Italy Elections 2013: Nearly A Third Of Population Undecided Or Will Not Vote, According To Final Poll
Five days before
national elections almost a third of Italians have yet to decide who to vote
for or are considering not voting at all, a survey showed on Tuesday,
highlighting uncertainty over the outcome. The poll in Corriere della Sera
daily showed the proportion of Italians undecided or tempted to abstain has
declined from 51.5 percent in December but remains at a significant 27.7
percent less than a week before the vote on Sunday and Monday. Final polls on
Feb. 8, before a legal black-out period set in, indicated that the centre-left
Democratic Party would win a lower house majority but will need to form a
coalition with outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti's centrist grouping. Silvio
Berlusconi's centre-right alliance was about 6 percentage points behind the
frontrunners. But the hefty proportion of undecided voters means the outcome is
still unpredictable and the final days of campaigning will be crucial. Publication
of polls is illegal in the two weeks leading up to the Feb. 24-25 election but
analysts are permitted to reveal data on likely participation rates. Most of
the undecided are middle-aged housewives or pensioners with relatively low
education levels, mainly living in the south of Italy, and with little
interest in politics, pollster Renato Mannheimer of the ISPO institute said. "More
than half of those who are currently undecided or potential abstainers say they
can't place themselves on the right or the left," Mannheimer told the Milan daily. He added it
was likely that many people who were yet to decide would probably not vote,
based on past electoral trends. But historical participation rates suggest
about 5 million people, or 10 percent of voters, will make up their minds in
the last few days, swayed by last-minute promises from party leaders regardless
of their place on the political spectrum, he said. Many polls over the last
year have shown Italians disenchanted with a political class clinging to its
privileges as the euro zone's third biggest but chronically uncompetitive
economy descended deeper into crisis.
China Suspected Of Hacking Attacks Against The U.S.
A secretive Chinese
military unit is believed to be behind a series of hacking attacks, a U.S.
computer security company said, prompting a strong denial by China and
accusations that it was in fact the victim of U.S. hacking. The company,
Mandiant, identified the People's Liberation Army's Shanghai-based Unit 61398
as the most likely driving force behind the hacking. Mandiant said it believed
the unit had carried out "sustained" attacks on a wide range of
industries. "The nature of 'Unit 61398's' work is considered by China to be a state secret;
however, we believe it engages in harmful 'Computer Network Operations',"
Mandiant said in a report released in the United States on Monday. "It is time to acknowledge the threat is originating in
China, and we wanted to do our part to arm and prepare security professionals
to combat that threat effectively," it said. The Chinese Foreign Ministry
said the government firmly opposed hacking, adding that it doubted the evidence
provided in the report. "Hacking attacks are Trans national and anonymous.
Determining their origins is extremely difficult. We don't know how the
evidence in this so-called report can be tenable," spokesman Hong Lei told
a daily news briefing."Arbitrary criticism based on rudimentary data is
irresponsible, unprofessional and not helpful in resolving the issue."Hong
cited a Chinese study which pointed to the United States as being behind hacking in China. "Of the above
mentioned Internet hacking attacks, attacks originating from the United States rank first. "China's Defence Ministry
did not immediately respond to faxed questions about the report. Unit 61398 is
located in Shanghai's Pudong district, China's financial and banking hub, and
is staffed by perhaps thousands of people proficient in English as well as
computer programming and network operations, Mandiant said in its report.The
unit had stolen "hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141
organisations across a diverse set of industries beginning as early as
2006", it said.Most of the victims were located in the United States, with
smaller numbers in Canada and Britain. The information stolen ranged from
details on mergers and acquisitions to the emails of senior employees, the
company said.The 12-storey building, which houses the unit, sits in an
unassuming residential area and is surrounded by a wall adorned with military
propaganda photos and slogans; outside the gate a sign warns members of the
public they are in a restricted military area and should not take pictures. There
were no obvious signs of extra security on Tuesday. "ECONOMIC CYBER
ESPIONAGE" Some experts said they doubted Chinese government denials of
military involvement in the hacking. "The PLA plays a key role in China's
multi-faceted security strategy, so it makes sense that its resources would be
used to facilitate economic cyber espionage that helps the Chinese
economy," said Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer and co-founder
of CrowdStrike, one of Mandiant's competitors. Though privately held and little
known to the general public, Mandiant is one of a handful of U.S. cyber-security companies
that specialise in attempting to detect, prevent and trace the most advanced
hacking attacks, instead of the garden-variety viruses and criminal intrusions
that befoul corporate networks on a daily basis. But Mandiant does not promote
its analysis in public and only rarely issues topical papers about changes in
techniques or behaviours. It has never before given the apparent proper names
of suspected hackers or directly tied them to a military branch of the Chinese
government, giving the new report special resonance. The company published
details of the attack programmes and dummy websites used to infiltrate U.S. companies, typically
via deceptive emails. U.S. officials have
complained in the past to China about sanctioned
trade-secret theft, but have had a limited public record to point to. Mandiant
said it knew the PLA would shift tactics and programmes in response to its
report but concluded that the disclosure was worth it because of the scale of
the harm and the ability of China to issue denials in the past and duck
accountability.The company traced Unit 61398's presence on the Internet
including registration data for a question-and-answer session with a Chinese
professor and numeric Internet addresses within a block assigned to the PLA
unit and concluded that it was a major contributor to operations against the
U.S. companies. Members of Congress and intelligence authorities in the United States have publicised the same general conclusions: that economic espionage
is an official mission of the PLA and other elements of the Chinese government,
and that hacking is a primary method. In November 2011, the U.S. National
Counterintelligence Executive publicly decried China in particular as the
biggest known thief of U.S. trade secrets. The
Mandiant report comes a week after U.S. President Barack Obama issued a
long-awaited executive order aimed at getting the private owners of power
plants and other critical infrastructure to share data on attacks with
officials and to begin to follow consensus best practices on security.Both U.S.
Democrats and Republicans have said more powerful legislation is needed, citing
Chinese penetration not just of the largest companies but of operations
essential to a functioning country, including those comprising the electric grid.
Chavez returns to Venezuela from Cuba
President Hugo Chavez
returned to Venezuela early Monday after more than two months of treatment in
Cuba following cancer surgery, his government said, triggering street
celebrations by supporters who welcomed him home while he remained out of sight
at Caracas' military hospital. Chavez's return was announced in a series of
messages on his Twitter account, the first of them reading: "We've arrived
once again in our Venezuelan homeland. Thank you, my God!! Thank you, beloved
nation!! We will continue our treatmen there. "They were the first
messages to appear on Chavez's Twitter account since Nov.1."I'm clinging
to Christ and trusting in my doctors and nurses," another tweet on
Chavez's account said. "Onward toward victor always!! "Vice President
Nicolas Maduro said Chavez arrived at 2:30 a.m. and was taken to the Dr.Carlos Arvelo Military Hospital in Caracas. Chavez's return came
fewer than three days after the government released the first photos of the
president in more than two months, showing him looking bloated and smiling
alongside his daughters. The government didn't release any additional images of
Chavez upon his arrival in Caracas, and unanswered questions remain about where he stands in a difficult
and prolonged struggle with an undisclosed type of pelvic cancer. Chavez was
re-elected to a new six-year term in October, and his inauguration, originally
scheduled for Jan. 10, was indefinitely postponed by lawmakers in a decision
that the Supreme Court upheld despite complaints by the opposition. Some
speculated that with Chavez back, he could finally be swornin. Hundreds of
Chavez supporters celebrated his return in downtown Caracas, chanting his name
and holding photos of the president in Bolivar Plaza. Supporters also
gathered outside the hospital. "I want to see my president," said
Alicia Morrow, a seamstress who stood outside the hospital on the verge of
tears. "I've missed him a lot because Chavez is the spirit of the poor. "Chavez's
precise condition and the sort of cancer treatments he is undergoing remain a
mystery, and speculation has grown recently that he may not be able to stay on
as president. The Venezuelan Constitution says that if a president dies or
steps down, a new vote must be called and held within 30days. The 58-year-old
president hasn't spoken publicly since he left for Cuba on Dec. 10. He
underwent his fourth cancer-related surgery on Dec. 11, and the government says
that he is now breathing through a tracheal tube that makes talking difficult.
Israeli leader brings dovish rival into coalition
Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday added his first coalition partner as he works to
build a new government, agreeing to bring in a dovish rival to oversee contacts
with the Palestinians in what could signal a new approach to peacemaking by the
hard line leader. Under the deal, former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will
serve as justice minister in the next Israeli government, in charge of peace
efforts with the Palestinians. Livni, who led negotiations during the last
substantive round of peace talks four years ago, has a good relationship with
Palestinian President Mohmoud Abbas and favours a softer line than Netanyahu. Standing
alongside Livni at a news conference Tuesday evening, Netanyahu vowed to make a
serious attempt to reach peace under his next government. He said bringing in
Livni, who has been a fierce critic, was part of his goal of forming a
"wide and stable" government. "We need a Palestinian partner and
I hope we will find a Palestinian partner who will take seriously Israel's security needs and
that will be willing to end the conflict once and for all. Today Israel outstretches its hand
to peace once again," he said. Netanyahu, who has come under heavy
criticism, both at home and abroad, for the deadlock in peace efforts during
his previous term, has promised to take a more aggressive approach under his
next government. But he has given no details on whether he is prepared to make
any new concessions, and it remained unclear whether Livni's addition to his
Cabinet would be enough to lure the Palestinians back to negotiations. "What
is important is the policies that will be adopted and implemented by the
incoming Israeli government," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a top adviser to
Abbas. He said that if Netanyahu stuck to his policies of building settlements
on occupied land, "it's better for Livni to search for another mission."
As foreign minister, Livni served as the chief negotiator with the Palestinians
under former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. While both sides have said they made
great progress during that time, the talks collapsed in late 2008 and have
remained virtually frozen since Netanyahu took office early the following year.
The Palestinians have refused to negotiate with Netanyahu while he continues to
build Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians claim both
areas, along with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, for their
future state. The Palestinians also want negotiations to resume from the point
where they broke off under Olmert and Livni. Olmert has said he offered a near
total withdrawal from the West Bank and shared control over Jerusalem. Netanyahu has said
these concessions were far too generous and that negotiations should begin
without any preconditions. He also has claimed that even when he imposed a
partial freeze on settlement construction, the Palestinians did not enter
substantive negotiations. But after four years of deadlock, the international
community has grown impatient with the Israeli leader. In a sign of the
international disapproval, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly voted in
November in favour of an independent Palestinian state in all of the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza. Although largely
symbolic, the vote signified an international endorsement of key Palestinian
demands on future borders. With President Barack Obama scheduled to visit in
late March, Netanyahu is eager to present a new face to the international
community. Livni's addition to his Cabinet is a step in that direction. In
addition to her good working relationship with the Palestinians, Livni is well
known and well respected around the world, and has appeared on lists of the
world's most influential women compiled by magazines like Forbes and Time.
