Berlusconi - Once he had a daughter, a lover or what?

It took me a while to decide if it was appropriate to write about the latest Silvio Berlusconi saga, but considering how big story became, I believe I cannot resume myself in drawing my own conclusion.

On April 28th Repubblica, one of the most read left wing newspapers in Italy, published the news that Berlusconi went to the birthday party of an eighteen years old girl near Naples, Italy.

Nothing wrong so far, a prime minister still has his own private life, but when Repubblica interviewed the girl something rather strange happened.

The girl called Noemi Letizia referred to Berlusconi as ‘’ my papi’’.
My papi? If we take that papi means daddy, is Mr. Berlusconi the father of Noemi.

Well, Noemi already has a father Mr.Elio Letizia (pic.below). And who is he? He is an average guy, may be well off, but still an average guy. He has nothing to do with the high finance and the multimillion reality of Mr. Berlusconi, so what is going on?

Did Mr. Letizia agreed with forgiving his wife loose attitude towards married life? Or is there something more sinister? From the first moment, it came quite clear that Mr. Letizia had nothing to forgive to his wife, so what’s the deal?

In Berlusconi’s family the news on Noemi had an unsuspected effect. Berlusconi’s wife Ms Veronica Lario welcomed the news with the divorce papers.

And what Berlusconi himself did? He grabbed the opportunity to accuse the media and the opposition parties of building up a non existing case and of plotting against him at less then a month to the European elections.

So if the case in just bubble, what is the relation between Berlusconi and Noemi?

The media has speculated on different possible scenarios favoring the two spiciest options: father or lover of an under age girl.

Berlusconi, so far, hasn’t given a plausible answer.



Today, May 25th, in with CNN interview he said ‘’ I will speak out, I will explain exactly what the situation is. I will still have the Italians on my side and once again this accusation will act as a boomerang against the people that have started it."

So, does Mr. Berlusconi have a winning hand which will be reveled just before the elections or is this the beginning of Silvio’s decline?

We will see

The Case of Anton

Paavo Salonen

Anton is a five-year-old kid who disappeared from his home in the beginning of April 2008. From the beginning his dad suspected that Anton’s mom, who is Estonian-Russian, took him and transported Anton to Russia. Two months later Anton’s dad found his son from Nizhny Novgorod and was hopeful that he would get Anton back to Finland. However, it took over 12 months before Anton’s dad Paavo Salonen finally got him back.

Probably you are wondering what this has to do with politics? Before Thursday 14th of May 2009 it created some arguments between Russia and Finland but from the point of view of politics yesterday the case raised to a new spheres.

In this morning newspapers like Helsingin Sanomat, Iltalehti and Iltasanomat released news about Anton’s transport back to Finland. First the information was that Anton’s dad travelled over the Russian border with Anton but few hours later the newspapers got new information and that changed the nature of the case for good; It wasn’t Paavo Salonen who travelled over the boarder with Anton, it was a employee of Finland’s headconsulate in St.Petersburg.

Anton Salonen

This information started a political game with this case. Alexander Stubb, The Foreign Minister of Finland, announced the following thing for Helsingin Sanomat: ”The Finnish dad had a right to retrieve his son back from Russia.” Few hours later the Foreign Ministry of Finland confirmed to Iltalehti that an employee of Finland’s head consulate in St.Petersburg brought Anton to Finland. Russia had its own opinion about this case and Sergei Lavrov, the Prime Minister of Russia, discussed with Stubb yesterday on a phone. Lavrov said that the action of the employee of Finland’s head consulate was against Russian law and this makes him/her a criminal in Russia.

Alexander Stubb

Also webpage RussiaToday published news about the conclusion of the case;
”Moscow has filed a formal complaint to Helsinki after Finland's consulate general in St. Petersburg helped a Finnish citizen take his son out of Russia against both the will of his Russian mother and the law. The Finnish Embassy in Russia has confirmed that the incident took place.”

So the heat is still on with this thing but probably Anton will stay in Finland, since his mother is warranted in EU countries on child kidnapping. During this day there has been a lot of talk in Finland that did the Finnish Embassy the right decision with this episode. My opinion is that they absolutely made the right decision, since we are talking about kidnapping and because Russia haven’t accepted the Haag treaty against child kidnapping this was the only choice. Finland also announced that the employee would be transferred to other tasks, since it is impossible to continue his/her employment contract after this episode. Like I said the heat is still on and it’s interesting to see if this case will create discussion among candidates of the European Parliament, since it's only two and a half weeks before election date.

The difficulty of politics...

Opinion Article COMMPOL BLOG 15.05.12009

‘COMMPOL BLOG a place where communication and politics meet with entertainment and new media.’ This is the heading of our Communication & Politics blog in BlogSpot. Even though the developments of the new media create more connections between these four subgroups it is still very difficult to write a text that combines these ideas and at the same time is balanced, interesting and most of all worth reading.

A Polish-born American Jewish novelist, dramatist, and essayist Sholem Asch has said ‘Writing is a lot easier if you have something to say’. (1)

This is the difficulty which I constantly struggle with. I don’t know if it’s the lack of a more specific topic or the lack of my imagination to find something interesting, something new.

The blog description should help me with this; it reads: A blog for the Media Relations course at Balitc Film and Media School. Our group will be covering topics where politics and communication intertwine. As members of our group come from different nationalities and with various interests we can hopefully give a broader view on issues and topics we are going to present here.

Keeping this in mind it is possible to write about the elections, political campaigns, conflicts or new media developments and social networks. It is very crucial to think about the topic beforehand because no one is interested in so called ‘old news’. Perhaps one of the reasons behind this struggle is my interest which is more on the communication side rather than the politics. However as our group has been writing in the blog for a while now, I have obliged myself to read and watch more news on politics. The best and easiest resource for that is the nine o’clock news on ETV – AK because in addition to local issues they cover current world topics as well.

All in all I think that occasionally it is very beneficial to do something that is challenging and difficult, because this is the only way we learn and grow. Therefore in the hopes of continuous progress I am looking forward to posting the next piece.

(1)Sholem Asch from Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sholem_Asch

Political PR disaster: Mr. Antonio Di Pietro

In this blog so far I have never pointed my finger to the PR disasters of the Italian politics and from today I will concentrate in presenting you what should be avoided if you want to be elected. My palette would offer a large number of candidates to the trophy of bad PR, but today I will concentrate on Mr. Antonio Di Pietro. Who is Antonio Di Pietro? He was, with no doubt, the most famous magistrate of the Milan team that starting from 1992 brought to justice over 2500 people divided between politicians and influential figures. They had to answer of illegal political financing and corruption. Those were the years of ‘’Mani Pulite’’ (Clean Hands) operation.

As Prof. Domenico Pacitti said in his interview for Just, ‘’ Di Pietro became a sort of overnight national hero’’. Italians finally had the hope and proof that something was changing and that our politicians were called to answer of their misconduct.

Unfortunately, when the political parties understood that Di Pietro was too dangerous to the establishment and that they had to stop him (27 criminal charges were raised against him and years later dropped), he decided to resign from his position to avoid to have any conflict of interests. He understood that probably the best way to fight against political parties was to reform them from the inside and on the 28 of march 1998 he founded his own political movement ‘’Italia dei Valori’’.

So what went wrong with Mr. Pietro?

It immediately became clear to the audience that even if he was a great investigator and prosecutor, unfortunately he was poor in the art of public speeches. Every interview or public speech given by Di Pietro became the target of satirical comments. He simply couldn’t speak Italian correctly.

TV, magazines, newspapers continuously asked ‘’ How can we be represented in the parliament by someone that barely knows the Italian grammar?’’

Some commentators even doubted he really had a University degree. The level of suspect got to such a high peak, he had to publicly show his degree in law during a TV show!

So did this experience teach him something?

Well, no, it didn’t. He even did something more controversial. He opened a blog in two languages, Italian and English.

And guess what? His English version of the blog was full of spelling and grammar mistakes.

Mr. Di Pietro became the target of a new wave of jokes that signed his reputation and consequently his political fortune for the future ahead.

Will Antonio Di Pietro learn the lesson this time? Will he be able to win the mass public approval he had at the time he worked as a magistrate?

I doubt it.

The Euro

Some Estonians have not been very happy over the idea of introducing Euro as the new currency. That may be due to the fact that the Estonian Crown (currency) was only reintroduced in 1992 after the reform. Thereby it seems that taking in a new currency is equal to losing some part of the Estonian identity perhaps. However things are not that easy today with the economy in a bad shape.

”Foreign investments are an important form of assistance that can help us recover from this crisis. This belief is backed by an understanding that the euro is not a miracle drug, but without the euro, a quick recovery from this crisis will not occur,” said President Ilves in a meeting with four businessmen Jüri Käo, Toomas Luman, Veikko Maripuu and Enn Veskimägi in Kadriorg, in April.

Must agree with the President in this point because adapting to a new currency will take some time and patience, but if it is beneficial in the long term, we should make all possible actions for the transfer to happen as soon as possible.

Emanuele Filiberto a safe bet?

Does the name Emanuele Filiberto ring the bell?

Probably the answer will be negative if the reader is not Italian or an historian. Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia is the nephew of the last king of Italy Umberto II. After the proclamation of the Italian Republic on the 2nd of June 1946, the King and his heirs were send to exile and sanctioned by three articles of the Italian Constitution they were forbidden to reenter in Italy. The male members of the Savoia family couldn’t enter the Italian soil until the 16th of July 2002 when the Berlusconi government voted the abrogation of the three Constitutional articles.
Vittorio Emauele di Savoia together with his wife and his son Emanuele Filiberto landed in Rome airport for the first time since 1946 on the 15th of March 2003.
The Italian parliament unofficially agreed in avoiding asking the Savoia to swore fidelity to the Italian Constitution as long as they publicly declared of having no intention to claim back the crown.
But why am I talking about the Savoia family and in the specific of Emanuele Filiberto? Perhaps if this was a gossip or TV blog the answer could be because Emanuele Filiberto was the winner of the 2009 edition of the Italian ‘’Dancing with the Stars’’, but considering the fact that in this space I always try to see the public relation side of political events, the answer is rather different. Emauele Filiberto di Savoia former crown prince is officially candidate to the European parliament with the Union of Christian Democrats (UDC).
Pier Ferdinando Casini leader of UDC and former allied of Silvio Berlusconi, understood the importance of riding the fresh and renewed popularity gained with his winning participation in Dancing with the Stars and the importance of creating ‘’buzz’’ around his party by candidating a public figure such as Emanuele Filiberto. Will it pay off?

If the school of Berlusconi taught him well and if the rules of Buzzmarketing apply to politics as well as economy, then the European Parliament will soon have Pince Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia as one of the Italian representatives.

Karoli Hindriks and Marko Mihkelson in search of an assistant!

As we know the situation in today´s economy is rather sad. We have a strong economical crisis and a rather large number of unemployed people and growing. So this is a perfect time to create new jobs and try to make thing better and also to bring some fun and excitement into our lives.
A couple of weeks ago Karoli Hindriks and Marko Mihkelson, who are candidates for European Parliament, announced a job vacancy for an assistant position. Both of them are looking for an assistant if elected. This job is abstract, because the person will get a job when one of them is elected but there are 2 internship places at Tunne Kelam`s bureau in Brussels that are very real.
The procedure is like the The Best job in the World campaign in Australia. A person has to make a video of him self and load it up at Youtube. The people will vote but the end decision will be made by Karoli and Marko.
This is a rather interesting campaign and definitely unusual. But it brings out the creativeness of people and the motivation on how bad they really want to have that job.

Finnish Government Built a Brothel to Afghanistan?

On March I wrote how our President Tarja Halonen wants to increase the aid help for the undeveloped countries and especially concentrate the aid help on women’s rights and equality issues.

The Finnish government built a new prison to Afghanistan for women, where they could learn some new skills and practice a small business by selling handicrafts to outside of prison. Since most of the women were convicted for adultery (including rape victims) the intention of this prison was good: to educate them and give them a new start in life.

Unfortunately there have been rumors that the prison guards misused their power and prison have been working as a brothel. This has been in media for two days now and according to the latest information the prison staff has been expelled, but the government of Afghanistan refuses to comment about this issue.

“This is a very deplorable case” said Foreign Minister Stubb. He told to Helsingin Sanomat that Finland tries to fix the situation in that prison, but other projects in Afghanistan are now finished and the aid money will go somewhere else.

The Latest Survey About The European Parliament Candidates In Finland

In my last post I wrote about The European Parliament elections in Finland and how people sees that. Today Helsingin Sanomat, which is probably the most appreciated daily newspaper in Finland, published the results of a survey about the popularity of different candidates. The newspaper interviewed a thousand Finnish people and the results weren't very surprising; the first place went to Timo Soini and he has publicly announced that if he gets elected he will go to the European Parliament, because he wants to criticize EU. Second and third place went to experienced politicians Heidi Hautala and Ville Itälä. Hautala is best known from her critical attitude towards Russia and Itälä is currently a Member Of European Parliament.

                                                           Heidi Hautala

What comes to the celebrity candidates in Finland it looks like no one is going to get a place in the European Parliament. The only exception is pastor Mitro Repo but he has got into troubles with church, because the opinion of Orthodox Church is that a member of the priesthood can't take part to politics. Other celebrity candidates like journalist Johanna Korhonen, former running star Johanna Manninen and former swimming star Jani Sievinen would get only a few percentages of votes.

                                                                                  Johanna Manninen

So it’s about one month before the election date in Finland and the final candidate lists are ready.  The final number of candidates in Finland is 241 and only 13 of those get elected. Like the survey indicates people who have experience in the field of politics have much better chances to get elected than the celebrity candidates who just decided that it would be great to be a MEP. It will be interesting to see the final results.  

Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon deals with the legendary political interviews between David Frost and Richard Nixon that aired in the summer of 1977. Ron Howard, a former actor turned film director, directs this movie treatment of Peter Morgan's smash-hit stage play about David Frost's television interviews with former President Richard Nixon.

Michael Sheen, who we have seen before in the Underworld as Lucian the leader of the werewolves plays the part of David Frost. Veteran actor Frank Langella very convincingly is cast in the role of the former US president Richard Nixon.

Film poster

David Frost was best known for being a host of talks shows and other light entertainment projects but he desired to gain more respect. Economical pressure was great as when first trying to get finances to move along with this project Frost had to put up a lot of money by himself. When the interviews would have been a failure this would have meant bankruptcy for Frost. Some people saw the interviews as a extenuation of Nixon's guilt and that when this would be successful the Nixon would return to politics.

This would have been the greatest prize for Nixon - although he already was granted a full pardon by Gerald Ford he still wanted to redeem himself in the eyes of the people. But thankfully Frost managed to survive the traps and "mind games" that Nixon had prepared for him and emerged as a winner.

Real life vs. stage play

The film reminded me of a boxing match - short but very intense episodes of head to head action that will end with the demise for the one side and triumph for the other side. Both sides have their supporting teams that during breaks offer counsel and backing.The stakes were high for the both sides involved in this project. This is all present in these interviews - both Nixon and Frost had their support teams that did background research for each side. And very similarly the spectators might feel a bit disappointed after all the initial hype is over and they are left with the real thing - the film only reminds us that all people, even presidents are just ordinary people with their short comings and deficiencies. All the drama that is promised in the beginning is missing in the end.

If to compare the actual interviews with the interviews in the film the greatest difference comes from the fact that the real thing did not get so emotional - the film uses dramatic pauses and intense and climatic background music during the interviews. In my opinion this robs the film a opportunity from becoming a true classic which it could have achieved. All the drama is already present in the historic interviews and by using these simple and bit banal tools for elevating the film into new heights it falls flat on its face.

"The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear"

Documentaries made by Adam Curtis always seem to take on an impossible task - to connect and cover very different and unique themes in modern politics. As he is both the director, writer, producer and narrator of most of his films he successfully manages to convey his uncompromisingly illuminating and often inspiring insights on the world of politics.

Adam Curtis being interviewed by David Thomson before the showing of Power of Nightmares

"The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear", a three part documentary that was first screened on BBC Two in Autumn 2004 as a series of three one hour, deals with the state of today's world as it is - still polarized between fragmented and often in hostile opposition with the other side. The causes for opposing the other side vary from cultural differences to religious confrontation. One unifying theme that connects these aspects is fear. Fear of the opposing forces consolidates the power of political elites and by exaggerating the level of threat they gain even more power. The documentaries openly question whether the threat of terrorism to the West was a politically driven fantasy and if al-Qaeda really is an organised network.

Cover of the DVD

The documentary shows how two idealistic political groups - the American neo-conservatives and the radical Islamists were left disillusioned by the failure of their liberal dreams of building a better world that they had once envisioned. Or like Adam Curtis explains in the opening sequence of the documentary : "These two groups have changed the world, but not in the way that either intended. Together, they created today's nightmare vision of a secret organized evil that threatens the world, a fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. And those with the darkest fears became the most powerful."

Fear was one of the key elements that US administration used when they were gathering allies to support their attack on Iraq. The accusations gathered against Iraq and its dictator Sadam Hussein, that they were supporting and helping the terrorist organization and were manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. After the US invasion to Iraq the US senate conducted an extensive research into the matter and found out that the threat level was greatly exaggerated and the connections between Al-Qaeda’s and Sadam Hussein were nonexistent.

Some important characters from the film (from top right) Leo Strauss, Sayed Kotb, Donald Rumsfeld, (two in center) Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, William "Bill" Kristol.

This marks a great failure in the ethics of politics as the political power used the threat situation to gain political capital. Furthermore it can be speculated that this cynical step greatly contributed to the alienation of ordinary citizens from political processes as the people became disillusioned about the ethics and integrity of the political system.

Extra materials:

• Here's a nice and thorough session of questions and answers by Adam Curtis regarding the film.
• San Fransisco's International Film Society awarded Adam Curtis with the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award in 2005 and David Thomson wrote an accompanying essay.
• And all three parts of the documentary are available at google video (part 1, part 2 and part 3).
• A short film by Adam Curtis which he describes as, "a short, and possibly unfair history of the rise and fall of the television journalist as a hero."

The Race for the EU Parliament elections is on

The race for the EU elections have officially began in Estonia. The major players have introduced their campaigns to the public and street adds are up. The Center Party´s campaign demands change. But no one really explains what change they want. When Siiri Oviir, who is the EU parliament member now, stands with a poster demanding change, it makes you wonder weather she wants to come back to Estonia or is there something else they are referring to. The campaign is strongly slandering, making the Reform party the blaming point for everything that has happened in Estonia.

The Reform party´s slogan is- “A better Estonia for everyone. On the European level doers. “ This is very controversial because Estonia entered the economic crisis under the government which was lead by the Reform party. The campaign is not really saying anything and there really isn´t a message. It´s not that clear but the yellow colors are eye- catching.

The third major party is Pro Patria and Res Publica Union. There campaign is built up whit the slogan "The Right decisions at a hard time". The main ideas are " Work for Estonia". This is done by supporting business and making it easier to do business. Relations with the US is very important. Influence people to buy more local products. At the moment they are concentrating on TV commercials starring Mart Laar- the head of the party.

How to win the next European Elections? Just wait for an earthquake.

On Monday 6th of April the hearth decided to shake itself in Abruzzo, Italy. Such event left 297 people dead and around 50% of the population of the regional capital l’Aquila without their houses.
A number of questions could be asked in the attempt to understand why so many houses crumbled like sand castles, but the aim of this article is not to find causes and responsibilities rather to study how a dramatic event such an earthquake can be used to the advantage of a political parties.
On Monday the sixth immediately after the main earth tremor the area was evacuated and a main message was launched: leave the area to the rescue teams; don’t come to the disaster area if you are not part of the rescue effort.
Abruzzo was practically sealed to outsiders. But was the area closed to everybody? Of course the accredited press was allowed to report from the seen, journalists had to be escorted by fire fighters or the army to guarantee their safety, they had as expected plenty of time to broadcast the destruction and the effort of the emergency units. But were the rescue teams and the accredited press the only allowed to move in the area of the disaster? Obviously not.









The same day of the disaster Mr. Silvio Berlusconi flew with an helicopter over the area to understand the degree of the damages. After the flight he landed near by and went to visit the area in person.
His visit didn't seemed anything strange, he is the Prime minister and he wanted personally to understand the gravity of the situation. After setting up a press conference to brief the media on the current situation, he announced that the Government would work side by side with the people effected by the earthquake.
And in what way the Government decided to be present in Abruzzo? Since the terrible night of the 6th of April, Mr.Berlusconi visited the area in numerous occasions.
The PR machine started working, the Premier was photographed with fire fighters wearing their helmet, hugging old people, opening a school in a temporary tent camp for refugees together with kids, and in many other occasions.
Did this systematic campaign work?
According to the latest surveys the popularity of Mr. Berlusconi, after the earthquake, increased to an unpredicted level. In terms of intention of vote, referred to the European elections, the party of Mr. Berlusconi is expected to receive near 50% of total votes in a country where there will be no less five main parties running for the seats in Brussels.
The elections are very close and if the ''Berlusconi machine'' will work as expected, there won't be any chances for the opponents.