*Source: Guardian.co.uk By John Hooper
(NSI News Source Info) ROME, Italy - June 11, 2009: One of them likes to call himself an "emancipator of women". The other likes women to call him 'papi' ('daddy'). So when the 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 not surprisingly figured large. 
Silvio Berlusconi welcomes Muammar Gaddafi, who arrived wearing a photo of Omar Mukhtar, a resistance leader against Italian colonialism. Photograph: Alessandro Di Meo/EPA
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 on Friday 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 tangas by the Berlusconi 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 his Italian colonial masters in 1931.
Gaddafi flew in with a 300-strong retinue, on three Airbuses. As ever, the Libyan leader brought with him a giant Bedouin tent, which was erected in a Rome park.
Security for his visit was tight. But that is partly because, while Gaddafi may have bones to pick with Italy, some Italians have bones to pick with him.
Officially today it was all smiles as the colonel praised Italians for having "turned a page on the past". Relations have improved since Berlusconi's government agreed last year to a $5bn (about £3bn) reparations deal for colonial rule. Italy, he said, had "apologised for what happened and that is what allowed me to be able to come here today".
But not everyone is happy about the visit. The Libyan leader is set to encounter protests at one of the earliest fruits of his friendlier relations with Rome - a deal allowing Italian patrols to return would-be migrants, including asylum seekers, to Libyan ports. Yesterday he dismissed claims the deal prevented asylum seekers from applying for protection in a way that visibly disconcerted his host, normally a champion of political incorrectness.
"This is one of the lies that is put about", the colonel declared at a joint press conference following his talks with Berlusconi. "The Africans do not have problems of political asylum. People who live in the bush, and often in the desert, frankly don't have political problems. They don't have oppositions or majorities or elections or anything like that."
The Libyan leader, who is also chairman of the African Union, went on: "These are things that only people who live in cities know. [Other Africans] don't even have an identity. And I don't mean a political identify; they don't even have a personal identity. They come out of the bush and they say: "In the north, there's money, there's wealth and so they go to Libya, and from there to Europe."
According to the UN's refugee agency, an unusually high proportion of the migrants who try to cross from Libya into the European Union are genuine asylum seekers fleeing wars and civil disorder, mainly in the Horn of Africa.
But Colonel Gadafi was having none of it. "Please, don't take seriously this business about political asylum", he told the assembled journalists. "The idea that they are all asylum seekers makes you laugh sometimes."
Silvio Berlusconi welcomes Muammar Gaddafi, who arrived wearing a photo of Omar Mukhtar, a resistance leader against Italian colonialism. Photograph: Alessandro Di Meo/EPA
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 on Friday 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 tangas by the Berlusconi 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 his Italian colonial masters in 1931.
Gaddafi flew in with a 300-strong retinue, on three Airbuses. As ever, the Libyan leader brought with him a giant Bedouin tent, which was erected in a Rome park.
Security for his visit was tight. But that is partly because, while Gaddafi may have bones to pick with Italy, some Italians have bones to pick with him.
Officially today it was all smiles as the colonel praised Italians for having "turned a page on the past". Relations have improved since Berlusconi's government agreed last year to a $5bn (about £3bn) reparations deal for colonial rule. Italy, he said, had "apologised for what happened and that is what allowed me to be able to come here today".
But not everyone is happy about the visit. The Libyan leader is set to encounter protests at one of the earliest fruits of his friendlier relations with Rome - a deal allowing Italian patrols to return would-be migrants, including asylum seekers, to Libyan ports. Yesterday he dismissed claims the deal prevented asylum seekers from applying for protection in a way that visibly disconcerted his host, normally a champion of political incorrectness.
"This is one of the lies that is put about", the colonel declared at a joint press conference following his talks with Berlusconi. "The Africans do not have problems of political asylum. People who live in the bush, and often in the desert, frankly don't have political problems. They don't have oppositions or majorities or elections or anything like that."
The Libyan leader, who is also chairman of the African Union, went on: "These are things that only people who live in cities know. [Other Africans] don't even have an identity. And I don't mean a political identify; they don't even have a personal identity. They come out of the bush and they say: "In the north, there's money, there's wealth and so they go to Libya, and from there to Europe."
According to the UN's refugee agency, an unusually high proportion of the migrants who try to cross from Libya into the European Union are genuine asylum seekers fleeing wars and civil disorder, mainly in the Horn of Africa.
But Colonel Gadafi was having none of it. "Please, don't take seriously this business about political asylum", he told the assembled journalists. "The idea that they are all asylum seekers makes you laugh sometimes."
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