Asia Pacific

The decision comes after ​an OpenAI agent breached ​an Australian government website in June.

Australia will make it mandatory for artificial ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠intelligence companies to immediately report when their ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AI models go rogue and to open their models for evaluation, the government said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday the government had accepted all recommendations from a rapid review into the breach, which “include ⁠⁠mandatory AI company reporting when ⁠⁠it comes ⁠⁠to misaligned behaviour or cyber-incidents, and consideration of reforming criminal ‌‌law in cases of serious misconduct”.

“Australia is the first mover in this space, and we want to make sure that we continue to work so that we can reap the potential benefits from AI,” he said.

The decision comes after OpenAI-powered models hacked into an Australian government health data system in June, slipping past its digital defences and accessing files without authorisation.

Top AI firms have recently raised the alarm regarding the risk of humans losing control of their systems, calling for AI development to slow down to a pace that allows it to be safely regulated.

Earlier this year, Anthropic’s safety research scientist Evan Hubinger went so far as to say he believes there is a greater than 10 percent chance that AI could “kill all humans” within a decade.

Rapid incident notifications

The new Australian AI regulator will oversee security controls throughout the development and deployment of AI systems, identify and manage serious risks, and conduct independent ‌‌evaluations of AI models.

The AI standards would also mandate rapid notification to the government of incidents such as “misaligned behaviour” conflicting with developers’ intentions.

Australian government documents define frontier AI as the most sophisticated models at the cutting edge of current technological capability.

Albanese told OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman that the US company took too long to inform the government of the incident. OpenAI apologised for the breach and its slow response.

Inquiry recommends law changes

A government inquiry into the June breach made several recommendations, including that the government consider changing the law.

The proposed AI regulator would follow Australia’s appointment of an eSafety Commissioner in 2015. The office describes itself as the world’s first government agency dedicated to keeping people safer online.

Since December last year, the commissioner has been enforcing a world-first ban on Australian children younger than 16 holding accounts on popular social media platforms.

‘We’re comfortable with the outcome of the investigation,’ Cricket Australia chief says after David Warner and Usman Khawaja’s revelations.

The top cricket official in Australia has ruled out another investigation into the so-called “sandpapergate” scandal despite remarks by Usman Khawaja and David Warner that knowledge of the 2018 ball-tampering plot was widespread throughout the team.

Cricket Australia (CA) ⁠boss Todd Greenberg said on Tuesday he believed all players held “very different views” from Khawaja’s version of events of the 2018 tour of South Africa as described in his recently released autobiography.

“There are specific details in his ⁠book that contradict the versions that have been provided by others,” Greenberg told ⁠local radio station SEN.

“But we have said we’re comfortable with the outcome of the investigation based on the information we’ve received,” he added.

“That includes what we’ve seen from Usman, and our position hasn’t changed on that. We don’t see any compelling reason to open the investigation or revisit this again. I don’t think ‌there’s anything that can be gained from that.”

CA imposed bans and other penalties on Warner, former captain Steve Smith and former Test batter Cameron Bancroft four days after the incident came to light during the Cape Town Test.

Khawaja, in extracts from his autobiography published in Australian media, said “open, lighthearted discussions” were held during the South Africa series about ways to scuff up the ball, including by using sandpaper.

He said discussion of tampering was not confined to batters, bowlers or staff but extended throughout the team.

“It was all of us,” Khawaja said in the book, ⁠according to Australian media.

Warner, who retired from international cricket more than two years ago, ⁠broke his silence about the incident on Monday to throw his support behind Khawaja.

In a video posted on social media, Warner described his former teammate’s account as 100 percent accurate and the CA investigation as “botched” and “rushed”.

The four Australian bowlers who played in the Cape Town Test in 2018 and continue to represent the nation – Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon – issued a joint statement in 2021 denying any knowledge of the plot.

Captain Cummins said in South ‌Africa last month that he had spoken to Khawaja about his autobiography and was not concerned about any potential fallout.

“Answered every question a million times. So, yeah, it was dealt with then,” he said.

Some commentators have questioned why Khawaja ‌waited ‌eight years to speak out and accused him of trying to boost sales of his book Sabr.

Khawaja responded on social media on Tuesday, saying he had no commercial motives.

“I’m very fortunate, I don’t need the money,” he said.

World leaders and delegates are gathering in Antalya, Turkiye, for COP31, the annual climate summit of the United Nations, which runs from November 9 to 20.

They meet as global emissions continue to climb. The world emitted 54.1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2025, 0.7 percent more than the year before and 68.5 percent more than in 1990, according to the latest figures from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide and methane, trap heat in the atmosphere, raising global temperatures and fuelling heatwaves, droughts, floods and other extreme weather conditions.

In this visual explainer, Al Jazeera breaks down which gases are warming the planet, which industries and countries emit the most, and how their emissions have changed over time.

Which gases are warming the planet?

Carbon dioxide (CO2) made up 73.8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2025. It is released mainly when fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas are burned, while deforestation removes trees that would otherwise absorb it.

Methane (CH4) accounted for 17.6 percent of emissions that year, followed by nitrous oxide (N2O) at 5.3 percent and fluorinated gases (F-gases) at 3.3 percent.

Global CO2 emissions have risen by 76.3 percent since 1990, according to the JRC.

How is a warming planet affecting the world?

As these gases build up in the atmosphere, they trap more heat. In 2025, the heat stored in the world’s oceans reached its highest level on record, and the rate of ocean warming has increased sharply over the past two decades, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Extreme weather has killed tens of thousands of people and forced millions from their homes in 2026, according to the WMO.

In Europe, heatwaves, droughts and wildfires between May and August caused more than 30,000 excess deaths, and 220,000 people were evacuated in France alone.

On August 26, a glacier collapse and the resulting flash flood in the Himalayas killed more than 1,500 people in Nepal along its border with China, while about 5,600 remain missing, according to the UN.

In June and July, Typhoon Bavi forced three million people to evacuate in China and killed 26 in the Philippines. Weeks later, severe Tropical Storm Maysak killed 171 people and caused more than $3bn in losses in China.

Earlier in the year, floods and windstorms across the western Mediterranean displaced more than 180,000 people in Morocco, while extreme cold and snow in North America killed 174 people.

The map below shows some of the most extreme weather events of 2026.

Where do the world’s emissions come from?

The world’s greenhouse gas emissions have more than doubled since 1970, rising from about 23 billion tonnes to 54.1 billion tonnes in 2025, according to the JRC.

The power industry, which generates electricity, is the largest source, producing nearly 30 percent of global emissions in 2025. Its emissions have roughly quadrupled since 1970, driven by soaring demand for electricity in fast-growing economies such as China and India.

Industry, including manufacturing and mining, is the second-largest source at 21 percent. This covers fuel burned in factories as well as gases released when producing cement, metals and chemicals. Industrial emissions climbed steeply in the 2000s as China’s manufacturing boomed.

Transport, including cars, shipping and aviation, is third at 16 percent.

Together, these three sectors produce about two-thirds of the world’s emissions. The rest comes from agriculture (12 percent), the extraction of coal, oil and gas (11 percent), buildings (6.6 percent) and waste (3.6 percent).

Global emissions have fallen only a handful of times since 1970, including in the early 1980s, after the 2008 financial crisis and during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Each time, they rebounded.

Who are the largest emitters of greenhouse gases?

In 2025, the three largest emitters produced almost half of the world’s greenhouse gases. China emitted almost 16 billion tonnes (29.5 percent), the United States 6.02 billion tonnes (11.1 percent) and India 4.51 billion tonnes (8.3 percent).

The 27 countries of the European Union together accounted for 5.8 percent, followed by Russia (4.8 percent), Indonesia (2.5 percent), Brazil (2.4 percent) and Iran (2.1 percent).

International shipping and aviation, which fall outside any single country’s total, together produced 2.6 percent of global emissions, more than most countries.

It was not always this way. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries drove up emissions first in the West, particularly in the United Kingdom and the US, as they built factories and moved to mass manufacturing. Global emissions then rose sharply after World War II and have more than doubled since 1970.

China’s emissions surged in the early 2000s as its economy boomed, and it overtook the US as the world’s largest emitter in the mid-2000s.

But measured over time, the picture changes. Since the mid-18th century, the US has produced 23.5 percent of all CO2 emissions, compared with 15.4 percent from China, according to the Global Carbon Budget.

Which industries drive each country’s emissions?

In China, the power sector is the largest source, producing 42 percent of the country’s almost 16 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases. Industry accounts for 31 percent and fuel production for 9.5 percent.

In September 2025, Chinese President Xi Jinping, for the first time, pledged to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 7 to 10 percent from their peak by 2035.

In the US, transport is the largest source at 29 percent, mostly from cars and trucks. The power sector accounts for 26 percent and industry for 14 percent.

In India, which still relies heavily on coal for electricity, the power sector produces 35 percent of emissions, followed by industry at 24 percent and agriculture at 19 percent.

Explore the table below to see which sectors produce the most greenhouse gas emissions in each country.

Markets rebound after tech rout triggered by Democrats’ sweeping victory in US midterm elections.

Asian stock markets have rebounded after last week’s tech rout triggered by the Democratic Party’s sweeping victory in the US midterm elections.

Key indexes in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong made substantial gains on Monday, following a rebound on Wall Street on Friday.

In Tokyo, the benchmark Nikkei 225 was up 3.45 percent as of 04:00 GMT.

In Taipei, the Taiex was 5.72 percent higher, while the Kospi in Seoul was up 1.68 percent.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was up 0.19 percent.

Futures for Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 were up 0.60 percent and 0.59 percent, respectively.

They had dipped earlier following US-based chip giant Nvidia’s announcement that it would investigate its CEO over a romantic relationship he conducted with a woman accused of being a Chinese spy.

Nvidia’s board of directors said that while it had confidence in CEO Jensen Huang and had no reason to believe that national security or company secrets were compromised, an independent inquiry would examine “all available information”.

The board said Huang supported the inquiry and pledged his full cooperation.

“The Board prioritizes U.S. national and economic security, which is paramount to the interests of NVIDIA and its shareholders,” the company said.

The stock market rebound comes after the US midterm results prompted a $2.5 trillion sell-off on Wall Street on Thursday amid concerns that Democratic-controlled legislatures could slow the rollout of data centres used to power AI.

The tech rout spilled into Asia on Friday, with the Nikkei 225 and Kospi plunging about 6 percent and 9 percent, respectively, and the Hang Seng Index dropping more than 1 percent.

Kozo Tashima believes he has a ’20 to 30 percent’ chance of winning the FIFA presidency election against Infantino.

The latest challenger to FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s re-election bid, Kozo Tashima, believes he has a 20 to 30 percent chance of winning the coveted seat in global football.

Tashima, the honorary president of the Japan Football Association (JFA), said governance is FIFA’s biggest problem as he outlined his platform for next year’s presidential election on Sunday.

“I’ve received many messages saying, ‘Thank you for speaking out’…,” Tashima told Japanese daily Sports Nippon.

Tashima announced on Thursday that he intended to run in the March election, becoming the first Japanese candidate to seek world football’s top job.

The 68-year-old former Japan international has served on the FIFA Council since 2015 and became JFA president the following year before being succeeded by Tsuneyasu Miyamoto in 2024.

“I’ve been contacted by presidents and international department officials from eight countries, including some outside Asia,” he said.

“While I haven’t received any formal endorsements yet, I’m getting a positive response. Since time is short and I don’t want to be held up by incomplete paperwork, I want to secure support from at least six associations.”

Tashima requires nominations from five national associations, a prerequisite for standing in the election.

Candidates have until November 18 to submit nominations for the election, in which Infantino is seeking a fourth term as head of world football’s governing body.

Infantino came under scrutiny in July after an unsuccessful attempt to bring private investors into a new FIFA commercial entity holding rights linked to competitions including the World Cup.

Despite the criticism, Infantino’s candidacy received a significant boost in October when the head of Asian football publicly endorsed him, while support from several FIFA confederations has left him well placed among the organisation’s 211 member associations.

“I’ll keep what’s good and change what’s bad…,” Tashima added. “The biggest problem, however, remains governance…

“Selflessness is my motto… At this stage, I think my chances of winning are about 20 to 30 percent, but as the campaign progresses, I want to raise my confidence to 40 or 50 percent. I truly want to change FIFA.”

Former Tottenham Hotspur defender Ramon Vega was the first candidate to publicly declare his intention to challenge fellow Swiss citizen Infantino last month.

Israel’s president officially tasks the opposition leader with forming a new government.

Israel’s opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot, the man officially tasked by President Isaac Herzog with trying to form the country’s next government, has said that he was open to including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his coalition lineup.

In a speech at Sunday’s ceremony in Herzog’s office in Jerusalem, Eisenkot suggested Netanyahu’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was also welcome to join.

“If members of Likud and the Religious Zionist Party truly believe this is a time for unity, as they told the president, I cannot conceive of any reason why they would not support a government under my leadership and the principles I have presented,” Eisenkot said.

Eisenkot, who ran as Netanyahu’s main rival, has six weeks to form a new government. At the ceremony, Eisenkot said he will act in the interests of the public and represent all parts of Israeli society.

Herzog, meanwhile, warned that the country faced uncertainties after the November 3 midterm elections in the United States, which brought victories for several political figures critical of Israel and the US’s military support.

“The State of Israel needs a stable government,” Herzog said, pointing to the “new political reality” in the US.

Eisenkot led Israel’s military from 2015 to 2019 and sat as an observer in Netanyahu’s war cabinet for the first eight months of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which began in October 2023.

Despite this, Arab-led parties endorsed Eisenkot for the mandate to replace Netanyahu.

In Israel’s October 27 elections, Eisenkot’s four-party alliance won 48 seats, while Netanyahu’s right-wing and religious bloc secured 53, leaving both short of the 61 needed for a parliamentary majority. Arab-led parties, representing Palestinian citizens of Israel, won a record 19 seats.

Eisenkot has ruled out forming a government with the Arab-led parties, which would give him a 67-seat bloc. Winning over the two ultra-Orthodox parties, United Torah Judaism and Shas, would give him exactly 61 seats.

He could also form a government with fewer than 61 seats if he wins a parliamentary confidence vote.

“Netanyahu still has time to derail Gadi Eisenkot’s efforts to form a government and sabotage attempts to gain a vote of confidence,” said Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

“In the meantime, he remains caretaker prime minister. If Eisenkot fails, Netanyahu would be the natural second in line to be tasked with forming a government. And if he fails, elections would then be called, and that would still allow Netanyahu to remain as caretaker.

“Many of Netanyahu’s critics say that is his aim. The big question in Israeli politics now is: does the opposition really want to get rid of Netanyahu? Or is the opposition to Palestinian Israelis in mainstream politics so strong that they’re willing to risk keeping Netanyahu in power by going back to the ballot box?”

Philippine’ tennis star Eala was left stunned after a 6-3, 6-0 loss to the 102-ranked American in Hong Kong.

Tennis trailblazer Alex Eala from the Philippines burst into tears as she reflected on a “life-changing” season after falling agonisingly short of a second WTA Tour title in Hong Kong.

The second seed was stunned 6-3, 6-0 by Claire Liu in the final of the Hong Kong Open as the American, ranked 102nd, won her first tour title on Sunday.

Eala is at a career-high 17 in the world after a breakout year in which the 21-year-old clinched her maiden title, in Washington, DC, in August.

That victory made her the first player from the Philippines to win a tournament on the WTA Tour.

Eala, set to rise to world number 15 next week, started the year ranked 50th.

“This season has changed my life; it’s changed my life for the better,” Eala, who finished the final with heavy strapping on her right leg, told the crowd afterwards.

Becoming emotional as she addressed her team in the stands, she said: “I’m incredibly proud of the work we’ve put in this year.

“We’re the only ones that truly know what it took to arrive to this point in our journey.

“This is only the beginning.”

The unnamed individual will be the first foreign national to visit China’s space station as part of Shenzhou-24 mission.

China’s Manned Space Agency has selected a Pakistani astronaut as a payload specialist for its upcoming Shenzhou-24 mission, making the unnamed individual the first foreign national to visit the country’s space station.

The Pakistani astronaut would join China’s Shenzhou-24 mission, as part of bilateral cooperation under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese state media reported on Saturday.

China has not identified the astronaut nor given a date of departure, but the mission is expected to take place by the end of the year.

Pakistani pilots Zeeshan Ali and Khurram Daud spent months training at the China Astronaut Research and Training Center in Beijing for a mission.

Last February, Pakistan and China, longstanding strategic and diplomatic partners, entered into an agreement, establishing a Chinese government-led programme to train Pakistani astronauts. China is Pakistan’s largest trading partner and a key foreign investor.

The China National Space Administration will also deploy Jinnah-1, Pakistan’s inaugural lunar rover. Weighing 35kg (77lb) and fitted with specialised scientific equipment, the rover is tasked with analysing plasma behaviour, radiation, and the composition of lunar soil.

The training programme includes practical operational exercises and intensive Chinese language lessons to prepare the candidates for the mission.

Beijing’s China Central Television reported that after completing a short-term in-orbit flight, the astronauts would return to Earth on board the Shenzhou-23 spacecraft.

China invested heavily in its space programme in recent years – catching up with its main rival, the United States – and aims to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030.

The US, Russia, and China are also racing to build nuclear reactors on the Moon. While the US space agency, NASA, announced plans to develop a nuclear reactor on the Moon by the end of 2030, Russia has been working with China and aims to do the same by 2036.

The reactors will be needed to power the mining of frozen water trapped deep in the moon’s craters, which scientists believe could supply drinking water, air, and rocket fuel for future bases. The reactors would also provide power for lunar bases.

On the sidelines of this month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shenzhen, China, an unprecedented three-way meeting between United States President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin could take place.

“China is in communication with relevant parties regarding a meeting between the three heads of state,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday.

“Work is under way to coordinate such a meeting,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, adding: “We hope that it will be finalised in the coming days.”

Trump has said he is open to three-way talks focused on nuclear weapons. “If President Xi wants to have it, I’d have it,” he told reporters last month.

The three leaders have met separately but have never held formal talks together.

So could the meeting, pencilled in for November 18-19, actually happen, and what would it mean for the rest of the world? Here’s what we know:

What would Russia get out of a three-way meeting with the US and China?

At the very least, a photo opportunity.

“It is a big event,” Alexander Bratersky, a Moscow-based journalist and political analyst, told Al Jazeera.

He pointed to Pyotr Tolstoy, chairman of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, who he said has described the meeting as a path towards a new Yalta – the 1945 conference where the leaders of the Soviet Union, the US and the United Kingdom shaped the post-war order in Europe.

That allows Moscow to “talk big”, Bratersky said, while putting Ukraine on the sidelines.

Simply being at the table would make Putin “first among equals”, he added, giving him a photo opportunity to show the world that he will be among those deciding the future of Europe’s security architecture after the war in Ukraine.

If the meeting produced results, he said, it would reflect China’s influence on Russia.

“We should take into account that we are dealing with a much weaker US leader after elections,” Bratersky said.

Trump remains in charge of foreign policy, he explained, but will have less leverage if Democrats, who won control of both chambers of Congress in this week’s midterm elections, start sending money to Kyiv.

“A meeting by itself will be a success,” he said. “Putin will be able to sell it at home”.

Whether anything comes of it should become clear within a month or so, Bratersky said, and the meeting could lead to another during the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Miami in December.

If nothing is produced before Christmas, he added, “it will be just a photo op.”

What does Trump want?

Optics and leverage.

Trump wants “a personal, high-drama encounter” that lets him claim he is “dealing with” the other two great powers on his own terms, Inderjeet Parmar, a professor of international politics at City St George’s, University of London, told Al Jazeera.

A three-way meeting would allow Trump to present himself as “the indispensable deal-maker”, Parmar said, talking up potential deals on Ukraine, trade, energy or arms control.

“After the midterms the domestic political need for a foreign policy ‘win’ is real,” he said.

Any image of Trump sitting with Xi and Putin could be spun as evidence that American power still commands the table, he said, “even if the substance is limited or largely symbolic”.

“The domestic audience, and his eroding MAGA base, matters at least as much as the diplomatic one,” Parmar said.

What does China want?

Not a summit on Ukraine.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he raised the idea of discussing Ukraine with Xi when they met in Beijing on October 30, and could see the “surprise” on his face, Germany’s DPA news agency reported.

Steinmeier told public broadcaster ARD that Xi said the three presidents would probably meet in Shenzhen, but not to discuss Ukraine.

He said Xi explicitly pointed out that the Russia-Ukraine war is a European conflict in which the “Europeans must sit at the table”.

Beijing is also likely to swat away Trump’s push for nuclear talks.

Last month, China’s Foreign Ministry said it would be “neither fair, reasonable nor realistic to ask China to join the so-called trilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations at this stage”.

What would a meeting mean for the rest of the world?

Allies could be sidelined.

Parmar said a three-way meeting would mark “a clear break from the post-1945 pattern”, in which Washington coordinated closely with its European and Asian allies before engaging with Moscow or Beijing.

“A free-standing trilateral [meeting] risks treating those allies as secondary players whose interests can be managed after the fact,” he said, adding that those interests could even be traded.

That would be a shift towards “personalised great-power diplomacy”, he said. But the Trump administration still has hopes to drive a wedge between Russia and China, Parmar added.

Fears of a “G3” are “understandable but overstated in institutional terms”, he said, because the three capitals’ interests diverge sharply on Ukraine, Taiwan, technology and the rules of the international economy.

“The real risk is not a formal G3 secretariat, but the normalisation of great-power deals struck with little consultation of those most affected,” he said.

“History offers many examples of such moments. They rarely produce stable order and often leave the excluded feeling the costs,” Parmar said.

Najib transitions to house arrest after his party UMNO raises $12m fine via crowdfunding.

Malaysia’s jailed former Prime Minister Najib Razak has been allowed to transfer to house arrest after his party paid a $12m fine following a royal pardon.

Najib’s lawyer, Farhan Shafee, told reporters on Friday that he has been given the order and will be “delivering that order to the Kajang prison right now”.

Najib, who denies any wrongdoing, has been held in jail since 2022, following his conviction for corruption and embezzlement of billions of dollars connected to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a state investment fund he co-founded while in power from 2009-2018.

His house arrest could start on Friday if everything goes to plan, Shafee said.

The order comes after Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim agreed in September to pardon Najib, allowing him to serve the rest of his sentence at home.

Najib’s party, the United Malays National Organisation, has reportedly used crowdfunding to cover Najib’s 50 million ringgit ($12m) fine, as his bank accounts have been frozen.

Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Kuala Lumpur, said this decision could cause a political stir in Malaysia.

“This has an awful lot of political spinoff, potentially impacting the political scene here in Malaysia,” he said. “But also there’s a lot of questions being asked about how the current politics have impacted this pardon.”

He said Anwar Ibrahim, the prime minister of Malaysia, has publicly raised concerns about the pardon within his capacity as the “anticorruption figurehead” in the country. But there has been speculation that he may have, behind the scenes, helped the pardon go through due to pressure from Najib’s party.

Investigators say about $4.5bn was stolen from the 1MDB state fund and more than $1bn of it was linked to Najib.

Najib has said he was solely blamed for a highly complicated global fraud scheme and has denied any wrongdoing.

Separately, he was also convicted in a major 1MBD trial in Malaysia, where he was sentenced to 15 years in prison and a $2.5bn fine for money laundering and the abuse of power.

He has appealed the case and his lawyers requested that the jail term and fines be halted, citing poor health and his inability to pay the fine.

A judge rejected his request in September, saying “the gravity of the offence ⁠is a more important public interest consideration.” Reporting from Kuala Lumpur, Al Jazeera’s McBride said Razak is due to return to jail to serve out this sentence as soon as his house arrest ends in 2028, but it is unclear at this stage if this will happen.

A tech stock rout that began overnight in the United States has persisted in Asian trading.

Market authorities in South Korea paused trading on Friday as prices plunged across the region. Global markets have been rattled by a sharp fall in the trading price of tech stocks, which is driven by fears that the Democrats’ victory in the US midterm elections will increase regulatory scrutiny of AI and slow the country’s data centre build-out.

Japan’s Nikkei index slumped 6 percent, its deepest one-day drop since April 2025. Indices in South Korea and Taiwan plunged more than 8 percent after the opening bell, before cutting losses as authorities scrambled to stem the selling.

Wall Street’s volatility “fear gauge” soared overnight on Thursday and the tech-focused Nasdaq sank 5.5 percent, wiping $3 trillion off S&P 500 firms, as investors fretted that the Democrats could put the brakes on the AI boom being encouraged by President Donald Trump.

“It was a brutal morning for many investors here in Asia. We saw that the AI sell-off continues here across many countries,” Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu reported from Beijing.

“Some of those major markets have fortunately recovered some of those losses, but all of them are still clearly in the red,” she said.

Analysts say the political jitters are hitting an AI trade already on shaky footing due to worries about returns on massive spending on related infrastructure.

“The selloff shows that AI stock prices had been built on rosy illusions about the future, and now that illusion is gone,” Dong Baozhen, chairman of asset manager Lingtong Shengtai, told the Reuters news agency.

“The US stock market has been the standard-bearer and backbone of the global AI bull run. Now that backbone has snapped. Can AI bull markets elsewhere hold up on their own?”

Authorities step in

Markets cut some of their losses by the time Asian markets closed, as authorities worked to stem the panic.

Trading on South Korea’s Kospi market was temporarily halted amid the sharp slide. Finance Minister Lee Hyoung-il also eased rules on retail investors’ leveraged investments.

In China, state entities stepped in to buy up equities in a bid to stabilise the market, said Al Jazeera’s Yu.

The Taiwan stock market closed down 4.5 percent, recovering somewhat from its early morning slump. For the week, the index clocked a 12.2 percent decline, its biggest since 1991, LSEG data showed.

The government of the island state, a key producer of chips, sought to talk up the prospects for the sector.

Demand ⁠for emerging technologies like AI, ⁠high-performance computing and ⁠cloud services is expected to keep expanding, driving ‌demand for tech companies, the economy ministry said in a statement issued on Friday.

Korean AI chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix fell nearly 6 percent and 9.4 percent respectively, cutting steep losses from earlier. TSMC fell as much as 8.5 percent in Taiwan, before closing down 4.7 percent.

In Japan, Kioxia plunged 11 percent while AI investor SoftBank Group slid 11 percent.

New regulations

The selling indicates investors are starting to factor in increased opposition to data centres. Analysts say markets have yet to fully consider the cost such building work has imposed on communities.

Toby Walsh, the chief scientist for the AI Institute at Australia’s University of New South Wales, said he expected new regulations on data centres in many countries, including the US, Australia and the United Kingdom.

“The developers were building them in a way that wasn’t actually getting social licence,” Walsh told Al Jazeera.

“They were building them in places where they didn’t need to build. You don’t have to build data centres in urban areas. You can build them in the middle of nowhere.

“I think it’s actually for the good of the tech industry in the United States that this has happened,” he added. “We’re spending money a bit too quickly. And maybe this is the way to let that bubble deflate in a manageable way.”

Hussey, known as ‘Mr Cricket’ for his technical expertise, will also work with Australia during the LA 2028 Olympics.

Mike Hussey was appointed on Friday as a consultant coach to the Australian team for next year’s blockbuster Ashes series against England and the 2027 Cricket World Cup.

The former Australian batsman revealed in August that England’s new red-ball coach, Stephen Fleming, had informally approached him to be their Test batting mentor.

But the 51-year-old turned down the audacious offer and has instead committed to helping his home nation arrest a batting crisis, highlighted by their recent 2-1 Test series defeat in South Africa.

Hussey, known as “Mr Cricket” for his technical expertise, will also provide coaching assistance during this month’s home T20 series against England and the subsequent four-Test series against New Zealand.

He will additionally work with Australia during the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, where cricket is on the agenda, and the T20 World Cup in 2028.

“I am extremely excited about being a part of the team in a more formal and meaningful role in the coming years,” said Hussey, who played more than 300 matches for Australia across all formats.

“This team has achieved so much in recent times, to which I hope I can add value to the coaching and playing groups ahead of what will be an exciting and challenging period.”

Hussey has extensive experience as a coach, including with both Australia and England.

He was part of England’s coaching setup when they won the T20 World Cup in 2022 and was the Chennai Super Kings’ longtime batting coach under Fleming in the Indian Premier League. He also led Welsh Fire in this year’s Hundred.

“Mike has been a highly valued part of our staff in the past and brings a considerable skill set which is complementary to the coaches and players,” said Australian head coach Andrew McDonald.

“Not only is his expertise as a player and coach across multiple formats, competitions, countries invaluable, so are his qualities as a person.”

Iran has exempted ships from India, China, Iraq and Qatar from its Strait of Hormuz restrictions, a senior Iranian lawmaker said on Tuesday.

“Ships from these countries pass freely, and the Americans do not intercept them either,” Amir Hayat Moqaddam, deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, told the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA).

Iran effectively shut the strait early in the US-Israel war on Iran, which began on February 28, and the United States reimposed a naval blockade on Iran’s southern ports in July.

So why have these four countries been granted passage through the critical strait, and can their ships really sail freely while the blockade remains in place?

What does Iran get in return for letting ships pass?

It will receive medicine from India and political backing from China, according to Hayat Moqaddam. Iran already receives diplomatic support from Qatar, which is leading mediation efforts to end the US-Israel war on Iran.

Hayat Moqaddam said Tehran will also collect transit fees from Indian and Chinese ships, while Qatari vessels pass free. He did not say whether Iraqi ships will pay a toll.

“Whatever the lawmaker says is the rationale – the big question is if it works and, if yes, to what extent?” Rouzbeh Parsi, an Iran analyst and affiliated researcher at Lund University’s Department of History and Human Rights Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“Iran has been under sanctions for a very long time, so bartering and quid pro quos in trade are nothing new,” he said. The difference now, he added, is that “it’s about poking holes in an embargo and getting crucial goods/services in and out”.

Nader Hashemi, an associate professor of Middle East politics at Georgetown University, said that “most likely Iran is charging a transit fee or a percentage of the cargo value to allow those ships to go through without being harassed”.

“It’s a clever move by Tehran for several reasons,” Wolfgang Pusztai, a security and defence analyst and Austria’s former defence attache to Libya, told Al Jazeera.

“If successful, this move will generate significant revenue for Iran, as China is by far the largest purchaser of Iranian crude oil, buying nearly 90 percent of Iran’s total oil exports,” he said.

By including Qatar, with its many liquefied natural gas (LNG) buyers, and India, Iran is also “trying to undermine acceptance” of Washington’s strategy in the conflict, especially as it charges Qatar no tolls, he added.

Why does it matter to these four countries?

All four are highly dependent on the Strait of Hormuz for exports.

Of the 10.23 million barrels a day of Gulf crude that passed through the strait in October, about 42 percent went to China and 13 percent to India, Muyu Xu, a senior crude oil analyst at the analytics firm Kpler, told Al Jazeera.

“China is the country most able to cross US interests. The question is whether Beijing considers it worth the potential political cost,” Parsi said.

Asia is particularly reliant on Gulf oil and gas usually shipped out via Hormuz. Countries there have much to offer in return for allowing ships to pass.

“For India, the shutdown of oil from the Gulf has been a great loss – and it is a big producer of the pharmaceuticals that Iran cannot manufacture itself,” he said.

Qatar, which is mediating between Washington and Tehran, shipped no LNG through the strait in August, but managed 1.8 million tonnes in October, Xu said.

Its crude transits fell over the same period, from 517,000 barrels a day to 193,000, while Iraq’s rose from 1.69 million to 2.65 million.

Kpler has been unable to trace the origin of up to two million barrels a day of Middle Eastern crude, so both countries’ flows may be higher, Xu said.

“India and Qatar have closer relationships with DC they need to maintain – while both of them also feel let down by Trump,” Parsi said, adding, “For Qatar, maintaining a relationship with Iran is also vital since it’s an unavoidable neighbour.”

“So for all of them, there are upsides for these exemptions from Iranian restrictions but also political dangers,” he said.

Is this announcement new?

Not entirely.

Iran began letting some vessels from countries it considers friendly pass within weeks of the war starting. And in April, its military command said “brotherly” Iraq was exempt.

With the Iraqi exemption, Iran “probably intends to support the economic recovery” of its western neighbour, a fellow Shia-majority country, Pusztai said.

Will ships be able to get past the US blockade?

That depends on Washington.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) has said the blockade applies to “all vessels of all nations entering or leaving coastal areas or ports in Iran”, while vessels avoiding Iranian ports are not affected.

It has also said humanitarian shipments, including “food and medical supplies essential for the survival of the civilian populations”, can pass after inspection.

But Hayat Moqaddam did not appear to limit the exemptions to ships trading with other Gulf states, Pusztai noted. “If this is really the case, this would also have a significant impact on the other Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia,” he said.

“This could make the continuation of the American naval blockade more difficult and less effective, assuming Washington accepts this Iranian move,” he said. The main change, he added, is that the exemption “would also cover Chinese/Indian ships from/to Iran”, if the US accepts it.

It is also unclear whether “ships of these countries” means the flag a vessel flies, its owner, its operator or some other link, Pusztai said.

Ending the blockade is one of Tehran’s demands before it will commit to broader peace talks with the US, which will include discussions about Iran’s nuclear programme. Qatar-mediated talks currently centre on an Iranian proposal to reopen the strait if the US meets seven conditions, including this and lifting sanctions.

“It seems to be that Iran tries to separate the questions of free passage through the Strait of Hormuz and oil exports from the nuclear question,” Pusztai said, adding, “The American reaction will show if this is successful.”

Will this make a difference to oil markets?

Not much, for now.

“I think they make only limited difference at present,” Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG Group, told Al Jazeera.

“Markets are back to pricing in a peace deal, but if conflict flares up at full tilt, then Iranian commanders may not have time to distinguish their targets,” he said, adding: “At present, the focus remains squarely on the prospects of a broader deal.”

An exemption has not guaranteed safety. On October 30, the Qatari LNG carrier Al Mayeda was struck by “unidentified objects” in the Gulf, said its owner, Qatar Gas Transport Company.

More than 120 commercial ships have been hit in the region since the war began, with October being the worst month, according to data from the International Maritime Organization and United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations.

Kozo Tashima second person to declare he will challenge Infantino, after former Spurs defender Ramon Vega.

Kozo Tashima, honorary president of the Japan Football Association, said on Thursday he will stand against Gianni Infantino in FIFA’s presidential election in March.

Tashima is the second person to declare he will challenge Infantino, following former Tottenham defender Ramon Vega.

The 68-year-old Tashima, who has served on the FIFA Council, said in a statement: “With the full support of the JFA I have decided to declare my candidacy in the FIFA presidential election.

“I believe it is important that the sincerity, integrity and high ethical standards that Japanese football has long valued and built up are clearly communicated to the global football community.

“In order to share these principles with the world and contribute to a better future for football, I have decided to run in the FIFA presidential election.”

Tashima, who was JFA president from 2016 to 2024, added, “Drawing on the experience I have gained over the years, I will take on this challenge with firm resolve so that I can contribute to the further development of world football.”

The deadline for candidates to declare for the election is November 18.

Incumbent Infantino, who is seeking to be re-elected to a fourth and final term as FIFA president, had faced stinging criticism and calls to quit after his aborted World Cup selloff plan.

But Infantino is now in a strong position to secure re-election after the Asian Football Confederation endorsed the 56-year-old last month.

Infantino earlier said he had the backing of the “vast, vast majority” of member associations, and dismissed calls for him to go.

Ten years ago, the Paris Agreement entered into force, binding nearly every country to a shared goal: to hold global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5C (2.7F).

A decade on, the deal has helped drive stronger climate policies and a rapid expansion of clean energy. But emissions remain near record highs, temperatures keep climbing and countries are still far from the cuts needed to keep a 1.5C limit within reach.

In this visual explainer, Al Jazeera looks at what the Paris Agreement set out to do, how far global temperatures have risen since and which countries are driving emissions.

What is the Paris Agreement?

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding climate treaty adopted by 196 parties at the United Nations climate summit in Paris, also known as COP21, on December 12, 2015. It entered into force on November 4, 2016.

The United States, the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter after China, has joined and left the agreement twice. President Donald Trump ordered both withdrawals. The first took effect in November 2020, and President Joe Biden rejoined in February 2021. The US left again in January this year, 12 months after Trump ordered its exit for a second time.

Today, 194 parties, 193 countries and the European Union, belong to the agreement.

Rather than imposing the same cuts on everyone, the agreement asks each government to set its own targets through nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, outlining how it will cut emissions and adapt to climate change.

Countries submit a new, more ambitious NDC every five years, and a Global Stocktake assesses collective progress on the same cycle. The agreement also covers reporting, climate finance and support for developing countries.

The agreement does not force countries to meet their targets. It relies on transparency and international pressure to raise ambition.

How close is the world to breaking the 1.5C limit?

Temperatures have kept rising since the deal was adopted.

In 2024, the planet was more than 1.5C warmer than preindustrial levels across a full calendar year for the first time.

The past three years, 2023 to 2025, were the hottest on record and the first three-year period to average more than 1.5C of warming.

The long-term warming average now stands at about 1.4C, and scientists expect it to surpass 1.5C around the end of this decade.

In October, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said the chance of keeping warming to 1.5C without overshooting it has been lost.

“Every additional fraction of a degree and additional year of warming above 1.5C increases climate impacts and risks, such as the deadly floods, heatwaves and wildfires that have plagued many nations this year,” UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said.

Still, the outlook is less bleak than it was in 2015.

When the Paris Agreement was signed, existing policies put the world on course for about 3.6C of warming by 2100. According to the Climate Action Tracker, that projection has since fallen to about 2.6C as countries adopted climate policies and clean energy expanded.

Progress has stalled since 2021, however, and current policies still point to far more warming than the agreement promised.

Which countries emit the most?

Carbon dioxide, the main driver of warming, comes mostly from burning coal, oil and natural gas while deforestation removes trees that once absorbed it.

China, the US and India now produce more than half of the world’s annual emissions. China alone emits more than the US, India, Russia and Japan combined although the US has released the most carbon emissions historically.

Investments in clean energy are now almost double those in fossil fuels, but emission cuts have been too slow to keep 1.5C within reach.

The graphic below ranks the biggest emitters in 2024 and shows how their emissions have changed since the agreement took effect in 2016.

China remains by far the largest polluter, and its emissions have kept rising alongside those of India and Indonesia as these fast-growing economies burn more coal to meet soaring power demand. Indonesia has climbed into the top 10, replacing Canada.

Germany, Japan and the US have cut their emissions, largely by replacing coal with renewables and gas. But growth elsewhere has outweighed those cuts, and global emissions are 9 percent higher than in 2016.

Seoul proposes expanding its Cheonghae unit’s operational areas to waters near Duqm in Oman amid pressure from US to support war on Iran.

South Korea plans to expand its anti-piracy patrols off the coast of Somalia to waters closer to the Strait of Hormuz, the Ministry of National Defense said, following pressure from the United States to provide support for the war on Iran.

The government will ask the National Assembly to extend the mandate of the Cheonghae unit, a naval task force due to expire at the end of 2026, a Defence Ministry spokesperson told the Reuters news agency on Thursday. The request would also widen the unit’s area of operations to waters near the port of Duqm in Oman, about 650km (403 miles) from the Strait of Hormuz.

The motion will go to lawmakers after the cabinet endorses it next week, the Yonhap news agency reported.

The Cheonghae unit has patrolled the Gulf of Aden since 2009 to protect commercial shipping. Its latest contingent sailed from South Korea’s Busan on October 2 on board the Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin, a 4,400-tonne destroyer carrying a maritime helicopter and about 300 service members.

Under the new mandate, the unit would push northeast into the Arabian Sea south of Oman, roughly doubling its operating radius to about 1,930km (1,200 miles), officials told Yonhap.

It would add 75 personnel, including a bomb disposal team, and a P-8A maritime patrol aircraft to help monitor shipping routes.

Officials told Yonhap the mission would be strictly noncombat and the unit would remain under South Korean command, operating independently of allied forces.

“The enhancement of the Cheonghae unit’s mission is to protect our citizens and safeguard our economic interests,” a defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Yonhap.

“Operations will remain restricted to the open waters south of Oman, and the maritime patrol aircraft will be prohibited from targeting or monitoring Iranian territory, territorial waters or the interior of the Strait of Hormuz during their missions,” he said.

The latest proposal follows pressure from US President Donald Trump for Seoul to support Washington’s war on Iran.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung pledged in April to help safeguard shipping during talks led by the United Kingdom and France. In September, he said he would avoid any deployment that could draw South Korea into the war.

Opposition lawmakers have argued against an expansion of the Cheonghae unit’s mission.

“Expanding the Cheonghae unit’s operational area amounts to a troop deployment,” Kim Joon-hyung, the floor leader of the small left-leaning Rebuilding Korea Party, said at a news conference at the National Assembly in Seoul on Wednesday.

“It is not a clever solution but a deceptive workaround.”

Kim warned that an expanded mission could expose South Korean forces to Iranian retaliation, even if Seoul insisted that its personnel would not take part in combat.

“If President Donald Trump boasts that South Korea was the first country in the world to dispatch troops, we would become the first country to join the Middle East war,” he said.

Wong, in prison since 2020, was found guilty of colluding with foreign entities in violation of the city’s national security law.

Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong, who has been in prison since 2020, has been jailed for an additional 10 years.

Hong Kong’s High Court found Wong guilty of colluding with foreign entities in violation of the city’s national security law on Thursday.

The sentence comes just two months before he was expected to be released in January 2027.

“The punishment must fit the gravity of ⁠the crime,” High Court Judge William Tam told a packed courtroom while delivering the sentence.

“It is also necessary for the court to express the community’s abhorrence of the defendant’s scheme and acts with others to collude with foreign forces or external elements to endanger national security.”

Wong, now 30, was accused of conspiring with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others to ask foreign countries, bodies or individuals outside China to impose sanctions or blockades, or engage in other hostile activities against the government.

He pleaded guilty to the charge in September. Tam said he considered a 13-year prison sentence as a starting point but reduced it to 10 because of Wong’s guilty plea and mitigation.

Wong was once the face of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and has been in jail since 2020. He was imprisoned over his role in protests held a year earlier.

The demonstrations were prompted by plans to allow extradition to mainland China but soon evolved into a wider pro-democracy movement. Wong became a prominent representative of the movement, regularly appearing on news channels. He later pleaded guilty to inciting and organising an unauthorised antigovernment assembly.

‘Endless political persecution’

Governments and rights groups criticised the court’s decision on Thursday.

The United States consulate in Hong Kong said that it “strongly condemns” the additional sentence handed to Wong, and called for his “immediate release”.

“Wong has been unjustly imprisoned since December 2020, demonstrating that Beijing will go to extraordinary lengths to silence those who advocate for fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong,” a consulate spokesperson said in a statement to the AFP news agency.

After his sentencing, Taiwan also criticised the “endless political persecution” of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists.

Beijing and the Hong Kong government use “authoritarian tools” to “fabricate charges … engage in endless political persecution, and suppress the people’s legitimate rights to pursue freedom, democracy, and human rights,” Taiwan’s top China policy body said.

Human Rights Watch denounced the latest charge against Wong. “The harsh sentence on baseless charges against Joshua Wong is cruel and unjust. Young people promoting social change are an asset for any vibrant society, but the Hong Kong government puts them behind bars,” said Elaine Pearson, the group’s Asia director.

Amnesty International also criticised Wong’s additional sentence, saying it was “another grim reminder of how Hong Kong’s National Security Law has become a tool to punish dissent”.

Days ahead of New Zealand’s election, polls show the governing centre-right National Party and the opposition centre-left Labour Party neck and neck, with neither on course to win enough seats to govern alone.

The outcome of the November 7 election could be decided by smaller parties under the country’s unique electoral system.

Here is what you need to know:

How does the election work?

New Zealand holds a general election every three years under a mixed-member proportional (MMP) system.

Voters cast two ballots: one for a candidate in their local electorate and one for a party.

Winning candidates in each of the country’s 71 electorates take their seats automatically. There are seven electorates reserved for Maori, New Zealand’s Indigenous people. Maori voters can choose to enrol on either the Maori electoral roll or the general roll.

The party vote decides how many seats each party gets overall. About 49 more seats are filled from party lists so that each party’s share of parliament matches its proportional share of the vote.

A party needs either 5 percent of the party vote, or one electorate win, to get a seat. In New Zealand’s 120-seat parliament, a majority usually means 61.

If a party wins more electorates than its share of the party vote entitles it to, it keeps them and extra seats are added to parliament. That happened in 2023, when Te Pati Maori won six of the seven Maori electorates, but had only 3.1 percent of the overall party vote.

Because seats in parliament closely track with the party vote, one party rarely wins a majority.

Every government since the MMP system was instituted in 1996 has been a coalition headed by Labour or National, except in 2020, when Labour under then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won big and governed alone.

Who are the two main candidates?

Incumbent Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is seeking a second term.

A former Air New Zealand chief executive, he entered parliament in 2020 as the MP for the Auckland seat of Botany and became leader of the National Party a year later.

He led National back to power in 2023, promising better economic management and ending six years of Labour-led government. He now governs in a three-party coalition with New Zealand First and ACT.

But his leadership has come under pressure. He survived two attempted no-confidence votes by National MPs in April and August, the second orchestrated by his own defence minister at the time.

The challenges came as his popularity declined, with rising economic pressure and political tensions within the governing coalition.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins, 48, is bidding to return to the top job.

First elected to parliament in 2008, he became prime minister in January 2023 after his predecessor, Ardern, resigned.

He lost power in an election that October but stayed on to lead Labour in opposition.

What are the key issues?

Most parties are campaigning on the economy, but their suggested remedies differ widely.

National is pledging to return the budget to surplus through fiscal discipline while expanding the national pension scheme.

Labour is focusing on the cost of living, promising cheaper healthcare and transport. It also plans to invest in jobs, housing and infrastructure, and to strengthen public services.

Smaller parties on both sides are taking aim at power companies and supermarkets. The right-wing populist New Zealand First party wants to break up major electricity companies and split one of the largest supermarket operators in two.

The Greens want a state-owned power company, a publicly owned supermarket chain and tougher rules against excessive grocery prices. They are also calling for a wealth tax and higher taxes on big companies and banks, while cutting income tax for most people.

Opportunity, a centrist party, wants a land value tax.

Immigration and voting rights are on the agenda too. ACT wants to deport serious offenders regardless of how long they have lived in New Zealand. New Zealand First is seeking to restrict voting to citizens. Currently, the right to vote also extends to legal residents who have lived in New Zealand for more than 12 months continuously.

Why is there no clear winner?

The real contest is between two rival blocs. National would need both its current coalition partners again, while Labour would depend on the Greens and possibly Opportunity.

Recent polls show no clear winner. A handful of seats either way could decide who governs.

That makes the 5 percent threshold for party participation in parliament crucial. If a smaller party narrowly misses it and also wins no electorate, its votes produce no seats, which could cost its bloc the majority.

Opportunity, for example, must either clear the 5 percent threshold of party votes or win an electorate for its votes to help Labour secure a majority coalition.

The final size of parliament is another unknown. Polls suggest Te Pati Maori may again win more electorates than its share of the party vote entitles it to, adding extra seats.

Each extra seat raises the bar for a majority. If parliament grows to 122 seats, a bloc would need 62 to govern instead of 61.

Who are the smaller parties?

New Zealand First is led by Winston Peters, who has said he wants the country to leave the Paris climate agreement and the central bank to target employment and inflation.

ACT, led by David Seymour, describes itself as a classical liberal, right-libertarian party. It holds 11 of parliament’s 123 seats.

The Greens, a left-leaning environmental party led jointly by Chloe Swarbrick and Marama Davidson, have made social justice, living costs, nature and political funding reform their central themes.

They also want to expand home insulation and offer zero-interest loans for household solar panels and batteries.

Te Pati Maori is co-led by Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. Its campaign has centred on enrolling more voters on the Maori electoral roll, housing, health, education, environmental protection and constitutional transformation.

Opportunity, founded by economist Gareth Morgan in 2016, has never won a seat in parliament, peaking at 2.6 percent of the vote in 2017.

Its leader, Auckland businesswoman Qiulae Wong, says the party is neither left nor right and is focused on boosting economic growth.

Who will be the kingmakers?

Smaller parties often end up deciding which of the two main parties governs.

In 2017, although National won 56 seats to Labour’s 46, it could not form a majority. Labour took power instead by forming a coalition with New Zealand First, supported by the Greens.

New Zealand First has played kingmaker for both sides, having also backed National after the 1996 election, the first held under MMP.

Te Pati Maori, now in opposition, has helped the two main parties govern too, supporting National-led governments after the 2008, 2011 and 2014 elections.

The role can secure senior posts in government for the junior parties. Winston Peters secured the role of deputy prime minister in Luxon’s government until May 2025, and ACT’s David Seymour has held the job since mid-2025.

This time, the newest potential kingmaker is Opportunity. If Labour needs its seats to govern, the party would play the role for the first time, a decade after it was founded.

Kim Yo Jong refuses dialogue with US after denying responsibility for theft of more than $6bn in crypto assets from Binance.

North Korea has fired several missiles into the Sea of Japan, according to South Korea’s military, hours after Pyongyang denied allegations that it was behind the theft ⁠of more than $6bn in crypto assets from Binance.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Wednesday that it had detected the launch of several missiles from the Sondok area on North Korea’s eastern coast towards the Sea of Japan.

It said authorities in South Korea and the United States were analysing the details of the launches.

The tests marked Pyongyang’s fourth such weapons launch in a month. They came a day after North Korea denied involvement in the Binance hack, dismissing an FBI announcement that North Korean hackers were responsible as “a trite provocation”.

Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, said on Friday that hackers stole more than $6bn in what appears to be the largest cryptocurrency heist on record.

The FBI later said North Korean hackers had orchestrated the theft, attributing it to a hacking group known as TraderTraitor, which was also behind a $1.5bn hack of the Bybit exchange last year.

Early on Wednesday, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said Pyongyang viewed the FBI announcement as “an extension of Washington’s invariable hostile policy toward” North Korea.

She ruled out dialogue with Washington until the US abandoned that policy.

“It is our clear stand that we have no need to sit face to face with such unreliable and hostile persons,” she said. “The choice for peace includes dialogue, of course, but this is not surely equated with national interests for us.”

US President Donald Trump said in August that he plans to meet Kim Jong Un later this year, seeking to revive the bond he claims to have forged with the North Korean leader during his first term.

Trump said it was important to “get along” with Kim, adding that Pyongyang had 57 “very powerful” nuclear weapons.

Previous rounds of talks between Kim and Trump in 2019 abruptly ended amid disagreements over Pyongyang’s nuclear programme. In October, the US, South Korea and Japan again reiterated their call for the “complete denuclearisation” of the Korean Peninsula.

The call came as North Korea has accelerated its weapons testing this year, in what analysts say is likely a bid to increase its leverage in any future diplomacy with the US.

Its recent tests have included a submarine-launched ballistic missile, hypersonic missiles, attack drones, and cluster bombs designed to be carried by ballistic missiles.

On Tuesday, Pyongyang said it had tested a new cluster warhead for strategic cruise missiles the previous day, claiming it could destroy an area of 5 to 6 hectares (12 to 15 acres) with “high-density power”.

The latest launches followed a North Korean state media report that Kim had visited a naval shipyard building a destroyer and stressed the importance of a powerful navy.

FIFA Council members may view documents related to Gianni Infantino’s doomed plan, but only in person in Zurich

FIFA will release details of President Gianni Infantino’s aborted plan to sell off stakes in future World Cups to private investors, but they will not be shared with the public.

Reports in the British media said members of the FIFA Council, the main decision-making body of football’s world governing body, will be given access to “key documents” related to the proposal, named FIFA Forward Enterprise.

However, they can only view them under “strict protocols to preserve confidentiality”, the reports said. Those include the 37 members of the council having to register for an in-person appointment to view selected paperwork in Zurich, Switzerland, in the next two weeks.

The news came out late on Monday, the deadline European football’s governing body, UEFA, had set for FIFA to release details about the $4.2bn scheme and answer questions about how the proposal came about and who approved it before the plans were dropped in July amid a worldwide backlash.

UEFA set the deadline after a tense council meeting at which Infantino apologised for the proposal but provided no details about how the plan was formed. He asked council members to submit their questions in writing.

UEFA is leading attempts to remove Infantino before or at the FIFA presidential election on March 18 in Rabat, Morocco. Infantino, who was elected in 2016, is seeking a fourth term through 2031.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Across the Asia-Pacific region, governments and businesses reeling from the energy shock of the United States and Israel’s war on Iran are watching Tuesday’s US midterm elections closely.

Many want to see “enormous changes” during the rest of President Donald Trump’s term, analysts say, from the war on Iran to his policies on trade and tariffs. But few expect that to happen, even with the Democrats poised to take the House of Representatives, and potentially the Senate, from Trump’s Republican Party.

“Of course, everybody is watching,” said Steven Okun, a trade specialist and the chief executive of APAC Advisors, a Singapore-based consulting firm. “It’s great political theatre.”

Outside the Middle East, no region has been hit harder by the war on Iran than the Asia-Pacific. Before the start of the conflict in January, the region took in most of the Gulf oil and gas that passed through the Strait of Hormuz.

When Iran closed the chokepoint in response to the US and Israel’s strikes, much of the region was left facing shortages.

The Philippines, which relies on the Gulf for more than 90 percent of its crude oil imports, has been under a national energy emergency since March. Soaring fuel costs have drained the foreign exchange reserves of the region’s poorest economies – Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and East Timor, according to the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS)-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam have also spent heavily on fuel subsidies to shield consumers, it said.

Public opinion in the Asia-Pacific region remains firmly opposed to the war, but Okun said a Democratic-controlled US Congress was unlikely to force Trump to end the eight-month conflict.

“With Iran, I don’t see [a Democrat-controlled Congress] having much change at all, other than the fact that the war will be investigated and there will be oversight hearings,” Okun told Al Jazeera. “We might even see an impeachment of the secretary of defence, but it doesn’t change the overall impact of the war.”

Under the US Constitution, Congress holds the power to formally declare war, but Trump has claimed the attacks on Iran were in self-defence and has so far ignored congressional resolutions directing him to withdraw US forces from hostilities. If a Democrat-controlled Congress passes legislation restricting military operations or cutting funding for them, Trump can veto it. Overriding a veto requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers, which Democrats are almost certain to fall short of.

‘Tariffs don’t change’

On trade and tariffs, too, analysts see little room for Congress to rein in Trump.

The US president rattled global markets last year when he imposed “reciprocal” tariffs of 10 percent to 50 percent on some 90 countries, with the aim of shrinking the US trade deficit. Asia was again hit harder than most. Cambodia faced a 49 percent tariff and Laos 48 percent. Vietnam was slapped with 46 percent and Myanmar 45 percent.

After the Supreme Court struck down those tariffs in February, the Trump administration turned to other tools. In July, it imposed tariffs of 10 percent and 12.5 percent on goods from 60 trading partners, accusing them of failing to stop imports made with forced labour. In Asia, the list includes China, Japan, South Korea and seven Southeast Asian nations – Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

“In some ways, the new Congress is not going to matter to the Asia Pacific because it’s not going to affect trade policy,” Okun said. “Congress cannot change that … Tariffs don’t change. The war doesn’t change.”

Still, some analysts see a narrow opening.

Stephen Olson, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, argued in a recent essay that a “strong rebuke of ‘Trumpism’” at the polls could embolden a pro-free-trade wing of the Republican Party that has been “intimidated into standing down during the Trump presidency”.

That, Olson wrote, offers “a glimmer of hope” for Southeast Asian countries that depend on the US market. A Democratic-controlled Congress, he said, could also push for carve-outs and exceptions that would give the region’s exporters “a modicum of relief”. But any deeper shift in US trade policy, he added, will have to wait for the 2028 presidential election.

Joshua Kurlantzick, a senior fellow for Southeast Asia and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the region’s wish list goes beyond trade to security.

“I think nearly all of Asia would like to see enormous changes, across many domains, during the rest of Trump’s term,” he told Al Jazeera. “But I think much of the region believes this will not happen.”

Besides “more stability” in trade and tariff policy, Asia-Pacific countries “would like to feel more stable in security guarantees from the US,” he said. They would also like a “more clear, obvious US presence” in the South China Sea, where China’s claims overlap with those of five Southeast Asian nations, and in the Taiwan Strait, which separates China from Taiwan, the self-governed island Beijing claims as its territory.

Businesses will also be watching whether a major Republican loss leads to “greater GOP willingness in Congress to stand up to Trump, along with Democrats, on issues important to companies in Asia,” Kurlantzick said, including tariffs, trade policy, arms sales and “overall economic unpredictability”.

US-China ties

One area where analysts do expect some change is US policy on Chinese technology.

The new Congress, whichever party controls it, will pass tougher restrictions on China, said Okun at APAC Advisors.

These include the Remote Access Security Act, which would extend export controls to remote access of US goods, software or technology and the Chip Security Act, which would require companies to verify that advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips remain in authorised locations, to prevent diversion to foreign adversaries. It also includes the Multilateral Alignment of Technology Controls on Hardware Act, known as the MATCH Act, which would press allies to bring their controls on chipmaking equipment in line with Washington’s, to keep advanced chipmaking technology out of China’s hands.

“The next Congress is going to pass them regardless of midterms because both parties agree on them,” Okun said. “The person who is least restrictive now on China is the US president,” he added, referring to Trump’s courting of China’s President Xi Jinping.

The two men have met twice this year as ties have warmed after a bitter and costly trade war last year. To preserve the fragile trade truce, Trump has also held off approving a $14bn package of arms sales to Taiwan, which would be the largest ever for Taipei.

Some analysts meanwhile worry that a lame-duck Trump, hemmed in at home by a Democratic Congress, could turn more forcefully to foreign policy.

“We should not be surprised by continued erratic foreign policy,” said James Guild, an assistant professor at the Indonesian International Islamic University.

“The Democrats have a poor record of effectively opposing and holding Trump accountable using conventional tools of congressional oversight,” Guild said. “We will have to wait and see if they rise to the moment this time.”