ATHENS — The U.S. and Greece are launching a new counterterrorism information-sharing program, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday during an official visit to the Greek capital.

In a press conference alongside his Greek counterpart Giorgos Gerapetritis, Rubio said Greece was particularly exposed to threats posed by mass migration, human trafficking and different forms of terror.

“What we do not wish to see under any circumstances is that the birthplace of the West is threatened by bad decisions, by inaction, and by failure to address challenges,” he said, calling Greece a “strong and model NATO ally” and a “source of stability in an unstable world.”

Gerapetritis said Greece was willing to cooperate with the U.S. and provide maritime assistance in the Strait of Hormuz, ⁠if a viable peace process exists there.

Later Wednesday, Rubio will deliver a speech from Pnyx Hill, beneath the Acropolis, one of the most important sites of Athenian democracy. Assistant Secretary for Global Public Affairs Dylan Johnson said Rubio would use the opportunity to call for a “renewal of the Western spirit.”

Rubio will describe the shared inheritance of Americans and Europeans as stretching “from Athens and Rome to Christendom to the founding of the American Republic” and warn that Western civilization has forgotten some of its “essential qualities,” Rubio’s aide said.

The foreign policy chief stood by U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle after U.S. senators and Greek opposition parties expressed concerns over reports that she had ​threatened to use U.S. influence to topple the Greek government.

“Suffice it ⁠to ​say, our embassy here is doing a ​great job. Our ambassador has been a strong ambassador here,” Rubio said when asked whether Guilfoyle’s conduct is in compliance with State Department ethics.

Fifty European Union lawmakers, including 46 women, have been the targets of deepfake pornography, according to new research released Monday.

The number of women targeted by deepfake pornography — when generative AI is used to create sexually explicit depictions of people, often without their consent — means roughly one in six female members of the European Parliament have been affected, the report by Agora Digitale Transformation, a Germany-based civil society group, said.

The European Union is banning AI-powered nudifier apps on Dec. 2, and is also investigating similar use of Grok on the social media platform X.

A cross-party group of 119 MEPs called for effective enforcement of the ban and prompt resolution of the investigation into Grok, in a Sept. 30 letter sent to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the Council of the EU Antonio Costa, Parliament President Roberta Metsola, EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen and Commissioner Hadja Lalhbib. The signatories included leaders of the liberal Renew, the socialists, and The Left: Iratxe Garcia Pérez, Valérie Hayer, and Manon Aubry, respectively.

“There can’t be any loopholes or delays” in enforcing the ban, Austrian Greens MEP Lena Schilling, who also signed the letter, told reporters on Monday.

Politicians can’t opt out of having their likeness online, so it’s hard for them to avoid being targeted by AI nudifiers, said Benjamin Shultz, who co-authored the report.

Shultz said that to enforce the ban, the Commission needs to hold accountable all entities that, at times, inadvertently enable the nudifier industry. That also includes payment processors and domain registrars. The report said the Commission should also look into how to get search engines to de-index AI nudifier websites, meaning removing them from their databases.