Blogs
Featured:
Thursday, July 9, 2009 12:44 PM
Silvio's got the gift
Silvio Berlusconi’s G8 summit in Italy will not go down in history as a class act. The location, on a bleak modern campus near L’Aquila, the city struck by a killer earthquake on April 6, could have been anywhere in the world. The sherpas and delegates complained of epic disorganization. The toilets were filthy. Access to important people was virtually non-existent.
But Mr. Berlusconi got two things right – the food and the lavish presents for the G8 leaders.
Tight security meant there was no way any of the 2,500 or so journalists could leave the media site for a bowl of linguini, al fresco, washed down with a bottle of local Abruzzo white wine. With that in mind, Berlusconi’s people set up a vast tent and filled it with equally vast amounts of Italian culinary delights – prosciutto, salami, mozzarella, melon, rice and mushroom salad, the freshest tomatoes, thin slices of beef, simple pasta and so on. Of course, there was wine and beer and better than decent coffee. It made the stale, mayonnaise-soaked sandwiches served at April’s G20 summit in London look barbaric.
The gifts to G8 leaders were even more lavish. No “I survived L’Aquila” T-shirts for Stephen Harper, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and the rest of the G8 crew. What they got instead was a stunning work of art.
Mr. Berlusconi commissioned the Italian fine-art publishing house, Fondazione Marinela Ferrari, to make a special art book. But not just any art book. This baby weighs 24 kilos. The cover is a bas relief made from flawless white Carrara marble, the preferred marble of Italy’s finest sculptors, past and present. The relief is a copy of Antonio Canova’s exquisite work, Graces and Venus Dancing. The Italians consider Canova, the Venetian sculptor who created The Three Graces (now in the Hermitage) and who died in 1822, to be one of their greatest ambassadors of beauty.
Inside the book are 77 museum-quality photos of Canova’s works by the Neapolitan photographer Mimmo Jodice. The gift includes a hand-inscribed dedication to each of the leaders, and their countries’ anthems. Silk, silver, gold leaf, vegetable dies are among the materials used in the book and the box in which it is contained. In total, 23 Italian and European artists contributed to the project.
Good thing the leaders came in their private jets, because the creation, when adding its casets case, tips the scales at 49 kilos – more than 100 pounds.
Silvio Berlusconi's gift to the G8 leaders
The bad news for Canada is that Mr. Berlusconi’s gift ups the ante considerably. Canada is the host of the next G8 summit, in Muskoka, Ont. Whoever is prime minister at the time will have to think twice before sending the leaders away with a bottle of maple syrup.
Link to this post
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 10:41 AM
Addax's founder has more cash for his passion
Jean Claude Gandur, the founder and CEO of Addax Petroleum, was already one of Europe’s richest men before today’s agreement to sell the company to China’s Sinopec. Now he is about $3-billion wealthier. Mr. Gandur and his private holding companies control about 38 per cent of Addax’s shares, which are going to Sinopec at $52.80 apiece. That’s 170 per cent more than the 2006 initial public offering price.
What will he do with his fortune? He might start another oil exploration and development company. He will certainly indulge his passion for antiquities.
Mr. Gandur owns one of the world’s finest collections of Egyptian, Hellenistic and Roman antiquities outside of museums. The Egyptian bronzes are said to be second to none. In an interview with The Globe and Mail a year and a half ago, he called antiquities his “passion” and only half joked that he wanted to sell Addax at a blockbuster price so he could buy more of them. “Money in the bank is no fun,” he said.
Mr. Gandur is a French-born Swiss citizen and the son of an Italian pediatrician who lives in a lakeside mansion outside of Geneva. He began his love affair with history and antiquities in Alexandria, Egypt, where he grew up. He speaks Arabic. The Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa have been intimate parts of his life since then and he knows where to find the best pieces from the best collections.
The pieces have been on display only once, in 2002, at a special exhibit at Geneva’s Musee d’art et d’histoire. The descriptions and photos of the hundreds of works were enough to fill a 160-page catalogue. An intensely private man, Gandur’s name was not associated with the exhibit. Today, the only way to see the collection is by way of personal invitation from the man himself.
The antiquities range from ivory figurines from about 4000 BC to a bronze Roman lamp decorated with a Medusa head from the second or third century AD. Among Gandur’s favourite pieces is 62-centimetre gold Egyptian funeral mask.
With a few extra billion in his pocket, Mr. Gandur can afford to compete with the world’s leading museums for the historic objects he covets. As a double bonus, the recession is reducing the asking prices. Gandur’s collection is about to become even more splendid.
Friday, June 19, 2009 12:36 PM
UN announces food summit
The food crisis hasn’t gone away. And in case you haven’t been paying attention, the United Nations has called a new food summit to remind you.
On Friday in Rome, the three UN food agencies said they have approved a food summit that will take place in November, precise date to be determined.
But didn’t we just have a food summit? Well, no, said Jacques Diouf, director-general of the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).
True, last year’s “High Level Conference on Food Security” attracted 43 heads of state and government, and was universally called a “food summit” by the media. But it wasn’t really a food summit because its alleged focus was on the threats of climate change and bio-energy to food security.
This one will be a real summit, the UN food chiefs promised.
You can’t blame the UN food agencies – FAO, World Food Program and International Fund for Agricultural Development – for wanting a little more attention. The planet is glutted with summits (I have covered three or four since February), most focused on the financial crisis and the recession and how to eliminate them. There have been G20 summits and G8 summits for heads of government and their finance and foreign ministers. The BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China – just had a summit in the Urals.
So why not a food summit?
The UN actually made a good case for one. While the world has been obsessed with auto bailouts, waning Porsche production and sacked bank chiefs, the number of undernourished people is climbing at an alarming rate. That’s because food prices remain stubbornly high, in spite of the fall of energy prices, and because the recession has made millions of people poorer and thus unable to afford the nourishment they need. The UN estimated that slightly more than one billion people, about one-sixth of the global population, will suffer from hunger this year. That’s up 11 per cent from last year.
Not only is the raw number of hungry people the highest in history, the rate of hunger (which measures the proportion of the global population that is afflicted) has reversed course. From 1969, when the Green Revolution began to kick in, to about the middle part of this decade, the hunger rate halved to about 17 per cent. Now the proportion is going up again, in spite of rising crop yields.
What is needed, said the UN food chiefs, is more agricultural investment, which has plummeted in recent years as aid agencies took the view that a food glut, not shortage, was the more serious threat.
Josette Sheeran, the executive director of the World Food Program, said she hopes that just a tiny fraction of the trillions of dollars in stimulus spending and other recession-busting efforts will find its way into food development and social safety nets. “Without food, people have only three options,” she said. “They riot, they migrate or they die,” she said.
Mr. Diouf called the rising number of hungry people “the silent hunger crisis.” The risk is that a world growing weary of summits will fail to pay attention to the one he has called for November.
Monday, June 8, 2009 10:51 AM
Italian voters shrug off wannabe-scandal
If Italian voters disapproved of Silvio Berlusconi’s friendships with young showgirls and underwear models, it sure didn’t register in the polls.
In the European Parliament elections, which wound up Sunday night, the Italian prime minister’s centre-right Popolo della Liberta (PDL) party snagged about 35 per cent of the vote, well more than any other party. In second place was the centre-left Partito Democratico (PD), with just under 27 per cent. Given the PD’s efforts to turn Berlusconi’s apparent obsession with women between half and a quarter his age into a scandal, this represents a defeat for the Opposition.
Why did the Italians not care about Berlusconi’s desire to “frequent minors,” as his wife Veronica Lario charged a few weeks ago, when she announced she is seeking to divorce her husband? Lario made the statement after learning Berlusconi had attended the birthday party of aspiring, 18-year-old model named Noemi Letizia. She was also a guest at parties hosted by Berlusconi at his Sardinian villa, where an enterprising paparazzo with a long lens snapped several hundred interesting photos. Berlusconi screamed invasion of privacy and had prosecutors seize the photos. But five escaped and were published last week in the Spanish newspaper El Pais. Among them are pictures of topless women cavorting around the villa.
Italians shrugged off the wannabe-scandal because, it appears, frolicking with semi-clad women who are not your wife is no big deal; it’s accepted as a perk of political power. Indeed, the story was bigger outside of Italy than within (though Berlusconi’s foes would say that’s at least partly because Berlusconi, through ownership of the family’s Mediaset channels and his role as head of the government, essentially controls most of the Italian TV market).
Italians wanted to know why their prime minister was singled out for alleged bad behaviour -- Berlusconi denied having a sexual relationship with Letizia -- when it is so blatantly common elsewhere, and often ignored or played down by the local media. In a column called “Cherchez la femme,” journalist Pierluigi Battista noted that Francois Mitterrand’s secret second family, whose existence was known, but not reported, by the French press, didn’t slow down his career. Ditto the Kennedys’ infamous womanizing. And don’t forget Nicolas Sarkozy, who split from his wife so he could marry the former model Carla Bruni.
While Berlusconi has survived the Letizia and Sardinian party affairs, one little thing could come back to bite him. The Italian taxpayers’ association wants to know how all those lovely women got to Sardinia. The answer: In the prime minister’s official plane. Prosecutors are now investigating whether the flight was a possible misuse of public funds. Berlusconi, for his part, does not seem to be worried. He said the prime minister is free to take guests with him. The investigation, he said, will be “swiftly shelved.”
Monday, June 8, 2009 05:59 AM
Sowing the seeds of regret?
If July's Group of Eight summit in Italy is looking for an issue beyond the recession, offshore farms is it. Denounced by some as neocolonialism or land grabs, praised by others as delivering investment to poor countries, this form of food outsourcing is in sore need of an international code of conduct, all the more so since it is spreading rapidly and is bound to involve Canada at some point.
International farm investment, to use its blandest description, has become a phenomenon in recent years and new reports about its "risks and opportunities," to use an even blander United Nations description, are filling agricultural and rural-development watchdog websites.
The concept is simple. Countries short of productive agricultural land but rich in capital are acquiring farmland in countries, most of them poor, with land to spare, or allegedly so. In many cases, the food grown on the farms is effectively removed from the world market and exported back to the country that did the deal. Not surprisingly, China and OPEC's Middle East members, which have more oil than irrigation water, are the most prolific deal makers and Africa is their juiciest target.
A fresh report commissioned by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization says that 2.5 million hectares, an area almost the size of Belgium, has been acquired since 2004 in five African countries alone.
A recent report from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington says between 15 million and 20 million hectares of farmland in poor countries has been snapped up by foreigners since 2006. The land, it says, is worth as much as $30-billion (U.S.). Offshore farms are a big, global business.
As far as anyone can tell, China pioneered the offshore farm game about 10 years ago, when it leased land for food production in Mexico and Cuba. The acquisition pace has quickened in recent years because of rising commodity prices, culminating in the "food crisis" of 2007 and 2008, when mass starvation seemed a real possibility.
While the oil price collapse and the record production of some crops have since downgraded the crisis, China, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, India, South Korea and other countries short of farmland are taking the long-term view. They have burgeoning populations, are short of water and realize food prices could resume their upward trajectory at any time. So they are preparing for the worst and snapping up land wherever they can find it.
There is no set formula for the acquisitions. Some are purchases, others leases. Some land is acquired by sovereign wealth funds, some by private investors, among them Morgan Stanley, which acquired a vast spread in Ukraine in March. Few of the deals are transparent; some are truly strange. Recently a former investment banker named Philippe Heilberg, now chairman of Jarch Capital, gained leasehold rights to some 400,000 hectares in Sudan by taking a majority stake in a firm controlled by a former warlord who fought on both sides of Sudan's civil war.
Increasingly, the land deals are coming under the scrutiny of the UN and watchdog groups such as Grain, the International Land Coalition and the IFPRI. That's because it is not obvious that they are win-win situations. An increasing number of land deals are facing local resistance. In Madagascar, Daewoo Logistic's effort to lease 1.3 million hectares - fully half of the arable land - to produce maize and palm oils contributed to the turmoil that overthrew the government earlier this year. The Daewoo deal was scrapped.
The UN and the watchdogs have valid concerns. The UN published a report in May called "Land Grab or Development Opportunity?" which had a lengthy list of concerns. It said some of the deals lack transparency, which "creates a breeding ground for corruption." Many countries lack the legal systems to protect local rights - farmers may get thrown off land they can't prove they own. Environmental issues, such as high water use of new crops planted by absentee owners, can often be ignored. The big question, of course, is: Where does the production go if the host country develops a food shortage? Sudan, bizarrely, has welcomed farmland seekers- the same country that relies on the UN's World Food Program to feed millions of its people.
To be sure, some deals can benefit both sides. If jobs are created, if better technology boosts yields, if roads and irrigation are built to help the entire local community and if some food is left on the local table, life can be pleasant. The problem is that it's hard to tell whether deals struck now are abusive or will benefit the host country as well as the investor. This is why oversight is needed, and why guidelines have to be drawn up.
To its credit, Japan, which is playing the farmland game too, has suggested the July G8 summit be used to draw up a code of conduct for foreign farmland deals. It would be in Canada's best interests to support such an initiative. Canada has vast amounts of arable land, ready equipped with water. The land is incredibly cheap by global standards. Foreign investors have tried to buy prairie farmland, but have been stopped by foreign ownership rules. But, in time, Canada may not be able to resist the demands from overseas investors. Best to have guidelines in place before the For Sale signs go up in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009 04:41 PM
Italian sports cars outrace recession
The recession is putting the brakes on the auction values of classic American muscle cars, but hot-blooded Italian racing machines are still selling for outrageous prices.
Proof came when a 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa sold for €9.02-million ($14.2-million) at the annual Ferrari auction next to the Ferrari factory in Maranello, in northern Italy, Sunday. The price was a world record for a car sold at an auction.
RM Auctions of Chatham, Ont., which conducted the auction in association with Sotheby's, said the black, open-top Testa Rossa with a red nose, one of 22 made, was bought by an anonymous buyer who bid by telephone.
A 10-per-cent buyer's commission was included in the price. "The price was within our estimated range, but at the low end," said Ian Kelleher, RM's president and chief operating officer. "Prices might be leveling off, but demand for great cars like this one has not subsided."
The Testa Rossa smashed a record set last year at the same event, when British radio personality Chris Evans, then 42, paid €7-million for the black convertible 1961 Ferrari 250 California Spyder once owned by James Coburn, the star of The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven.
The RM auction was not without its disappointments, however. The 1967 Ferrari 330 P4 racer, which was used by the Ferrari team in the Le Mans and Dayton 24-hour races that year, did not get the price wanted by the owner, Canadian businessman Lawrence Stroll, the co-founder of Tommy Hilfiger. The car was withdrawn from the auction when the bids topped out at €7.25-million.
RM said 27 of the 36 cars sold at the Maranello auction. The total value of the 27, plus the Ferrari memorabilia sold, was more than €21-million, the company said. The larger 2008 auction, in which 35 of 46 cars were sold, produced €28-million in sales.
Mr. Kelleher said prices for classic cars are holding up better in Europe than in North America. The auction values for classic American muscle cars such as Camaros, Mustangs and Corvettes have fallen by about a third since the recession started. The European cars such as Ferraris, Porsches and Jaguars seem to attract wealthier collectors. "The reality is that no one is safe from the recession," he said. "But I think the worst is over."
Friday, May 15, 2009 03:09 PM
Why I can't help but love Italy, for all its terrible faults
Scene One: We are at the beach at Ostia, the seaside resort just outside of Rome. It is sunny and warm, warm enough for the children to swim, if not the cowardly adults. We lay our beach towels near a lifeguard station. The lifeguard, unmistakable in his red lifeguard top, has something odd wrapped around his left leg. Upon closer inspection, we realize the leg is encased toe to knee in a white plaster cast that must weight 10 kilos; he can hardly walk. I wonder who will save the lifeguard when he swings into action.
Scene Two: We are walking to our favourite pizzeria in Testaccio, the market neighbourhood next to our Rome apartment. We spot a beautiful red Ferrari F430, a rare sight in this middle-class part of town. We wander over to admire the machine and spot a handicapped sticker on the windshield. Okay, it could be legit, but we doubt it. You have to be a contortionist to squeeze into this low-slung racing car. Perhaps the sticker is a factory installed option.
Scene Three (my fave): My newspapers are delivered by a jolly young man on a scooter. Make that not delivered; as often as not, they do not arrive on the same day. It is Monday morning and I am dropping my kids off at the bus stop outside our apartment. To my surprise, my man arrives on his scooter, a stack of papers piled between his knees. I ask him what happened to last week's deliveries. He says his scooter broke down. I notice the scooter he is driving today is a different model. I see you bought a new scooter, I say. No, it's my girlfriend's; she lent it to me, he says. Why didn't she lend it to you last week, I ask. We had a fight, he says, and she wouldn't give it to me. At that point I realize my deliveries are now dependent on the love life of my delivery man. I consider sending her flowers on his behalf to ensure regular service.
To be continued.
Friday, May 15, 2009 02:45 PM
Does Berlusconi have a hidden agenda?
Did Silvio Berlusconi's decision to move the G8 Summit from Sardinia to L'Aquila, the centre of the bruzzo earthquake, have a hidden agenda?
When the Italian prime minister and current G8 chairman announced the switch last week, the Italian press immediately suggested he was making a virtue of a necessity. They reports said preparation work on the original G8 site, on La Maddalena, an island off the northern coast of Sardinia, was behind schedule and might not have been ready in time for the July event.
Berlusconi had a different story. He claimed the change of summit address to L'Aquila, about 100 kilometres northeast of Rome and easily reached by autostrada (the Italian high-speed toll highways), would save 220-million euros -- money better devoted to repairing L'Aquila and the nearby villages severely damaged or destroyed by the 6.3-magnitude earthquake. The April 6 quake killed nearly 300 people.
The idea now is to host the summit in the Italian Finance Police barracks in L'Aquila, a huge building, low-slung building which now serves as the headquarters of the earthquake emergency services and where the victims' mass funeral was held.
Berlusconi's idea was approved by Cabinet and favourably regarded by other G8 countries. But will the switch really save a fortune?
L'Aquila is a wreck. The historic centre of the city is almost entirely uninhabitable. The number of homeless people is estimated at 60,000, of whom 34,000 are living in tents. While Berlusconi has said three-quarters of the homes would be habitable within a month, work could drag on and on. Making L'Aquila presentable and safe in less than three months seems a Herculean task.
Then there is the question of finding accommodation for the thousands of media, delegates and security people. As far as I can tell, there is just one central L'Aquila hotel, the Frederico II, that is still functioning. It is already fully booked for the G8 dates – July 8 to 10. Where the hordes will go is a mystery. The Italian government insists there is enough hotel space in the area to accommodate everyone, but many, perhaps most, of the hotels are being used as temporary accommodation for the earthquake homeless.
Berlusconi's plan could have a pleasant side effect, if he pulls it off. Maybe the goal is to highlight the plight of the L'Aquila area, all the better to attract reconstruction donations from other countries.
The Italian government has drawn up a list of heritage buildings which, it hopes, foreign governments will “adopt” and repair. They included the Fortezza Spagnola, L'Aquila's 16th Century Spanish castle, which the Spanish government has already offered to fix. Germany, for its part, has offered funds for the reconstruction of Onna, the small town outside of L'Aquila where 40 people – a tenth of its population – died in the earthquake. Onna was the scene of a Second World War massacre, committed by retreating German soldiers, and Germany has offered help as a show of goodwill. Berlusconi's G8 switch may be more clever than it looks.
Friday, April 10, 2009 06:54 AM
Rescue pic
Diggers looking for bodies in collapsed apartment building just outside the historic centre of L'Aquila.
Friday, April 10, 2009 06:54 AM
More pics of damage
Silver BMW destroyed by fallen wall in historic centre of L'Aquila.
Reguly In Europe Contributors
Eric Reguly
Eric Reguly is The Globe's European business correspondent, based in Rome
