“The far-right One Nation party has secured its first lower house seat in the state parliament of Western Australia, defeating the ruling Labor Party to win a special election,” Bloomberg reports.

“The election was watched as an indicator of One Nation’s strength after the party surged in the polls over the past year.”

“A year out from Argentina’s presidential election, Peter Thiel has become an avatar for the left’s charge that President Javier Milei is putting the country up for sale,” Bloomberg reports.

“Opposition lawmakers launched a five-hour congressional hearing Friday into Thiel’s interests in Argentina, ramping up scrutiny on the tech billionaire who has purchased a mansion in Buenos Aires and a stake in the country’s biggest oil exporter.”

“Thiel also met with Milei and members of the cabinet earlier this year, just as the libertarian leader began pushing one bill to make it easier for foreigners to purchase Argentine land and another that would allow companies to be run entirely by AI.”

“Hungary’s parliament elected an academic with no legal training to head a flagship authority created by Peter Magyar’s government to map and help prosecute suspected misappropriation during former leader Viktor Orban’s tenure,” Bloomberg reports.

“Swiss voters will decide in a referendum next month whether to approve a more restrictive form of neutrality that would block their ​country from imposing economic sanctions or cooperating with NATO,” Reuters reports.

“Posters featuring doves of peace and asking voters to reject war have ‌appeared across the Alpine nation in a campaign that has won the backing of the Kremlin but has raised fears that it could isolate Switzerland from its European neighbors.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky said holding a wartime election in Ukraine while active fighting with Russia continues would “destroy” the country by splitting ​Ukrainians, Reuters reports.

“British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he will shift responsibility for economic growth away from the UK Treasury and toward his new office in the north of England,” Bloomberg reports.

“Burnham’s premiership, which began last month, has focused on giving more power to regions outside London, while the PM has tightened his grip on economic matters and moved some operations to a Manchester office called No. 10 North.”

“Six weeks from Brazil’s election, the talk of its campaign season is less about who will win than what President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will do when he does,” Bloomberg reports.

“From the capital Brasilia to trading desks in Sao Paulo, Lula is broadly considered the favorite to beat right-wing challenger Flávio Bolsonaro, whose campaign has been marred by a feud with his stepmother and links to a banker at the center of a massive financial fraud probe.”

“The popular former Ukrainian defense minister, whose firing by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy triggered nationwide protests, strongly hinted at his political ambitions with a late-night video calling for wartime elections,” Bloomberg reports.

“A Russian court sentenced an opposition politician to 11 years and one month in a penal colony for speaking against President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the latest anti-war figure to be jailed in a broader crackdown on dissent,” Bloomberg reports.

“Lev Shlosberg, a deputy chairman of the liberal Yabloko party, received the sentence on Monday after being convicted under Russia’s laws against disseminating false information and discrediting the military.”

“In a few weeks, Germany’s far-right party — Alternative for Germany, better known as AfD — could become a governing party of a German state for the first time. The stakes go far beyond the one state — and likely beyond Europe,” NOTUS reports.

“Germany’s modern political system was designed to prevent far-right rule. But Ulrich Siegmund, AfD’s head candidate, is currently leading in polls to become the head of a state government, Saxony-Anhalt.”

“An election that pitted Nigel Farage against a man dressed as a bin, and turned the English resort town of Clacton into a seaside media circus, ended on Friday morning with a fizzle rather than a bang as the victorious Reform UK leader ducked out of public appearances,” Bloomberg reports.

“As the candidates lined up in an Essex leisure center in the early hours of Friday morning to hear their results read out, Farage was not in their midst. Despite winning more than 60% of the vote, he said at a private party held down the road that he wouldn’t be ‘demeaned and humiliated by nobodies’ — denying photographers the chance to picture him shaking hands with his costumed runner-up, Count Binface.”

“He also canceled a victory speech on Friday, at which the media might have sought to question him about his personal finances.”

“When Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump met in the Oval Office two weeks ago, the president asked the Israeli prime minister how he was doing in the polls ahead of an Oct. 27 election,” Axios reports.

“Netanyahu paused. Then one of his advisers piped up: ‘Mr. President, he is winning,’ the aide said, according to a U.S. official familiar with the exchange.”

“Netanyahu is not winning. And so far, Trump hasn’t given him the endorsement he hopes for, despite being asked about it repeatedly by reporters.”

“Nigel Farage, leader of Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party, has won re-election to parliament in a vote he triggered himself last month by stepping down amid controversy over his finances,” CNBC reports.

“Farage, who has previously been praised by U.S. President Donald Trump and was a figurehead in the U.K. campaign to leave the European Union, faces a parliamentary investigation over failure to declare a £5 million ($6.7 million) donation from a Thailand-based crypto investor ahead of his 2024 election.”

“The probe was suspended following his resignation on July 7. Farage has said the gift was a personal gift intended to contribute to his security costs.”

Bloomberg: UK’s Farage defeats Count Binface in special election.

Wired: “A man wearing a trash can on his head dances on the beach, silver cape glinting in the sun as he spins beneath a wheel-topped pier, singing ‘England needs a new hope’ from under an enormous helmet. The scene is Clacton-on-Sea, the centre of one of the east of England’s poorest constituencies and home to around 92,000 people and now the focus of international attention over what locals and observers have dubbed a political circus. The video is part of an extremely online campaign by Count Binface, who is running to represent the Essex town in Parliament. In an ignoble first in British electoral history, he is one of 34 candidates on the ballot.”

“One of Britain’s most high-profile and perennial candidates, Binface has stood in six previous elections across England over the past decade (UK politicians do not have to live in a constituency in order to represent it in parliament). This Thursday, he faces Clacton incumbent Nigel Farage—leader of the right-wing anti-immigration party Reform UK and a friend of Donald Trump—in a by-election triggered by the latter’s resignation amidst allegations that he and his party accepted and failed to declare financial support, including a £5 million gift from a Thailand-based cryptocurrency tycoon.”

“Hungarian lawmakers elected former Supreme Court Justice Andras Baka as the country’s new president, in a key step toward dismantling the political legacy of former Premier Viktor Orban,” Bloomberg reports.

“Parliament approved Baka’s election by 140 votes with 6 against, based on the ruling party’s more than two-thirds majority controlled by Prime Minister Peter Magyar.”

Politico: “Alberta’s separatists were once dismissed as a fringe movement. Today, they are at the center of one of Canada’s most consequential political debates, one that threatens to fracture the country.”