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Leto, Alessandro
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4 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.
Setback for global climate
The efforts to set up a fund to fight climate change and its impact have suffered a setback. A handful of states blocked the establishment of the so-called Green Climate Fund at the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban. The entire summit will be a failure, the liberal daily Corriere del Ticino now fears: "The representatives of the individual nations left their respective capital cities empty handed and above all with the deep conviction that in the area of environmental protection the multilateral era is also coming to an end. The agenda itself testifies to a lack of ambition for it focuses on the controversial extension of the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012. Hadn't that possibility long since been written off? Point two on the agenda pertained to the infeasible demand of investing 100 billion US dollars in green technologies. ... Moreover the media are paying scant attention to the whole affair. The climate conference is being eclipsed by a series of other problems that are wrongly considered more urgent."
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More from the press review on the subject » Environmental Policy, » Global
West leaves Africa to starve
The United Nations has officially declared a famine zone in parts of Somalia. The disaster was triggered by speculation with food prices, writes the liberal daily Corriere del Ticino: "The once attentive West is now mired in a chronic crisis and no longer seems even to react to the cries for help. The foreign policy decision-makers are coming across as dangerously impotent and their weakness has led to uncontrolled speculation and allowed the situation to deteriorate further. This is speculation that doesn't even spare the basic biological functions of human beings and has created a true monster: gambling with food prices. For some time now the United Nations has been demanding a moratorium on speculation with food prices and for three years now the G8 and the G20 have repeatedly put this idea on their agenda. But so far they have done nothing concrete. It is in our own interest to tackle the problem in Africa today, to avoid having to bear the consequences tomorrow."
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More from the press review on the subject » Financial Markets, » Natural disasters, » Natural disasters, » Catastrophe, » Africa
Romans can't understand Gaddafi's eccentricities
The liberal Swiss daily Corriere del Ticino comments on the visit of Libyan head of state Muammar al-Gaddafi to Rome and the reactions of Rome's residents to his eccentricities - such as spending the night in a tent: "Since he landed the Libyan colonel … has been making his way across Rome to spend the night in his beloved tent. … To sleep in a public park is an eccentricity that true Romans simply can't understand, so they have gone and pasted the area surrounding the park with 'No Camping' signs. … But the real question Romans are asking is why on such an occasion a security apparatus is rolled out that makes the city the safest place in the world, only to be dismantled as soon as the visit ends, leaving the city to return to a normality that is characterised by equally disturbing matters of everyday security? … The Romans are waiting expectantly and with an air of congenial and calm irony for Gaddafi's next eccentricity. They asked him half jokingly to donate his tent to the earthquake victims in Aquila."
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More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Italy, » Libya
Alessandro Leto on the dangerous tolerance of dictatorships
Alessandro Leto warns the West of the dangers of being too tolerant with repressive governments in the daily Corriere del Ticino. "The main prerequisites for a free and dignified life are being negated not only in those states where people are under the yoke of explicitly totalitarian dictatorships, as in the case of North Korea or Myanmar, but also in countries where certain factors lead to groups who often have a military background taking power and making major changes, also to the constitution, to ensure the permanence of their government. ... It seems to me that the time has come to make certain fundamental political distinctions, not only because it is dangerous to try to distinguish between evil and tolerable dictatorships, but also because our security - not only financial but also military - could in future be compromised by precisely those who have a totalitarian and despotic vision. ... It is distressing to see the celebration of the anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights has prompted neither the US nor Europe to stress that from now on human rights must increasingly become a discriminatory element in international relations. The more tolerant we are towards dictators, the more opportunity we give them to grow in power to our own detriment."
» full article (external link, Italian)
More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Global
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