ROME: Italy’s main political forces began in earnest to plot strategies for the upcoming general election Sunday, as the country’s finance minister raised a reg flag over political uncertainty in the eurozone’s third largest economy.
The March 4 vote, which will pit a strong center-right coalition against populists and a divided left, is widely expected to produce a hung parliament — a prediction already spooking international markets.
A coalition between the outgoing center-left Democratic Party (PD) and billionaire Silvio Berlusconi’s Go Italy (FI) could be on the cards, Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said in an interview with the Corriere della Sera daily.
“In a context of high uncertainty nothing can be ruled out. Such uncertainty is already being perceived. Financial markets are rather nervous: when parliament was dissolved (in December), the spread widened,” he said.
The spread between Italian and German 10-Year sovereign bonds was scrutinized daily during the 2011 debt crisis, and the fear that the heavily-indebted country could topple over the financial cliff and drag Europe with it has been hard to shift.
The anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), which supports a hotchpotch of policies from across the ideological spectrum, is the leading single party in opinion polls, with some 28 percent of the vote, ahead of the PD’s 25 percent.
But sailing comfortably ahead is a center-right coalition made up of Berlusconi’s Go Italy, the anti-immigrant Northern League and smaller right-wing Brothers of Italy, currently forecast to take home over 35 percent of the vote.
Under a new electoral law, roughly 40 percent of the vote is needed to govern.
Parties across the spectrum are pledging to cut taxes and challenge the European Union over its strict budget rules, but efforts to woo voters with cures for a shy economy may be overshadowed by concerns over immigration.
Outgoing PM Paolo Gentiloni appealed to voters Sunday “not to shut yourselves away in the small world of daily fears” in a reference to the wave of voter anger over the number of asylum seekers in Italy — anger that has boosted the right.
The center-right coalition leaders met for a working lunch Sunday at Berlusconi’s luxury Milan villa, the main course served with a side-helping of debate over how they will split seats in parliament.
Berlusconi, 81, is not able to run for office owing to a tax fraud conviction, but wants his party to get the lion’s share.
League head Matteo Salvini, 44, has ambitions of his own, tweeting Sunday: “Salvini for Prime Minister.”
“It’s a bit soon to be counting chickens,” retorted the M5S’s candidate for prime minister, Luigi Di Maio.
The movement is determined to go it alone and has refused to counter alliances with traditional parties — which did not stop the new Free and Equal party, a breakaway wing of the PD, suggesting a deal could be done with the populists.
“We’ll speak with everyone — apart from the right, but that’s a question of mental hygiene,” leftist stalwart Pier Luigi Bersani said at the party’s conference in Rome.
Italy political forces begin election wheeling and dealing
Italy political forces begin election wheeling and dealing
UNICEF warns of rise in sexual deepfakes of children
- The findings underscored the use of “nudification” tools, which digitally alter or remove clothing to create sexualized images
UNITED NATIONS, United States: The UN children’s agency on Wednesday highlighted a rapid rise in the use of artificial intelligence to create sexually explicit images of children, warning of real harm to young victims caused by the deepfakes.
According to a UNICEF-led investigation in 11 countries, at least 1.2 million children said their images were manipulated into sexually explicit deepfakes — in some countries at a rate equivalent to “one child in a typical classroom” of 25 students.
The findings underscored the use of “nudification” tools, which digitally alter or remove clothing to create sexualized images.
“We must be clear. Sexualized images of children generated or manipulated using AI tools are child sexual abuse material,” UNICEF said in a statement.
“Deepfake abuse is abuse, and there is nothing fake about the harm it causes.”
The agency criticized AI developers for creating tools without proper safeguards.
“The risks can be compounded when generative AI tools are embedded directly into social media platforms where manipulated images spread rapidly,” UNICEF said.
Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok has been hit with bans and investigations in several countries for allowing users to create and share sexualized pictures of women and children using simple text prompts.
UNICEF’s study found that children are increasingly aware of deepfakes.
“In some of the study countries, up to two-thirds of children said they worry that AI could be used to create fake sexual images or videos. Levels of concern vary widely between countries, underscoring the urgent need for stronger awareness, prevention, and protection measures,” the agency said.
UNICEF urged “robust guardrails” for AI chatbots, as well as moves by digital companies to prevent the circulation of deepfakes, not just the removal of offending images after they have already been shared.
Legislation is also needed across all countries to expand definitions of child sexual abuse material to include AI-generated imagery, it said.
The countries included in the study were Armenia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Serbia, and Tunisia.
