At vitriolic political rallies on the grassy fields of northern Italy, speakers with green handkerchiefs knotted around their necks rant against Rome and the evils of immigration. Senators wearing green ties in the slightly tamer halls of parliament threaten to bring down the government.
Green neckwear and incendiary speech are what distinguish the Northern League, the most ideologically extreme party in Italy's center-right governing coalition and an albatross around the neck of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
"It weighs a lot on him," said Roberto D'Alimonte, a professor of political science at the University of Florence.
"And it's a delicate moment for the coalition," he said.
Umberto Bossi, the firebrand leader of the party who calls immigrants "bingo bongos" and regularly threatens to leave the government, has not made matters easy for the prime minister.
But political analysts say Berlusconi tolerates the Northern League, which brought down his first government nearly a decade ago, because he needs its small northern power base to win elections. Berlusconi has said that he wants to be prime minister for another decade.
The Northern League's apparent hold on Berlusconi has prompted accusations within the coalition that it wields disproportionate political weight. In a country where divided coalitions rarely stand, such yawning fault lines require constant mending.
"The trick for Berlusconi is pleasing the other coalition partners without displeasing Bossi," D'Alimonte said.
The grievance that Berlusconi lavishes too much attention on Bossi picked up momentum during the summer after the Northern League's poor showings in local elections. The bickering may finally come to a boil next month, when, many analysts say, Berlusconi is likely to make changes in his government.
"The government can be improved, and we are open to collaboration from everyone," Berlusconi said at his year-end news conference, though he denied that the major players would change.
Some think he may be forced to sacrifice Giulio Tremonti, the finance minister from his own party, because he is seen by other coalition members as too close to Bossi. Bossi, the minister for reforms, has threatened to leave the government.
Last month, Bossi told his supporters that if the government did not carry out a decentralization plan to empower regional governments, his party's "interests will lie in shutting down this legislature as quickly as possible."
Berlusconi's first government fell in 1994, when the Northern League withdrew its support after seven months. This time, Berlusconi has a significant majority in both houses of parliament, where the Northern League has helped him pass legislation that critics say benefit him personally.
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
RSS