Ashley Cornell, email: [email protected]

The right-wing conservative Likud party of opposition leader Netanyahu is likely to be the strongest force. Prime Minister Lapid’s Future Party comes in second.

Controversial former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is about to make a political comeback. According to post-election polls, the camp around his Likud party won the Israeli parliamentary elections on Tuesday. As reported by TV channel Kan, the Netanyahu bloc will have 62 of the 120 seats in the Knesset. The encampment around current Prime Minister Yair Lapid has just 54 terms.

Exit polls from other television stations also saw a narrow majority go to the long-time former prime minister’s camp, beset by corruption. The deciding factor here was the strong performance of Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Religious Zionist Party, which, with 14 to 15 seats, became the third strongest party behind Netanyahu’s Likud and the future Lapids Yesh Atid party. According to election polls, the Likud party won 30 to 31 seats, the future party 22 to 24 seats.

Highest number of voters since 1999

According to the Central Election Committee, the turnout of the 6.8 million eligible voters as of 7pm (CET) was 66.3% – the highest level since 1999. The electoral committee did not expect final preliminary results before Thursday. fair. Past elections have shown that the picture may still change before all votes have been counted.

When the final official result is known, President Yitzhak (Isaac) Herzog decides who will be given the task of forming the government. The candidate then has four weeks to form a coalition. Like last year’s election, however, it can take weeks or months for a government to form. Netanyahu was first given the task of forming a government but failed to forge a coalition.

Permanent crisis in Israel

The Mediterranean country with nine million inhabitants has been in a permanent crisis for years. Past elections have often led to unclear majorities. The current eight-party coalition led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett collapsed in June after losing a majority after just 12 months. Foreign Minister Lapid took over as head of government. The extremely unusual alliance was supported by parties from the right to the left – an Arab party was also in government for the first time.

Opposition leader Netanyahu, accused of corruption, wants to return to the post of prime minister. The 73-year-old has been head of government in Israel several times, for a total of more than a decade and a half. Netanyahu aims to form a far-right religious coalition that can help him pass sentence evasion legislation.

The partisan landscape in Israel is highly fragmented and driven by interests. Even parties from similar camps often fail to form alliances. In addition to content differences, this is also due to personal disputes.

A total of 120,000 Russian citizens will be summoned, 7,500 fewer than in the same period last year, and the procedure for entering the armed forces will last until December 31.

“Soldiers performing conscription service perform duties according to the type of unit they are assigned to, but they are not sent to the special military operations zone,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said after meeting with the top Russian military command.

At the same time, he stressed that those who completed their year of compulsory military service will return to their homeland this fall.

The Russian military command insisted on a guarantee that the recruits would not be sent to the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, as well as to the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions recently annexed by Moscow.

However, the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that recruits “will almost certainly be sent to Ukraine in March or April 2023” once the period of military instruction is up.

According to the ISW, recruits can also be deployed earlier, depending on the situation on the battlefield.

Fall recruitment in Russia normally starts on October 1, but this year it was delayed a month due to a partial mobilization decreed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 21 to deal with military setbacks in Ukraine.

On Friday, Shoigu considered the head of state’s mission complete and announced that the plan to mobilize 300,000 reservists had also been completed, of which, he said today, 87,000 had already been deployed to the military combat zone in Ukraine.

The call for compulsory military service is carried out throughout the Russian Federation, with the exception of 25 municipalities of five federated entities in the far east of the country due to their geographical location and climatic conditions.

“Most recruits are sent to training units where they learn how to use modern weapons and receive training in military specialties in five months,” said Rear Admiral Vladimir Tsimlianski of the Mobilization Branch of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. .

According to Tsimlianski, the more than 25,000 recruiting commissions have all the elements to equip recruits.

During the partial mobilization for the Ukraine campaign, reservists complained about the lack of basic equipment and being forced to buy it with their own money.

Russian law states that all Russian citizens between the ages of 18 and 27 must do military service, which lasts one year. In Russia, evading conscription is punishable by up to two years in prison.

Between May 1 and September 20 this year, 410 criminal cases were opened against those who escaped conscription, according to the RBC information portal, indicating that this is the highest number of cases in the last decade.

Also read: Burkina Faso plans to recruit 50,000 civilians to fight Islamic extremism

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Groups of truckers are blocking a highway in Rio de Janeiro this Tuesday ANDRÉ COELHO (EFE)

The street chaos sparked by Bolsonaro protesters in different parts of Brazil has forced state authorities to mobilize the police. The leaders of the country’s three most populous states, allies of President Jair Bolsonaro, have deployed the security forces to comply with a federal court order calling for the “immediate” release of the closed lines of communication. Protests by groups of truckers and other supporters of the president against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victory have affected more than 300 freeways in twenty states.

After hours of blockades on the streets, state authorities have hit the table. São Paulo governor Rodrigo Garcia, who backed Bolsonaro in the second round, told a crisis cabinet that the blockades were “inadmissible”. “The election is over,” said Romeu Zema of Minas Gerais, another ally of the current president. The government of Rio de Janeiro has also sent state police to clear the streets. In some cases, security forces have used tear gas to disperse protesters.

The mobilization of the governors corresponds to a decision by the Federal Court of Justice, which requires the release of the freeways and, in addition, authorizes the state police to intervene on all types of roads, including federal roads. According to the decision, truckers who resist are threatened with a fine of 100,000 reais per hour, around 20,000 euros. Minister Alexandre de Moraes has also warned the director of the federal highway police, Silvinei Vasques, a declared Bolsonarist, that he could be arrested if he did not comply with the order.

Hundreds of blockades have been registered since Bolsonaro’s election defeat on Sunday evening. Roads affected at times include the main highway between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo and the one that connects that city to Garulhos International Airport, the country’s largest, which had to cancel 25 flights as of morning Tuesday.

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At the São Paulo bus station, companies stopped selling tickets to Rio de Janeiro. Those trying to make the journey on Monday afternoon had to return to the starting point and travelers staying overnight at the station. The blockades are now affecting the transport of agricultural products. The Brazilian Confederation of Supermarkets, in a statement shared with CNN, highlighted the “supply difficulties” and asked Bolsonaro for “assistance” to resolve the situation.

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The protagonists of the blockades are the most radical supporters of Bolsonaro. While much of Bolsonarianism’s public figure has already acknowledged the results, there is a base on the extreme right that insists on denying defeat and even calls for military intervention to prevent the transition. “This is our country! Long live democracy!” shouted the demonstrators, wrapped in Brazilian flags, on the way to São Paulo airport. The trucking sector is one of the most loyal to the President, who has benefited them with subsidies to buy fuel and a relaxation of traffic rules.

Lula’s Labor Party blames Bolsonaro for the chaos on the streets. The formation’s president, Gleisi Hoffmann, said the president was looking for “a political target.” He also branded the director of the Federal Road Police as a “criminal”, whom he accuses of complacency in the blockades. “He is damaging the image of the police and Bolsonaro continues to damage the image of Brazil,” he wrote. The Homeless Workers’ Movement, an association that supports Lula, has called on its militants to demonstrate to try to open the streets.

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The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday warned of a deadly cholera outbreak spreading rapidly in Lebanon as neighboring Syria also battles a resurgence of the disease.

Lebanon’s first cholera outbreak in decades began earlier this month as the country faces poor sanitation and crumbling infrastructure after three years of unprecedented economic crisis.

“The WHO is warning of a deadly cholera outbreak in Lebanon, where cases are rising,” the organization said in a statement.

“The situation in Lebanon is fragile as the country is already grappling with other crises compounded by ongoing political and economic deterioration,” said Abdinasir Abubakar, the WHO representative in Lebanon.

More than 1,400 suspected cases have been reported nationwide since October 5, including 381 confirmed cases and 17 deaths, the WHO said.

The outbreak, initially confined to the poor north, has “spread rapidly” and confirmed cases are now being reported across the country.

This situation prompted WHO to help Lebanon procure 600,000 doses of cholera vaccine. Efforts to secure more doses are “underway given the rapid spread of the outbreak,” the WHO said.

Syria has been gripped by a cholera outbreak since September, after more than a decade of war that damaged nearly two-thirds of water treatment plants, half of pumping stations and a third of water towers, according to the United Nations.

The strain of cholera identified in Lebanon is “similar to that circulating in Syria,” the WHO said.

Most cholera cases in Lebanon involve Syrian refugees, Lebanese authorities said. About 2 million Syrians have found refuge in Lebanon, often living in deplorable conditions.

Aided by the lack of sanitation systems or drinking water, cholera is generally transmitted through contaminated food or water, causing diarrhea and vomiting. It can be easily treated but can be fatal within hours if left untreated, according to the WHO.

Frequent and prolonged power outages across Lebanon have disrupted the work of water pumping stations and sewage networks.