Italians break convention and listen in Whenever G8 leaders gather for their annual talks, an elaborate ritual unfolds to ensure the conversations within this elite club are kept confidential. There will be no recording or note-taking of their deliberations, and each head of government is accompanied by just one aide - the "sherpa" - who is allowed to communicate with those outside the closed room only through a digital pen. Their huddle is projected on a video to aides outside the conference room, without sound. Their mouths are digitally blacked out. It is a process that has been respected each year. Only once, in St Petersburg in 2006 - when a microphone picked up an exchange between then US president George W. Bush and Tony Blair, British prime minister at the time - has part of their conversation leaked out. The Italians insist there is no change in procedure this time. But the Financial Times has learnt from a senior official, who requested anonymity, that Italian aides did listen to yesterday's proceedings through headphones from nearby rooms. A document obtained by the FT, written earlier by a member of the organising team, urged discretion. "Pay attention not to tell the other delegations about our facility, otherwise they will all want it and that is not possible," it said.
Whenever G8 leaders gather for their annual talks, an elaborate ritual unfolds to ensure the conversations within this elite club are kept confidential.
There will be no recording or note-taking of their deliberations, and each head of government is accompanied by just one aide - the "sherpa" - who is allowed to communicate with those outside the closed room only through a digital pen.
Their huddle is projected on a video to aides outside the conference room, without sound. Their mouths are digitally blacked out.
It is a process that has been respected each year. Only once, in St Petersburg in 2006 - when a microphone picked up an exchange between then US president George W. Bush and Tony Blair, British prime minister at the time - has part of their conversation leaked out. The Italians insist there is no change in procedure this time.
But the Financial Times has learnt from a senior official, who requested anonymity, that Italian aides did listen to yesterday's proceedings through headphones from nearby rooms.
A document obtained by the FT, written earlier by a member of the organising team, urged discretion. "Pay attention not to tell the other delegations about our facility, otherwise they will all want it and that is not possible," it said.
