G8 leaders, usually sealed off from their peers at summits, found themselves living side by side at the gathering that ended on Friday — and the change of surroundings served as an icebreaker.
In the absence of any upmarket hotels around the town of L’Aquila, which was devastated by an April earthquake, the leaders found themselves billeted in police barracks and some even had to share accommodation.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for example took up digs in the same block as his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy. The Kremlin chief occupied the first two floors, while Sarkozy’s delegation was on the two upper levels.
“It’s been a good chance for the two to get to know each other before the president goes to France next spring,” said a source in the Russian delegation.
Medvedev himself appeared full of bonhomie at the summit, referring to US President Barack Obama by his first name.
A member of the British delegation said that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown felt as if he were back in a university dormitory while he shared a block with the Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso.
“It was very basic, like a hall of residence,” the source said.
Brown, criticized for his often dour exterior, appeared to be in high spirits throughout much of the last three days and was often seen laughing and joking with his counterparts.
Their host, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, had been at the center of increasingly lurid headlines in the lead-up to the summit.
But Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the 72-year-old had been in great form and had been a generous host.
“As you know, he is in his 70s, I think. You wouldn’t know it and he is remarkably energetic and a wonderful host,” he said. “The only problem I have with Prime Minister Berlusconi is the gifts he gave me are enough to get me into a serious problem with the ethics commissioner so I’m going to make sure I report them all.”
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RELATIONS: Cultural spats, such as China’s claims over the origins of kimchi, have soured public opinion in South Korea against Beijing over the past few years Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday met South Korean counterpart Lee Jae-myung, after taking center stage at an Asian summit in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s departure. The talks on the sidelines of the APEC gathering came the final day of Xi’s first trip to South Korea in more than a decade, and a day after his meeting with the Canadian prime minister that was a reset of the nations’ damaged ties. Trump had flown to South Korea for the summit, but promptly jetted home on Thursday after sealing a trade war pause with Xi, with the two
RSS