International

Italy euthanasia petition big enough to force referendum

AFP

More than 750,000 Italians have signed a petition calling for the legalisation of euthanasia, organisers said on Wednesday, exceeding by far the half-a-million threshold needed to force a referendum on the issue.

A vote could be held as early as next year on the campaign, which calls for changes to the country’s assisted suicide law.

“Today, without a law to regulate it, euthanasia isn’t a right available to everyone,” said Roberto Saviano, a journalist and writer known for his investigations into the Neapolitan mafia.

“I signed to give a free choice to those unable to travel to countries where euthanasia is legal,” Saviano added in a statement from the Luca Coscioni Association.

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Anyone helping another person to commit suicide can be jailed for between five and 12 years under current Italian law.

But the constitutional court added an exception in 2019 for “patients kept alive by treatment… and affected by an incurable disease that causes physical and psychological suffering they find intolerable”.

The patient must be “fully capable of taking free and conscious decisions”, the judges added.

People suffering from incurable diseases who do not fall into this category have no legal recourse to assisted suicide.

Referendum backers say that if passed it will allow “medical assistance to choose to die” for “sick people who need help from someone else to end their own suffering”.

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Mario Adinolfi, head of the small Christian political party Popolo della Famiglia (People of the Family) said the push was a “marketing campaign” for a “culture of death”.

International

Chile declares state of catastrophe as wildfires rage in Ñuble and Biobío

Wildland firefighting crews are battling 19 forest fires across the country, 12 of them concentrated in the Ñuble and Biobío regions, located about 500 kilometers south of Santiago.

“In light of the severe fires currently underway, I have decided to declare a state of catastrophe in the regions of Ñuble and Biobío. All resources are now available,” the president announced in a post on X.

Authorities have not yet released an official report on possible casualties or damage to homes.

According to images broadcast by local television, the fires have reached populated areas, particularly in the municipalities of Penco and Lirquén, in the Biobío region, which together are home to nearly 60,000 people. Burned vehicles were also reported on several streets.

“The Penco area and the entire Lirquén sector are the most critical zones and where the largest number of evacuations have taken place. We estimate that around 20,000 people have been evacuated,” said Alicia Cebrián, director of the National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (Senapred), in an interview with Mega TV.

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In recent years, forest fires have had a severe impact on the country, especially in the central-southern regions.

On February 2, 2024, multiple wildfires broke out simultaneously around the city of Viña del Mar, located 110 kilometers northwest of Santiago. Those fires resulted in 138 deaths, according to updated figures from the public prosecutor’s office, and left approximately 16,000 people affected, based on official data.

International

Former South Korean President Yoon sentenced to five years in prison

Former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol was sentenced on Friday to five years in prison for obstruction of justice and other charges, concluding the first in a series of trials stemming from his failed attempt to impose martial law in December 2024.

The sentence is shorter than the 10-year prison term sought by prosecutors against the 65-year-old conservative former leader, whose move against Parliament triggered a major political crisis that ultimately led to his removal from office.

Yoon, a former prosecutor, is still facing seven additional trials. One of them, on charges of insurrection, could potentially result in the death penalty.

On Friday, the Seoul Central District Court ruled on one of the multiple secondary cases linked to the affair, which plunged the country into months of mass protests and political instability.

International

U.S. deportation flight returns venezuelans to Caracas after Maduro’s ouster

A new flight carrying 231 Venezuelans deported from the United States arrived on Friday at the airport serving Caracas, marking the first such arrival since the military operation that ousted and captured President Nicolás Maduro.

On January 3, U.S. forces bombed the Venezuelan capital during an incursion in which Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured. Both are now facing narcotrafficking charges in New York.

This was the first U.S.-flagged aircraft transporting migrants to land in Venezuela since the military action ordered by President Donald Trump, who has stated that he is now in charge of the country.

The aircraft departed from Phoenix, Arizona, and landed at Maiquetía International Airport, which serves the Venezuelan capital, at around 10:30 a.m. local time (14:30 GMT), according to AFP reporters on the ground.

The deportees arrived in Venezuela under a repatriation program that remained in place even during the height of the crisis between the two countries, when Maduro was still in power. U.S. planes carrying undocumented Venezuelan migrants continued to arrive throughout last year, despite the military deployment ordered by Trump.