Italy’s government has granted citizenship to Argentine President Javier Milei on account of his Italian family roots, a source with knowledge of the matter said on Friday, confirming earlier media reports.
Milei was in Rome to meet Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and to take part in her Brothers of Italy party’s annual festival yesterday.
The source said the government had given Italian citizenship to the Argentine leader, declining to provide further details.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The news on Italian media triggered an angry reaction from some politicians and on social media from people protesting citizenship being given to Milei when it is hard to obtain for the children of migrants born in Italy.
Italy’s citizenship laws are based on blood ties, meaning that even distant descendants of an Italian national can obtain an Italian passport.
Requirements for foreigners born in Italy or who migrate there, on the other hand, are much tougher. Pro-migrant groups have proposed a referendum to ease them, but Meloni’s right-wing coalition is against any relaxation.
Riccardo Magi, a lawmaker from the small opposition More Europe party, said granting citizenship to Milei was an act of “intolerable discrimination against so many young people who will only get it after many years.”
During a previous trip to Italy in February, Milei told a TV interview he felt “75 percent Italian” since three of his grandparents had Italian origins, and that he has “an incredible passion for Italian opera.”
Libertarian Milei and conservative Meloni have established a close relationship.
When they met in Buenos Aires last month, the Argentine leader gave his Italian guest a statuette of himself wielding his trademark chainsaw.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
RSS