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Italy’s parliament is voting on Thursday on a new electoral law that would make it easier for election winners to form a majority government.

The law, proposed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, would award extra seats to any party or coalition that obtains more than 42 percent of seats in both parliamentary chambers, ensuring it holds a majority.

Meloni has framed the legislation as a route to greater stability in Italy’s political system, which has often been run by fragile coalition governments. Her critics, however, say the move is actually aimed at boosting her own chances in elections next year.

Here’s what we know about the electoral law and what it means for Italian politics:

What is Italy’s current electoral system?

Italy currently has a mixed electoral system for its 600-seat parliament, with about 36 percent of members of parliament elected directly in constituencies where the candidate with the most votes wins, and the rest decided through proportional representation.

The system, called “Rosatellum”, has been in place since 2017. It encourages coalition-building but can produce fractured results that make a governing majority hard to forge.

What would the new law change?

The new legislation would replace the mixed electoral system with a fully proportional one, as well as awarding extra seats to the party or coalition that wins the most seats if it secures at least 42 percent in both chambers.

The bonus would be as many as 70 seats in the 400-member Chamber of Deputies, the lower house, and up to 35 seats in the Senate, which has 200 elected members.

That means if a party or coalition meets the 42 percent share threshold in both chambers, it would have stronger power to govern. If no party or coalition meets the threshold, representation would be decided proportionally.

The new law would also force coalitions to announce their candidates for prime minister before the elections. Rado Fonda, head of research at Italian pollster SWG, told the Reuters news agency this provision could “prove problematic for the centre-left, potentially forcing an early leadership contest and exposing divisions that could weaken the bloc”.

Meloni, who currently leads the country’s longest-serving government since World War II, has said the reform will help stabilise the country rather than serve any one political group. “Whoever wins the elections will have the numbers to govern,” she said.

What stage is the legislation at?

The proposed law has already been approved by the Senate and must now undergo a final secret-ballot vote in the Chamber of Deputies.

Giovanni Orsina, a political scientist at Rome’s Luiss Guido Carli University, predicted that the law is “extremely likely” to pass.

If it fails, Meloni has said she will resign.

Why is the legislation controversial?

Opponents say the law is undemocratic because it could potentially grant a winning coalition a disproportionate level of power in parliament.

They also say that the legislation is intended to favour Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party (Fdl) is bracing for a tough election battle next year.

Riccardo Magi, head of the liberal More Europe party, who is on a hunger strike to protest the proposed reform, has called it an “anti-democratic law” that risks giving a minority bloc a huge majority in parliament.

Senator Matteo Renzi, who leads the Italia Viva party, has accused Italy’s governing coalition of pushing the electoral reform due to a fear of losing power.

Other critics have pointed out that the law would do little to stabilise the political system if no party or coalition reaches the 42 percent threshold in both chambers – a relatively high bar.

“This could produce a hung parliament, making post-electoral negotiations necessary to form a government,” Vincenzo Emanuele, a political science professor at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome and a member of the Italian Center for Electoral Studies (CISE), told Al Jazeera. “Even relatively small changes in coalition composition could make the difference between a clear parliamentary majority and a situation of political deadlock.”

When are Italy’s next elections, and what do the polls show?

Italy’s next general election must be held by December 22, 2027, although the government can call elections earlier if it wishes.

Currently, Meloni’s Fdl is polling ahead of all other parties, with 27 percent support, according to Politico’s polling aggregator. Her coalition partners, Lega and Forza Italia, have a combined 12 percent support, according to Politico, bringing the coalition share to 39 percent.

Fdl’s polling has been dented by support for a new far-right group, Futuro Nazionale (National Future), Reuters reported. It currently has 7.8 percent support, according to Italian polling institute SWG.

In opposition, the Democratic Party (PD) has 21 percent support, the Five Star Movement (M5S) has 12 percent and the Alliance of Greens and Left (AVS) has 6 percent, according to Politico. The Italy Viva (IV) and More Europe parties have 2 percent support each.

Emanuele said the current landscape means the proposed electoral law would not necessarily favour Meloni and could even benefit the opposition.

He said recent simulations by the CISE have shown that a centre-left coalition including the PD and M5S could potentially reach 44 percent of the vote, securing a “comfortable parliamentary majority”, though that could change if Meloni allies with National Future.

“The reform does not inherently favour the incumbent government: Its effects will depend crucially on how the competing coalitions are formed,” said Emanuele.

Dozens of people have been injured in the protests, including students, teachers, and police officers.

Protests have resumed at schools across France as high school students press on with demands for more education funding and better conditions, the day after the country’s prime minister ordered ministers to provide an action plan.

Reporting from Paris, Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler said university students and more trade unions have joined the nationwide protests and that a large rally is expected in the capital on Thursday.

“They are moving around, trying to block off the streets,” Butler said from outside one school, where university students were barricading a large area.

“They are out, they say, in solidarity with high school students because they say it’s important that as many young people join in the protests as possible,” she added.

The wave of protests began in a high school in a deprived area of Paris on September 21 . Tens of thousands of students across the country have since marched with a range of demands, from renovated school buildings to fewer classroom hours.

Police response under scrutiny

Rights groups have accused security officials of using disproportionate force against protesters.

Several demonstrators have been injured, including one teenager who lost a hand and another whose jaw was shattered by an exploding stun grenade. They have since been banned at marches.

Police officers and teachers have also been injured, authorities say, accusing students of committing violent acts. At least 6,600 arrests – mostly of minors – have been made so far, according to the Interior Ministry.

Authorities said 375 schools were either fully or partially closed on Thursday, and that two dozen had been burned or destroyed.

The demonstrations are increasing pressure on the cash-strapped outgoing government of Emmanuel Macron ahead of April elections.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu condemned the violence in a TV address on Wednesday. He faulted “political leaders who use this anger to conduct their electoral battles”, after opposition leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon called for protesters to keep marching.

Lecornu has ordered ministers to provide an action plan responding to students’ demands by the end of the month, but protesters remain unconvinced.

“As far as they are concerned, the government only talks about solutions but never actually comes up with concrete actions, so they say they are going to keep coming out onto the streets until their demands are met,” Butler said.

French high school students have been protesting for more than two weeks over conditions in schools, including overcrowded classrooms and staff shortages, and they show no sign of stopping.

The unrest began on September 21 when pupils blockaded a school in the Paris suburb of Creteil, and within a week, their protest had spread across the country with students and police clashing violently.

On September 29, the demonstrations coincided with a nationwide public sector strike, in which teachers joined other state workers against a proposed pay freeze. More than 6,100 people have since been arrested.

With the government under pressure to rein in spending as its debt rises, Al Jazeera looks at how much France invests in education, how it compares with the rest of Europe and how it measures up against what the country spends on healthcare and defence.

How much does France spend on schooling?

According to the latest data from Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency, France’s public spending on education amounts to 5.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP). That figure does not include private spending, such as school fees paid by families.

The French Ministry of National Education uses a broader measure, known as domestic expenditure on education, which counts all the money that goes into education, whether from the state, local authorities, businesses or households. As well as teaching, it covers adult and continuing training and related costs such as school meals, boarding and transport.

By this measure, France spent 199.2 billion euros ($223bn) on education in 2025, equivalent to 6.7 percent of its GDP and 2.4 billion euros more than in 2024, according to provisional ministry figures.

Spending has more than doubled since 1980, even after accounting for inflation. But the economy has grown too, so education spending’s share of GDP is lower today than it was in the mid-1990s.

Secondary education accounted for the largest share of spending at 73.7 billion euros (37 percent), followed by primary education at 60 billion euros (30 percent), higher education at 45.6 billion euros (23 percent) and adult and continuing education at 19.7 billion euros (10 percent), according to the National Education Ministry.

How much do other European countries spend on education?

Among European countries, Sweden spends the largest share of its GDP on education at 7.3 percent in 2024, followed by Iceland (7 percent) and Belgium, Estonia and Finland (6.3 percent each), according to Eurostat.

The lowest spenders are Ireland (2.7 percent), Greece (3.9 percent), Romania and Italy (4 percent each), and the United Kingdom and Spain (4.1 percent each).

At 5.1 percent, France is joint 13th, level with the Netherlands and Slovakia, and above the EU average of 4.8 percent.

But above-average spending has not shielded France from a problem affecting much of the developed world. Teacher shortages are growing across countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, according to the OECD’s latest Education at a Glance report.

Rather than leaving posts empty, many countries are filling them with teachers who lack full qualifications. In the 2024-2025 school year, 9 percent of primary and secondary teachers across the OECD were not fully qualified.

In France, the strain is most visible in secondary schools. About 11 percent of secondary teachers are not fully qualified, compared with less than 3 percent in primary schools. Furthermore, lower secondary classes average 26 pupils, compared with 23 across the OECD.

That echoes what pupils have been saying during the latest protests: Classes are large, and absent teachers are not being replaced. Some also described dilapidated buildings, a shortage of tables and chairs and, in some schools, rodent infestations. The intense heatwaves that hit France this year exacerbated existing problems in neglected buildings, many of which have no air conditioning, students said.

Teachers also feel undervalued. Only 4 percent said their profession is valued in society, the lowest share of any country surveyed and far below the OECD average of 22 percent.

How much has spending changed?

Historical UNESCO data showed France’s education spending slipped from 5.5 percent of GDP in 2017 to 5.3 percent in 2022 although it remained the ninth-highest among 29 European countries with data. A brief rise to 5.7 percent in 2020 reflected the pandemic shrinking the economy, not extra spending.

France was one of 14 countries where the share fell. Norway and Denmark saw the steepest drops while Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic recorded the biggest rises.

What else are these nations spending on?

The protests have coincided with nationwide public sector strikes over the government’s proposed 2027 budget, which seeks 54 billion euros ($61.3bn) in savings as French President Emmanuel Macron’s government tries to rein in a large public deficit.

Unions and public sector workers object in particular to a plan to freeze state employees’ salaries, which is expected to save about 2 billion euros ($2.27bn).

Across Europe, most governments spend more on education than on defence, but healthcare takes the largest share of national income of the three, according to 2022 data from the World Bank and UNESCO.

France spent 11.9 percent of its GDP on healthcare in 2022, one of the highest shares in Europe.

‘Rahm has reviewed the proposed terms of LIV 2.0 and has determined that they are unacceptable,’ his lawyer said.

Former world number one Jon Rahm has said he is quitting LIV Golf, robbing ⁠the breakaway circuit of ⁠one of its biggest stars while it fights to emerge from bankruptcy.

Rahm’s lawyer John Beck told a bankruptcy hearing on Wednesday that the two-time ⁠major champion made his decision after looking over details of LIV Golf’s planned next phase.

“Mr Rahm has independently reviewed the proposed terms of LIV 2.0, as the parties have been referring to ⁠it, and has determined that those terms are unacceptable as to him, and he will not be participating going forward in LIV 2.0,” Beck told the court.

Other golfers asked a US bankruptcy judge to help terminate their contracts and clarify their ability to negotiate with other tournament organisers and sponsors ‌as their LIV contracts go unpaid.

LIV has already agreed to terminate Sergio Garcia’s contract after determining that the league would not honour its terms, and lawyers for Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Smith, An Byeong-hun, Marc Leishman, Cameron Tringale and Matthew Wolff asked the judge to allow those players out of their old contracts.

Ending those contracts would not preclude those players from agreeing to participate in LIV 2.0.

Rahm, one of the most high-profile players to join LIV Golf, has won three consecutive season-long individual titles on LIV since joining the circuit ⁠in late 2023, eight months after winning the Masters for his second major title.

When LIV Golf filed for Chapter 11 protection in New ⁠Jersey last month, its filing listed several star golfers as ⁠creditors still owed millions in unsecured claims. Among them, Rahm had the largest claim among players at $7.5m.

Earlier this week, LIV secured funding from BC Partners to help it emerge from restructuring and strengthen its financial footing before the 2027 ‌season. The financing, up to $300m, remains subject to bankruptcy court approval and customary conditions.

BC Partners Credit, which provides financing to middle-market companies, said the funding would support what it described ‌as ‌the next phase of LIV Golf, under which players would become equity owners of the league and its teams.

Tonda Eckert let off with fine and reprimand but avoids ban and will continue in his role with the club.

Southampton boss Tonda Eckert has escaped major punishment for his role in the so-called “spygate” scandal after the English Football Association (FA) announced a suspended ban.

Eckert was fined 28,000 British pounds ($37,000) and given a reprimand but avoided a lengthy ban in the announcement on Wednesday, and he is free to continue in his role at the English Championship club.

The Saints were kicked out of last season’s Championship playoff final and were docked four points in the current campaign after admitting to three breaches of English Football League (EFL) regulations following being caught snooping on semifinal opponents Middlesbrough and two other teams.

An EFL independent disciplinary commission ruled in May that Eckert had “specifically authorised” the spying, throwing his future at the English second-tier club into doubt.

The 33-year-old accepted full responsibility and was charged by the FA with misconduct.

The German coach attended an FA hearing at the start of the current international break. The outcome means he can continue in his role against rivals Portsmouth on Sunday.

“Tonda Eckert subsequently admitted the charges, and an independent regulatory commission imposed a six-week suspension from all football and football-related activity, which is suspended until the end of the 2027-28 season, a £28,000 fine and a reprimand following a hearing,” the FA said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The suspended sanction will come into effect in the event he is found to have committed a breach of rules or regulations by requesting, authorising, taking, or using information from any observation of the training of another club, in whatever guise that observation may take.”

Southampton said in a statement that this brings a “regrettable period of our history to a conclusion”.

The club, which sits 13th in the Championship, said that “measures have been put in place to ensure that such errors in judgement never happen again at our club”.

Southampton owner Dragan Solak said, “I’m pleased that the independent panel has come to a decision and that we have an outcome.

“We have already suffered enough, and we appreciate the panel’s recognition of that.

“We are confident the manager has learned from this matter, and a suspended sentence allows him to continue in his role.”

Eckert was appointed permanent Southampton boss in December 2025, leading the club to fourth spot in the Championship table after a poor start to the season.

Sanaa, Yemen – The Yemeni government’s new military offensive against the Houthis is testing more than the balance of forces in the country – it is also testing whether the government can persuade powerful tribes in Houthi-controlled areas that the balance of power is beginning to shift.

For years, many of the tribes hostile or wary of the Iran-backed Houthis have stopped short of openly confronting the movement, deterred by their military strength and by previous failed uprisings. Those same tribes are now looking to the internationally recognised government’s newly-activated frontlines – on the Red Sea coast, Marib and al-Jawf primarily – to see if the limited advances made since the Dawn of Yemen military operation launch this week can turn into sustained gains.

The offensive by the Saudi Arabia-backed government forces follows major Houthi gains in September, when the armed group also known as Ansar Allah (Arabic for Supporters of God) swept across the country’s Red Sea coast. The Houthis captured vital trade corridors, including the port city of Mocha and territory around the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s most important shipping routes.

While airstrikes have inflicted losses on Houthi forces over the past few days, pushing towards Houthi strongholds where the group has been entrenched since the war started in 2014, including Sanaa, Saada, and Amran, remains a formidable challenge.

With the government declaring an all-out war on the Houthis, pledging to recapture Sanaa, tribal distrust of the government may diminish, prompting tribes to shift positions at the right time, experts say. The role of the tribes could therefore prove critical to the government’s ability to advance deeper into Houthi-controlled territories.

On Monday, Marib governorate – the government’s stronghold in the north – saw a large tribal rally attended by tribal sheikhs and local anti-Houthi fighters from tribes such as the Jadan from Marib, Nihm from Sanaa and other allied tribes.

The rally announced a general mobilisation to support the armed forces in the battle to “restore the state and topple the Houthi coup”.

“If this tribal support translates into actual mobilisation and sustained participation in the battle, tribes will help government troops advance toward Houthi-controlled areas and the Houthi heartland, including Sanaa,” said Adel Dashela, a researcher at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies.

Over the past decade of war in Yemen, tribes have repeatedly mobilised against the Houthis at a local level, but deep divisions and a lack of sustained outside backing have prevented the emergence of a unified tribal front. Nevertheless, tribes can potentially be a key source of manpower and influence for the government.

“Tribal fighters remain indispensable to any future campaign against the Houthis. But to be effective, their military engagement must occur through formalised state and coalition command structures, rather than as an independent vanguard,” Dashela said.

‘Wait for the right time’

Tribes in Yemen do not want to risk confronting Houthi forces without support, and they “wait for the right time” to act, Abdulsalam Mohammed, chairman of the Yemeni Abaad Studies and Research Center, said.

“The tribes seek a powerful state, and once they find the state reliable, they can side with it,” Mohammed said.

He added that tribes do not want to repeat mistakes made by tribes that had rebelled against the Houthis, and then not received enough support from the government.

“Those tribes revolted against the Houthis, and they were crushed amid the absence of the government’s effective role,” Mohammed said.

In January 2019, fighting broke out between the Houthis and the Hajoor tribe in northwest Yemen’s Hajjah, lasting several weeks. The Houthis eventually captured the Hajoor areas in March of the same year.

At the time, Saudi Arabia dropped food, medical supplies and weapons to besieged Hajoor fighters, but this did not prevent the tribe’s defeat by the Houthis.

Mohammed said that even in areas where the Houthis have local support, some tribes could gradually shift their allegiance towards the government, if they saw it as serving their interest.

“Not all tribes fighting for the Houthis are staunch supporters. Their motivations range from pragmatism to ideological loyalty and material necessity,” Mohammed said.

‘A friend of the tribe’

Over the past decade, the Houthis have weakened traditional tribal power structures in areas under their control, co-opting some leaders and replacing others with loyalists. They have defeated tribal challenges, and have withstood not only conflict with the Yemeni government and Saudi Arabia, but also bombing by the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel. All of that has reinforced a perception among tribes that the Houthi military capability had become “invincible”.

A tribal sheikh in northern Yemen, who asked not to be named for security reasons, told Al Jazeera that the Houthi military “supremacy” in the country over a decade-long war has “dwarfed the political and military role of the tribe”.

“Before the Houthi takeover of power, the government was like a friend of the tribe,” he said. “Today, the tribe is subordinate to the Houthis.”

The Houthis, according to him, used three tactics to tighten their grip on territories under their control: military force, financial incentives and their public identification with the Palestinian cause.

“The Houthis used military force if negotiations or financial incentives failed to win the tribes’ backing. Moreover, the Houthi military support for Palestine has earned the group additional popular and tribal support,” said the tribal figure.

As the Houthis built up enormous military and financial power over the past few years, the tribal sheikh said tribes acting alone could not match the group’s power. He also said that the government’s reported gains on some frontlines could not by themselves be taken as a sign that the Houthis were collapsing.

“A concrete government advance on the battlefields would reassure some Yemeni tribes that the Houthis have lost ground,” the tribal sheikh said. “Once this materialises, anti-Houthi and neutral tribes can feel confident and begin confronting the group.”

When Huda Helassa, 20, left her home in Tal al-Hawa, southern Gaza city, in the first hours of the war, she took a signed T-shirt from the Access Microscholarship Program, a United States-funded programme that provides English-language and cultural education to young people.

Her classmates had signed the shirt on September 15, 2023, during their final class, two years before she graduated on September 27.

“When we left our home on the first day of the war, the T-shirt was one of the first things that came to my mind,” Huda says.

She put it in her bag almost instinctively, wanting to hold on to something from a part of her life that had ended just days earlier.

Huda and her family first moved to her grandmother’s house in Gaza City, then were displaced south, walking part of the way, and eventually reached Rafah in the south of the Palestinian territory.

In May 2024, they were displaced again, this time to Khan Younis. When they returned to Gaza in January 2025, they found their home completely burned.

“There was nothing left of the life we had there,” she says. “No belongings, no photographs, no memories we could hold onto, just the blackened walls.”

They were displaced again in April 2025, moving to Remal and then Tal al-Hawa, before moving to az-Zawayda in September and returning to Gaza in October. They are currently in Tal al-Hawa.

For Huda, the T-shirt remains a link to the life she had before the war, a period of learning, friendships and experiences that shaped her.

Hundreds took to the streets of Bogota to protest the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Protesters have rallied in Colombia’s capital opposing the new far-right government’s policy towards Israel.

Hundreds took to the streets of Bogota on Wednesday to protest against the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the Colombian government’s decision to restore diplomatic and economic relations with Israel.

The protesters, who began their rally in front of the Israeli embassy in Bogota, criticised President Abelardo de la Espriella’s decision to open a new Colombian embassy in Jerusalem.

The rally marked three years since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, which were followed by Israel launching a genocidal war on Gaza.

“When diplomatic relations with Israel were broken off, the message was that we would not be a nation complicit in their atrocities,” Nicolas Isaza, who took part in the protest, told Al Jazeera.

“Today our government is no longer drawing a line against the atrocities being committed in Palestine,” he added.

De la Espriella, who was sworn in as president in August, promised close relations with the US and Israel during his election campaign as a way to combat armed groups in his country.

Colombia’s government has since restored relations with Israel after former President Gustavo Petro, who criticised Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, severed diplomatic relations and halted Israeli arms imports.

The Colombian government also recognised Israel’s claim of sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, just days after the new president took power.

Ukrainian reports of South Korean fuel exports to Russia come amid strained tensions between Seoul and Kyiv.

South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said the government will take legal action over illegal fuel shipments to Russia if allegations from an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are confirmed.

The Foreign Ministry said on Thursday it had not confirmed whether South Korean fuel, including diesel, had been exported to Russia.

It added that exports of some products, such as diesel and jet fuel for commercial purposes, were not included in a South Korean exports control list to Russia.

On Wednesday, the South Korean presidential office dismissed a statement by Vladyslav Vlasiuk, an adviser to the Ukrainian president on sanctions policy, that 176,000 tonnes of fuel were shipped from South Korea to Russia via sanctioned tankers in July and August.

Ukraine’s top sanctions official said the alleged findings run counter to South Korea’s sanctions policy towards Russia.

“Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, our government has consistently implemented sanctions and export controls against Russia in close cooperation with the international community,” South Korean presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said on Wednesday, according to the Yonhap news agency.

“We ask that Ukraine also refrain from distorting the relevant policies of the Republic of Korea without sufficient verification of the facts and making public remarks that can damage international trust,” she added.

Relations between South Korea and Ukraine have been strained for the past couple of weeks after Seoul accused Zelenskyy of having “unilaterally disclosed” to the United Nations General Assembly that Kyiv had transferred two North Korean prisoners of war to South Korea.

Seoul Korea demanded an official apology from Kyiv, claiming the Ukrainian president had breached a non-disclosure agreement. Kyiv said no such agreement was in place.

Pyongyang and Moscow, meanwhile, have deep ties, with the two countries having signed a mutual defence treaty in 2024. According to Ukrainian and South Korean estimates, about 14,000 to 15,000 North Korean soldiers were sent to support Russia’s war efforts against Ukraine.

North Korea and South Korea remain technically at war because the 1950–1953 Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

The State Department has accused the official of paying bribes to Fijian citizens to advance Chinese interests.

The US Department of State has publicly designated a Fiji-based man for his involvement in corruption on behalf of Chinese actors.

Zhao Fugang, the director of the Overseas Chinese Service Center, “abused his public position by paying bribes to Fijian citizens to advance China-based government, business, and criminal interests”, the State Department said in a press release on Wednesday.

“His actions constituted significant corruption and adversely affected U.S. interests in Fiji.”

The designation renders Zhao and his immediate family members “generally ineligible for entry into the United States”.

The US embassy in Suva, Fiji’s capital, said Zhao’s actions left the Pacific nation open to “malign foreign influence facilitated by Chinese government, business, and criminal actors”.

The embassy also said, “Public reporting shows an established trend of criminals operating across the Pacific with ties to China.”

Beijing says Overseas Chinese Service Centers help its nationals with administrative issues abroad, such as renewing driving licences. However, rights groups have alleged they are fronts for Beijing to push interests abroad, including the targeting of dissidents.

In February, the Trump administration sanctioned two leaders of Pacific island nations for alleged corruption tied to China. The US Department of State issued a notice alleging that Hokkons Baules, the president of Palau’s Senate, and Anderson Jibas, a former mayor in the Marshall Islands, had created openings for China to increase its influence in the region.

Yemeni government forces said in a social media post that they carried out 2,103 “precise targeting operations.”

Yemeni government forces said they have “neutralised” 1,860 Houthi fighters since launching a large-scale counter-offensive to retake territory under control of the rebel group.

The spokesperson for the internationally recognised government’s army said in a social media post early on Thursday local time that they carried out 2,103 “precise targeting operations” against Houthi military positions across several fronts as part of the ongoing “Dawn of Yemen” operation.

Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, announced on Sunday the “Dawn of Yemen” operation to retake all Houthi-held territory, including the capital, Sanaa, which the Iran-backed group has controlled since 2014.

Battles in Yemen have focused in recent days on areas around the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a shipping route that has become more crucial for energy exports since the conflict between the US and Iran restricted trade through the Strait of Hormuz.

Forces aligned with the Yemeni government launched an operation on Tuesday to capture strategic territory near the strait and around the city of Mocha, which the Houthis had captured in September.

Coalition targeting

The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen said on Wednesday it destroyed 82 Houthi military targets in the Yemeni governorates of Saada, Hodeidah, al-Jawf and Marib.

The spokesperson for the coalition said in a statement the targets included ballistic missile sites including “11 mountain-based ballistic missile storages in Saada, command and control centres, communication systems, missile and weapons storages”.

The new operation followed Houthi attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday targeting King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and Abha International Airport, according to the spokesperson.

Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said the attacks on the two airports killed three people.

One person was killed and eight wounded in an attack on King Khalid International Airport, and two were killed and 28 wounded in an attack on facilities at Abha airport, the General Authority of Civil Aviation said in a statement.

Talks will focus on the €1 billion daily deficit and rare earth export restrictions.

European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic has arrived in Beijing for talks on the European Union’s (EU) growing trade deficit with China.

Sefcovic will meet Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao on Thursday and Friday after months of discussions over the EU’s trade deficit of more than €1bn ($1.12bn) daily, as well as Chinese curbs on exports of rare earths and other critical minerals.

Meanwhile, Chinese companies are increasingly challenging Europe’s top car brands. China rejected the EU request for voluntary curbs on Chinese hybrid car exports as the two sides enter negotiations, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. The European Commission now hopes to get Beijing to accept a unilateral EU measure to cap hybrid imports instead, the outlet said, citing two diplomats briefed on the plan.

The two days of discussions come just as a majority of EU lawmakers called for a more assertive trade policy towards Beijing in a non-binding resolution on Wednesday. China vowed a “resolute response” to safeguard its industries if the European Union goes ahead with restrictions against Chinese companies or products, according to its commerce ministry.

Germany and France propose rapid EU measure

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, leaders of the bloc’s two biggest powers, on Tuesday urged the EU to prepare a “credible instrument” that could be quickly activated to strike back against countries that harm the bloc economically.

The new measure would not target any specific country. German officials said the EU needed a tool as powerful as the Section 301 tariffs imposed by the United States or China’s restrictions on critical-mineral exports.

The proposed weapon – to be discussed at an EU leaders’ summit next week – would give the European Commission the power to respond to a trade aggression within days.

China responded to the letter by urging Paris and Berlin to steer clear of “protectionist” measures.

“We hope that France and Germany, as major economies in the world, will uphold openness, cooperation and free trade,” the commerce ministry said in a statement.

“They should avoid going down the wrong path in the wrong way, only to ultimately suffer the consequences themselves.”

G20 finance leaders, except China’s, agreed in September to act against “non-market” distortions that exacerbate imbalances. Beijing says that hyping up issues such as economic imbalances and overcapacity is a form of protectionism designed to exert pressure on and restrict China.

Ongoing trade talks

EU and Chinese officials have been discussing trade imbalances since June. Sefcovic said he wanted “tangible results by October” as well as some form of commitment that can be put to EU leaders meeting in Brussels.

Trade relations with China top the summit’s agenda next week, as ballooning debt has prompted auditors to warn about the next seven-year EU budget and has spurred protests in France.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament last month that the trade imbalance had reached a tipping point and that Europe would use every tool at its disposal to rebalance the relationship.

Rahul Gandhi has been arrested several times at protests demanding the resignation of poll body chief.

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has been detained for the third time in two days during a protest demanding the resignation of the election chief over a controversial revision of voter lists.

Gandhi and other opposition lawmakers were apprehended by police on Wednesday as they marched towards Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site in India’s capital, New Delhi.

A live feed on the YouTube channel of Gandhi’s Congress Party showed police taking him into a vehicle and driving away. Authorities also detained several other opposition lawmakers and protesters.

Opposition parties, their student units and the “Cockroach” youth movement have been demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, accusing the poll body he heads of benefiting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

India’s Election Commission has so far removed more than 130 million names from the voter lists, with millions appealing the removals. About 969 million people were eligible to vote in the 2024 election.

Protesters allege the changes disproportionately removed voters who support opposition parties while preserving or adding voters more likely to back Modi’s party.

The commission and government deny the allegations. They say the revision has no political motive but is aimed at removing duplicate and ineligible entries while ensuring eligible voters remain registered.

Opposition lawmakers led by Gandhi protested on Tuesday as well, before police broke up their gathering and ‌‌briefly detained them.

Speaking before his detention on Wednesday, Gandhi said protesters showed up unannounced after Delhi police “stopped” their gathering the day before.

“We will go to the designated protest site, sit there, and tell the country that, for us, Gyanesh Kumar is not the legitimate commissioner,” he told reporters, referring to Jantar Mantar.

“The people who have done this [vote theft] are traitors … Gyanesh Kumar will have to resign,” he ⁠⁠added.

There was no immediate comment from the police on the detentions.

The demonstrations present a new political challenge to Modi midway into his third term, just months after similar protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party ‌‌youth ‌‌movement forced the resignation of his education minister over exam paper leaks.

The “Cockroach” protests, one of the most visible signs of public dissent against Modi’s government in recent years, reflected growing anger over job scarcity, corruption and a lack of government accountability.

Comments by one of Israel’s most senior ultra-Orthodox rabbis postulating that Jews may have been better off without a state have prompted controversy in the country.

In footage broadcast by Channel 12 on Monday, the 96-year-old Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of the Degel HaTorah party, also said that soldiers adhering to “Religious Zionism” killed in Israel’s wars were dying because of what their rabbis had taught them. The remarks, made at a closed meeting at his home in Bnei Brak, have set off a political storm three weeks before Israel’s October 27 parliamentary election.

“They are killed because their rabbis teach them a distorted Torah,” Lando said, adding that many military operations are carried out “not for saving lives, but for the honour of the state”.

Lando’s comment came in response to a question about admiration among some ultra-Orthodox Jewish men – who have traditionally refused the military draft – for religious Zionists who combine Torah study with military service.

His comments aren’t new – they were first published in February 2025. However, their reemergence this week comes amid an election campaign in which ultra-Orthodox military service has become one of the sharpest fault lines in Israeli politics.

The Israeli Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that there was no legal basis for ultra-Orthodox seminary students to have exemptions from military service, and the government has since not been able to pass legislation restoring the exemptions. The issue has led to large protests on both sides of the divide.

“The question is not what he said, but why this discourse has been placed at the heart of the Israeli debate three weeks before the election,” Ehab Jabareen, a researcher on Israeli affairs, told Al Jazeera.

Better ‘without a state’

Lando’s party is one of the two factions of the United Torah Judaism (UTJ) alliance, which won seven seats during the last election in 2022, and had been part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government before its ministers resigned last year.

The bloc did continue to intermittently support the coalition government, however, and Netanyahu has been wary of removing the military exemption – despite widespread opposition to it from many in Israel – out of fear that the UTJ and similar parties would remove their support completely.

Along with his role within Degel HaTorah, Lando is also one of the spiritual leaders of Israel’s Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox community, which makes up roughly a third of the country’s estimated 1.45 million ultra-Orthodox Jews, also known as Haredim.

In May, he said he no longer trusted Netanyahu and called for parliament to be dissolved.

In the footage, he goes further. “It is possible to live well with the Arabs without a state,” he says, adding that international or Palestinian rule would have been “the best situation”.

Zionism, he argues, “caused the Arabs to hate us” and brought physical as well as spiritual disaster on the Jewish people. He describes secular Israelis as having built “a state of apostasy and heresy”.

The comments reflect non-Zionist and anti-Zionist positions that used to be dominant within ultra-Orthodox Judaism, but take on an overt reference to the possibility of living within a non-Zionist state, something that is even more controversial in Israel.

Ibrahim Khatib, a conflict studies scholar at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, said Lando’s remarks drew a line between Zionism and Judaism “from inside the Jewish community itself”, at a time when the official Israeli establishment “tries to bind them together”.

They also put to the test the narrative that Jewish communities in Arab societies were in danger and threatened, and that the Zionist movement came to “save them” at the formation of the state of Israel in 1948, he told Al Jazeera. However, Khatib cautioned that the ultra-Orthodox polity in Israel “is right-wing, its leaders hold right-wing positions, and some of them have made clearly offensive statements about Arabs and Palestinians”.

Political ammunition

Israeli opposition leaders moved quickly after the footage of Lando emerged this week, taking it as an opportunity to attack a figure from a party within Netanyahu’s electoral bloc.

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett – one of Netanyahu’s main challengers in the upcoming elections – called the remarks “anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist and anti-[Israeli military]”, but aimed his fire at Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who he said “back [Lando] and funnel tens of billions of shekels to him and his friends”.

Gadi Eisenkot, another opposition leader whose Yashar party has campaigned on enforcing the military draft, urged every Zionist party to pledge not to sit with Lando’s party.

Netanyahu, who publicly rejected Lando’s remarks in July when the rabbi accused the Religious Zionism movement of “incitement to murder” for its support of the drafting of religious seminary students to the military, has not yet commented.

Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats, put it bluntly: “Netanyahu is silent because without Rabbi Lando and his emissaries, he has no government.”

Jabareen sees Netanyahu’s silence as “calculated”.

“If Netanyahu attacks Lando forcefully, he pays a price with the Haredim he needs to form a government,” he said. “If he stays silent, he hands his rivals material to tell right-wing voters that the man who speaks of Zionism and security depends on a religious leadership that doubts Zionism itself.”

Who fights and who dies

The military draft of the ultra-Orthodox, Jabareen added, has turned “from an old dispute over religion and state into a question about the Israeli [social] contract itself: Who fights? Who dies? And who gets the exemptions, the budgets and the political influence in return?”

Mohammad Abu Rumman, an academic adviser at the Politics and Society Institute in Amman, said the significance of Lando’s remarks lay in the question that prompted them. The example of a young religious man who combines Torah study with military service, he said, “raises a question inside the ultra-Orthodox world itself: Why don’t we do the same?”

“When Lando describes their teaching as a distorted Torah, he is trying to close the door on emulating them,” Abu Rumman told Al Jazeera. “His words are aimed at his own audience as much as at his opponents.”

But Jabareen argued that the row exposes a rift more dangerous for Netanyahu than the familiar clash between secular and religious Israelis, because it runs through the right itself. Religious Zionists have paid a heavy human price in the war, while the ultra-Orthodox leadership still rejects conscription. Caught between those who pay the price of war and those who refuse to, Netanyahu needs both, and cannot satisfy them at once.

Whether the outrage over Lando’s comments translates into votes is less clear. Abu Rumman expects the remarks to “reinforce existing positions more than change voters’ choices”. The space where they could matter, he said, lies among right-wing voters who serve in the army and resent Netanyahu’s protection of ultra-Orthodox demands.

“If Netanyahu needs these parties to build a majority, that need will not disappear because of a rabbi’s remarks, however shocking,” Abu Rumman said. Netanyahu is also not the UTJ’s only suitor: Channel 12 reported that, frustrated by his failure to secure a law exempting ultra-Orthodox men from military service, the party would not rule out or oppose a government led by Eisenkot.

“The Israeli right has managed to bring under one political roof two currents with almost contradictory visions of the Jewish state,” Jabareen said. “One sanctifies the state and the expansion of its sovereignty. In the other, one of its most important rabbis can say it might have been better had the state never been founded.”

Rising borrowing costs have pushed mortgage applications to lowest level since February 2025.

Mortgage rates in the United States have hit their highest level in nearly three years, as cost-of-living concerns weigh on Americans less than a month before the midterm elections.

The average cost for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage jumped 19 basis points to 7.49 percent for the week ending October 2 , according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s weekly report released on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, applications for mortgages tumbled 4.2 percent from the previous week, according to the report. Applications are at their lowest level since February 2025 and have fallen by almost half since the beginning of the year.

“Very few homeowners have an incentive to refinance at these rates, and the jump in borrowing costs has caused many potential borrowers to step back from the purchase market,” Joel Kan, vice president and deputy chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, said in a press release.

Mortgage rates are closely tied to US 10-year Treasury notes. Earlier this week, those hit a 24-year high of 5.3 percent amid surging oil prices tied to ongoing tensions with Iran.

Meanwhile, the yield on 30-year Treasury bonds rose to its highest level since 2002, at 5.7 percent on Wednesday.

Mortgage rates have jumped since late February, when the US and Israel first struck Iran. Since the strikes, mortgage rates have climbed 1.4 percent. Inflation, which has risen by 3.4 percent from a year ago, is also putting pressure on mortgage rates.

It comes as the cost of living is top of mind for voters as they approach the congressional midterm elections that could decide the balance of power in Washington, DC. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll in late August, 47 percent of voters said that the cost of living was the single most important issue ahead of the midterms.

In a separate Reuters/Ipsos poll in September, 17 percent of voters said they approved of US President Donald Trump’s handling of cost of living-related issues.

European football leaders meet on Wednesday with the aim of shaping strategy to oust Gianni Infantino as FIFA president.

European football leaders were gathering Wednesday with time pressing to find a candidate and shape their strategy for trying to oust Gianni Infantino as president of FIFA.

UEFA has called its 55 member federations to a previously scheduled summit on Thursday in Berlin that arrives in the midst of European efforts to get a new leader for football’s world body.

Infantino’s divisive World Cup private investment plan – that failed within days of being revealed in July – pushed UEFA to act on longstanding mistrust of its former employee’s increasingly executive presidency at FIFA.

UEFA’s longer-term plans include preparing a criminal complaint against Infantino in Switzerland for possible financial mismanagement in the World Cup sell-off deal. It has asked courts in the United States to authorise discovery of evidence.

“Somewhere along the way things went too far with FIFA, and we’re looking to put things back where they belong,” UEFA general-secretary Theodore Theodoridis said last month.

Europe’s 55 count for more than a quarter of FIFA’s 211 member federations that can vote in the election on March 18 in Rabat, Morocco. Research by The Associated Press news agency suggests Infantino already has about 90 votes pledged – albeit before any potential opponent is known.

Still, UEFA is not a united bloc. Infantino has support promised from Azerbaijan, the home country of a close aide, and Latvia. On Wednesday he met with football and government officials in the Czech capital Prague.

First, UEFA and its allies worldwide need to agree on at least one candidate to challenge Infantino by the November 18 deadline to enter the race.

UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin was joined in August by his fellow FIFA vice presidents from Asia and North America in denouncing Infantino for deception and breach of trust over the World Cup sell-off plan.

Still, neither Ceferin nor his counterparts at the AFC and CONCACAF, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain and Victor Montagliani of Canada, currently look set to be on the FIFA ballot.

Ceferin has long dismissed any talk of himself running to lead FIFA, though he said last month at UEFA meetings in Greece there were “many, many” potential candidates.

Montagliani is expected to focus on his own re-election at CONCACAF in February.

Sheikh Salman has been Infantino’s FIFA election opponent before. He had been favourite in a five-man campaign that Infantino eventually won in February 2016.

Speculation has often pointed to Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi, a close ally of Ceferin. The Qatari member of UEFA’s executive committee ruled himself out last week at a meeting of the influential European Football Clubs group he leads.

Infantino is part of UEFA’s focus in Berlin for the biennial business meeting of top executives from its member federations, which can debate policy, strategy and international football competitions.

The meeting is expected to discuss proposals for a more transparent FIFA and a presidential candidate willing to commit to those reforms.

South Korea signals cuts to military exemptions for gold medallists after backlash over athletes’ Asian Games comments.

South Korea’s sports minister says the government will review the military service exemption for gold-medal-winning athletes after public backlash to some controversial comments from winners at the Asian Games.

Three players from the men’s football team came under fire for comments following South Korea’s 1-0 win over Japan in the Asian Games final last weekend in Japan.

All three apologised, but a broader debate had already reignited over whether athletes should receive special treatment for sporting achievements, particularly as common citizens, as even members of BTS – the globally famous K-pop group – had to complete their mandatory service.

Al Jazeera Sport takes a closer look at the furore surrounding the comments at the Asian Games.

Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Choi Hwi-young on Wednesday said the alternative military service exemption system for artists and athletes “will inevitably have to be scaled back”.

“It is true that the system has contributed to helping outstanding artists and athletes maintain and develop their abilities,” Choi told the National Assembly’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee.

“However, the values attached to fairness and public perceptions of military service have changed. I agree that the system should be comprehensively reviewed once again.”

What does military service look like in South Korea?

Most South Korean men must complete 18 to 21 months of military service by the age of 28.

Since 1973, however, Olympic medallists and Asian Games gold medallists have been able to replace the full term with a supplementary service, which consists of three weeks of basic training.

Three of the footballers, including Yang Min-hyuk, who assisted the winning goal against Japan, made comments that were viewed as insensitive.

“The medal and winning the championship weren’t important. I played the game with only one thing in mind – the reward of a military service exemption,” Yang, who joined Tottenham Hotspur in 2025 and is currently on loan at Belgian club Westerlo, said.

Newcastle United midfielder Park Seung-soo posted a photo on social media showing him wearing a cap associated with soldiers who have completed their service. In a post-match interview, captain Lee Gi-hyuk held up his gold medal and said, “I’m not going to the military.”

What has been said elsewhere in South Korea about the controversy?

A number of politicians, including Ahn Cheol-soo of the People Power Party, said it was time to change the system.

“Some players’ remarks after the match were outrageous,” Ahn posted on social media. “Even the captain bragged about not having to serve in the military. Are all the young people who enlist every year fools?”

Former lawmaker Yoo Seong-min said the flippant comments had provoked resentment and asked: “Is it really fair that BTS has to serve in the military while Asian Games gold medallists are exempt?”

In a Korea Herald editorial on Tuesday, the newspaper declared that the practice was outdated.

“South Korea now stands shoulder to shoulder with the world’s leading nations,” the newspaper said. “The days when finishing first in Asia could meaningfully enhance the country’s national prestige are long gone. It is time to reconsider.”

That was the message from Defence Ministry spokesperson Chung Binna during a press briefing in Seoul.

“Ultimately, we have plans to cut back or scrap the supplementary service, including one designed for artists and athletes,” Chung said.

What other athletes gained military-service exemptions?

The footballers were among many winners from the Asian Games who qualified for the military exemption.

Golfer Tom Kim won the men’s singles on Saturday after flying across the Pacific when the Presidents Cup competition ended so he could compete in Japan. Asked about the military exemption, he took the gold-medal approach.

“I’m more proud that I’m able to bring a medal for my country,” he said.

Sixteen South Korean baseball players are also exempt after defeating Japan 3-1 in the Asian Games final. So are three South Koreans who won gold in esports, an event at the Asian Games.