Members of Iraq’s security forces and its internally displaced population have begun casting their ballots in the parliamentary elections – the sixth since a United States-led invasion toppled longtime ruler Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Polls opened at 7am (04:00 GMT) on Sunday for 1.3 million members of the security forces at 809 polling centres and will close at 6pm (15:00 GMT) before they are deployed for security purposes on the election day on Tuesday.
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More than 26,500 internally displaced people are also eligible for early voting on Sunday across 97 polling stations at 27 places in Iraq, the Iraqi News Agency (INA) said.
Interior Minister Abdul Amir al-Shammari told INA that the special voting process is advancing “smoothly and in an organised manner”.
Nearly 21 million Iraqis are eligible to vote on Tuesday across 4,501 polling stations nationwide, the INA said.
More than 7,750 candidates, nearly a third of them women, are running for the 329-seat parliament. Under the law, 25 percent of the seats are reserved for women, while nine are allocated for religious minorities.
The current parliament began its term on January 9, 2022, and will last four years, ending on January 8, 2026.
An old electoral law, revived in 2023, will apply to the ongoing elections, with many seeing it as favouring larger parties. While about 70 independents won in the 2021 vote, only 75 independents are contesting this year.
Observers also fear that turnout might dip below the record low of 41 percent in 2021, reflecting voters’ apathy and scepticism in a country marked by entrenched leadership and allegations of mismanagement and endemic corruption.
There were widespread accusations of corruption and vote-buying before the elections, and 848 candidates were disqualified by election officials, sometimes for obscure reasons, including insulting religious rituals or members of the armed forces.
Past elections in Iraq have been marred by violence, including assassinations of candidates, attacks on polling stations, and clashes between the supporters of different blocs. While overall levels of violence have subsided, a candidate was assassinated in the run-up to this year’s election.
Influential Shia leader Moqtada Sadr urged his followers to boycott what he described as a “flawed election”.
Al-Sadr’s bloc won the largest number of seats in 2021, but later withdrew after failed negotiations over forming the government amid a standoff with rival Shia parties. He has since boycotted the political system.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, elected in 2022 with the backing of pro-Iran parties, is seeking a second term and is expected to secure a sizeable bloc.
Among the other frontrunners are influential Shia figures, including former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Muslim scholar Ammar al-Hakim.
Strictly pair Vicky Pattison and Kai Widdrington get on like a house on fire – but there’s also a pretty special bond forming between the pro dancer and Vicky’s husband, Ercan Ramadan
Strictly’s Vicky Pattison has revealed that her delight that pro dancer, Southampton-born Kai Widdington, is getting on like a house on fire with her husband of just over a year, businessman Ercan Ramadan.
Explaining during an exclusive shoot with OK!, Vicky reveals that her other half often pops into the dance studio to see them both during training, alongside his lookalike brother (“it’s those Turkish-Cypriot genes, those brothers all look alike!”), the Geordie TV star says he and Kai – who went public with his romance with relationship with City worker Chloe Wells in April – are developing a lovely friendship.
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“Kai and Ercan have quite the little bromance going,” Vicky tells us, with a smile. “He’s gone down a total storm with my family and friends and I love his gorgeous girlfriend Chloe.”
Vicky and Kai have even talked about the two couples going on a double date – before realising it would be pretty much impossible, with their current schedules on Strictly. “We were so full of it at the start of this process,” Vicky admits. “A double date, what?! Nobody’s got time for that!”
Kai, who started dancing at the age of nine, the same year Strictly first aired on telly, also admits he had zero preconceptions about Heart Radio presenter Vicky before they met, other than knowing she was a total beginner when it came to dancing. But as he reveals, he is delighted by how much she has progressed since her first dance.
“If I’d shown her what she’s achieved in our most recent dances, she wouldn’t have believed it. But why stop now? We might as well go the whole way,” he says confidently. Vicky is in agreement and confesses it’s “mindblowing” – remembering with a laugh how she struggled to even clap on time to the music during the first group dance.
Since then, she’s performed a gorgeous American Smooth, the Couple’s Choice dance to Cheryl Cole’s Fight For This Love – receiving a personal message of support from the singer herself – and even the notoriously tricky samba. “Oh man, the samba. If you’d told me seven weeks ago I’d love that dance, I’d have called you a liar. Yet here I am. A big, samba-loving Geordie,” she laughs.
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Kai is as loved up with girlfriend Chloe as Vicky – who says she ‘hit the jackpot’ when she met Ercan. Kai first met Chloe, who is originally from Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, at a pub in West London and according to a friend “hit it off immediately”.
Back in May, the professional dancer appeared on Lorraine to talk about his upcoming tour and admitted he was the “happiest I have ever been”. He said: “I feel very very happy and it’s largely down to my other half as well.” A month later, the loved-up pair made their first public appearance as she joined him to celebrate the first night of his Evolution tour.
The attraction between Taylor Swift and her now fiancé Travis Kelce was mutual – and the AFL player has been by her side through some of her toughest moments
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Taylor and Travis are each other’s biggest cheerleaders(Image: AP)
On a balmy evening in June 2024, Travis sparked pandemonium in the Swiftiverse when he joined Taylor on stage during the London leg of her Eras Tour. As the gobsmacked audience of 90,000 at Wembley Stadium looked on, he made his grand entrance during an extended intro to Taylor’s song I Can Do ItWithABroken Heart . Wearing a top hat and tails, Travis carried her across the stage and fanned her as she pretended to faint, while her dancers then whipped away her white Vivienne Westwood gown to reveal a crystal-studded two-piece.
His cameo was seen as major milestone in their relationship, and as Annie Zaleski, author of Taylor Swift: The Stories Behind The Songs says, “It was such a great moment, and so unexpected. It was the first time Taylor had ever been willing to put one of her boyfriends out there, literally on stage. And it was amazing that Travis seemed to have no fear either. He clearly enjoyed every second.” Fans leapt at the wider meaning of Travis’s presence during a song about past heartbreak. “Taylor wrote that track at a very different time in her life, and it was like Travis was there to usher in this new era for her,” says Annie. “It felt like the passing of a baton in some way, which was incredibly poignant.”
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Travis was a regular at Eras shows as far afield as Australia and Japan, once saying of Taylor’s performance, “She blew me away, and I had never experienced something so mesmerising on stage and so real and so beautiful in person.” Frequently seen singing and dancing along to her set, he was snapped in Sydney with an impressive array of friendship bracelets while hanging out with singer Rita Ora in the VIP area. Backstage at one of Taylor’s London shows, Taylor and Travis also memorably posed for a selfie with Prince William, Prince George and Princess Charlotte.
As he endeavoured to support Taylor on her mammoth tour, Travis described the concerts as “electric”, saying he “enjoyed seeing her in her element and killing it on stage”. He told how her song Blank Space was his favourite, and put Cruel Summer in second place, calling it “an absolute banger” when played live.
He also revealed he loved hearing So High School, which Taylor had penned about their relationship, and reflected on the “remarkable” effort she put into every show. “To see the week in, week out, travelling from one country to the next, how excruciating it is on her body and on her mind,” he said. “It’s not just her, it was her entire tour. It was the dancers, it was the band, the singers, it was everybody involved.”
The Eras Tour was certainly a feat of epic proportions. Spanning five continents and 51 cities, its 149 shows became the highest-grossing of all time, and it was the first tour to ring in more than £1bn for any artist. Meanwhile, local economies experienced a shot of ‘Swiftonomics’ whenever Taylor rolled into town, with fans spending millions of pounds on hotels, transport, restaurants and merch. One show in Seattle even generated seismic activity equivalent to a 2.3 magnitude earthquake.
“Eras was just an immense cultural phenomenon,” says PR commentator Lynn Carratt. “Taylor was successful before it, but it sent her career stratospheric. I don’t know how she had the energy to keep doing these three-hour plus shows, night after night.”
The tour began in Arizona in March 2023 and concluded 21 months later in Vancouver in December 2024. Some 10 million fans attended globally, and each show included at least 44 songs across more than three hours. Taylor herself called it “the most exhausting, all-encompassing but most joyful, most rewarding, most wonderful thing that has happened in my life”.
Paying tribute to each of the ‘eras’ in her career, there were some 16 costume changes, including designs by the likes of Roberto Cavalli, Oscar de la Renta and Zuhair Murad. Taylor was joined on stage by 15 backing dancers, and she described the profound effort that went into learning her routines.
“Learning choreography is not my strong suit,” she said. “I had three months of dance training, because I wanted to get it in my bones. I wanted to be so over-rehearsed that I could be silly with the fans, and not lose my train of thought.”
During the tour, she was joined on stage by a host of special guests, including Ed Sheeran, Florence Welch and Gracie Abrams. But Travis was undoubtedly her most prized extra – and he clearly enjoyed playing the role of ultimate Swiftie.
“I get to be the plus-one,” he said. “I get to go and be that fan. Because I am a fan. I’m a fan of music. I’m a fan of art. And it’s so cool that I get to experience her being that plus-one for me on the football field… I feel that same enjoyment every time she comes to my shows.”
Taylor has certainly shown her dedication to Travis in his role as tight end for Kansas City Chiefs too, attending games week after week.
On one occasion in the early days when she showed up for a match, Travis said, “She’s just like, ‘I want to be around friends and family, and experience this with everybody.’ She got beaucoup points for that – I was like, ‘Damn, she’s a madness, she wants to be a part of it, she wants to support me and do things like that.’ I was like, ‘Man, she’s really won me over with that.’”
For the Super Bowl in February 2024, Taylor jetted from Tokyo to Las Vegas to cheer him on, and after the Chiefs stormed to victory she was seen on TV telling him, “I’ve never been so proud in my life. I can’t believe you. How did you do that?”
Travis humbly replied, “How do you not have jet lag right now?” As Lynn says, “They have literally crossed the world for each other, and it proves how genuine their relationship is, because they’re willing to travel thousands of miles to show up for one another.”
Travis also proved a rock this summer when Taylor, her mum Andrea and brother Austin helped her dad Scott recover from major heart surgery. He underwent a quintuple bypass, which Taylor called “really intense”, and the family moved in together to oversee his post-hospital recovery.
“He’s doing good,” she later said. “He is doing incredibly well.” Earlier in the year, Travis was at her side when her long-running battle to buy back the rights to her master recordings was finally settled.
Speaking on Travis’s New Heights podcast in August, Taylor told how the initial sale of her masters to Scooter Braun in 2019 “ripped my heart out of my chest”, adding, “Since I was a teenager, I’ve been saving up money to buy my music back… I thought about not owning my music every day.” She then told of the emotional moment she received the good news from Andrea. “She was like, ‘You got your music,’ and I literally hit the floor,” she said. “Bawling my eyes out, just weeping.”
In shock, Taylor went to find Travis, who was playing video games in another room. “He thought something was wrong; I started absolutely heaving. I had no power in my legs to support myself.” Travis told how she was “just dead weight” in his arms, and that he felt just as overwhelmed. “I started crying too,” he said.
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As Annie says, “Travis was not afraid to show his vulnerability, and he saw how much Taylor’s masters meant to her. It’s her life’s work, and the fact he recognised that – just as she knows how much football means to him – was so telling. They have this deep understanding of their respective fields, and care hugely about what the other is going through.”
Boots has launched its brand new collection of beauty baubles ready for Christmas gifting and you can nab three different ones for £20 each with up to £70 worth of products inside
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Boots has launched its brand new Beauty Baubles for 2025 Christmas gifting(Image: Boots)
Now we’re well and truly into November, it’s time to turn our attention to those all important Christmas gifts. But with an inevitable mountain of presents to buy, any opportunity to save some money is a welcome treat, especially when it’s on big name beauty brands.
Boots’ brand new Beauty Bauble Star Gifts are the perfect way to gift a beauty lover in your life some great products without breaking the bank, with each one costing £20 but containing between £50 and £70 worth of products. There are three to choose from; the Luxury Beauty Treats, the Beauty Extravaganza, and the Stars of the Show, with each containing five different products.
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With a minimum value of £51.74, right up to £69.36 worth of products inside, these are a great way to bag your loved one (or yourself) some great items for less. Brands inside include Liz Earle, Sol de Janeiro, and Byoma, alongside new discoveries from Amika, Laneige, and Grown Alchemist, making sure there’s something for everyone.
Here’s what’s inside each beauty bauble:
Boots Beauty Bauble Luxury Beauty Treats
Espa Bergamot & Jasmine Body Lotion 40ml
Sol De Janeiro Cheirosa 40 Perfume Mist 30ml
Milk Makeup Lip + Cheek In The Shade Quirk 6g – Full Size
Grown Alchemist Restorative Hand Cream 20ml
Nuxe Very Rose Lip Plumping Serum 8ml – Full Size
Boots Beauty Bauble Beauty Extravaganza
Urban Decay All Nighter Setting Spray 15ml
Byoma Liptide Lip Oil 5ml – Full Size
Amika Perk Up Oil Control Dry Shampoo 29ml
Patchology Rejuvenating Eye Gels – 1 Pair – Full Size
Huda Beauty Faux Filter Color Corrector In The Shade Cherry Blossom 9ml – Full Size
Boots Beauty Bauble Stars of the Show
Laneige Bounce & Firm Serum 15ml
Philip Kingsley Bond Builder Treatment 40ml
Opi Infinite Shine Gel Like Polish In The Shade I’m Not Really A Waitress 15ml – Full Size
Rituals The Ritual Of Mehr Body Cream 70ml
Liz Earle Cleanse & Polish 50ml + Muslin Cloth
Although touted as a beauty bauble, these aren’t exactly something you can hang from your tree thanks to their generous size. If you’re looking for something that contains beauty faves that can double as a tree ornament, some of our faves include L’Occitane’s Almond Ornament (£15 but worth £17), The White Company’s Winter Hanging Votive Candle (£12) and Sephora’s Lip Sleeping Mask Duo (£12.99 but worth £15.98).
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However whilst these are great as little stocking fillers or affordable additions to your tree, if it’s value you’re after then the Boots Beauty Baubles are the way to go. Snap them up in-store and online now.
One body has been found and dozens of others are missing after a boat carrying about 90 people sank near the Thailand-Malaysia border, officials said.
The Malaysian maritime authority on Sunday said at least 10 survivors were found, while the status of two other boats carrying a similar number of people remains unknown.
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The incident is believed to have happened near Tarutao Island, just north of the popular Malaysian resort island of Langkawi.
“A boat carrying 90 people is believed to have capsized,” local police chief Adzli Abu Shah told reporters, adding that rescue operations were under way to locate the survivors.
Among the survivors found in the waters were three Myanmar nationals, two Rohingya refugees, and a Bangladeshi man, while the body was that of a Rohingya woman, state media agency Bernama reported, quoting Abu Shah.
The Malaysia-bound people initially boarded a large vessel, but, as they neared the border, they were instructed to transfer onto three smaller boats, each carrying about 100 people, to avoid detection by the authorities, the police chief was quoted as saying.
Reporting from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride said a major search and rescue operation was under way.
“The authorities believe that the migrants set off around three days ago from a part of the coast in Myanmar – they are thought to be mainly from the Rohingya minority,” he said.
“This is a well-used maritime route sailing down the coast of Thailand, heading towards Malaysia where they will hope to start a new life, where often they will have relatives and acquaintances who are already here in Malaysia.”
Dangerous crossings
Malaysia is home to millions of migrants and refugees from other parts of Asia – many of them undocumented, working in industries including construction and agriculture.
Members of the mainly Muslim Rohingya minority periodically flee predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, where they are seen as foreign interlopers from South Asia, denied citizenship, and subjected to abuse. Nearly a million Rohingya refugees live in cramped camps across southern Bangladesh.
Myanmar has also been mired in civil war fought between the military and multiple armed opposition groups since a 2021 coup, when the military seized power from the elected government of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Many of the refugees attempt maritime crossings to relatively affluent regional countries such as Malaysia and Thailand, facilitated by human trafficking syndicates. But the trips often turn hazardous, leading to frequent capsizing.
In one of the worst incidents in December 2021, more than 20 people drowned in several capsizing incidents off the Malaysian coastline.
“According to the authorities, the situation in Myanmar – with the increased instability and also the ongoing civil war – is forcing people to take ever more desperate maritime journeys to try and start a new life,” said McBride.
Nearly a million people have evacuated their homes in the Philippines as the country braced for another powerful storm, days after a typhoon killed more than 200 people.
The storm, named Fung-wong, started battering northeastern Philippines on Sunday before its expected landfall, knocking down power and prompting warnings from the weather bureau of a “high risk of life-threatening conditions” in parts of the country.
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The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) said Fung-wong, locally known as Uwan, is forecast to make landfall in Aurora province as early as Sunday night with maximum sustained winds of up to 185 kilometres per hour (115 miles per hour) and gusts of up to 230km/h (143mph).
It raised the highest alert level, Signal No 5, for southeastern and central areas, including Catanduanes, Camarines Sur, and Aurora province, while Metro Manila and nearby provinces were under Signal No 3.
Fung-wong, which could cover two-thirds of the Southeast Asian archipelago with its 1,600km (994-mile-) wide rain and wind band, was approaching from the Pacific while the Philippines was still dealing with the devastation wrought by Typhoon Kalmaegi, which left at least 224 people dead in central island provinces on Tuesday before pummeling Vietnam, where at least five were killed.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has declared a state of emergency due to the extensive devastation caused by Kalmaegi and the expected calamity from Fung-wong.
Tropical cyclones with sustained winds of 185km/h (115mph) or higher are categorised in the Philippines as a super typhoon, a designation adopted years ago to underscore the urgency tied to more extreme weather disturbances.
More than 916,860 people were evacuated from high-risk villages in northeastern provinces, including in Bicol, a coastal region vulnerable to Pacific cyclones and mudflows from Mayon, one of the country’s most active volcanoes.
Evacuation calls
Defence Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr, who oversees the country’s disaster response agencies and the military, warned about the potentially catastrophic effect of Fung-wong in televised remarks on Saturday.
“We ask that people preemptively evacuate so that we don’t end up having to conduct rescues at the last minute, which could put the lives of police, soldiers, firefighters and coastguard personnel at risk,” he said in a public address.
“We need to do this because when it’s already raining or the typhoon has hit and flooding has started, it’s hard to rescue people,” he added.
Teodoro said the storm could affect a vast expanse of the country, including Cebu, the central province hit hardest by Typhoon Kalmaegi, and metropolitan Manila, the densely populated capital region, which is the seat of power and the country’s financial centre.
More than 30 million people could be exposed to hazards posed by Fung-wong, the Office of Civil Defense said.
In Isabela in northern Luzon, dozens of families were sheltering in a basketball court repurposed as an evacuation centre.
“We heard on the news that the typhoon is very strong, so we evacuated early,” said Christopher Sanchez, 50, who fled with his family.
“We left our things on the roofs of our house since every time there’s a storm, we come here because we live right next to the river,” he told the Reuters news agency. “In previous storms, the floodwaters rose above human height.
“We’re scared,” he said. “We’re here with our grandchildren and our kids. The whole family is in the evacuation area.”
Authorities in northern provinces to be hit or sideswiped by Fung-wong have meanwhile preemptively declared the shutdown of schools and most government offices on Monday and Tuesday. At least 325 domestic and 61 international flights have been cancelled over the weekend and into Monday, and more than 6,600 commuters and cargo workers were stranded in at least 109 seaports, where the coastguard prohibited ships from venturing into rough seas.
Authorities warned of a “high risk of life-threatening and damaging storm surge” of more than 3 metres (10 feet) along the coasts of more than 20 provinces and regions, including metropolitan Manila.
The Philippines is battered by about 20 typhoons and storms each year. The country is also often hit by earthquakes and has more than a dozen active volcanoes, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.
