operations related to re-opening businesses need to be done quickly,” Emma Marcegaglia, the head of Confindustria, said on a tour around the hard-hit town of L’Aquila this week.

   The opposition Democratic Party’s Pier Luigi Bersani, meanwhile, is accusing the government of treating the disaster like a “second division earthquake”.

    All this criticism is a far cry from the initial hours and days following the quake, when glowing praise flowed in from home and abroad for a swift and seamless relief effort that appeared to highlight a side of Italy that belies its reputation for chaos and slow-moving bureaucracy.

    At least seven different units – the police, the elite military police, the forest corps, the army, firefighters, the financial police and the civil protection agency – rolled into L’Aquila hours after the pre-dawn quake. The first tents for the newly homeless were up barely 12 hours after disaster struck.

    By then, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had already cancelled a trip to Moscow and held a midday press conference in L’Aquila, where he didn’t skip a beat as an aftershock rocked the building while he was speaking.

    The next morning, a long row of portable toilets had been set up in the main tent camp outside the town center, and relief workers were already going from tent to tent offering diapers and sanitary napkins.

    Bathrooms for the disabled with running water were next to appear, followed by more tents, each furnished with beds, new mattresses, linen and blankets, prompting praise from survivors, including one woman who called relief workers “angels”.

    The 170 tent camps that were rapidly set up house more than 33,000 people today, while the remaining 32,000 left homeless have been put up in hotels requisitioned by the government or in private homes.

    The efficient roll-out of relief efforts quickly boosted Berlusconi’s popularity, allowing him to declare last week that he is the world’s most popular leader and move a Group of Eight summit in July, long-planned for a Sardinian island, to the quake zone.

    But the premier, who is also having to handle an ugly public spat with his wife, who wants a divorce, will need to make good on his promise to rebuild the quake zone quickly and find homes for survivors in months, or risk losing the goodwill he has built up.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s quip about Barack Obama’s permanent “suntan” almost certainly wasn’t intended to offend. But now he’s battling accusations of racism.

Clearly, race is a delicate issue. And for those who have covered Berlusconi over the years, it’s easy to understand how such a gaffe prone leader would stumble — spectacularly — on such a sensitive subject.

The remarks came at a press conference on Thursday in Moscow, where Berlusconi was trying to demonstrate his self-described role as a bridge-builder between Russia and the United States, both strong allies of Italy.

“I will try to help relations between Russia and the United States where a new generation has come to power, and don’t see problems for (Russian President Dmitry) Medvedev to establish good relations with Obama who is handsome, young and also suntanned,” he said.

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I’ve seen Berlusconi get criticised for gaffes over the years — he once joked about flirting with Finland’s woman president to broker a political deal — but never has the public outcry been as fast and furious as with his comments about Obama.

Berlusconi, who appears to have a blind spot to sensitive issues like sex and race, couldn’t understand why people were so upset. An image-conscious businessman who had plastic surgery and a hair-transplant, Berlusconi says he struggles to look as good as Obama. By tanning.

“How can one say that from my mouth the adjective ‘tanned’ can be considered offensive when I, every day, do everything I can — and I mean everything — to appear tanned in public,” he was quoted saying in Italy’s La Stampa newspaper.

Many Italians shrugged off the latest Berlusconi slip. But others were outraged and talked openly of racism. Reuters Television interviewed people around Rome this morning and got comments like this one from Franco Lupi: “This isn’t a joke, this is almost rascism. ‘Tanned’? What is that supposed to mean? (Obama) is a black man. If I said things like that people would call me racist.”

The gaffe gave ammunition to Italy’s opposition centre-left led by Walter Veltroni, who lost to Berlusconi in April elections and whose 2008 campaign motto “Si Puo Fare” was an almost literal translation of Obama’s “Yes, we can”.

“It seriously damages the image and dignity of our country on the international stage,” Veltroni said, demanding Berlusconi deliver an official apology to Obama.

An overwhelmingly white, Catholic nation, Italy doesn’t show much sensitivity when it comes to talking about race. Insensitive newspaper headlines and political cartoons, particularly related to Obama’s election, have been frequent. One cartoon printed in Panorama magazine showed a darkened photo of the White House. The caption read: The Black House. Obama’s head was attached to an eagle hovering above.

Another political cartoon published on Nov. 4 on the front page page of Italy’s main newspaper Corriere della Sera showed Berlusconi trying to imitate Obama by putting on black face paint. “I’m your Obama”, the caption read.

Race is becoming an increasingly important subject, however, thanks to concerns over illegal and legal immigration. Berlusconi’s government includes a famously anti-immigrant political party, the Northern League, that has control of the interior ministry and has pushed through new laws that European politicians have alleged are racist.

Party leader Umberto Bossi has in the past referred to immigrants as “bingo bongos”. That makes Berlusconi’s suntan comment look rather tame in comparison.

Berlusconi is now reportedly seeking a phone call with Obama. Who thinks the colour of Obama’s skin colour will come up in conversation?

The European Union has come under sharp criticism for having a fragmented approach to the financial crisis. It is exemplified by Ireland’s go-it-alone decision to guarantee all accounts and Germany’s surprise announcement after a meeting of leading members that it was taking unilateral action too.

Relief, then, that the 27 member states issued a statement on Monday that they would do what it takes to bolster citizens’ savings and build financial stability. Only problem was, they could not coordinate the announcement. First Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi released it, then Portugal. Only after a while did French President Nicholas Sarkozy weigh in. He does head the current EU presidency after all.

No wonder Washington called for more coordination.

Italy’s far-left alliance of Communists and Greens may not conjure up images of glitz and New York steaks, but leader Fausto Bertinotti has nevertheless picked the Hard Rock Cafe on Rome’s fashionable Via Veneto to wait out the tally of election results on Monday evening.  Conveniently located next to the American Embassy, the Hard Rock promises everything from hickory smoked chicken wings to mac & cheese to help ease the long wait ahead for the leader of the Rainbow Left coalition.

 Other candidates have chosen more traditional venues for the evening: the centre-right’s Silvio Berlusconi will be waiting it out at his villa in Arcore near Milan, while centre-left rival Walter Veltroni will be standing by at his party’s offices in Rome dubbed the “Loft”.

Far-right leader Daniela Santanche says she won’t stray far from her home in Milan, while Northern League leader Umberto Bossi and centrist leader Pier Ferdinando Casini will both be holed up at their respective party headquarters.

With her striking good looks and stiletto heels, Italy’s far-right candidate Daniela Santanche has been turning heads on the campaign trail. But is centre-right candidate Silvio Berlusconi also among her admirers? 

“Berlusconi? He’s obsessed with me. But I won’t give it to him…,” Santanche said during a campaign stop this week.

Berlusconi initially responded by saying he would not get into a debate with someone who comes from a world of “yachts, caviar and champagne.” But he was willing to play ball a day later. 

“Well! If she continues to come on to me….,” the media tycoon told reporters when they prodded him on Santanche’s comments again. 

Santanche and Berlusconi have been trading barbs throughout the election campaign, with the 47-year old businesswoman’s La Destra party expected to steal  votes on the right away from the 71-year old media tycoon looking to return to power for the third time.

Santanche — conscious of the small splash she has made by becoming one of the few women prime minister candidates in Italy – has reserved some of her sharpest rebukes for Berlusconi, urging Italian women not to vote for him and calling his views outdated and sexist.  

“Berlusconi better be careful, because on April 13-14, Italian women will be the ones to cook his goose,” Santanche told Reuters last week.

Non sono solo le foto di Oliviero Toscani a stupire. Talvolta lo sono anche le sue parole e quando, ieri sera a “Niente di personale” su La7, ha dichiarato che - lui, elettore radicale da sempre - non andrà a votare nello studio s’è creato un attimo di silenzio, poi è partito addirittura un applauso. Se qualcuno dice che queste elezioni non entusiasmano, che il dibattito fa sonnecchiare, scoppia l’applauso. A 40 anni dal “tutto è politica” gridato nelle strade dai manifestanti del ‘68, la politica annoia, anche se in scena c’è uno scontro elettorale fuori ordinanza.

Non deve stupire quindi se domenica il numero 2 del Pdl Gianfranco Fini ha licenziato in tronco i vertici siciliani del suo partito dopo essersi trovare a fare un comizio a Palermo in una sala semivuota.
La politica stanca, e il tema sta diventando un ritornello anche sulla stampa. Ha iniziato domenica Avvenire che ha lanciato l’”allarme” di un possibile astensionismo record. Ha proseguito il critico televisivo del Corriere della sera Aldo Grasso che ha parlato dei bassissimi livelli di audience delle Tribune politiche e dei dibattiti politici in tv. Ha proseguito oggi il quotidiano Il Foglio, il cui direttore Giuliano Ferrara è impegnato direttamente in campagna elettorale alla guida di una lista anti-aborto che rischia di sparire addirittura dalle cronache non per censura, ma per disinteresse generale: “Il voto sarà anche utile, ma la campagna elettorale è vuota”, ha titolato.

L’analisi è impietosa: “Trionfa un piattume sonnolento che corrisponde a una carenza progettuale”, si legge nell’articolo. Il tema è tanto diventato centrale nella campagna elettorale che il candidato del Pd Walter Veltroni si è sentito in dovere questa mattina di lanciare un appello contro l’astensione: “Se ti astieni non ti lamentare se le cose non vanno in un certo modo. Le elezioni sono il momento in cui si decide”, ha detto. E ieri, un altro leader del Pd, Pier Luigi Bersani, ha invitato a dare una “scossa” alla campagna elettorale, per uscire dal torpore. Ma sulla campagna elettorale italiana in queste ore è piombata pure la primavera e il torpore, sempre più, domina.

The Italian media thought they coined the term “Veltrusconi” for the possibility of a post-electoral deal between twice prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and his centre-left rival, Walter Veltroni, late last year when they began brief discussions about electoral reform, but the word is reported as appearing as red-painted graffiti on a school in Rome as long ago as July 2007, along with the words: “the two-headed monster”. But even though the word has been bandied about liberally in the media ever since, both candidates for April 13-14’s vote were horrified to see their faces physically merge in a disconcerting photo-montage on the front cover of Newsweek.

“It’s horrible,” Veltroni told reporters in response to the hybrid created by Newsweek for a cover story titled “The Mayor V. The Mogul”. It shows the faces of the permanently tanned 71-year-old media tycoon Berlusconi and his bespectacled, bookish 52-year-old rival blending together to the backdrop of Rome’s Colosseum.

“Veltrusconi? It’s an ugly word with no meaning,” said Berlusconi.

Both candidates have constantly denied speculation in the Italian media and among politicians of a “Grand Coalition”, which would last just as long as it takes to reform electoral laws to create a two-party system, then be followed by yet another general election, though they have both acknowledged the possibility of a dead heat or very close result in the upper house or Senate and left the door open to talks on “institutional reform”.

But, as the Newsweek cover and a cartoon on the front cover of Corriere della Sera on Monday show, such talk just won’t go away.

“I really don’t believe there will be any “Veltrusconi” because I think the people of the centre right will prevail in these elections and will have a large majority which will give them the duty and the honour of governing,” Berlusconi told Corriere della Sera readers in an online video chat. He has maintained a lead in opinion polls of between five and nine percentage points in recent months, but Veltroni hopes for an inverted repeated of the 2006 campaign when centre-left challenger Romano Prodi’s six-point lead was drastically reduced in the last few weeks of campaigning, producing the narrowest election result in modern Italian political history. Prodi won, but his tiny Senate majority of just two seats dogged his entire 20 months in office and eventually caused his downfall in January.

“I think you can govern with one or two votes’ difference,” Veltroni told one television interview on Monday. “That is still a majority, even though the Italian people should know whose fault this situation is,” he said, referring to electoral rules introduced by Berlusconi’s last government, know here as the “porcata” (rubbish being a polite translation) which make it virtually impossible to secure a strong majority in the Senate. There are few opinion polls on the Senate vote, since the majority “prize” there is awarded on a regional rather than national basis, but one in La Repubblica last week suggested Berlusconi would only, in the best of cases, be able to count on a margin of five senators in the upper house which has 315 elected members and seven unelected lifetime members.

Talk of an Italian “Grand Coalition” also came up in the Financial Times where Berlusconi’s estranged Christian Democratic ally, Pier Ferdinando Casini, ruled out any two-way coalition with Berlusconi’s People of Freedom though he did appear open to joining a broader German-style Grand Coalition formed by both Berlusconi and Veltroni in the event of a close finish or hung parliament.