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Far-right surges in EU vote, topping polls in Germany, France, Austria

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Far-right surges in EU vote, topping polls in Germany, France, Austria

Far-right parties have made major gains in the European Union parliamentary elections, delivering humiliating defeats to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer.

In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) took second place in Sunday’s EU election, underscoring the party’s resilience ahead of next year’s federal election.

The Eurosceptic party secured more than 16 percent of the vote, its best-ever showing and a higher share of the ballot than all three parties in Scholz’s coalition.

The conservatives, who are in opposition at the federal level, have been forecast to come first, rising slightly to 29.5 percent.

Germany’s Greens were the biggest losers on Sunday, falling by 8.5 percentage points to 12 percent, punished by voters for the cost of policies to reduce CO2 emissions – in line with expectations for environmental parties across Europe.

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Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the third coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), also fared poorly, expected to win 14 percent and 5 percent of the vote respectively, down from 15.8 percent and 5.4 percent in the previous election.

The results are in line with an expected broader shift rightwards for the European Parliament across the bloc of 450 million citizens.

The strong showing comes as Germany’s party landscape undergoes its biggest upheaval in decades, with new populist parties vying to take space vacated by the shrinking mainstream parties that have dominated since reunification in 1990.

This looks set to make it much harder for established parties to form workable coalitions, and is coarsening the political climate, say analysts. The campaign was overshadowed by a surge in violence against politicians and activists.

The AfD was plagued by scandals in recent months, with its lead candidate having to step back from campaigning in May after declaring that the SS, the Nazis’ main paramilitary force, were “not all criminals”.

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“We’ve done well because people have become more anti-European,” the AfD’s co-leader Alice Weidel said on Sunday.

“People are annoyed by so much bureaucracy from Brussels,” she added, giving a plan ultimately to ban CO2-emitting cars as an example.

 

In France, the National Rally party of Marine Le Pen dominated the polls to such an extent that Macron immediately dissolved the national parliament and called for new elections, a huge political risk since his party could suffer more losses, hobbling the rest of his presidential term which ends in 2027.

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Projected results from France put Le Pen’s far-right National Rally at about 33 percent, with 31 seats in the incoming European Parliament – more than double the score of Macron’s liberals, at 15 percent.

Macron acknowledged the scale of the defeat.

“I’ve heard your message, your concerns, and I won’t leave them unanswered,” he said, adding that calling a snap election only underscored his democratic credentials.

Austria’s far-right Freedom Party gained nearly 26 percent of the vote, topping a nationwide ballot for the first time.

The governing conservative People’s Party (OeVP) picked up 24.7 percent, followed by the Social Democrats with 23.2 percent and the Greens at 10.7 percent.

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Chancellor Nehammer pledged to address voters’ concerns ahead of national elections due to be held in Autumn, including cracking down on illegal immigration.

Meanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni saw her position bolstered after her right-wing populist Brothers of Italy won the most votes, exit polls showed.

Left-wing and green parties had a better showing in the Scandinavian countries, with far-right and populist parties in Sweden, Denmark and Finland seeing their vote shares decline.

In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s nationalist Fidesz won the most votes but lost significant ground compared with the 2019 elections.

Fidesz had 44 percent of the vote with nearly 90 percent of votes counted, down from 52 percent.

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Still, Orbán claimed victory in a speech to supporters at a party event on Sunday night.

“Today, we defeated the old opposition, the new opposition, and no matter what the opposition will be called the next time, we will defeat them again and again,” he said.

Orbán’s main challenger, Peter Magyar’s Tisza party, picked up about 30 percent of the vote.

Overall across the EU, two mainstream and pro-European groups, the Christian Democrats and the Socialists, remained the dominant forces. The gains of the far right came at the expense of the Greens, who were expected to lose about 20 seats and fall back to sixth position in the legislature.

Reporting from Berlin, Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen said that the Eurosceptic parties appeared set to form a large bloc in the next European Parliament.

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“With this very large bloc of far-right parties, there can be an influence on climate policies, for example … Also, [the EU’s] agriculture policies… and migration policies, which is a very important issue here in Germany and in the Netherlands,” she said.

However, Vaessen noted that the far-right parties are not united.

“They have a lot of divisions among themselves and they have been trying to reach out to each other. We’ve seen [France’s] Marine Le Pen, for example, reaching out to [Prime Minister] Giorgia Meloni in Italy,” she said.

“But after tonight, we will have to see how these groups will be formed and what kind of influence they will have.”

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Likely Yemen Houthi rebel attack targets ship in Gulf of Aden as Eisenhower reportedly heads home

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Likely Yemen Houthi rebel attack targets ship in Gulf of Aden as Eisenhower reportedly heads home

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A commercial ship traveling through the Gulf of Aden saw explosions near the vessel, authorities said Saturday, likely the latest attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels attempting to target the shipping lane.

The apparent fire by the Houthis comes after the sinking this week of the ship Tutor, which marked what appears to be a new escalation by the Iranian-backed Houthis in their campaign of attacks on ships in the vital maritime corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials reportedly ordered the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, the aircraft carrier leading America’s response to the Houthi attacks, to return home.

The captain of the ship targeted late Friday saw “explosions in the vicinity of the vessel,” the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.

“The crew are reported safe and the vessel is proceeding to its next port of call,” the UKMTO said, without elaborating on whether the ship sustained any damage.

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The Houthis, who have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014, did not immediately claim the attack. However, it can take the rebels hours or even days to acknowledge their assaults.

The Houthis on Friday released footage of one of their drone boats, the “Tufan,” or “Flood,” which they said targeted the Tutor.

The Houthis have launched more than 60 attacks targeting specific vessels and fired off other missiles and drones in their campaign that has killed a total of four sailors. They have seized one vessel and sunk two since November. A U.S.-led airstrike campaign has targeted the Houthis since January, with a series of strikes May 30 killing at least 16 people and wounding 42 others, the rebels say.

In March, the Belize-flagged Rubymar carrying fertilizer became the first to sink in the Red Sea after taking on water for days following a rebel attack.

The Houthis have maintained that their attacks target ships linked to Israel, the United States or Britain. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the Israel-Hamas war.

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Meanwhile, the U.S. Naval Institute’s news service reported, citing an anonymous official, that the Eisenhower would be returning home to Norfolk, Virginia, after an over eight-month deployment in combat that the Navy says is its most intense since World War II. The report said an aircraft carrier operating in the Pacific would be taking the Eisenhower’s place.

The closest American aircraft carrier known to be operating in Asia is the USS Theodore Roosevelt. The Roosevelt anchored Saturday in Busan, South Korea, amid Seoul’s ongoing tensions with North Korea.

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Hot tub death: Wife files wrongful death lawsuit, calls for 'accountability'

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Hot tub death: Wife files wrongful death lawsuit, calls for 'accountability'

A Texas woman has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against two Mexican resort travel companies, seeking more than $1 million, after her husband tragically died after being electrocuted in a resort hot tub.

In the lawsuit, Lizzette Zambrano, from El Paso County, Texas, named vacation rental companies Casago LLC, Casago International LLC and High Desert Travel Inc., which operated Sonoran Sea Resort, where she was staying with her husband, Jorge Guillen.

Zambrano accused the companies of being “grossly negligent” and has called for the companies to “take accountability” for her 43-year-old husband’s death.

“I want somebody to take accountability for what happened to my husband and myself,” Zambrano told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

MEXICO HOT TUB DEATH: US TOURIST WHO WAS ELECTROCUTED REMEMBERED AS ‘BIG FAMILY MAN’ WHO HAD ‘HEART OF GOLD’

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Jorge Guillen and Lizzette Zambrano are from El Paso, Texas, according to media reports. (GoFundMe)

The lawsuit paints a picture of the couple’s last moments together before being electrocuted in a hot tub while vacationing.

As soon as Guillen entered the tub, he was “exposed to an electrical current in the water,” it said.

“Jorge immediately keeled over into the tub and was taken under the surface of the water,” the lawsuit said. “Witnessing her husband immediately collapse, Lizzette sprang forward from the pool deck to try and grab Jorge’s body.”

Zambrano attempted to rescue him, but was also shocked. 

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She was eventually rescued by a bystander and taken to a hospital.

“Patrons attempted to assist, grabbing a shepherd’s cross and other items to attempt to get Jorge’s body,” the lawsuit said. “However, the metal from the objects carried the electrical current and began shocking the rescuers.”

The lawsuit said it took “ten painstaking minutes” before staff members “availed themselves and began to assist in rescuing Jorge.”

MAN KILLED AFTER GETTING ELECTROCUTED IN SEASIDE RESORT JACUZZI 

“At no time prior to this, did Defendants seek to engage the emergency shutoff for the jacuzzi or attempt any rescue of either Jorge or Lizzette,” it said. “Jorge was being electrocuted and drowned under water for 10 minutes.”

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Puerto-Penasco-Mexico

A beachfront at the popular tourist resort of Puerto Peñasco in the state of Sonora, Mexico. (AP Photo/Annika Wolters/File)

Guillen was remembered in a GoFundMe for having a “heart of gold.”

 

“Our best friends have experienced a horrible accident. Jorge had a heart of gold and was always there for family and friends. The love they shared was one for ages,” reads a GoFundMe page set up for the couple. 

In a comment to the New York Post, Casago denied responsibility. 

“The Sonoran Sea is a condo resort and the homeowners’ association is responsible for all common areas, including the maintenance of the swimming pool, hot tubs, and grounds,” they said. “Casago, a vacation rental company, is not involved in any management or maintenance of the resort.”

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Fox News Digital has reached out to Sonoran Sea Resort for comment.

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Israel will be the ‘ultimate loser’ in war with Hezbollah, Iran says

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Israel will be the ‘ultimate loser’ in war with Hezbollah, Iran says

Israel says it will soon ‘make the necessary decisions’ about confronting the Iran-allied Lebanese group.

Iran says Hezbollah is capable of defending itself and Lebanon, warning Israel that it would be the “ultimate loser” in an all-out war with the Lebanese armed group.

Tehran’s statement on Friday came as fears of a major Israeli offensive in Lebanon continued to mount.

“Any imprudent decision by the occupying Israeli regime to save itself could plunge the region into a new war, the consequence of which would be the destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure as well as that of the 1948 occupied territories,” Iran’s mission to the United Nations said in a social media post.

“Undoubtedly, this war will have one ultimate loser, which is the Zionist regime. The Lebanese Resistance Movement, Hezbollah, has the capability to defend itself and Lebanon – perhaps the time for the self-annihilation of this illegitimate regime has come.”

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Israel also issued a threat to Iran-aligned Hezbollah on Friday with Foreign Minister Israel Katz saying “soon we will make the necessary decisions” about confronting the Lebanese group.

“The free world must unconditionally stand with Israel in its war against the axis of evil led by Iran and extremist Islam. Our war is also your war,” Katz said.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said this week that if the Israeli military goes to war in Lebanon, his group will use its rockets and drones to hit targets across the entire territory of Israel. He warned Hezbollah would wage a war with “no restraint and no rules and no ceilings”.

Nasrallah also issued a threat to Cyprus, a European Union member that sits in the eastern Mediterranean west of the Lebanese and Israeli coasts. He said the group has information that Israel is conducting military exercises in Cyprus in terrain similar to southern Lebanon.

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Nasrallah added that Israel plans to use airports and bases in Cyprus for military purposes if its own infrastructure is targeted during a serious war.

“Opening Cypriot airports and bases for the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon means the Cypriot government has become part of the war, and the resistance will deal with it as part of the war,” he said without elaborating.

Cyprus said Nasrallah’s threat is not grounded in reality, stressing the country enjoys great relations with Lebanon.

Still, the Hezbollah statement exacerbated concerns about an even larger regional war that could spill beyond Lebanon’s borders and pull Iran-allied groups – if not Tehran itself – as well as the United States into the conflict.

Hezbollah started attacking military bases in northern Israel the day after the outbreak of the war on Gaza on October 7 in what it says is a “support front” to back Palestinian groups. Israel responded by bombing southern Lebanese villages and Hezbollah positions.

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While the near-daily clashes have displaced tens of thousands of people in Lebanon and Israel, they have been largely contained to the border areas.

But the violence has escalated in recent weeks, especially after an Israeli air raid killed a top Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon last week.

On Friday, Hezbollah claimed several military operations against Israel, including a drone attack it said targeted Israeli forces at a coastal base on the western side of the border.

The US has pushed for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis while expressing concern about Hezbollah’s attacks. “We have made quite clear we do not want to see escalation of this conflict,” Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Thursday.

For its part, Hezbollah has said it will continue operations against the Israeli military until Israel ends its war in Gaza, which has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians.

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Members of Hezbollah attend the funeral of a senior field commander [File: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters]

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