POLAND
PiS party loses majority
The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party won most votes in Sunday’s national election, but fell short of a majority, final official results showed yesterday, confirming that the liberal, pro-EU opposition is on track to form the next government. The official results gave PiS, a nationalist, socially conservative party, 35.38 percent of the vote, while the liberal Civic Coalition was in second place with 30.70 percent. The center-right Third Way took third place with 14.4 percent and the New Left had 8.61 percent of the vote. The far-right Confederation had 7.16 percent of the vote, the results showed. The Civic Coalition, New Left and Third Way have said they are ready to form a coalition government and that they would start talks once the official results are published.
NEW ZEALAND
Hipkins to stay party leader
Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins is to remain at the helm for now, despite a heavy election defeat. The now caretaker prime minister said that any decisions about party leadership would need to wait until the final composition of the caucus was confirmed once overseas and special votes are counted on Nov. 3. “I’m certainly still the leader of the Labour Party,” Hipkins told reporters yesterday in Wellington. “I’ve still got a bit of fight left in me. I am absolutely committed to supporting Labour into opposition.” Labour secured just 27 percent of the vote based on preliminary results from Saturday’s election, giving it 34 seats — down from 65.
UNITED STATES
Ma ticket price soars
Cellist Yo-yo Ma’s (馬友友) upcoming concert in Hong Kong is in such high demand that scalpers are charging more than US$2,200 for a ticket, similar to the resale value of those for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. On US-based tickets resale platform Viagogo, entry to Ma’s performance on Nov. 8 costs as much as US$2,206 — almost nine times the highest price of a ticket sold by the concert organizer. Swift’s show a day later in Buenos Aires, Argentina, fetches as much as US$2,288 for a ticket on the same Web site. Ma is to perform with Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra music director Jaap van Sweden at the Concert Hall of the Hong Kong Cultural Center, which has about 2,000 seats. The 90-minute concert is to open with Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3 and close with Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien.
THAILAND
Tycoon to be freed early
A Thai tycoon convicted of poaching wildlife in a national park was yesterday to be released from prison more than a year early, the corrections department said, one of more than 100 prisoners freed for good behavior. Construction magnate Premchai Karnasuta was arrested in February 2018 when park officials found guns and animal carcasses, including a kalij pheasant, a red muntjac and the pelt of a black leopard, at his campsite. He lost his final appeal in December 2021 against three poaching-related criminal charges and was sentenced to three years and two months, in a long-running case that drew public outrage over the elite’s perceived impunity. The department yesterday agreed to release 113 prisoners — including Premchai — and reduce the sentences of 484 others who had displayed good behavior while in jail. The department said Premchai would not be required to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet on his ankle because he has recently had surgery on his right foot related to diabetes.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home