Romano Prodi, the new Italian prime minister, called the war in Iraq a "grave error" on Thursday in a speech in which he set Italy on a decisively different, more conventionally European, course from that of his predecessor, Silvio Berlusconi.
"Our country needs a strong jolt," Prodi said in a 90-minute address to the upper house of Parliament on his first full day in office.
The speech amounted to an inaugural announcement of his priorities, and he pledged major changes to Berlusconi's approach on labor laws, conflict of interest, tax evasion and Italy's deep public debt.
But it was on the issue of Iraq that Prodi spoke most sharply, reining Italy back from Berlusconi's close relationship with US President George W. Bush and, in especially strong words, adopting a more skeptical stance on the war in Iraq.
"We consider the war in Iraq and the occupation of the country a grave error," he said, adding that Italy would continue to value a strong relationship with Washington.
"It has not resolved, but complicated, the situation of security ... Terrorism has found a new base in Iraq and new excuses for terror attacks both inside and outside the country," he said.
His speech was interrupted by catcalls of "Shame, Shame" from the new center-right opposition. The hostile reception, both inside the chamber and outside in angry comments from center-right senators, came as a loud reminder of a fundamental challenge for Prodi: his slim majority of just two seats in the Senate, which may make major changes difficult.
But for all the emotion on both sides, Prodi's plan for Iraq does not seem to differ substantially from the one Berlusconi put into place under pressure during the election campaign, as he faced criticism for his strong support of Bush when most Italians opposed the war.
Berlusconi had pledged to withdraw all Italian troops by the end of the year. While Prodi, on Thursday and in campaign documents, has called for an immediate withdrawal, he repeated the past qualification that it would not happen until after consultations with Iraqi authorities.
The bottom line, which has been expressed to US officials, is that Prodi does not intend an overnight withdrawal like that carried out by Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain after he won two years ago. Italian troops, in fact, still may not leave Iraq until the end of the year.
"We never thought of an exit from Iraq in the way Zapatero organized it, one day to the other," said Prodi's spokesman, Silvio Sircana.
In these first days of the new government -- the first in five years -- all sides in Italy's fractious and noisy political opera are feeling through their new places amid the change. Berlusconi, accustomed to near-unchallenged power, is now the opposition leader and has publicly pledged to bring down Prodi's government as quickly as possible.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has fired his national police chief, who gained attention for leading the separate arrests of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on orders of the International Criminal Court and televangelist Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list for alleged child sex trafficking. Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin did not cite a reason for the removal of General Nicolas Torre as head of the 232,000-member national police force, a position he was appointed to by Marcos in May and which he would have held until 2027. He was replaced by another senior police general, Jose
POWER CONFLICT: The US president threatened to deploy National Guards in Baltimore. US media reports said he is also planning to station troops in Chicago US President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to deploy National Guard troops to yet another Democratic stronghold, the Maryland city of Baltimore, as he seeks to expand his crackdown on crime and immigration. The Republican’s latest online rant about an “out of control, crime-ridden” city comes as Democratic state leaders — including Maryland Governor Wes Moore — line up to berate Trump on a high-profile political stage. Trump this month deployed the National Guard to the streets of Washington, in a widely criticized show of force the president said amounts to a federal takeover of US capital policing. The Guard began carrying
Ukrainian drone attacks overnight on several Russian power and energy facilities forced capacity reduction at the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant and set a fuel export terminal in Ust-Luga on fire, Russian officials said yesterday. A drone attack on the Kursk nuclear plant, not far from the border with Ukraine, damaged an auxiliary transformer and led to 50 percent reduction in the operating capacity at unit three of the plant, the plant’s press service said. There were no injuries and a fire sparked by the attack was promptly extinguished, the plant said. Radiation levels at the site and in the surrounding
‘DELIBERATE PROVOCATION’: Pyongyang said that Seoul had used a machine gun to fire at North Korean troops who were working to permanently seal the southern border South Korea fired warning shots at North Korean soldiers that briefly crossed the heavily fortified border earlier this week, Seoul said yesterday after Pyongyang accused it of risking “uncontrollable” tensions. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has sought warmer ties with the nuclear-armed North and vowed to build “military trust,” but Pyongyang has said it has no interest in improving relations with Seoul. Seoul’s military said several North Korean soldiers crossed the border on Tuesday while working in the heavily mined demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas. The incursion prompted “our military to fire warning shots,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff