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Lapid concedes defeat to Bibi in polls
WASHINGTON/SEOUL: North Korea’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is “illegal and destabilising,” US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said on Thursday. Austin also branded the North’s actions “irresponsible and reckless” during a news conference at the Pentagon South Korea’s military said earlier that the ICBM launch - part of a salvo of missiles fired on Thursday - was “presumed to have ended in failure”. In response, South Korea and the US said they would extend their ongoing joint air drills, the largest-ever such exercises.
TEL AVIV: Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s office says he has conceded defeat to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in this week’s election.
A statement said Lapid congratulated Netanyahu and has instructed his office to prepare an organised transition of power.
“The state of Israel comes before any political consideration,” Lapid said. “I wish Netanyahu success, for the sake of the people of Israel and the state of Israel.”
Lapid, who has served as interim prime minister for the
WASHINGTON: Warning that democracy itself is in peril, President Joe Biden called on Americans on Wednes -day to use their ballots in next week’s midterm elections to stand up against lies, violence and “ultra MAGA” disruptors who are trying to “succeed where they failed” in subverting the 2020 elections. This is no time to stand aside, he said. “Silence is complicity.” The president singled out “ultra MAGA” Republicans - a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan - calling them a minority but “driving force” of the Republican Party. past four months, made the announcement after a near-final vote count showed Netanyahu securing a parliamentary majority. Lapid’s concession sets the former premier up to form what may be the most right-wing government in Israeli history.
With 32 seats for Netanyahu’s Likud party, 18 for ultra-Orthodox parties and 14 for a far-right alliance, his right-wing bloc won a total of 64 seats, according to results published by the Israel’s electoral commission.
The opposition bloc of centrist outgoing prime minister Yair Lapid won 51 seats.
Netanyahu’s top partner in the government is expected to be the far-right Religious Zionism
ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN: A methane explosion at a coal mine in central Kazakhstan killed at least five people and injured another four on Thursday, officials said. “A sudden release of gas during the drilling of a drainage well led to the deaths of five workers” in the Lenin mine belonging to ArcelorMittal, Ruslan Imankulov, a spokesman for the country’s emergency ministry, said. Imankulov added that “four people were hospitalised and 106 were evacuated”. An investigation into potential violations of safety rules has been opened by a government commission. party, whose main candidate, Itamar Ben-Gvir is a disciple of a racist rabbi, says he wants to end Palestinian autonomy in parts of the West Bank and until recently hung a photo in his home of Baruch Goldstein, an AmericanIsraeli who killed 29 Palestinians in a West Bank shooting attack in 1993.
Ben-Gvir, who promises to deport Arab legislators, says he wants to be named head of the ministry that is in charge of the police. As the votes were being counted on Thursday, IsraeliPalestinian violence was flaring, with at least four Palestinians killed in separate incidents, and an Israeli police officer wounded lightly in a stabbing.
TEHRAN: Iranian protesters clashed with police in a town near the capital on
Thursday, reportedly killing or wounding a number of members of the security forces, who at one point dropped stun grenades on the demonstrators from helicopters. The protesters had gathered in Karaj, just outside Tehran, to mark the 40th day since the shooting death of Hadis Najafi, 22, one of several young women to have been killed during the protests. A member of Iran’s Basij paramilitary force was killed and 10 police officers and a cleric were injured in clashes in Karaj.