One of them likes to call himself an "emancipator of women". The other likes women to call him "papi". So when two of the world's most flamboyant and eccentric politicians – the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, and Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi – met yesterday in Rome, women figured large.
The Libyan leader was accompanied by his all-female, 40-strong bodyguard squad, its members dressed in khaki uniforms and red berets. And the schedule for his controversial first visit to Italy included, at his own request, a meeting tomorrow with large numbers of Italian women. Very large numbers.
The plan was for "only" 700. But officials said yesterday that such was the colonel's drawing power the event had had to be moved to a concert hall with a capacity for 1,000.
Berlusconi has had more than a little trouble lately with embarrassing photos. So it must have been with a sinking feeling that he watched the Libyan leader descend the aircraft steps with another one pinned to his chest.
The photograph Gaddafi wore to several of the ceremonies on the opening day of his visit did not show young women in underwear by Berlusconi's poolside, let alone a former Czech prime minister in the altogether. But it was discomforting for his hosts all the same: it showed the Libyan resistance leader, Omar Mukhtar, the "Lion of the Desert", on the day before he was hanged by Italian colonialists in 1931.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/10/gaddafi-visit-italy-berlusconi
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