Cubans indulge baseball mania at Havana’s “Hot Corner”

For all the shouting and nose-to-nose confrontations, visitors to Havana’s Parque Central might think they had walked into a brawl or counter-revolution … but here in the park’s Hot Corner,  the topic almost always under discussion is baseball, Cuba’s national obsession.

Iraq’s orphans battle to outgrow abuse

At night, Salah Abbas Hisham wakes up screaming. Sometimes, in the dark, he silently attacks the boy next to him in a tiny Baghdad orphanage where 33 boys sleep on cots or on the floor. Salah, who saw both his parents blown apart in a car bomb, can never be left alone at night.

Colombian soccer club tries to forget cocaine past

Colombian soccer champions America de Cali are first to admit cocaine dollars had a hand in their sporting heyday. But after years of paying the price, they’re trying to wipe the slate clean … Cali’s mayor is leading a campaign to have the team removed from a U.S. anti-drugs blacklist.

Big French press find brand power helps online

In a grimy part of eastern Paris an editorial conference is underway, similar to planning meetings in newsrooms everywhere, except this is being blogged live and readers can join in … The meeting is at Rue89 … one of the interactive  sites to have appeared as a global crisis in the press squeezes French newspapers.

Shy teen spotlights battle over failing schools

A shy 14-year-old girl plucked from obscurity by the White House has come to symbolize a battle over how to fix dilapidated U.S. schools. Ty’Sheoma Bethea’s story proves that one small act — in this case writing to President Barack Obama — can have a big impact. It also highlights a battle over how far the federal government should fund U.S. education.

Toxic jatropha shrub fuels Mexico’s biodiesel push

All his life elderly Mexican farmer Gonzalo Cardenas has planted a stalky weed that grows wild in southern Mexico to form a sturdy live fence around his tropical fruit trees. Now it turns out the weed, jatropha, could be used to fuel jet planes.

Malaysia Christians battle with Muslims over Allah

The congregation at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral on Borneo island intones in Malay: “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of Allah”. Now the government in this mostly Muslim Southeast Asian nation wants to prevent “Allah” being used by Christians.

Rape inquiry sheds light on racism in Italy

When police arrested two Romanians for the rape of an Italian teenager in Rome, a paper owned by the family of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, reported: “The Romanian beasts have been caught.” Three weeks later, prosecutors admitted the “beasts” could not be guilty — DNA tests had ruled them out .

China’s last eunuch spills sex, castration secrets

Only two memories brought tears to Sun Yaoting’s eyes in old age — the day his father cut off his genitals, and the day his family threw away the pickled remains that should have made him a whole man again at death. China’s last eunuch was tormented and impoverished in youth, punished in revolutionary China for his role as the “Emperor’s slave”.

The Red Sea might save the Dead Sea

Abundant water from the Red Sea could replenish the shrinking Dead Sea if Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians decide to commission a tunnel north through the Jordanian desert from the Gulf of Aqaba. The Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance project would supply the biggest desalination plant in the world.

Development takes toll on Chesapeake crabs

It doesn’t look like a disaster area. Crab boats dart back and forth on this inlet of the Chesapeake Bay as they have for generations … But watermen aren’t pulling blue crabs out of the Bay … the U.S. Commerce Department declared the fishery a federal disaster last September.

U.S. energy future hits snag in rural Pennsylvania

When her children started missing school because of persistent diarrhea and vomiting, Pat Farnelli began to wonder if she and her family were suffering from more than a classroom bug. After trying several remedies, she stopped using the water drawn from her well in this rural corner of northeastern Pennsylvania, the forefront of a drilling boom in what may be the biggest U.S. reserve of natural gas.

Would someone please explain to Silvio Berlusconi the
meaning of a “self fulfilling prophecy.”

    Italy’s billionaire prime minister loves to be entertaining
but in recent months his jocular style has got stuck on a story
he just can’t stop repeating which he describes as “what the
English call a self fulfilling prophecy”.

    The story goes like this (I know it off by heart, like
millions of Italians by now).

    Many years ago, the people of a remote mountain tribe felt
the first winds of winter so they went to the top of the
mountain to ask the wise elder whether it would be a cold one,
and he replied, “Ah yes, I think it will be a cold winter.”

    So the people went down the mountain and began cutting trees
to make firewood, and when they had gathered heaps of wood they
went up to see the elder again to ask for the latest bulletin.

    “Ah, it’s sure to be VERY cold winter,” said the elder. So
the people ran down the hill to cut more wood and when they had
stocked piles and piles they trecked up the mountain a third
time.

    “Ah, it’s going to be a BITTERLY cold winter,” said the
elder, to which one of the bolder tribesmen replied: “but wise
elder, how can you be so sure?”
    And the elder answered: “I just look down the mountain and I
see the people have cut so much firewood that they must know
it’s going to be a freezing cold winter.”

    That is the story, and our cruise ship crooner-turned-prime
minister seems to be unable to make any public appearance
without repeating it.

    Whether he is on a TV talk show, or at a news conference
with Germany’s chancellor or Brazil’s President, or addressing
Italian industrialists, or presenting a stimulus package to save
the economy it’s just a question of time before the “self
fulfilling prophecy” story comes up.

    Reporters forced to hang on his every word have heard it
dozens of times, and they either groan or laugh or just sit back
and relax when he begins, safe in the knowledge there will be no
news to report for at least five minutes.

    Berlusconi is an incurable optimist and the message of his
story is that pundits have to stop talking about what a terrible
economic crisis we are in for because that will just stop people
from going shopping, which wil make the crisis worse.

    Now of course that WOULD be a self fulfilling prophecy, but
it wouldn’t be very funny, so it isn’t good enough for
Berlusconi.

    I don’t think the mountain tribe story is particularly funny
either, but then maybe I just don’t have a sense of humour.

    Berlusconi said German leader Angela Merkel liked it so much
she now uses it herself every time she needs to convince people
not to be pessimistic. Apparently she told him so.

    But whether it’s funny or not, it certainly isn’t “what the
English call a self fulfilling prophecy,” as Berlusconi
advertises it every time.

    Simply, and obviously, because the prophecy of the village
elder could not have resulted in a cold winter.

    This blog may seem downright grumpy. It’s just that I am one
of those reporters who groan each time they hear Berlusconi say,
“I don’t know if you’ve already heard the story of the mountain
tribe …”

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?

“Should I wait until she’s finished?” asks a soldier from an Italian Alpine regiment, in their distinctive feathered Tyrolean-style hat, to her police colleagues as they patrol an area of Turin notorious for addicts known as “Toxic Park” and see a woman shooting up.

Incidents like this one reported in Corriere della Sera newspaper seem to support Italian police unions’ doubts about Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s initiative, which began this week, to put 3,000 soldiers on the streets of 10 cities for the next six months to help the police fight a supposed crime wave. Some police officers believe military personnel, even those hardened by peace missions abroad, do not have the training needed to fight crime.

But as the first few hundred soldiers took to the streets this week — wearing barrack-dress uniform with sidearms only for street patrols, but camouflage combat gear and rifles for guard duty on “sensitive” targets like embassies and railway stations — many city mayors hailed the exercise as a success. The military man in charge of the operation, Giuseppe Valotto, said the public reaction had been “incredibly positive” and helped improve citizens’ perception of their own safety. Soldiers even notched up a few “collars” in their first few days on joint patrol with the police, hauling in 12 African immigrants in Naples accused of faking fashion brands, chasing a thief through the streets of Bari and nabbing a man in Milan who had snatched the takings of a bar from the till.

Being style-conscious Italians, of course, the troops carried off their street duties with the requisite swagger and Rome’s right-wing mayor, Gianni Alemanno, who has worried about them scaring off the tourists, appeared taken with the Grenadiers of Sardinia helping out with guard duties in Rome, saying: “They looked like they were out of a film, really perfect, they have a great image.”

But the political opposition, and the media, has asked if it is really necessary to draft in a token number of soldiers in a country that already has 230,000 police and carabinieri, and where the crime rate is not alarmingly high compared to the rest of Europe anyway. A new study by research centre Censis released this week shows, for example, that Italy has the lowest murder rate of the biggest European countries and one which is falling already. One union leader suggested the military should be drafted into Italian building sites instead to combat a growing cause of death among Italians — fatal accidents at work, where Italy ranks top in Europe, according to Censis.

The opposition also points out that Berlusconi has mobilised the military while simultaneously reducing funding for the police in the budget.

The foreign press appears sceptical too, with the Financial Times saying in a comment piece this week that Italy’s new conservative government might to well to focus instead on combatting corruption, where the country has the worst record in the European Union apart from Greece, according to Transparency International’s global corruption Index. Forbes magazine called the operation a “diversion tactic” by Berlusconi to shift the focus away from the country’s sagging economy, which it said has the lowest growth in the euro zone and is heading for recession.

But, as often seems to happen in Italy, Berlusconi comes in for fiercer criticism from the foreign press than from the domestic audience. While putting soldiers on the streets to combat a crime wave of dubious proportions might spark protest in some countries, so far it has been limited to a few banners and handbills in the capital saying “Free Rome”.

As Italians began trickling to the polls to vote in the general election on Sunday, some protested to show their disillusionment with politics.

Angry at plans to build a landfill site nearby, one group of young Neapolitans  gathered 600 election identification cards and sent them to the Italian president instead of using them to vote.

“I’m not going to vote because I don’t feel represented by the institutions and because there is no-one that worries about preserving our rights,” group member Sebastian Perrone told the Ansa news agency. 

Another angry Neapolitan took an even more novel approach: he ate his ballot form at the polling booth.

Finally, motorists on the A14 highway in Italy were greeted on Sunday morning by two large banners spray painted with the words : “Enough with politics, We want colonels!” They were quickly taken down by police.

A popular “anti-politics” movement led by figures like comedian Beppe Grillo has swept up about 6 to 8 percent of voters, estimates the pollster Luigi Crespi. He estimates the number of blank ballots will nearly triple to about 1 million during the April 13-14 election from about 400,000 in the last parliamentary election two years ago.

Italians can rarely be seen without their mobile phones, but the government has ruled they will not be allowed to take them into the polling stations on April 13-14.

The ruling is not to stop voters annoying their neighbours by shouting out: “I’m in the polling station!” but rather to prevent people selling their votes.

“We’ve made a law that plugs the one possible leak in the possibility of corrupt voting,” Interior Minister Giuliano Amato told a press conference.

“For years we’ve had the crime of paid-for votes. The most likely way is entering the booth with a phone or a camera, photographing your vote and using it as proof.”