PRESS REVIEW – Friday, October 9: US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announces that the military execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be "livestreamed". But first: we look at reactions in Italy after the country's parliament passes a controversial electoral reform that critics say serves to benefit Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Plus, ".fart" and ".trump" are among the new domain name applications, as revealed by the US non-profit organisation ICANN.
The Italian parliament approved an electoral reform on Thursday that's dividing the press along political lines. The reform will introduce a prize for the majority-winning alliance, awarding it bonus seats in both houses of parliament if it wins at least 42 percent of the national vote. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni says this will reduce the post-election bargaining that often results in shaky governments. The centre-right paper Il Giornale hails this reform, which it says restores more power to Italian citizens via a preferential voting system and declares Italy's "Third Republic". The conservative daily Il Tempo's editorial attacks the "nervous left". There are two ways to examine electoral law, it says: the first is suited to career politicians and aspiring candidates, and involves "obsessing over technicalities and dissecting every clause." The other way tries to take the long view, giving the system a strong push towards a bipolar structure, which is what the Meloni government has done, it says approvingly.
