However, gaining support has proved challenging due to Milei’s and his party’s high approval ratings being affected by a number of high-level scandals.
For instance, Jose Luis Espert, a leading candidate for Milei, suspended his campaign on October 6 after being accused of money laundering.
According to the prosecution, Espert paid Argentinian businessman Federico Andres Machado, who is being detained in the US on suspicion of drug trafficking and fraud, at least $200,000.
Prior to those allegations becoming public, Espert had been a strong candidate to represent Argentina in the Chamber of Deputies.
Espert himself has denied any wrongdoing, despite Milei’s accusations that it was a “malicious operation” to “smear” the candidate.
However, Espert is not the only person in Milei’s inner circle to face controversy.
[Patricio A Cabezas/Al Jazeera] – Protesters demonstrating an effigy of Javier Milei as king on September 17
Diego Spagnuolo, the former head of Argentina’s National Disability Agency, was accused of asking Karina Milei, the president’s sister, of demanding kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies by leaked audio a few weeks earlier.
Milei, who appointed his sister as the presidency’s secretary-general, has also refuted those claims.
He described the leaked audio as “an orchestrated and planned disinformation campaign” aimed at “maliciously influencing the electoral process.”
However, Argentina’s Congress publicly criticized Milei’s platform following the scandal.
On Saturday, UFC 321 will headline a championship doubleheader in Abu Dhabi. Tom Aspinall defends his UFC heavyweight title against Ciryl Gane in the main event.
After Jon Jones (28-1, 1 NC MMA) abruptly retired amid negotiations for an Aspinall fight falling through and eventually dropping charges from a February car crash, Aspinall (15-3 MMA), according to ESPN, was elevated to the title of undisputed UFC heavyweight champion this summer.
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Aspinall, a native of Salford, England, stated to reporters on Thursday that as he attempts to write his own story and establish his legacy at heavyweight, he feels no pressure entering the fight with Gane (13-2 MMA).
Aspinall expressed his satisfaction in allowing the conflict to unfold naturally. I’ll take whatever comes my way, and I’ll do my best to finish it off.”
After unsuccessful fights against Jones at UFC 285 and Francis Ngannou (18-3 MMA) at UFC 270, Gane now has a third chance to win the undisputed heavyweight title. The 35-year-old Frenchman promises a far different performance on fight night after acknowledging that this might be his final chance.
Everyone is aware of Tom Aspinall’s advantages, Gane said. Everyone is aware of my weaknesses, so we’ll see on Saturday if I can do well in this situation.
With Virna Jandiroba facing Mackenzie Dern, the co-headliner reclaims the UFC strawweight title that is vacated. The fight was postponed after the promotion decided to stage a super fight between Shevchenko (25-4-1 MMA) and Weili Zhang (23-3 MMA) for the UFC 322 event that will take place next month in Madison Square Garden.
Both Brazilians say they are excited to face off knowing that a title is in the running for it. In December 2020, Ern (15-5 MMA) defeated Jandiroba (22-2 MMA) by unanimous decision. No one has ever won the UFC title belt.
Dern said, “It’s possible for me to beat her because I’ve done it once.” We are today’s completely different fighters. After I broke my nose, she started a remarkable winning streak. So, I went through hardship in that fight and emerged victorious, so that’s kind of what I learned from all of my fights in the process, just to see what you can overcome and keep surviving.”
Jandiroba acknowledges that opportunities for redemption don’t exist frequently, and that she has taken a lot from Dern’s first fight.
Through a translator, Jandiroba said, “It’s a rematch I’ve wanted to do for a long time.” The best part of the fight is that I get to avenge that defeat. And I asked the universe for his best (possibility), which I received.
Jandiroba is confident that the rematch will turn out differently without making any predictions.
The biggest lesson, according to Jandiroba, is to believe in yourself.
The 13-fight main card for the event starts at 2 p.m. ET/11 p.m. PT from Etihad Arena, with the main card beginning at 2 p.m.
The running bout order is available below, but it can be changed.
Main card for UFC 321
UFC heavyweight champion fight between Tom Aspinall and Ciryl Gane
vacant UFC strawweight title fight between Virna Jandiroba and Mackenzie Dern
Bantamweight matchup between Mario Bautista and Umar Nurmagomedov
Heavyweight fight between Jailton Almeida and Alexander Volkov.
Lightweightweight fight between Azamat Murzakanov and Aleksandar Rakic
After almost five months in Israeli custody, Mervat Sarhan claims to have endured beatings, electric shocks, and threats to kill her children during interrogations.
In defiance of both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s and the Knesset’s ruling Likud party, two bills aimed at an annexing the occupied West Bank limped through Israel’s parliament on Tuesday night.
US President Donald Trump simply stated that Israel “is not going to do anything with the West Bank” in response to the election news.
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Meanwhile, his vice president, JD Vance, went further and described the vote as “weird” and said, “I personally take some insult to it,” while being in Israel to protect the US-broke ceasefire earlier this month.
Since 1967, Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, has continued. Israeli settlement construction has continued even though it is against international law and, in the case of settlement outposts, against Israeli law.
On Palestinian-occupied land, 250 illegal settlements are located in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, making up roughly 700,000 of the total number of Israeli settlers. The West Bank is home to about half a million of these.
(Al Jazeera)
Many members of Israel’s right-wing have long wanted to annex the West Bank, but this new bill has not yet been passed into law.
Zionists believe that formally annexing the West Bank would help them reclaim the biblical land of Greater Israel, which includes all of the occupied Palestinian territories as well as parts of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. It serves as a cheap way for some to seize Palestinian land and obstruct any pending Palestinian statehood.
The Knesset approved “applying Israeli sovereignty to Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley” in a symbolic motion in July. These are Israel’s names for the West Bank that are occupied. A month later, Israel announced the establishment of a new settlement, “settlement-plan-threatens-viability-of-future-palestinian-state”>E1,” that would connect occupied East Jerusalem to the expanding Maale Adumim settlement in the occupied West Bank, despite the motion’s lack of legal weight.
What was the subject of the most recent Israeli bills?
On Tuesday, the Knesset approved two separate bills: one that would legalize the Maale Adumim settlement and the other that would grant Israeli citizenship to all illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The move was framed in biblical terms by its sponsor, far-right Knesset (MK) member Avi Maoz of the one-man Noam party, when introducing the second bill. Maoz addressed the Knesset, “The Holy One, blessed be He, gave the people of Israel the Land of Israel.” After two thousand years of exile, the phrase “settlement in the Land of Israel is the redemption and national revival” (p. 3).
What was the outcome of the votes?
Both bills passed the preliminary readings. Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the opposition, sponsored the bill to annex Maale Adumim, which was defeated by 32 to 9. The bill’s broad scope for sovereignty was largely passed 25-24.
Nearly all Likud party lawmakers were boycotted, according to Israeli media, with just one MK supporting the motion.
(Al Jazeera)
The bills were backed and opposed by whom?
Netanyahu and Likud opposed both bills in accordance with the US administration, some of whose most senior figures are currently stationed in Israel to bolster the ceasefire agreement they brokered in early October.
Netanyahu has previously praised the idea of a “Greater Israel,” but his party called the votes “an additional provocation by the opposition aimed at deteriorating our relations with the US.”
Donald Trump, the US president, has stated that he will stop Israel from annexing the West Bank and that he will stop at all costs.
In a statement, it stated that “true sovereignty will be achieved not through a showy law for the record, but by proper work on the ground,” in response to rumors that Netanyahu’s government had given US too much authority.
Yuli Edelstein, a Likud MK, was the only candidate to win, which has since cost him his seat on the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
However, some of Netanyahu’s coalition partners, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right National Security Minister, and Religious Zionist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, both supported the measures.
The Knesset has spoken, Smotrich wrote in a post on X. The people have remarked. The time has come to grant our forefathers’ full sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria, which are the result of peace, and to support peace efforts with our neighbors from a strong position.
אדוני ראש הממשלה, הכנסת אמרה את דברה. העם אמר את דברו. הגיע העת להחלת ריבונות מלאה על כל שטחי יהודה ושומרון – נחלת אבותינו – ולקידום הסכמי שלום תמורת שלום עם שכנינו מתוך עוצמה. 🇮🇱
Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, two opposition figures frequently portrayed in the European media as liberal or moderate, were also in favor of the bill’s annexation of Maale Adumim.
Does this matter in terms of timing?
It’s awkward for Netanyahu, Likud, and their American guests.
Israel’s media reported on the news on Thursday that any new strikes on Gaza would need to be authorized by the US. Trump stated in an interview with Time that he had informed the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he would not be permitted to annex the occupied West Bank.
Netanyahu has rebuffed claims that Israel has ascended to the US as a “client state.”
Despite this, Netanyahu has made every effort to accommodate US visitors, including US Vice President JD Vance, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Jared Kushner’s son-in-law, and special envoy Steve Witkoff, who called the Knesset bills “a very stupid political stunt.”
According to reports in The New York Times, US officials believe Netanyahu is looking for an excuse to break the president’s political commitment to a ceasefire, which he has heavily leveraged on his political capital.
They were there to “monitor a toddler,” as Vice President Vance put it at a press conference, and not to “monitor a toddler.”
Regarding the recent Knesset vote on Judea and Samaria’s sovereignty, JD Vance:
The West Bank will not be annexed by Israel, according to the statement, which was a very stupid political stunt. pic. https://twitter.com/hyWxm9z2EL
What comes next with the bills?
The bills must pass three more readings before being passed into law, and they will now be sent for further consideration to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Netanyahu is unlikely to permit either bill to advance further, as the hard US position on stopping further Israeli aggression is shared by the majority of Israeli media.
Are these votes really that significant?
No legislation is anticipated to be passed unless Netanyahu, his governing coalition, and Washington oppose them. The votes represent yet another significant step in the gradual encroachment of Israeli control over Palestinian territory in the wider context of Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territory since 1967.
Rapid settlement expansion occurred during the decade immediately following the war of 1967, which was followed by East Jerusalem’s annexation in 1980. The Oslo Accords of 1993, which was touted as a liberal reform, tightened Israeli control elsewhere while the 2005 Gaza disengagement tightened it.
According to the provincial governor, at least 14 refugees perished when their inflatable dinghy capsized in the Turkish resort of Bodrum in the Aegean Sea.
An Afghan man who survived the disaster and returned to the mainland had raised the alarm shortly after 1 a.m. (22:00 GMT), according to the Mugla governorate office, on Friday.
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The governor’s office reported to the Afghan national to the emergency services that the rubber boat had been sailing after 18 people had set off, but that it soon after had become in water and sunk.
A second survivor who had escaped Bodrum’s Celebi Island was discovered by search and rescue teams.
Four coastguard boats, powered by a helicopter and a specialist diving team, were conducting a search and rescue operation to find other unaccounted refugees, according to the office.
Refugee and migrant boats frequently vanish on the short but dangerous route between the Turkish coast and the nearby Greek islands of Samos, Rhodes, and Lesbos, which are safe haven for people fleeing conflict and poverty.
At least 16 people died in the narrow channel between Turkiye and Lesbos in April when two refugees’ boats went down.
At least 22 people were killed last year when their rubber dinghy capsized off the Turkish island of Gokceada, killing several children.
Greece and Turkiye, NATO members, have a thorn in their relationship because they frequently accuse each other of waving migrants through their joint borders and at sea.
Two people were killed in a drone strike by Israelis in southern Lebanon, according to the country’s ministry of public health, one day after Israeli airstrikes targeted the country’s eastern mountain range and south.
The Israeli government’s continued, almost daily violations of the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which started in November.
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Two people were also hurt by the attack in the Nabatieh district’s Toul on Friday, according to the ministry. They were not given any details about their condition.
A security source claimed a drone fired a missile at a car, directly injuring it before igniting it.
Separately, according to a report from Lebanon’s state-run NNA, the Israeli military launched an airstrike on Marjayoun’s Kroum al-Marah neighborhood without receiving any injuries.
Two people were killed when Israeli forces attacked the eastern Bekaa region on Thursday, and two others were killed when they later attacked an elderly woman who was also a victim of an Israeli attack.
Without providing any proof, the Israeli military claimed to have attacked Hezbollah-linked sites, including “a military camp and a site for the production of precision missiles.” Hezbollah did not respond right away.
Despite the truce requiring its full withdrawal earlier this year, Israel has continued to launch assaults on Lebanese territory, particularly in the south, and has maintained a military presence at five border crossings.
The ceasefire ended the more than a year of Hezbollah’s hostilities, which lasted for two months before the war broke out.
Joseph Aoun, the president of Lebanon, has repeatedly requested intervention from both the US and France in order to halt Israel. After another deadly Israeli drone attack in southern Lebanon, which left five people dead, including three children, Aoun pushed for greater support from Washington last month.
As a result of Israel’s repeated violations, there have been more casualties and extensive destruction, and efforts by the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah in the south have been hampered.
