The fine words by Dino BUZZATI with which we open our Magazine to the New Year appropriately introduce the issue which emerged in Seattle during the WTO conference at the end of last year. For the widespread protests it caused, that event has had worldwide echo. More specifically, the Seattle demonstrations appear to have produced a new multifaceted movement on a global level which the media in simplicistic terms described as opposing globalization. It can not be denied, instead, that the Seattle incidents, followed in January by those in Davos and then later in Washington and London, have given rise to new questions also within the intelligence world. This is the reason why, in the future, we intend to grant these themes more room in our Magazine. In the meantime, in order to offer our readers interesting material on the subject, in the present issue we publish some widely-debated documents (at European and National parliamentary level) on bioethics and biotechnology. On the same subject, the volume "Questioni di bioetica" by Stefano RODOTA' reviewed in Part V, is also highly relevant.
In number 14 of our Magazine we presented an interesting Forum on "Intelligence and strategic analysis". We propose the same theme again, this time underlining through the valuable contributions by ZULIANI, BURATTA and BARBIERI the important role statistics play in foreseeing and analysing scenarios and developments in the medium-long term.
In Part I, we signal the interesting and at times surprising considerations by JEAN on the Balkans.
Within the same section, particular value we attach to two essays: one by CALIGIURI on institutional communication by the intelligence bodies and one by two Belgian lawyers, KRYWIN and MARCHAND, on the relations between State secrecy and human rights. CALIGIURI's considerations are extremely topical and offer several inputs for further examination (with great pleasure we have recorded his appreciation for our recently opened website). Whereas those by KRYWIN and MARCHAND, even though framed within a very rigorous perspective, deserve careful attention both for the growing relevance the issue of human rights is gaining within European legislations (the British bill "Regulation of investigatory powers" - abstract in Part III - is born out of the need to harmonise the European Convention on Human Rights with national legislations), and for the thorough and objective interpretation of different aspects of the problem they, as lawyers, are able to offer. Another essay by ZACCARIA deals with economics, more specifically with the financial reconstruction which has in recent years allowed Italy both to recover from the deep crisis it experienced at the beginning of the nineties and to face the challenges posed by European integration.
Among the parliamentary documents included in Part III, we signal the half-yearly report on the Government intelligence and security policy submitted to Parliament by Prime Minister Massimo D'ALEMA.
Section IV usually provides a general overview of intelligence activities by foreign Services. This time we have instead decided to publish a selection of the home pages of intelligence Services present on the Internet. We hope that readers accustomed to surfing the ‘net will appreciate our indications.
Among the books reviewed in Part V, two deal with cryptography, a technical subject proposed to a wider audience through a historical outline of the technological developments in this field. While the volume "Segreti, spie, codici cifrati" is presented by the authors through an interesting interview.
As usual the Magazine closes with a historical piece, this time taken from the volume "A Century of Spies. Intelligence in the XXth Century" by J. T. RICHELSON, reporting on one of the greatest coups of last century: the acquistion of intelligence which determined the USA's decision to take part in World War I.