This re-posted from Craig Murray who’s blog is under (re) construction…
A very senior diplomatic source told me yesterday that Berlusconi is frantic lest Gadaffi falls and the channels are revealed by which Berlusconi gets a cut on the huge amounts of Libyan oil and gas lifted to Italy. Just at the moment that would be too much even for Berlusconi to survive.
This morning I see the Italian foreign minister is warning 300.000 Libyan refugees will fly to Europe if Gadaffi falls – as though there will be none if he stays. I have checked with other diplomatic sources, and they confirm that Italy is using the refugee warning to argue that Europe should back Gadaffi, and not impose sanctions. That point is not coming over in the mainstream media.
I suspect close working links between the Russian gas businesses, the intelligence services and the mafia. It all looks very deeply corrupt, and Berlusconi has been doing deals – ar at least talking of deals – with the Russians. Veronica Berlusoconi has been lunched by at least one Russian gas CEO – I can’t imagine it was a chance encounter.
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=34120
A useful snippet- thanks George M
That link doesn’t work as it contains square brackets (which get stripped by the blog software) . This should get around it:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6jonlfo
More specifically, there’s this from Wikileaks.
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