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Georgia votes in high-stakes election affecting EU membership ambitions

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Georgia votes in high-stakes election affecting EU membership ambitions

Voting is under way in Georgia’s parliamentary elections that could shape the future of the country’s young democracy and its European ambitions.

Saturday’s vote will see an unprecedented alliance of pro-Western opposition parties challenging the governing Georgian Dream party, which has faced criticism for stifling democracy and drifting towards Russia.

The European Union has warned that the election will determine the country’s chances of joining the 27-nation bloc. Polls suggest most Georgians favour joining the EU, but accession talks were frozen after Georgian Dream passed a law cracking down on freedom of speech in June.

Polls opened at 8am (04:00 GMT) and are set to close 12 hours later, with some 3.5 million Georgians eligible to cast ballots.

Opinion polls indicate opposition parties could get enough votes to form a coalition to supplant Georgian Dream, controlled by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who set up the party and made his fortune in Russia.

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“Tonight, there will be victory for all of Georgia,” said pro-Western President Salome Zourabichvili, who is at loggerheads with the governing party, after casting her ballot.

Georgian Dream’s reclusive founder and former prime minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili, said the election was “a very simple choice”.

“Either we elect a government that serves you, the Georgian people … or we elect an agent of a foreign country that will only fulfil the tasks of a foreign country,” he said as he cast his vote in the capital, Tbilisi, on Saturday.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said he was confident Georgian Dream would win a commanding majority in the 150-seat parliament and called for “maximum mobilisation” of supporters.

Central Election Commission spokeswoman, Natia Ioseliani, said turnout was 9 percent by 10am (06:00 GMT), two hours after voting began.

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Georgians will elect 150 lawmakers from 18 parties. If no party wins the 76 seats required to form a government for a four-year term, the president will invite the largest party to form a coalition.

Demonstrators march during an opposition rally ahead of the election in Tbilisi, Georgia, on October 20, 2024 [Zurab Tsertsvadze/AP Photo]

‘Dragging us back’

Many voters believe the election may be the most crucial vote of their lifetimes, determining whether Georgia gets back on track to EU membership or embraces authoritarianism and leans towards Russia.

“Most Georgians have realised that the current government is dragging us back towards the Russian swamp and away from Europe, where Georgia truly belongs,” 48-year-old musician Giorgi Kipshidze told an AFP news agency reporter at a polling station in central Tbilisi.

In power since 2012, Georgian Dream initially pursued a liberal pro-Western policy agenda. But over the last two years, it has reversed course.

Its campaign has centred on a conspiracy theory about a “global war party” that controls Western institutions and is seeking to drag Georgia, still scarred by Russia’s 2008 invasion, into a war that only Georgian Dream could prevent.

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“Right now, some people don’t understand the danger they might face if we’re defeated. But we will try our best to win and show the people the correct path,” Georgian Dream activist Sandro Dvalishvili told the Reuters news agency.

Georgia, which lost swaths of its territory to Russian-backed separatists in the 1990s and was defeated in a brief Russian invasion in 2008, was for decades one of the most pro-Western states to emerge from the Soviet Union. But since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Georgian Dream has moved the country decisively back towards Moscow’s orbit, accusing the West of trying to lure it into war.

Opposition parties and President Zourabichvili accuse Georgian Dream of buying votes and intimidating voters, which it denies.

Georgian Dream’s adoption of a controversial “foreign influence” law this year targeting civil society prompted weeks of mass street protests and was criticised as a Kremlin-style measure to silence dissent.

Russia on Friday blasted “unprecedented attempts at Western interference” in the vote, accusing it of “trying to twist Georgia’s hand” and “dictate terms”.

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Supporters of the ruling Georgian Dream party attend a rally in the center of Tbilisi, Georgia, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. [AP Photo/Shakh Aivazov]
Supporters of the ruling Georgian Dream party attend a rally in the centre of Tbilisi, Georgia, on October 23, 2024 [Shakh Aivazov/AP Photo]

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Google puts AI agents at heart of its enterprise money-making push

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Google puts AI agents at heart of its enterprise money-making push
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is deepening a push into enterprise software, signaling to investors at Google’s annual ​cloud conference that AI agents — human-like digital assistants — are a lynchpin of its strategy to monetize artificial intelligence.
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Landlords allegedly posting ‘Muslim-only’ apartment ads in violation of country’s equality act: report

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Landlords allegedly posting ‘Muslim-only’ apartment ads in violation of country’s equality act: report

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Some landlords in England are apparently advertising “Muslim-only” apartments online, according to a local media report.

An investigation by The Telegraph found that alleged listings posted in London on Facebook, Gumtree and Telegram feature phrases such as “only for Muslims,” “for 2 Muslim boys or 2 Muslim girls,” and “Muslims preferred.”

Other ads appeal to Punjabi and Gujarati speakers, while some job vacancies on the platforms are advertised for men only.

Some listings specify “Hindu only,” in addition to posts that likely use religious subtext by stating: “The house should be alcohol and smoke-free.”

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IS MAMDANI’S SOCIALIST PUSH FOR RENT CONTROLS ABOUT TO WRECK THE NEW YORK CITY HOUSING MARKET?

On Facebook, a company called Roshan Properties posted dozens of listings stating “prefer Muslim boy,” “one double room is available for Muslims,” and “suitable for Punjabi boy.” A Meta spokesman told Fox News Digital that Facebook then removed the company’s page “for violating the platform’s policies on discriminatory practices.”

Apartment buildings in Westminster, London, U.K. (John Keeble/Getty Images)

The ads run afoul of Britain’s Equality Act 2010, which prohibits discrimination based on religion or belief, race and other protected characteristics.

“These adverts are disgusting and anti-British. It goes without saying that there would be a national outrage if the tables were turned,” Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s economic spokesman, told The Telegraph. “All forms of racism are unacceptable, and no religious group should get a special exemption to discriminate in this way.”

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Houses and properties line Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, London, U.K. Some landlords in the city are illegally advertising for “Muslim only” tenants across the city, an investigation by The Telegraph has found. (Richard Baker/In Pictures via Getty Images)

One landlord told The Telegraph to “go away” when asked about an ad for a “Muslims only” room for $1,150, and whether it was available to renters of other faiths.

A spokesperson for Gumtree told the newspaper that the company has clear policies in place that prohibit unlawful discrimination.

On Facebook, a company called Roshan Properties posted dozens of listings stating “prefer Muslim boy,” (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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“We take reports of inappropriate listings very seriously,” the spokesperson said. “The ads referenced appear to relate to private rooms within shared homes, where existing occupants may express preferences about who they live with. This is different from renting out an entire property, which is subject to stricter rules under the Equality Act.”

Telegram did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

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Is Europe too late to the metal recycling game?

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Is Europe too late to the metal recycling game?

Europe’s critical raw materials crisis has a partial answer sitting in the waste stream — but the continent has been too slow to see it.

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Dorota Włoch, CEO of Eneris Surowce, was direct: recycling is no longer optional.

Unlike plastics, metals can be recovered and reused indefinitely, making urban mining — the recovery of raw materials from existing products and waste — increasingly valuable, particularly for batteries.

“From recycling, we recover metallic aluminium and so-called black mass, which is a concentrate of metals, mainly cobalt-nickel. These are some of the most valuable battery metals. And batteries are crucial today, not only in the automotive sector, but also in storing energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar,” she said.

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‘Europe is 25 years late’

Włoch put the scale of the problem plainly. “Deposits are critical — any machine can be bought, but natural resources are not. They are non-transferable and non-renewable. If we use them, they simply disappear,” she said.

Europe’s belated recognition of that reality has cost it dearly.

“The regulation of critical raw materials came 25 years after other regions of the world had invested heavily in deposits. Europe was too passive. Today we are catching up, but the regulations are often so demanding that countries like Poland have difficulty implementing them.”

Who benefits most from extraction?

Poland holds significant reserves of raw materials critical to the modern economy, such as copper, coking coal, nickel, platinum group metals, helium, rhenium, lead and silver.

But the minerals needed most for the energy transition, such as lithium, cobalt and graphite, exist only in limited quantities, forcing imports.

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Arkadiusz Kustra, dean of the faculty of civil engineering and resource management at AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, told a panel at the European Economic Congress that awareness of the full supply chain, and who profits from it, was now essential.

He pointed to Serbia as a case study.

“Serbia has lithium deposits and is already in talks with Mercedes or Stellantis,” he said. Belgrade is using that leverage to attract investment in battery factories and car plants, keeping more of the value chain at home.

The goal, Kustra argued, should be regional supply chains that retain added value locally.

“You can earn the least at the beginning and the most from the end customer,” he said.

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The bigger obstacle is Chinese dominance.

“Margins in critical raw materials largely go to the Chinese, who control more than 90% of processing and trading, even though they do not own most of the deposits,” he said.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo — among the world’s most resource-rich countries — Chinese entities control around 90% of deposits.

The panel also pointed to growing interest in new supply partnerships, with Poland eyeing assets in the Congo region and the Americas.

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