ment under Hugo Chavez to fund his 2006 presidential campaign. He also argued that Humala accepted dona-tions for his 2011 campaign and later kickbacks from Brazilian construc-tion !rms OAS and Odebrecht, which later won public-works contracts during Humala’s government.

“"ere is not su#cient evidence to investigate Humala,” the former president’s defence attorney told re-porters.

OAS and Odebrecht are both cen-tral players in Brazil’s Carwash cor-ruption scandal surrounding state oil !rm Petrobras and various polit-ical parties. Former Odebrecht CEO Marcelo Odebrecht, who was sen-tenced to 19 years in prison for his role, is reportedly nearing a leniency deal in exchange for his testimony against politicians.

Investigators will interview Humala about the awarding of the $3.6-bil-lion contract to build the Southern Gas Pipeline to Odebrecht in 2014. Since the Carwash scandal, Ode-brecht is looking to unload its stake in the project amid a solvency crisis in Brazil.

"e judge’s ruling comes one day af-ter Humala testi!ed before Congress about his government’s purchase of a $175-million satellite to observe Pe-ru’s protected forests, coca-producing regions and agricultural !elds. "e legislature controlled by his nemesis Keiko Fujimori’s Popular Force has proven determined in its quest to in-vestigate and prosecute Humala for alleged corruption.

“We see [Humala] has been very reluctant to respond. He has been rather evasive,” APRA congresswom-an Luciana Leon told El Comercio. “We still have questions. It isn’t clear if there was transparency [in the pur-chase], if it was the right procedure, or if it was arbitrary.”

"e congressional commission tasked with investigating the former president will look into the awarding of contracts for $17 billion of public works during Humala’s government.

In August Humala’s sister was as-saulted at her home in Switzerland in an invasion where the assailants ran-sacked the house for documents and did not steal anything.

info@italianinsider.it1XPEHU����˱�1RYHPEHU����� - ¤ 3,00

Algeria's agony

Translating Shakespeare

'Total Art'

ROME - FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva has appointed for-mer Peruvian !rst lady Nadine Here-dia Alarcón to head the UN agency’s liaison o#ce in Geneva, despite Ms Alarcon evidently being banned from leaving Peru because she is under in-vestigation on corruption charges in her homeland.

Dr. Graziano announced the bizarre appointment Monday just a few days after a court in Peru ordered Alarcon’s husband, former President Ollanta Humala to post a dlls 15,000 bond and restricted some liberties pend-ing an investigation into corruption charges.

After hearing prosecutors’ argu-ments against Humala, judge Richard Concepcion ruled that the evidence was signi!cant enough that Humala posed a $ight risk from money-laun-dering and bribery charges that could result in 15 years in prison.

Humala was ordered to post a dlls 15,000 bond or possibly face jail during the remainder of the investi-gation. "e judge also required him to appear before the court every 30 days and request permission to travel, as well as forbid him from changing his address. In June the same judge barred former !rst lady Nadine He-redia, Humala’s wife and the focus of investigations into the Peruvian Nationalist Party !nances, from leav-ing the country. Her appointment to the FAO Geneva job would likely give Herdia diplomatic immunity meaning she can travel on a UN passport de-spite the ban, diplomatic sources said.

"e investigation of the Peruvian !rst couple is linked to the huge corruption scandal in Graziano’s native Brazil where his mentor former President Lula is under investigation for alleged corrup-tion. Prosecutor German Juarez alleges that Humala accepted and concealed illegal donations from the Venezuelan govern-

ROME - Flamboyant Finnish FAO Forestry department director Tiina Vahanen has raised eyebrows at the UN agency after she allegedly hired an unquali!ed trainer and boyfriend to represent the hunger-!ghting organization as Youth Ambassador at the World Forestry Congress and arranged an unprecedented payment for him to "star" in an "almost por-nographic" FAO !lm.

Ms Vahanen was the Associate Secre-tary-General of the XIV World Forest-ry Congress and is currently a D1 on an over dlrs 20,000 a month salary plus a constellation of perks in the FAO Forestry department. "e XIV World Forestry Congress Youth Am-bassador Paolo Gbadebo, aged 22, is an actor, model and international !tness trainer.

He says his childhood forays into the forests of central Italy, where the Cuban-Nigerian grew up, still inspire him. "e Umbrian forests o%ered him a place to run and feel strong, which later fed his athletic aspirations to be-come a trainer.

An FAO watcher said “"e almost pornographic video of Paolo Gbadebo as he runs, nearly naked, through the forest is an a%ront to real technical ex-perts who have spent years studying to be quali!ed UN forestry o#cers.”

"e FAO Forestry Youth Ambassa-dor allegedly had no background in forestry (other than his penchant for running through forests to get !t), but that evidently didn't stop Tiina's boss, German Eva Mueller (D2) from pen-Paolo GbadeboJohn Heineman on sax and Diego Rughi on guitar at Bruno Aller exhibition.

Photo Credit: Honos Art. Report on p.21

Former !rst lady of Peru Nadine Alarcon

Rescuers help a Norcia resident evacuate her home. Photo credit: ERIC VANDEVILLE.Report on page 12

Tiina Vahanen

ning a special letter of invitation to Mr Gbadebo asking him to represent FAO in Durban, South Africa at the World Forestry Congress. "e prac-tice of extending invitations is usual-ly reserved for the ADG of Forestry, but Mueller was "Acting".

Foresty ADG Fernanda Gutierri was denied going to the World For-estry Congress by the DG but Tiina was able to bring along her ‘toyboy,’ FAO sources told the Insider.

BY SAMANTHA WERNHAMROME - UK lecturers in Italy have asked the European Commission-ers V&ra Jourová and Frans Tim-mermans to set up a ‘special fund’ to compensate lettori for discrim-ination in Italian universities and to guarantee their pensions.

"e Court of Justice of the Euro-pean Union (CJEU) has ruled six times between 1989 and 2008 in favour of ‘lettori’ (lecturers and university professors) su%ering discrimination based on nation-ality. “Despite these judgments and the length of time which has passed, the Italian state has failed to implement,” said David Petrie, Chairman of the Association of Foreign Lecturers in Italy.

David Petrie

Insider View: Page 15

Referendum Rebus

November 2016

info@italianinsider.it www.italianinsider.it

3

ROME - Britain has continued to press Italy to end “unacceptable dis-crimination" against UK and foreign lecturers in Italian universities, the British Minister for Europe, Sir Alan Duncan, said, despite the Italian Government’s abject failure to in-clude compensation for lettori in its upcoming budget package.

Sir Alan was replying to a Parlia-mentary question tabled by the Con-servative MP for northwest Leices-tershire, Andrew Bridgen, who asked

ROME – An Italian academic, Federi-co Formenti, who is Senior Lecturer at King’s College London and former Senior Research Fellow at the Uni-versity of Oxford, has been denied repeatedly a research post at the Uni-versity of Verona despite winning en-try competitions since 2010, as nep-otistic ‘baroni’ evidently prefer much less-quali!ed candidates, education sources say.

His case epitomises the issue known in Italy as ‘cervelli in fuga’ (human capital $ight), regarding the emi-gration of Italian academic talent to other countries due to the struggle to !nd work within the Italian higher education system. Formenti, with a degree from the University of Verona, a doctorate degree from the Univer-sity of Manchester and a post-doc-torate degree from the University of Oxford, has been trying to return to his hometown of Verona since 2010.

When asked how he gained his po-sition as Senior Lecturer at King’s

BY SAMANTHA WERNHAM

“the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth A%airs, what recent discussions he has had with the Italian government on resolving discrimination amongst the lettori.”

Sir Alan replied that “the Govern-ment has continued to press the Italian government to end the unac-ceptable discrimination against the lettori (UK and foreign lecturers in Italy).”

"e minister added that “"e Prime Minister, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and the Foreign Secretary, my

College, the academic replied, “well, to be part of the ‘Golden Triangle’ of British universities -- Cambridge, Ox-ford and London -- you have to have a brilliant C.V.”

"is, however, is evidently not su#-cient when applying for the same job in Italy.

“As lecturers at Oxford, we have the privilege of teaching the best students in the world,” Formenti enthused. When asked, “And what about at the

Sir Alan Duncan

Federico Formenti

University of Verona?” he hesitated, !nally responding, “not anymore.”

"e saga began six years ago when Formenti applied to return to Verona for a research post in Motor Science at the university there. "e lecturer claims many colleagues saw this deci-sion as “a set-back in his career,” going from Oxford to Verona, yet Formenti had made up his mind.

Much to his surprise, the academic recalls, “another candidate was pre-

ferred” with a degree in Physics, “but no research doctorate, nor post-doc-torate scholarship, nor any teaching experience.”

Formenti has published works for BBC News, a chapter in the Routledge Handbook and also in the American ‘Natural History’ magazine.

"e selected candidate did boast however an extensive list of pub-lished research documents to her name, “most, apart from one or two, she had co-authored with the head of department at the University of Ve-rona -- Federico Schena,” Formenti explained. "e King’s College Senior Lecturer appealed and won a new entry committee, ensuring that the University of Verona had to re-do their application process and review all candidate pro!les.

Yet, who was the head of the new committee? “"e head of the commit-tee was the same Prof. Schena.”

"is time, Dr Formenti went to court in an o#cial protest against the system. Once again, he won. "e Council of State urged the University

of Verona to once again re-do the ap-plication process.

However, six years down the line, the institution has simply ignored the sentence, blatantly refusing to apply the judgements of the courts.

Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Ux-bridge and South Ruislip (Mr John-son) raised this issue with their Italian counterparts in July and Sep-tember.”

David Petrie, Chairman of the ALL-SI trade union of foreign lecturers in Italy, said earlier it is “very dis-appointing” that Italian Prime Min-ister Matteo Renzi’s government evidently disregarded the represen-tations by Mrs May and Mr John-son since they made no provision to compensate the foreign lecturers in its budget bill.

Federico Schena

Many lettori have received a rem-edy or partial compensation in the Italian courts.

However, in 2010 the Italian state introduced Article 26 of the so-called Gelmini law which ob-structs the application of the CJEU rulings. "is law has been described by academic experts such as Peter Ferguson QC as “An astonishing statutory provision. If other Mem-ber States follow Italy’s example, the European project and, more importantly, the rule of law are

endangered.” Professor Brad K Blitz said the law is “…in con$ict with Ar-ticle Six of the European Convention on Human Rights … and undermines the primacy of EU law.” Professor Noreen Burrows OBE said it “…has the potential to undermine the au-thority of the European Court of Jus-tice by appearing to allow Member States to reinterpret the decisions of the Court to suit their purpose of perpetuating discrimination."

"e European Parliament’s Com-mittee on Petitions in the EU Citi-zenship Report 2010, (Dismantling the obstacles to EU citizens’ rights

pg.19 par. six), complained that “Bla-tant discrimination on grounds of nationality was revealed on numer-ous occasions in the case of foreign language teachers (‘lettori’) in Italy, who have been struggling for de-cades against discriminatory treat-ment with respect to security of ten-ure, career development, pensions and social security.” "e Commission services are investigating.

In the meantime, lettori have had salaries cut by as much as 40 percent, many have retired without having re-ceived compensation for unpaid ar-rears on wages or full pensions, oth-

ers are deceased and legal claims are being pursued by their heirs.

"For almost three decades, the let-tori have obtained all the in$uen-tial support available as well as six favourable CJEU judgments, to no avail. "is shows a systemic failure of the institutions of the European Union to guarantee the Treaty rights of EU workers, allowing one member state, Italy, to discriminate against citizens of all other member states. Italy’s budgetary concerns cannot be allowed to undermine free move-ment of workers and $out the rule of law," says Prof. Petrie.

Justice Commissioner V"ra Jourová of European Commission