World

Trillions of dollars has been wiped off the stock value of major tech firms in the US, Europe and Asia in a market rout after the US midterm elections sparked concerns of a slowdown in artificial intelligence (AI) development.

Shares in firms across the tech sector plummeted following Democratic wins after election campaigns run on slowing AI.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index closed down by more than 5.5% on Thursday, losing an estimated $2.5tn (£1.9tn) in market value, according to Dow Jones data, while other key US stock indexes also saw big losses in their worst days since 2025.

The sell-off comes on top of broader concerns about whether the huge amounts being spent on AI will pay off.

In Asia, tech-heavy indexes fell sharply on Friday morning as firms that make the computer chips and other equipment that power AI saw their shares slide.

The Nikkei 225 in Japan was 6.3% lower in the afternoon as shares in memory chip maker Kioxia lost almost 11.5% and rival Tokyo Electron slipped by 5.8%.

South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix fell by more than 8.8%, while Samsung was down by around 6%.

The sell-off in Seoul sent the Kospi index plunging more than 8% in morning trading, triggering a so-called circuit breaker, a mechanism that temporarily halts trading to curb panic selling. The Kospi was around 5% lower in the afternoon.

The Taiwan stock market suffered its biggest weekly decline since 2001, according to LSEG data, with the Taiex falling by 4.5% on Friday.

It marks a "continuation of worries" over the level of spending on AI infrastructure, said MarketWatch chips analyst Britney Nguyen.

Pressure on data centres

Democrats in races across the US campaigned to slow the growth of data centres and AI, and there were dozens of measures on ballots around the country aimed at restricting the development of the hubs crucial for powering the technology.

They won both the US Senate and House of Representatives in Tuesday's midterms, taking control of Congress for the rest of President Donald Trump's presidency.

Texas' Democratic governor-elect Gina Hinojosa campaigned heavily against data centres, pledging a moratorium on new construction in the sector.

In a social media post, Trump blamed the slide on his political opponents.

"The Stock Market suffered one of the Worst Days in History based on the results of the Election," he said.

"Remember, it wasn't Republicans, it was Dumocrats. Do not fear, however, we will soon, one way or the other, be BIGGER AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

Later on Thursday night he appeared to take aim at voters too.

"The Stock Market crashed today because the Dumocrats had a big Tuesday — So sad to see, you only have yourselves to blame!" he wrote on Truth Social.

Some Democrats have argued that AI has grown too big without any safeguards or oversight and have promised, with their new power in Congress, to change that.

"Americans don't want Big Tech oligarchs wrecking the environment, gutting jobs and threatening humanity's future. NATIONAL DATA CENTER MORATORIUM NOW," Democrat Senator Bernie Sanders said in a post on X on Thursday.

'Fresh panic' hits Wall Street

Shares in companies heavily exposed to AI data centres, including crucial chipmakers and semiconductor manufacturers, fell sharply on Thursday, highlighting investor concerns that had already been growing.

In European trading on Thursday, shares in chipmaker Infineon fell by more than 8.5% while tech equipment manufacturer ASML dropped by 6.5%.

Nvidia shares slid more than 9%, knocking more than $400bn off the firm's market value in New York trading.

Other chipmakers also suffered, with AMD and Micron both dropping by more than 17%. Intel shares also dropped, down 10.3%, while memory card maker SanDisk plunged more than 22%.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which tracks the performance of 30 of the largest companies involved in semiconductor production, fell by more than 12%.

Shares in Elon Musk's companies SpaceX and Tesla also plunged, falling 8% and nearly 11% respectively and shaving more than $300bn off the firms' market value on Thursday.

Musk had spent nearly $450m backing Republican campaigns, including at least $45m in support of Ken Paxton for the Texas senate seat, but Texas was turned blue in the Democratic tsunami on Tuesday night.

In total, the so-called magnificent seven tech companies, including Apple, Nvidia and Tesla, have shed a trillion dollars in value in a single trading day.

The stock falls also hit other major US stock indexes. The S&P 500 index fell by 4.4% by the end of trading, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average erased gains made on Wednesday to close down more than 3.4%.

The Nasdaq Composite fall was so large it is now in what market watchers call correction territory, which is where an index or company value falls at least 10% below its recent high.

Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, said the steep sell-off on the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 was sending shockwaves into other markets.

"Fresh panic over the AI trade has hit Wall Street hard," she said.

"Fears that the vast sums poured into AI infrastructure may not deliver the returns investors have been banking on are now colliding with the prospect of a sharp slowdown in data centre construction.

Some tech leaders have said they were caught off guard by the backlash against data centres in the midterms.

OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman said he believed everyone had been surprised by the reaction to data centres, and more work needed to be done to ensure communities were on board.

"A lot of our shift over the course of this year has really been to realise that from San Francisco trying to build infrastructure in Texas, Georgia, and other places, you can't just tweet and say: 'This is going to be good.' You need to be in those communities," Brockman said at the WSJ Tech conference in Napa, California on Wednesday evening.

Meta's president Dina Powell McCormick said that the industry needed to put more effort into selling AI as a good idea.

"I think we need to double and triple down on telling the story," she told the WSJ conference.

Alongside the immediate impacts of the US mid-term elections, some investors have become concerned that AI shares could be in a bubble that is due a correction.

Santiago Peña’s rightwing administration had authorised Ueno Bank to drastically expand operations before collapse

Paraguay’s rightwing president, Santiago Peña, resigned on Thursday after a political and financial crisis collapsed the South American country’s banking system in recent days.

At the centre of the crisis is Ueno Bank, which in just a few years under Peña went from an obscure digital bank to one of the country’s largest lenders, claiming to have about 60% of Paraguay’s adult population as customers.

Last Monday, the central bank ordered Ueno into resolution over insolvency, freezing the deposits of 3 million customers, leaving hundreds of thousands of families without access to money for food and basic daily expenses. Bank executives were arrested, and people took to the streets in massive protests.

In power since August 2023 and with a term running until 2028, the 47-year-old economist was already facing impeachment proceedings that had broad support.

“Dear compatriots, today I address you at one of the most difficult moments of my life. With my heart set on Paraguay and with the conviction that our republic must always come before any person or circumstance, I have decided to submit my resignation as president of the republic,” said Peña in a video.

Ueno Bank began as a finance company in the 1970s and, in 2021, was bought by Grupo Vázquez, one of Paraguay’s largest business and industrial conglomerates. At the end of 2023, it received authorisation from the central bank, already under Peña’s administration, to operate as a digital bank.

The bank rapidly expanded its operations, attracting customers with generous cash-back offers on groceries and sponsoring Paraguay’s national football team. On Wednesday, the players released a letter “demanding” a “forceful response” from the government and the justice system.

The bank came to manage between $800m and $850m in deposits from state and pension entities, including retirement funds, prompting criticism over conflicts of interest because of Peña’s previous shareholding ties to Ueno Holding.

Peña said that, as an economist, he had merely made an “investment”, but that he had already disposed of all his shares. When the local press pointed to possible improper favouritism in directing state and pension funds to the bank, he called it a “false media campaign” aimed at weakening his government.

On Wednesday, opposition lawmakers and even members of Peña’s Colorado party filed an impeachment motion holding the president responsible for the collapse. He had been a shareholder in the group that ran the bank until early last year and, in recent months, had reportedly been ignoring warnings from the central bank and the media about its operations.

Political pressure intensified on Thursday morning when the ex-president Horacio Cartes, his former ally, posted a message endorsing the impeachment.

“We will not stand on the side of the theft of public, private and pensioners’ funds. We must think of the people and of the values we uphold in the Colorado party. We support the impeachment of the president of the republic, Santiago Peña, in order to restore the institutional order of the republic,” he wrote.

Other lawmakers followed suit and began debating impeachment when Peña released a video announcing his resignation.

“I do so thinking of the stability of our country, social peace and the need to preserve our democratic institutions,” said the now former president.

“I also want to apologise to the people if at any point I failed them … But today my priority is only one thing: the peace of mind of Paraguayans who trusted their savings to our financial system … My greatest wish is that the return of those funds is guaranteed,” he added.

Since the scandal broke, Peña has insisted in interviews and statements that he committed no wrongdoing.

Opposition senator Rafael Filizzola called the case “the biggest fraud carried out from political power in the democratic era … This is a bank created from political power, to use public money for private businesses linked to political power, with the president of the republic at the head of it,” he told 1020 AM radio.

Peña, a former finance minister who promised to rebuild a “great Paraguay”, was a key ally of the US president, Donald Trump, in the region – one of the few Latin American presidents to attend Trump’s second inauguration. US officials, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, repeatedly praised him as a “strategic partner”, and Peña recently flew to Washington to discuss critical minerals and economic cooperation. Neither Rubio nor Trump has yet commented on Peña’s resignation.

It is still unclear who will replace him or when, because his resignation must, in theory, be accepted by Congress – in which case the vice-president, Pedro Alliana, would take over. Alliana is also suspected of involvement in the Ueno Bank scandal, which he has denied.

About an hour after Peña’s announcement, the lower house unanimously approved the impeachment motion, which now goes to the senate. If approved, even after his resignation, he would lose his senate seat and, with it, parliamentary immunity, leaving him to face any criminal proceedings in the ordinary courts.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday (Nov 4) the Iran war has been worth it despite acknowledging its role in losses in US midterm elections in which his Republican party lost control of Congress.

"The Iran thing we had to do, and we continue to do it," he told reporters.

The Iran war was responsible for a spike in gasoline prices that were seen as a strong factor in why Democrats made big gains in the elections.

Trump said the war has been worth it to stop Tehran from "having a nuclear weapon".

He said he was okay with Vice President JD Vance's social media post earlier on Wednesday in which Vance referred to deep electoral losses and said "the reason we lost is the war".

"I can tell you that as far as that war is concerned, I would have done nothing different," Trump said.

Trump also again said that if he had been on the ballot, he believed "we would have won".

"But they just, you couldn't transfer that love. There was such love at those rallies, it was incredible and we weren't able to transfer the love to candidates," he said.

Source: Reuters

Spain's Transport Minister Óscar Puente has resigned - six days after the high-speed train collision in which at least 69 people were killed and dozens injured.

He announced his decision in Congress, after giving evidence on last Wednesday's disaster near the town of Urda, south of the capital Madrid, in which a train smashed into the back of a stationary train.

"A transport minister in a country like Spain cannot remain in office after two accidents of this seriousness in less than a year," he said - a reference to January's crash on the same line which left 46 people dead.

Last week's crash was one of the worst rail disasters in Europe's modern history, and Spain's worst crash since 2013.

Puente announced his decision at the end of a lengthy congressional session on Tuesday evening in which he had outlined new rail safety measures and had been grilled by the opposition.

He also said: "I am not only stepping down from my position as minister of transport, but... I am also withdrawing my name from the lists for the early legislative elections."

Puente's position immediately came under scrutiny after the 28 October crash.

The main opposition, the conservative People's Party (PP) and the far-right Vox, were both calling for his resignation - as were some of the government's allies.

They argued that the minister should take responsibility for a high-speed rail system that many Spaniards now regard as unsafe and whose credibility even Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez admitted was "broken".

The opposition also criticised Puente for appearing to blame human error for the crash, claiming the minister was trying to deflect the blame from his own failings.

But, having said he was going to remain in his post just a few days ago, his resignation appears to have taken many by surprise.

The rail accident and Puente's decision have come at a crucial moment in the Spanish political calendar, with early general elections on 29 November.

Many observers see the accident as a massive electoral setback to the Socialist-led government that will make it impossible for Sánchez to defy the polls and win the election.

Puente's predicament presented him and the prime minister with a dilemma - refusing to resign might look insensitive in the wake of the accident and stepping down could look like acknowledging he and the government were at fault.

In the end, Puente opted for the second option, insisting his decision had been driven by "political dignity".

The prime minister praised his colleague who had "faced up to the situation, provided answers and solutions, and then stepped aside".

"Out of dignity. Of his own accord. Out of respect for the victims," Sánchez added.

Many Spaniards will now ask whether Puente's successors will manage to restore faith in the country's railway system.

Last Wednesday's accident involved a train run by state-owned operator Renfe with 397 passengers on board and a stationary train run by private operator Iryo, which was carrying 147 passengers.

A reported issue with the automatic signalling system - a computer failure - had forced all trains to halt on the affected stretch.

Leaked audio recordings published in Spanish media soon after the crash revealed conversations between train drivers and a control centre just minutes before the disaster.

The three recordings of conversations between Madrid's control centre and two train drivers appear to show that the Renfe train was given clearance to move even though the other train had stopped on the track, about 25km (15 miles) ahead.

In one, a control centre operator is speaking to the driver of the Renfe train, which was having some technical difficulties.

After some exchanges, the control operator tells the driver: "Continue your journey and then proceed under [Lateral Signalling Block], at normal speed with normal operation."

The driver replies: "At normal speed?" To which the controller answers: "Yes."

The Lateral Signalling Block is a back-up system used when the automatic signalling or data transmission system fails.

The driver of the stationary Iryo train says in another audio recording that communication with the train-control system has been lost, and it is not moving.

The train "is stationary in front of the entry signal at Urda", the driver tells the control centre operator. After a series of exchanges, the driver is then told to "resume the journey" normally.

The Iryo driver then contacts the control centre again, according to a later recording, saying they cannot start the train. "The train won't allow me to control the [security] system. That's why I am still stopped in front of the entry signal," they say.

The latter recording suggests that the controller had been notified that the Iryo train remained stationary as the Renfe train approached.

Iryo said its carriages were "struck from behind" by the other train.

Source: BBC

The US military carried out limited strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island on Monday, three US officials told CNN, characterizing the action as defensive in nature and meant to protect US assets in the region.

One official said the US attack came in response to Iran firing at a US aircraft. It does not appear to be the kind of major combat operation that officials have been contemplating, and the Wall Street Journal, which first revealed the operation, reported that other such strikes have been carried out previously in secret.

“This was a defensive measure for Iranians using surface to air missiles against US assets,” another US official said.

But the new action, on the eve of Election Day, is a reminder that the situation in Iran is still unresolved, and combat is still very much on the table.

One person familiar with the matter said the administration deliberately kept the attack under wraps in an effort not to overstate the defensive move. The person added that the strikes were meant to protect US assets.

The attack comes as President Donald Trump on Monday suggested that diplomacy with Tehran is still at work, writing on social media that an agreement “could happen.” In an appearance that aired on Fox News Monday night, Trump did not specifically address the reports of new strikes in Iran, but broadly defended his decision to launch the war in Iran and suggested there had not been recent fighting.

“We’re not fighting a war. Everyone says ‘you’re at war!’ Well, when was the last time we fired anything? This isn’t a war — it’s a very soft war … But this isn’t like a war that’s going on. There’s no war raging. It could happen if they don’t make a deal, but they want to make a deal very badly and there’s a very good chance we make a deal,” Trump said.

Vice President JD Vance struck a similar tone on Monday, telling reporters that the US and Iran have “made some progress” toward an off ramp to the war.

“The Iranians are always a little unpredictable, and as the president always says, he retains kinetic options, he retains non-kinetic options. But we’ve certainly made some progress. We’ll see if we can make some more,” the vice president said, adding that he had just spoken with the president about the war and both men felt “pretty good” about a potential deal.

Qeshm Island, which is about 14 miles from the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas, is key to Iran asserting control over traffic through the vital Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 million barrels of oil passed every day before the war.

The US has targeted the island previously in the war.

Source: CNN

Thousands of people have rallied in Tel Aviv to urge the Israeli opposition to make a deal with Arab parties to remove Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Protesters at Saturday’s rally told the AFP news agency this may be the “last chance for real change” and that Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is a “great manipulator”.

Main opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot has previously ruled out forming a coalition with Israel’s Arab parties, but a deadlock in Tuesday’s elections means siding with the parties could help him form a government.

“People really want this vote for change to work out, and they believe that… Gadi Eisenkot and other leaders of the Jewish-Israeli parties need to listen to their voice,” Al Jazeera correspondent Nour Odeh said from Ramallah on Saturday.

Counter-protesters also showed up to Saturday’s demonstrations, with Netanyahu supporters seen shouting their own demands that “Israel should not have a government with so-called terrorists”, Odeh said.

Netanyahu’s bloc won 53 seats in Tuesday’s elections, while Eisenkot’s won 48, meaning neither side can form a government in Israel’s 120-seat parliament alone.

Israel’s three Arab-led parties won 19 seats, having made significant gains in Tuesday’s election.

Nearly 840,000 people voted for Ra’am and the Joint List, a coalition of three Arab-led parties, a 64 percent increase from the last elections in 2022, according to the Central Election Committee.

The Arab electoral success means a coalition with Eisenkot would provide a comfortable majority of 67. However, for many in Israel, the idea of siding with Arabs is politically unpalatable.

Netanyahu has accused Palestinian-Israeli parties of “stealing” the polls and accepting funding from Qatar to do it. Qatar has rejected the allegations, calling it a disinformation campaign.

Odeh said that Israeli right-wing circles have described “the historic turnout of Palestinian Israelis as electoral terrorism, equating it to the October 7th attack”, when Hamas-led fighters stormed southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking hundreds captive.

“Palestinian-Israeli votes and voices” are under attack because they have a “prominent position” in deciding whether Eisenkot can form a government, she added.

(Al Jazeera and AFP)

United States President Donald Trump declined to say if he agreed with the outcome of Sunday’s presidential elections in Brazil, but said he thought the contest was a “disgrace”.

“I thought the election was a great embarrassment to the people of Brazil,” Trump said in response to a question from a reporter on Thursday morning. “I watched the election. I didn’t take sides. I let it be. I was asked not to take sides by the president, the current president,” he said. “But when I watched what went down in Brazil, it was a disgrace…take a look at the market, I mean their market went down through the floor.”

Trump’s remarks came a day after former Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro and his family fled Brazil and landed in Miami, Florida, in the US on Wednesday.

Bolsonaro and his family were aided in their journey out of Brazil by Trump and his administration, the New York Times reported Thursday. Officials told the newspaper that the US government would likely provide the Bolsonaro family permanent residency.

On Sunday, Bolsonaro had lost a run-off election for Brazil’s president to the left-wing incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva by more than four million votes. The Brazilian real dropped against the dollar by 12 percent in spot trading after the election.

Brazil‘s Supreme Court had ordered Bolsonaro to surrender his regular and diplomatic passports shortly after the election, in an attempt to make sure the right-wing senator did not flee the country before he could be investigated for embezzlement and money laundering.

Bolsonaro left Brazil under cover of darkness, crossing by land with his wife and two daughters into Argentina, where the government of Trump’s right-wing ally President Javier Milei had granted them visas. The family then took a small private plane to Ecuador and later on to Miami, where they landed on Wednesday morning.

Shortly after landing, Bolsonaro issued a statement saying he was “the true elected president of Brazil” and the allegations against him were “a politically motivated witch-hunt”. He asked the international community “not to normalise what is happening in Brazil” and said he would lead the country’s opposition from the US. He did not provide evidence supporting his claims.

Bolsonaro’s own Liberal Party said on Monday that it was accepting the outcome of the election.

Although Brazil and the US have had an extradition treaty for several decades, it is unclear if Washington would turn over Bolsonaro, or whether Brazilian authorities would actually indict him and ask for such a move. On Wednesday, Brazil’s Supreme Court dispelled rumours that a search warrant had been issued for his home.

Flavio’s father, Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro, undertook a very similar journey to Florida after he lost his bid for re-election in 2022. While he was in the US, the elder Bolsonaro’s supporters attempted to orchestrate a coup. Some in Brazil had called for the country to seek his extradition from the US. He later returned to Brazil and is currently under house arrest there.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party on Thursday amplified unsubstantiated allegations that Arab-led parties had “stolen” the election, potentially with foreign assistance, as final results showed his bloc had lost its majority in parliament.

The opposition accused Netanyahu of demonizing the Arab population after a historic showing by Arab-led parties in an attempt to delegitimize the election. If the rest of the opposition teams up with Arab parties, a rare and politically risky move, they could potentially form a majority government in parliament, the Knesset.

Results released by election officials on Thursday showed Netanyahu’s bloc winning 53 seats in the 120-member assembly, well below the 68 seats it had controlled at its peak in the previous parliament. His main opposition won 48 seats and Arab-led parties secured the other 19.

The count is complete, but the results still need to be certified and submitted to the country’s president next Wednesday.

Commission to look into possible foreign interference

Netanyahu’s party, Likud, has been spreading claims of malfeasance by Arab-led parties since exit polls indicated the prime minister had suffered a setback in Tuesday’s vote. But it ramped up the rhetoric after the head of Israel’s election committee, Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, said that “serious suspicions” of foreign interference had been brought before him.

In a letter to the Shin Bet security agency, Sohlberg said he could not verify the claims. But given their serious nature, he asked the agency to investigate.

Netanyahu’s party responded with an inflammatory statement: “The elections in Israel have been stolen!” it said, claiming — without evidence — that the alleged election interference was “aimed at facilitating a foreign takeover of the Knesset, the Islamization of Israel and toppling of the right wing government.”

Israeli media reported that members of Netanyahu’s party were accusing Qatar — a country that many Israelis view as a patron of Hamas, the Gaza-based militant group.

Qatar issued a quick denial, calling the allegations “ridiculous and dangerous.”

As it announced its results early Friday, the election commission said the investigation was based on classified intelligence. In a video statement, the commission’s acting director general, Dean Livne, did not elaborate, but warned that reports about the probe had been “entirely unfounded.”

“It does not affect the final results that will be submitted to the president, nor does it concern any particular sector of the population,” he said.

Netanyahu’s opponents accuse him of undermining vote

Netanyahu’s main rival, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, said Likud was trying to delegitimize the results. “They are doing this because they lost,” he said.

Eisenkot ridiculed the accusation of foreign interference with a tongue-in-cheek statement, saying: “I welcome the fact that Netanyahu is finally condemning Qatari involvement in the State of Israel.”

Netanyahu has long faced accusations that former top aides of his accepted money from Qatar.

By casting doubt on the vote, Netanyahu appeared to be positioning himself to block any potential alliance between his opponents and the Arab parties. Netanyahu has suggested that it would be treasonous for Eisenkot to join with Arab parties, who could potentially give Eisenkot the backing he needs to oust Netanyahu.

The Shin Bet, seeking to calm tensions, said its investigation was not meant to “cast aspersions” on an entire section of the population that “exercised its right to vote in a democratic and lawful manner.”

The elections committee also sounded a note of caution in a letter written to a concerned member of parliament. It said that even though an investigation was taking place, “allegations of systematic violations of electoral integrity are baseless.”

The committee wants findings from the Shin Bet within a week.

Netanyahu campaigned on anti-Arab sentiment

Even ahead of the vote, Netanyahu and Likud painted the Arab-led parties as a danger to Israel, which critics called an attempt to further marginalize Arab citizens. Arab citizens of Palestinian descent make up 20% of the population but are often viewed with suspicion because of their sympathies with other Palestinians.

Those campaign attacks, along with anger over the divisive Netanyahu and his far-right government, brought outraged Arabs to the polls like never before.

On Thursday, Yair Golan, head of the Democrats party, accused Netanyahu of “attempting to undermine the election results through an ugly delegitimization campaign directed against the will of the public — and against the Arab public in particular.”

“Netanyahu is working to steal the election,” the Arab-led Joint List party asserted Thursday.

The head of the Arab-led Ra’am party, Mansour Abbas, welcomed the investigation into election interference and said his party had nothing to do with the case, while accusing Netanyahu of a campaign of incitement.

President Isaac Herzog called it a “sensitive moment” and called for a full investigation. He warned that “we must not tarnish an entire community that sought to exercise its right to vote and take an active part in democracy.”

Difficult decisions are ahead as parties seek coalitions

The developments amplified the difficult decisions for the weeks ahead. Those include whether some Jewish and Arab parties would team up in a historic alliance, or whether some parties that campaigned on ousting Netanyahu would toss that aside and join forces with him.

While the race for a 61-seat majority needed to control the 120-seat Knesset plays out, Netanyahu remains in charge.

If Netanyahu loses office, that would set off a cascade of events that critics say he has desperately sought to avoid. He would be taken to account over yearslong corruption allegations, and an inquiry almost certainly would begin into the security failures that led to the devastating Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Eisenkot has left door open to cooperation with Arab-led parties

Even without a role in a coalition, Arab-led parties could assert their growing power by supporting other Netanyahu opponents in the next parliament. That could include electing a new speaker, giving them control of the agenda and potentially allowing them to advance and pass legislation before a new government is formed.

Eisenkot has indicated he is open, with conditions, to joining forces with the Arab-led parties. Ahmad Tibi, second on the Arab-led Joint List, told Army Radio the opposition bloc reached out to him to discuss replacing the Knesset speaker, and he told them the party would support the bloc’s candidate.

There were small rallies overnight in Tel Aviv, and in far more conservative Jerusalem, in support of a coalition that includes Arab-led parties. Until 2021, no Arab party had joined a coalition government, and that was brief.

If a new government cannot be formed after multiple attempts, Israel would face a new election early next year. On Wednesday, Herzog signaled he wanted to avoid that step – something Eisenkot has said as well.

New elections bring new questions, including whether Arab citizens would again go to the polls in large numbers and whether the tens of thousands of Israelis who flew home to vote would do it again. Many had said they took that step to save the country from Netanyahu.

___

Saeed reported from Abu Snan, Israel. Associated Press reporters across Israel contributed.

"Brazil will not accept being anyone's backyard," Brazil's left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared in his election victory speech, a message squarely aimed at Washington.

Domestic elections are rarely won on foreign policy, and this one was no different. But Lula's defiance against what he has described as US interference in Brazilian affairs evoked a patriotic spirit that proved an effective campaigning tool.

It also chimed with his wider brand of politics as a former union leader: standing up to powerful figures.

Paradoxically, it seems to have earned him President Donald Trump's respect. "I like Lula, we get along well," Trump said, responding to the result. "I didn't take sides," he added, before calling the election "terrible" and "rigged".

If that sounds muddled, it is because the relationship between the two men is not straightforward. Trump did not explicitly endorse Lula's rival Flávio Bolsonaro, who has refused to recognise the result despite the Supreme Electoral Court finding no evidence of irregularities. But Trump was a close ally of Flávio's father, the former President Jair Bolsonaro.

When I spoke to Lula at his residence about a year ago, relations had hit rock bottom. He told me he had "no relationship" with Trump, that they had never spoken, and that he had no intention of picking up the phone. Trump had recently imposed punitive tariffs on Brazil, largely as a political response to Jair Bolsonaro's coup trial, which the US president called a "witch-hunt".

Rather than tiptoeing around Trump, as some US allies did, Lula fought back – and it paid off.

Israelis are voting in a pivotal election Tuesday as their country is embroiled in unresolved wars, still reeling from Hamas’ 2023 attack and deeply divided over the character of the state and the right person to lead it.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing off against an array of parties seeking to oust the longtime leader from power. Opinion polls have suggested a tight race with his main rival, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot. Over 7 million people are eligible to vote.

In Israel’s fragmented parliamentary politics, no single party has ever won an outright parliamentary majority, so political leaders must forge coalitions.

There is a chance that neither Netanyahu’s religious and ultranationalist coalition nor the group of parties looking to remove him has enough support to win a parliamentary majority. That could set off weeks of negotiations before a leader is declared.

Israel’s Arab-led parties could emerge as kingmakers if they agree to support one candidate over the other — and if other parties agree to join forces with them.

“Our vote will change the government,” Mansour Abbas, head of the Islamist Ra’am party, said while voting, adding that he hoped turnout would surpass 70% in Arab communities.

Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, known for taunting Palestinian detainees and saying some Palestinians in Gaza are “not even people,” warned after casting his ballot that “it will be Mansour Abbas’ government” if Netanyahu and his allies don’t win.

Emotions run high among some voters

Already, some emotions were high as polls opened. In Kiryat Shmona, a Netanyahu stronghold near the border with Lebanon, one man kicked and tore down a poster of Eisenkot.

Hanging over the election are lingering tensions with Iran. Netanyahu ramped up threats against the country ahead of the vote. He appeared in a video this week standing beside a missile-defense battery and warned Tehran it would face “a devastating blow” if it attacked Israel.

The election is Israel’s first national vote since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war in Gaza and related conflicts across the region. In Tel Aviv, families of some of those killed on Oct. 7 or former hostages held a moment of silence before polls opened. “Remember all those whose voices are no more,” said Yona Adam, whose daughter Mapal Adam was killed.

Around 330,000 young Israelis, many facing compulsory military service under the shadow of war, are eligible to vote for the first time.

The vote serves not only as a referendum on Netanyahu’s lengthy leadership but also on what kind of country Israel should be — heavily influenced by religious and nationalist forces, or more firmly anchored in liberal and secular values. Tens of thousands of voters living overseas reportedly flew to Israel to vote.

At stake is the fate of a country whose policies and leadership are being sharply criticized by its traditional allies. Since the 2023 attack, Israel has found itself increasingly isolated over its conduct in Gaza and in the occupied West Bank, where violence by Jewish settlers has intensified. Public support among Americans has plummeted and stalwart partners in Europe and elsewhere have slapped sanctions on Israel in recent months.

Security, military conscription and integrity are top issues

For Israelis, the election presents a chance at charting the country’s course after Netanyahu’s latest, and especially turbulent, four-year term.

Netanyahu’s supporters see him as a steady hand and a consummate statesman who they believe has triumphantly guided Israel through multiple wars. They think he is protecting Israel’s Jewish identity while keeping in check what they see as an interventionist judiciary.

His Israeli detractors see him as a polarizing leader who, beset by an ongoing corruption trial, dragged on the war in Gaza and its hostage crisis for political reasons. They say he is undermining Israel’s independent judiciary and weakening its democratic underpinnings. And they accuse him of abetting a system that has allowed ultra-Orthodox religious Jews to avoid enlistment in Israel’s compulsory military.

Eisenkot is viewed by supporters as a capable leader with sterling security credentials who, along with his likely governing partners, could act as a bulwark against creeping illiberalism. As someone personally touched by the conflict — his son and two nephews were killed in Gaza — his backers believe that he feels deeply the pain that still courses through Israel three years after the attacks.

Parties that would likely throw their support behind Eisenkot have vowed to improve Israel’s international standing and work to conscript ultra-Orthodox men while bolstering the independence of the judiciary.

(Source - APNews)

Serbia's long-standing leader Aleksandar Vučić has admitted defeat to the student-led protest movement in snap parliamentary elections.

"We still do not have final results... it is clear that we have lost these elections," the right-wing populist leader said as he conceded late on Sunday.

Preliminary figures from Serbia's election commission indicated a record high turnout, which commentators had suggested would favour the student movement. Celebrations erupted after Vučić conceded.

Vučić called the snap elections after two years of protests triggered by the collapse of a train station canopy in the city of Novi Sad, which killed 16 and was seen as emblematic of corruption and negligence.

Vučić had spent two terms as president and could not seek a third term, so was leading his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) with the aim of returning to the post of prime minister, which he left in 2017.

The Student List's lead candidate Ilija Srdanović told BBC Serbian: "This will be a free state."

He said the anti-corruption movement, which had attracted anti-government voters across Serbia, hoped to "free the country from tyranny".

There were celebrations on the streets of the city, with people dancing and chanting "victory", cars honking, and fireworks set off. "Serbia is free," one student told the BBC. "It's a miracle."

During a celebration speech, Student List candidate Radomir Saicic said Serbians had shown "no obstacle was greater than their will", Reuters reported. "No force can forever overpower a people who have decided to take their destiny into their own hands," he added.

Amid scenes of people dancing in the streets Belgrade, Selena Lebovic said the result was "really fabulous".

"We are all crying, and what to say. We couldn't believe that it would be so easy," she told Reuters.

Vučić made his announcement at the headquarters of his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in the capital Belgrade.

The centre of Novi Sad - the northern city that triggered the student-led protests - was crowded. "Everything is going to get better now," David Vasić, one of those celebrating, told the BBC Serbian.

The Student List - which has no obvious leaders and whose members are not used to politics - had attracted anti-government voters across Serbia.

It decided to field candidates to the 250-member parliament from across Serbian society including doctors, actors, academics and sports personalities.

The anti-corruption movement campaigned on a manifesto that included purging officials who broke rules cracking down on protesters, stopping party loyalists from leading public enterprises, and freeing the public broadcaster of political control.

Vučić and the SNS party have repeatedly denied corruption.

Vučić, who backs Serbia's candidacy for the European Union while refusing to impose sanctions on Russia over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, had pledged to increase pensions and public sector salaries, and investment in state healthcare.

Preliminary figures provided by Serbia's election commission suggested a record high turnout, with 64.9% having cast their vote by 18:00 local time (17:00 GMT), two hours before polls were set to close.

Earlier in the day, long queues were seen outside polling stations in cities and towns across Serbia.

This was also the case outside booths in a number of countries with sizeable Serbian communities - including Slovenia's capital Ljubljana, Germany's Munich, and Los Angeles and Chicago in the US.

In France, Serbian voters waited in line in heavy rain in Paris.

The election was held amid high tensions across Serbia, with police sealing off streets around the Republic Electoral Commission (RIK) in Belgrade.

(BBC)

Gunmen opened fire during a funeral at a church in Jordan on Friday, killing seven people and wounding 40 others, authorities said.

The shooting took place at a Greek Orthodox church in Karak, about 180km (110 miles) south of the capital, Amman.

Footage broadcast on Jordanian state television showed two gunmen who appear to be holding pistols approaching the church and firing shots. A third man who appears to be holding a semiautomatic rifle then approaches and opens fire, and all three then run toward the church.

Video footage taken by witnesses shows broken glass and pools of blood on the floor of the church.

Dorgham Halasa, who was among the mourners inside the church, said intense gunfire erupted 15 minutes after the funeral had started, and then people started running. “It was a weird situation, and heavy gunfire,” Halasa said.

He did not see the gunmen, but said other people reported seeing four of them. The Associated Press could not independently verify the number of assailants, and Jordan’s security services did not immediately release details.

A government statement said that the attack was “carried out by unknown assailants,” but didn’t say whether any gunmen were captured or killed. It said that “investigations are under way at full speed”.

Jordan declared three days of national mourning, according to the kingdom’s Petra news agency.

Karak is home to a minority Christian population.

In 2016, gunmen ambushed police in a series of attacks in Karak, including at a Crusader castle popular with tourists, killing 10 people, including seven officers, and wounding dozens. Jordanian security forces killed those gunmen after a long standoff.

Jordan’s health minister Ibrahim al-Budour said two of those wounded are in critical condition.

King Abdullah II said on X that Jordan “will confront the terrorist act that targeted Karak with the harshest penalties” and offered his “deepest condolences to the families of the martyrs, and our wishes for recovery to the wounded”.

Jordan’s prime minister Jafar Hassan said during a security meeting in Karak on Friday evening that the attack was a result of terrorist ideology and blind extremism. He said the assailants will be punished and legal measures taken against those who seek to introduce extremism.

Condemnation of the slayings came from around the region, including from Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Oman.

Ahmed al-Tayeb in Cairo, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, the Sunni Muslim world’s foremost religious institution, offered his condolences to the families of victims in Friday’s shooting, calling it a “heinous terrorist attack.”

Iraqi foreign minister Fuad Hussein called his Jordanian counterpart and “affirmed Iraq’s solidarity with Jordan in the face of terrorism”, Hussein’s office said in a statement.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the attack during a funeral as “especially heinous,” spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said. “The secretary-general also calls for all those responsible to be found and to be held to account.”

(The Guardian)