Meanwhile a row has broken out between Britain and Italy over the failed rescue mission for the hostages in Nigeria.
President Napolitano, whose constitutional position forbids him from commenting on anything but the most important issues facing the country, has said that Britain's behaviour has been inexplicable.
It would appear that faced with two hostages, one British and one Italian, the British trained up a team and landed them in Nigeria and found no time in all this to discuss the matter with the Italians until the mission was underway.
It is accepted that few countries have the ability to mount such an expedition and Italy is not one of them, but it will be seen as high handedness in the extreme. Given it was a joint operation with Nigeria, it seems Mr Hague had plenty of time to discuss it with Lagos and none with Rome. The Italians couldn't have contributed much militarily but they might at least have warned that telling the Nigerians would mean telling the kidnappers.
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