“It’s hard to explain how complicated Italian politics is .. We have consigned our roots to the judgement of history. He has shifted away from such positions in recent months, and complained he has been much misquoted.”I think Italians would laugh at the descriptions of me as a neo-Nazi,” he told a Rome news conference on the eve of his departure. European policies presented at last month’s National Alliance congress are viewed in Whitehall as a hotch-potch of ill-formulated ideas that testify, above all, to Mr Fini’s lack of experience in foreign affairs.”One hopes that Mr Fini’s visit will deepen his understanding of some of these issues,” one diplomatic source said.Mr Fini is an infinitely smooth political operator, and will be keen to smooth any feathers ruffled by his past declarations praising Mussolini, casting doubt on the symbolic importance of D-Day and stirring up nationalism among Italian minorities in Slovenia and Croatia. British diplomats insist Sir Patrick was merely doing his job of sounding out the new forces in Italian politics, but the lunch was widely interpreted as a sign of friendship towards a movement long considered a pariah both in Italy and abroad.For several months, Britain looked for signs of Euro- scepticism in Mr Berlusconi’s government and hoped parties such as the National Alliance might prove useful allies within the European Union.According to diplomatic sources, Britain now acknowledges that hope was misplaced and Italian policy was more inconsistent than genuinely sceptical. Despite the anti-Fascist protests which greeted his arrival at Heathrow airport yesterday, and the promise of further disruptions when he addresses the Royal Institute of International Affairs this afternoon, Mr Fini has every reason to expect the warmest of receptions when he meets business leaders, government officials and Conservative MPs from the Commons committee for foreign affairs.
Only opposition MPs were up in arms, with Denis MacShane, of Labour, complaining in a point of order to the Speaker that “Gianfranco Fini, the leader of the Italian Fascists, is being greeted by some Tory MPs”.He noted a Commons motion signed by 112 MPs had condemned Mr Fini on “his Fascism, his anti-Semitism and his connection to Mussolini”.In contrast to European neighbours, the British government did not register so much as a flicker of official alarm when five members of Mr Fini’s then openly neo-Fascist movement took up cabinet posts in Silvio Berlusconi’s government last year.While President Francois Mitterrand of France and other European politicians were calling for a boycott of the new ministers, Mr Fini was invited to lunch by the British ambassador in Rome, Sir Patrick Fairweather. It is perhaps no accident that Italy’s far-right leader, Gianfranco Fini, has chosen London as the place to launch his campaign for international respectability after his National Alliance party’s formal repudiation of its neo-Fascist past. The poll, taken this month by the Russian Nationwide Centre for Public Opinion Studies, indicated that 83 per cent of those surveyed thought inflation was their biggest problem, 58 per cent the crime wave and 50 per cent the plummeting national production level.Thirty-three per cent of respondents said that they thought war on Russia’s borders was the big problem, up from 15 per cent in July, when the Chechen conflict was only simmering.The poll, of 1,989 people, suggested that 32 per cent were worried about worsening ethnic relations, up from 16 per cent in July but only 12 per cent worried about the country’s leadership problems; 6 per cent thought there was danger of fascism and 5 per cent thought there was a danger of a military takeover..
Six people have been arrested and one is reported to have confessed that the border guards were killed on Monday night.n Moscow – Rising prices, not war and politics, are what worry ordinary Russians, according to a new poll, Interfax news agency reported yesterday, AFP reports. At the weekend Chechen sources said they had foiled an attempt to assassinate Gen Dudayev.Two Russian members of the border-guard service, which has been involved in the Grozny operation alongside the Interior Ministry forces and the army, were found dead in Ali Yurt, in Ingushetia, yesterday. In the previous 24 hours six Russian soldiers had been killed and 25 wounded and in “special operations” one Chechen fighter had been killed and 15 captured.Sergei Stepashin, head of Russia’s counter-intelligence service, admitted that the accord was “unlikely to lead to a full-scale ceasefire”.Lieutenant-General Leonid Rokhlin, commander of the Russian VIII Corps in central Grozny, said: “There is no doubt that a certain group of Chechen militants will not observe any agreements.” In Moscow, an official said air attacks had been suspended before Monday’s ceasefire but would only stop if it held.Gen Stepashin also said Russian special forces were continuing their hunt for the rebel Chechen leader, Dzhokhar Dudayev; it was difficult to track him Moscow has issued a warrant for his arrest. But yesterday Russian sources admitted artillery had continued to fire on Chechen rebel positions in southern Grozny and that reconnaissance planes had continued to operate over the city and surrounding villages.The Interior Ministry, responsible for internal operations of this type, said artillery had provided fire support, hitting targets in Grozny, and Alkhan Kala and Argun, just outside the city. The ceasefire favours the Chechens, who have fewer heavy weapons, but have shown themselves to be more skilled in infantry tactics.The commander of Russia’s Interior Ministry troops, Colonel-General Anatoly Kulikov and Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen rebel chief-of-staff, had agreed the ceasefire should take immediate effect. The violation threatens further talks scheduled for today on extending the ceasefire.
The Russians said not all Chechens would comply with the ceasefire and it is uncertain to what extent the Russian troops are permitted to reply to any such violations.The Vice-President of Ingushetia, Boris Agapov, who mediated at the talks on Monday, confirmed the agreement covered aviation, artillery, multiple rocket launchers and mortars. The Russian artillery fire, rumbling across the destroyed city of Grozny, and the Chechen rocket attacks on Russian armour near Goity, 20km from the Chechen capital, were clearly produced by heavy weapons.
Russian and Chechen forces yesterday exchanged rocket and artillery fire, violating the partial ceasefire covering heavy weapons agreed on Monday. The only prophylactic measures of this kind taken by Western armies are antidotes against chemical weapons.”If the wording is correct it wouldn’t be a straightforward analgesic,” said Dr Joe Collier, a clinical pharmacologist at St George’s Medical School, south London. “If it affects body and mind, it must be an opiate – like pethidine – which is given prior to operations But soldiers on that might be foolhardy and disobey orders. If you say `go over there’, they’ll say `why?’ It would compromise performance rather than improve it.”Analgesics would last for several hours, maybe a day, Dr Collier said Anabolic steroids would make better sense.
