For Italy, Iran's nuclear hopes carry high price

[maddezmom]

ROME, June 5 (Reuters) - The chief executive of Italy's largest oil and gas company may be feeling U.S. pressure on Iran, but you wouldn't know it from talking to him.

Eni's Paolo Scaroni is one of the Italian businessmen who, far from rethinking operations in Iran, says he is considering further deepening investment there.

This is despite a U.S.-led campaign to use economic sanctions to isolate Iran over its nuclear programme, and new legislation before the U.S. Congress meant to encourage "disinvestment" in foreign companies which profit in Iran's energy sector.

"I intend to respect Italian laws, not the American ones," Scaroni told Reuters, when asked if he felt U.S. pressure. He quipped at an earlier press event: "You don't find oil in Switzerland." Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi's government has spoken strongly against Iran's nuclear ambitions in public, voting for U.N. sanctions and supporting U.N. deadlines for Iran to stop nuclear enrichment.

But Washington wants Rome to send a stronger message to its corporations and banks about the risks of doing business in Iran, a senior U.S. official told Reuters. President George W. Bush, who visits Italy this week, is calling for the international community to "speak with one voice" on Iran. "It is one of the most critical issues in terms of our economic engagement with the Italians," the U.S. official, speaking in Rome, told Reuters.

more;http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L05722579.htm



Italy PM suffers anti-U.S. protest before Bush visit
Sun Jun 3, 12:53 PM ET

TRENTO, Italy (Reuters) - Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi was berated by angry voters on Sunday who want him to stop the United States expanding an air base near their homes.

Less than a week ahead of a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush, which is expected to be met with large anti-war demonstrations, the Italian leader was heckled into silence as he tried to address an economic conference.

A visibly uncomfortable Prodi then had to listen to one demonstrator who was allowed by the conference chairman to address the meeting as a way of appeasing the audience, many members of which were holding banners and shouting "shame."

"We are being treated despicably, and this really bothers me, President, because I voted for you," said the protester, a smartly dressed middle-aged woman who said the expansion of the base in Vicenza, northern Italy, would ruin the town.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070603/wl_nm/bush_italy_prodi_dc_1

[Crazy Dave]

1. There was a quote in a movie I recently watched

For the life of me I can't remember which one, where one person from America told the other person, "You're so naive, your government has people killed!", to which the other replied, "Now who's being naive?"

When Iran attacks a sovereign nation for purely polemical and financial reasons then I might be concerned.