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Italy's referendums aimed at relaxing citizenship laws and improving job protections failed on Monday due to low turnout, partial data showed. It was a clear defeat for the centre-left opposition and a victory for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the ruling right-wing coalition, who openly supported abstaining from voting. Official data from almost 90 per cent of polling stations showed that turnout hovered around 30 per cent of eligible voters after two days of voting, well below the 50 per cent plus one required to make the vote valid. Meloni's far-right Brothers of Italy party celebrated the referendum's failure. The only real goal of this referendum was to bring down the Meloni government," the party said on social media, posting a picture of the main opposition's leaders. In the end, it was the Italians who brought you down. Maurizio Landini, leader of the CGIL trade union that was behind the initiative, acknowledged the defeat. We knew it wouldn't be a walk in the park, he
Chilean President Gabriel Boric on Tuesday received the new Constitution draft and called for a national plebiscite next month so citizens can decide whether the new charter will replace the country's dictatorship-era constitution. Chileans, who in September of last year resoundingly rejected a proposed Constitution that had been written by a left-leaning convention, will decide on December 17 whether to accept the new document that was largely written by conservative councilors. The definitive time for citizens has begun, and now it is their voice and their decision that truly matter, Boric said during a formal ceremony in Congress to formally deliver the document and sign the decree that calls for the vote. After Chileans rejected the proposal for what many characterised as one of the world's most progressive constitutions, they must now decide whether to vote for a document that some warn goes to the other extreme. One of the most controversial articles in the proposed new docum