An Italian government campaign hoping to boost the nation’s flagging birthrate was on Wednesday condemned as racist just weeks after its original promotional material was panned for being sexist.
Italian Minister of Health Beatrice Lorenzin ordered changes to the campaign at the start of this month after captioned images intended to promote an upcoming Fertility Day were denounced as patronizing, sexist and hectoring.
On Wednesday she was forced to pull one of the replacement images, which had been intended to promote a healthy lifestyle by juxtaposing images of “good” and “bad” lifestyles.
In the first photograph, white, smiling couples relax by the sea, while in the second a mixed group including dark-skinned youths with Afro hair smoke cigarettes, light up a bong and appear to be sniffing drugs.
The photographs, captioned “good habits to get into” and “bad friends to let go of,” set off another media storm, with users ridiculing the ministry, saying it had swapped sexism for racism.
Lorenzin released a statement saying she was launching an internal investigation and had sacked the ministry’s communications director.
Italy has the lowest birthrate in the EU and one of the lowest in the world, with only eight babies born for every 1,000 residents last year, according to EU figures released in July.
A total of 485,000 babies were born in Italy last year, a record low and less than half the level of the 1960s.
Lorenzin said earlier this year that the current “catastrophic decline” would reduce the number of newborns to 350,000 per year within a decade unless action was taken to reverse the trend.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in