notes
Thursday, 27 February 2003RAI snapshot
RAI comments. Rome dispatch: A north-south tug of war is threatening to tear Italy's state television apart, writes Sophie Arie. [Guardian Unlimited]
"At the heart of the battle are Berlusconi's two right-hand coalition men, firebrand far-right federalist, Umberto Bossi, and Gianfranco Fini, deputy prime minister and leader of the formerly neo-fascist National Alliance.
In a decision that breaks with decades of tradition, news emerged that the headquarters of RAI 2 was to be uprooted from Rome to Milan. The decision, reportedly supported by Berlusconi, was seen as a triumph for Bossi, who has long campaigned for devolution of powers from what many in the north of Italy regard as the creaking bureaucracy and southern slowness of Rome.
Milan is not just Italy's modern, financial capital. It is also Bossi's city, and the headquarters of his Northern League party, which hopes one day to make part of northern Italy an independent country called Padania. Bossi argues that is high time Italy broke from its tradition of "Romecentric racism"."
