Exit polls and the running count give Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud between 24 and 28 of the Knesset's 120 seats, ahead of Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar. Netanyahu's bloc sits between 50 and 57. Turnout reached 77.7%, and final results are expected on Thursday.

By Tomás Vasconcelos

Image: Kobi Gideon / GPO, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

The movement born from the Novi Sad canopy protests took 52.7% in Sunday's snap election, per the electoral commission (RIK), for a projected 140 of 250 seats. Vučić's United Serbia list got 39.2%. Turnout was 68.8%.

Serbia's student movement has turned two years of street protest into a parliamentary majority. The Student List won Sunday's snap election outright, and Aleksandar Vučić conceded defeat. The Republic Electoral Commission's results gave the Student List 52.71% in Monday night's count, with 8,187 of 8,392 polling stations in. United Serbia, the list led by Vučić's Serbian Progressive Party, was on 39.2%. Turnout reached 68.8%, the highest in more than…

US District Judge Jesse Furman in New York found that the July 2025 firing of federal prosecutor Maurene Comey broke the Civil Service Reform Act and the separation of powers. He ordered her reinstated retroactively with back pay. The Justice Department says it will appeal.

A federal judge in New York ruled on Monday that the US Justice Department unlawfully fired prosecutor Maurene Comey. Jesse Furman, of the Southern District of New York, ordered her reinstated retroactively and paid the salary she lost. The Justice Department has already responded. It disagrees with the decision and says it will appeal. In a 55-page decision, Furman concluded that the firing broke the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 and the…

Brazil's electoral court gave Lula 51.79% against Flávio Bolsonaro's 48.21%. Among Brazilians voting in Portugal he took 59.42%, but lost the Faro consulate.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has won a fourth term as Brazil's president. On Sunday night Brazil's electoral court announced his re-election with 64,256,232 votes, or 51.79% of valid votes, against 59,826,041 (48.21%) for Flávio Bolsonaro. That is a margin of about 4.4 million votes out of 128.2 million cast. More than 158 million Brazilians were eligible, and abstention fell to roughly 19.2% from 21.08% in the first round.

In Saturday's snap election in British Columbia, Lorne Doerkson's Conservatives lead in 64 of 93 ridings on 48% of the vote with 99.9% of ballot boxes reported. The NDP drops to 27 seats, David Eby holds his own riding by 538 votes and resigns as party leader.

David Eby called British Columbia's election two years early to turn a one-seat majority into something sturdier. On Saturday night the province handed power to the Conservatives instead, and Eby announced he is stepping down as NDP leader. With 99.9% of ballot boxes in, the Elections BC initial count has the Conservatives elected or leading in 64 of the 93 ridings, comfortably past the 47 needed for a majority. The NDP has 27 and the Greens 2. The…

The Socialist Party (PS) confirmed on 21 October that it will abstain in the first-reading vote on the 2027 State Budget, debated on 27 and 28 October. With its 58 MPs out of the count, the governing AD's 91 seats are enough: even if every other party votes against, they total 81.

Portugal's 2027 State Budget goes into its first-reading debate on 27 and 28 October with approval all but certain. On Wednesday 21 October the Socialist Party's national political committee confirmed a "total consensus" behind José Luís Carneiro's proposal to let the budget through by abstaining. Party spokesman André Moz Caldas was careful to say the abstention is neither a blank cheque nor a move towards Luís Montenegro's government. The argument is…

More than 134,000 Brazilian voters registered in Portugal can vote in Sunday's presidential runoff, from 8am to 5pm in Lisbon, Porto and Faro. In the first round they gave Lula 52.45% and Flávio Bolsonaro 38.57%, the reverse of the national result.

Brazilians living in Portugal go back to the polls on Sunday 25 October for the presidential runoff between Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro. They arrive with a first-round result that looks nothing like their country's. On 4 October, voters registered in Portugal gave Lula 52.45% (26,401 votes) and Flávio Bolsonaro 38.57% (19,412), according to the Superior Electoral Court's count. Back home it went the other way. With every section counted, Flávio…

The decree changing how free prescriptions are costed for Portugal's poorest pensioners takes effect on 17 October, and it carries a guarantee for anyone the pharmacy fails to warn about the cheaper option.

The clock started on 18 August. Decree-Law 169/2026 says in its final article that it takes effect 60 days after publication, which lands on 17 October. From that date, it's the rule pharmacies apply at the counter. That's 20 days away. We explained how the free-medicine rule changes when the decree came out: recipients of the complemento solidário para idosos, Portugal's top-up for pensioners on the lowest incomes, still take their medicines without…

Addressing the UN General Assembly, the prime minister criticized how global oil prices are set, backed a two-state solution in the Middle East, and reaffirmed Portugal's full support for Ukraine.

Luís Montenegro took the podium at the UN General Assembly in New York and opened with something that hits every Portuguese wallet: the price of fuel. He called it a "senseless crisis" and asked the world to end "this collective masochism," a direct jab at the mechanism that sets oil prices globally, according to UN Portugal's account of the speech. His argument was that entire economies remain hostage to speculation and volatility in a market nobody…

We counted the calamity legislation list the Government itself keeps on gov.pt: 37 instruments since 30 January, 24 of them in the first four weeks, none at all in July or August. The newest one rewrites the overtime rules for the people who answered the storm.

Storm Kristin crossed Portugal in the last week of January. The state of calamity lasted nineteen days. The legislation has not stopped. Decreto-Lei n.º 191/2026 appeared in the Diário da República on Tuesday, and we wanted to know where it sat in the queue. So we counted. The Government keeps a guide listing every piece of calamity legislation on gov.pt, updated as each one lands. We added up the entries on that page, one by one, with the date on each.…

The proposal tabled on 17 September gives €160 a month in 2026, backdated to July, and €230 in 2027, but only to the PSP and GNR border units. Six of the seven PSP unions at the table were willing to negotiate. Two organisations are still holding protests over the 2024 deal.

Read that the government has offered Portuguese police another €160 a month and you will want the next line. The supplement tabled on 17 September is not for the PSP or the GNR as a whole. It is for two units: the PSP's national foreigners and borders unit, and the GNR's coastal and border control unit. The offer is €160 a month in 2026, backdated to July, rising to €230 in 2027. The interior ministry grounds it in how particular the job is: dedicated…

Rates fall by 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points across the first six brackets, at a cost of about 400 million euros and covering nearly three million households. The government approved the bill on Thursday; parliament has not voted on it.

Portugal's cabinet signed off a bill on Thursday that lowers IRS income tax rates across the first six brackets. The cut runs from 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points, costs roughly 400 million euros and, according to the government's own statement, reaches close to three million households. The word doing the heavy lifting there is bill. Tax rates are not changed in cabinet. They are changed by a law passed in the Assembleia da República, and that is where the…

Parpública notified the market regulator of a qualified holding of 91,723,676 shares, completed on 7 September once the Court of Auditors signed off. The Socialists want statutory criteria for when the state may buy into a private company.

The deal is done. REN told the market that Parpública holds a qualified stake of 91,723,676 ordinary shares, representing 13.7% of its capital, putting the Portuguese state back on the share register twelve years after it left. The shares changed hands and the price was paid on 7 September. When we wrote about this in August the open question was procedural. The contract with Pontegadea had been signed on 14 August but hung on a condition, and we said the…

Brasília opened its first reciprocity case on 13 August. Add up every maximum the decree sets, stage by stage, and the outer limit falls in May 2027.

A month has passed since Brazil opened the first case in its history under the Economic Reciprocity Law, and nothing has been taxed. That is not drift. It is the regulation working as written. So we read the regulation and did the addition. The decree that puts the law into practice is Decree 12,551 of 14 July 2025, and the deadlines sit in articles 11, 13 and 15. Four stages, each with its own clock, and every one of them slower than a first reading…

The request for an urgent debate reached the speaker's office on Monday morning, six days ahead of Chega's scheduled slot on 24 September. Chega's VAT bills would not take effect until January 2027.

Portugal's new parliamentary session opens on Wednesday, and the first fight is already in the diary. On Monday morning the Socialists asked for an urgent debate on the rising cost of living, to be held this Friday, which puts them in front of Chega, who had booked the same subject for 24 September. Six days is not much. In a parliament where the opposition is competing to look the least patient, it is enough. Fuel, food and housing costs. That is the…