Iranian military officials should decide how to respond to Friday night’s Israeli attack on Iran, but the event should neither be minimised nor exaggerated, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Sunday in his first response to the attack.

A debate has been set off inside Iran on whether the Israeli attack, more limited than some had predicted, warrants a military response and if the country will be seen as weak if it does nothing.

“The evil committed by the Zionist regime [Israel] two nights ago should neither be downplayed nor exaggerated,” Khamenei said.

Khamenei said Iran’s power should be demonstrated to Israel, adding: “It is up to the authorities to determine how to convey the power and will of the Iranian people to the Israeli regime and to take actions that serve the interests of this nation and country.”

His remarks suggest there is no immediate military response planned, as Iran weighs its options.

Tehran on Saturday played down Israel’s overnight air attack against Iranian military targets, saying it caused limited damage, and the US president, Joe Biden, called for a halt to escalation amid fears of an all-out war in the Middle East.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a speech on Sunday: “The air force attacked throughout Iran. We hit hard Iran’s defence capabilities and its ability to produce missiles that are aimed at us.

“The attack in Iran was precise and powerful, and it achieved all its objectives.”

According to anonymous officals quoted in the New York Times, Israel’s attack destroyed air defence systems set up to protect several critical oil and petrochemical refineries and a large gasfield. According to the report the air defences attacked included those around the Bandar Imam Khomeini petrochemical complex and the neighbouring port of Bandar Imam Khomeini.

In his first response Iran’s elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, mourned the loss of four Iranian soldiers killed in the Israeli attack. In a statement he added: “Enemies of Iran should know these brave people are standing fearlessly in defence of their land and will respond to any stupidity with tact and intelligence.”

The former foreign minister and current strategic adviser to the government, Javad Zarif, also made no direct threat of retaliation, saying instead in a lengthy statement: “The west should move away from its outdated and dangerous paradigm. It must condemn Israel’s recent acts of aggression and join Iran in efforts to end the apartheid, genocide, and violence in Palestine and Gaza, and in Lebanon. Recognising Iran’s confident resolve for peace is essential; this unique opportunity should not be missed.”

Iran’s mission to the UN in New York, often used as a means of communicating media messages to the west, accused the US of being complicit in the attack since Israeli warplanes attacked Iran from Iraqi airspace: “Iraqi airspace is under the occupation, command and control of the US military. Conclusion: the US complicity in this crime is certain.”

The mission has also written to the UN security council to accuse Israel of a breach of Iranian sovereignty.

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, added: “It seems that the truth has been completely proven that without America, Israel does not necessarily have any power in the region, not only in the operation it has done against Iran, but all the operations it has done in Gaza, Lebanon and other places, we believe America has been complicit in all these cases.”

He highlighted the reaction of the countries in the region to the Israeli attack. “Since yesterday [Saturday] until now, we are regularly receiving messages from different countries, the statements they issued, the level of condemnation from different countries both in the region. It is really remarkable that it took place at this international level.”

Iran has to weigh the likely diplomatic damage to its improving relations with its Arab partners of mounting a further attack, the impact on the country’s ailing economy, and the likelihood that a further Israeli strike would cause considerably more damage than Friday’s softening-up exercise.

Public support for Iran’s costly foreign policy is fragile, the latest polling conducted by the Middle East Institute shows.

Israel’s reputation as a democracy would be “deeply harmed” if the Knesset pressed ahead with bills this week that would end all Israeli government cooperation with the Palestinian relief agency Unrwa, the UK’s Middle East minister has said.

Hamish Falconer said such a move at a time when the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was catastrophic and worsening would “neither be in Israel’s interest or realistic”.

His remarks are the strongest criticism yet by a western government minister of the legislation, which could be voted on as early as this week unless the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, intervenes.

He was speaking as a joint statement was released from seven European foreign ministries, including the UK’s, urging Israel to drop the proposed bill, saying: “It is crucial that Unrwa and other UN organisations be fully able to deliver humanitarian aid and their assistance to those who need it most, fulfilling their mandates effectively.”

Falconer demanded that more aid be allowed to enter Gaza and said too many civilians were being killed in Israeli attacks on Hamas in Gaza. He was speaking at a conference in London convened by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Falconer said the measures taken by the Labour government so far did not indicate any decline in Labour support for the state of Israel, but his remarks were as sharp as any delivered by a Labour minister.

He said: “We are deeply concerned by legislation currently under consideration by the Israeli Knesset which would critically undermine Unrwa. It is neither in Israel’s interest nor realistic.

“Given the agency’s vital role in delivering aid and essential services at a time when more aid should be getting into Gaza, it is deeply harmful to Israel’s international reputation as a democratic country that its lawmakers are taking steps that would make the delivering of food, water, medicines and healthcare more difficult.”

He added: “The international community are clear that Unrwa and other humanitarian organisations must be fully able to deliver aid.”

Many Israelis regard Unrwa as too closely linked with Hamas and also committed to the Palestinian refugees’ right of return.

Falconer, who has recently been to the Egypt-Gaza border, said humanitarian access to Gaza remained wholly inadequate. “I saw for myself thousands of trucks waiting to cross the border,” he said. “Some had been there for months. There were warehouses full of life-saving items – medical equipment, sleeping bags and tarpaulin for the winter. There have been repeated attacks on humanitarian convoys and the level of aid getting in is far too low.”

He challenged Israel’s military tactics inside Gaza, saying: “Hamas is a brutal terrorist organisation, it hides behind Gazan civilians, but all parties must do everything possible to protect civilians and fully respect international humanitarian law.”

He said Israel “must protect civilians even if it means making difficult choices. All too often in the pursuit of Hamas we have seen civilians pay the price. The Israeli government must take all necessary precautions to avoid civilian casualties, to ensure aid can flow into Gaza and freely through all humanitarian land routes.”

Falconer also said: “As long as there is little accountability for settler violence, the government will consider further actions.”

Warning that the risk of further escalation could not be exaggerated, he called for calmer heads to prevail and urged Iran not to retaliate for Saturday’s Israeli attack. The death of the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar presented an opportunity for a new chapter, he said, and no military solution existed to the crisis.

Speaking at the same event via video link, the former UK prime minister Tony Blair said: “Hamas cannot be allowed to continue to govern Gaza, and Israel will need to pull back to allow the development of a different governance structure for Gaza that would then enable reconstruction to take place.”

Blair said he knew that many in Israel doubted Gaza could ever be run differently, and many assumed a “higher level of support for Hamas than exists in reality”.

He said polls commissioned in August by the Tony Blair Institute showed that the most popular choice was an administration of Gaza representatives with international oversight and linked to the Palestinian Authority. He said the poll showed that in the West Bank there was strong agreement behind moderate to deep reform of the Palestinian Authority.

Details have emerged suggesting Israel used precision air and drone strikes in its unprecedented attack on Iran this weekend to target air defence systems protecting crucial oil and gas facilities, as well as military sites linked to Tehran’s nuclear programme and ballistic missile production.

Israel openly attacked Iran for the first time on Saturday in the latest direct confrontation between the regional enemies, bringing the Middle East another step closer to a full-scale conflagration.

In the immediate aftermath, Iran appeared to downplay the airstrikes, which killed four soldiers. Fearing all-out war and shocks to the global oil industry, western leaders had urged Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, not to target oil or nuclear facilities in the widely anticipated response to an Iranian ballistic missile salvo on Tel Aviv and military bases on 1 October. Iranian officials had repeatedly warned attacks on nuclear or energy infrastructure would cross a “red line”.

Satellite imagery of affected sites in Iran and details reported by the New York Times suggest the Israeli leader heeded allies’ advice, but the locations of the strikes nonetheless signalled that Israel is capable of hitting high-value targets if the escalation continues.

The operation, codenamed Days of Repentance, appears to have been aimed at degrading Iran’s ability to attack Israel, as well as making the country more vulnerable to future airstrikes.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it focused on air defence, radar sites, and long-range missile production facilities. Israeli media reported it involved more than 100 jets and drones, and was carried out in two waves.

Citing three Israeli and three Iranian officials, the New York Times said that in the first phase of the attack, Israeli jets targeted air defence systems in Syria and Iraq, preventing Tehran’s allies from intercepting the aircraft en route.

In Iran, air defence systems were also attacked, with the aim of limiting Iran’s ability to fend off future attacks. Some of the targeted systems are supposed to protect important sites, including the Abadan oil refinery, the Bandar Imam Khomeini petrochemical complex, the gasfield Tange Bijar, and Bandar port in the south of the country, the paper said.

Three Russian-made S-300 air defence systems around Tehran were also reportedly hit, as well as the Parchin and Parand military bases, it added. Social media videos appeared to show damage to a factory near the capital that builds oil and gas industry machinery.

Satellite imagery analysed by the Associated Press and Reuters showed one totally destroyed structure and several damaged ones at Parchin, near Tehran, a site the International Atomic Energy Agency says is linked to the Iranian nuclear programme. Two buildings appeared to have suffered damage at the nearby Khojir military base, which western analysts believe is a production site for long-range ballistic missiles.

The Tasnim news agency said Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards were not targeted, but the New York Times reported three missile manufacturing sites in Tehran province operated by the guards were attacked: Falagh, Shaid Ghadiri and Abdol Fath.

How many sites were targeted and the scale of the damage is still unclear, although Israeli media reported about 20 hits. Netanyahu has claimed that the Israeli operation had fulfilled its goals, rendering missile production sites used to attack Israel inoperative, as well as taking out air defence systems.

The Iranian army has not commented on the reported destruction at the Parchin, Khojir and Parand military bases. It said “limited damage” was caused to air defence systems in Khuzestan, Ilam and Tehran but that the country had intercepted most of the Israeli projectiles.

In his first public comments on the attack, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Sunday the event “should neither be minimised nor exaggerated”, and that military officials would discuss Iran’s next steps, suggesting retaliation may not be imminent.

Georgia’s ruling party has retained power in a contested parliamentary election in a blow to the country’s long-held aspiration for EU membership, amid accusations of intimidation and coercion of voters.

Georgia’s pro-western opposition refused to concede defeat, accusing the ruling party of a “constitutional coup” and promising to announce protests, setting the stage for a potential political crisis that could further polarise the Caucasus country.

The commission said the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party had won 54% of the vote, with more than 99% of precincts counted.

The result for GD would thwart the opposition’s hopes for a pro-western coalition of four blocs and in effect stall the country’s aspirations for EU integration.

Voters in the country of almost 4 million people headed to the polls on Saturday in a watershed election to decide whether the increasingly authoritarian GD party, which has been in power since 2012 and steered the country into a conservative course away from the west and closer to Russia, should get another four-year term.

Bidzina Ivanishvili, the shadowy billionaire founder of GD, claimed victory shortly after polls closed, in what has been called the most consequential election since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

“It is a rare case in the world that the same party achieves such success in such a difficult situation – this is a good indicator of the talent of the Georgian people,” said Ivanishvili, widely considered to be the country’s most powerful figure.

At a press conference late on Saturday, leaders of the opposition coalition called the results of the elections a “constitutional coup”.

“The victory was stolen from the Georgian people … We do not accept results of these falsified elections,” said Tinatin Bokuchava, the leader of the biggest opposition party, United National Movement (UNM).

An international observer mission announced on Sunday that the conduct of the election was evidence of “democratic backsliding” in the country.

A preliminary report by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said it “noted reports of intimidation, coercion and pressure on voters, particularly on public sector employees and other groups, raising concerns about the ability of some voters to cast their vote without fear of retribution”.

However, it stopped short of saying the elections had been stolen or falsified – a claim the opposition reiterated on Sunday.

The opposition, which is expected to announce its next move late on Sunday, has accused GD of relying on its “administrative resources” during the elections – an umbrella term that includes pressing state employees to vote and offering cash handouts to mostly rural voters.

A group of 2,000 election observers called My Vote said it did not believe the preliminary results “reflect the will of Georgian citizens” given the scale of voter fraud and violence.

On Saturday morning, several videos circulated online appearing to show ballot stuffing and voter intimidation at various polling stations across Georgia.

“Bidzina Ivanishvili’s thugs are desperate to cling on to power and will resort to anything to subvert the election process,” Bokuchava, the UNM leader, said as voting was under way.

Electoral commission data showed GD winning by huge margins of up to 90% in some rural areas, though it underperformed in bigger cities.

For the past three decades Georgia has maintained strong pro-western aspirations, with polls showing up to 80% of its people favour joining the EU. In recent years, however, the government has increasingly shifted away from the west in favour of Russia, showing reluctance to condemn Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

The GD has also been accused by critics of plans to move the country in an authoritarian direction after Ivanishvili vowed to ban all the leading opposition parties and remove opposition lawmakers if his party was re-elected.

Many expected that GD would become the biggest party but might fall short of a majority and struggle to form a government, with all other blocs refusing to collaborate with it.

The GD was facing an unprecedented union of four pro-western opposition forces that had vowed to form a coalition government to oust it from power and put Georgia back on track to join the EU.

The biggest opposition force is the centre-right UNM, a party founded by Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president who is in prison on charges of abuse of power that his allies say are politically motivated.

The GD ran its campaign on accusations that the pro-western opposition was trying to pull Georgia into a Ukraine-style conflict. In 2008, Georgia fought a war with Russia that lasted five days and left deep scars, and the invasion of Ukraine has left some in the country wary of the possible consequences of provoking Russia by moving closer to the west.

On Saturday night, voters in Tbilisi seemed divided over the country’s future course. “We have lost our country today,” said Ana Machaidze, a 25-year-old student. “I don’t know what to do next. I hope we can take to the streets, but if we lose, maybe I will live abroad.”

Support for the pro-western opposition groups generally came from urban and younger voters, who envision their political future with the EU.

Irakli Shengelia, 56, a restaurant worker, said he was glad GD would remain in power because the party guaranteed “peace and stability” with Russia and shared his conservative values.

The government, aligned with the deeply conservative and influential Orthodox church, has sought to galvanise anti-liberal sentiments by campaigning on “family values” and criticising what it portrays as western excesses.

In the summer, the parliament passed legislation imposing sweeping restrictions on LGBTQ+ rights, a move that critics say mirrors laws enacted in neighbouring Russia, where authorities have implemented a series of repressive measures against sexual minorities.

The EU granted Georgia candidate membership status last year but has put its application on hold in response to a controversial “foreign agents” bill passed in May, requiring media and NGOs receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence”.

The bill, which triggered weeks of mass protests in the spring, has been labelled a “Russian law” by critics, who liken it to legislation introduced by the Kremlin a decade earlier to silence political dissent in the media and elsewhere.

In the winding streets of ancient Tbilisi, one is ever under his watchful gaze. From a hilltop glass mansion, likened by critics to a Bond villain’s lair, Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s wealthiest and most influential figure, has guided the country’s shift away from the west over more than a decade.

With his party’s latest victory in the pivotal parliamentary elections on Saturday, that trajectory appears set to continue for years to come, sparking warnings from opponents that Ivanishvili plans to dismantle Georgia’s fragile three-decade experiment with democracy while blocking any viable path to EU integration.

Since his short tenure as prime minister from 2012 to 2013, the secretive oligarch, whose wealth is estimated to be $7.5bn in a country whose GDP is $30bn, has largely exerted his influence from behind the scenes and is widely described by many Georgians as the country’s “puppet master”.

But Ivanishvili grinned widely in public on Saturday night at his party’s HQ as the country’s election commission announced that the ruling Georgian Dream party he founded had won 54% of the vote, a result that will secure its hold on power for another four years.

After his speech, fireworks lit up the sky, their loud bangs echoing through the city, highlighting the despair of an opposition whose hopes of forming a pro-western coalition lay in ruins.

Ivanishvili spent much of the 1990s in Russia, founding banking, metals and telecoms companies and becoming wealthy in the chaotic aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

When he returned to Georgia and entered politics, he cultivated an air of mystery. His eccentric hobbies, including keeping sharks and zebras and collecting rare trees, gained widespread attention, turning stories of his lavish pursuits into household tales across the country.

As he said once in a rare interview: “I could tell you anything and you wouldn’t be able to check it.”

Ivanishvili took a more visible role in the run-up to Saturday’s election, which was widely seen as a watershed vote that could determine whether Georgia shifts away from its long-held western orientation towards stronger ties with the Kremlin.

The oligarch’s public comeback coincided with a sharp escalation in his party’s anti-liberal and anti-western rhetoric.

In a recent interview laced with transphobic and homophobic rhetoric reminiscent of far-right online forums, Ivanishvili portrayed Georgia as locked in a cultural struggle against the west, accusing it of attempting to impose corrosive values on the nation.

He claimed parents in Europe put pressure on children to undergo gender affirmation surgeries, and that “men’s milk” for babies was regarded as “the same as women’s”.

Ivanishvili advised those who doubted his claims to watch footage of a pride event in Barcelona, alleging that it featured young children present and “all sorts of orgies”.

He also framed his party’s election campaign around accusations that the west, along with the local opposition, was attempting to drag Georgia into a Ukraine-style conflict, a potent message in a country where many fear war with Russia after Vladimir Putin’s troops briefly invaded the country in 2008.

Ivanishvili’s critics and those who once worked with him warn that behind his bombastic rhetoric lies a real danger.

They point to his pledges to ban all major opposition parties and remove opposition lawmakers after the elections, labelling them as “criminals” and “traitors”.

“It is very simple, Ivanishvili actually does what he says. He promises to outlaw and jail his opponents and have no reason to doubt he will try to do that,” said Tina Khidasheli, who served as defence minister in a Georgian Dream-led government from 2015 to 2016 and has since become a critic of Ivanishvili.

As his rhetoric hardened, so too did his paranoia. While once comfortable with large crowds, Ivanishvili now travels with a large security cordon, delivering his speeches behind bulletproof glass.

“Staying in power is an existential matter of survival for Ivanshvili,” said Kornely Kakachia, the director of the Georgian Institute of Politics. “He believes that if he loses, his opponents will go not just after his political power but also after his business empire.”

Pointing to the Russian origins of his wealth, opposition parties have long accused Ivanishvili of loyalties to Moscow.

Under his leadership, Georgia enacted a “foreign agents” bill that targeted western-funded NGOs, alongside anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, both measures bearing notable similarities to laws passed by the Kremlin years earlier.

However, seasoned observers have warned against oversimplifying the narrative by framing him as merely a puppet of Putin.

“He is appeasing Russia, but I see no reason to suggest that he is owned or run by Russia and that’s an important distinction,” said Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe and an expert on the region.

Instead, de Waal says Ivanishvili’s tactics mirror those of Viktor Orbán, the divisive leader Hungary. De Waal pointed out that Orbán and Ivinishavili have centred their campaigns on conservative “Christian” values while calling for “peace” in Ukraine without condemning Russia.

Tellingly, Orbán was the first foreign leader to congratulate the Georgian Dream for an “overwhelming victory,” hours before official results were announced.

For now, Georgia’s immediate future remains uncertain. On Sunday morning, Georgia’s opposition refused to concede defeat, accusing the ruling party of staging a “constitutional coup” and calling for protests. This sets the stage for a potential political crisis in a country with a history of mass unrest.

There is little doubt that Ivanishvili has leveraged his seemingly limitless finances to influence the elections, which have been marred by allegations of irregularities, including reports of coercing state employees to vote and instances of vote buying.

Still, the outcome suggests that Ivanishvili’s messages resonate with a core group of Georgian voters, particularly in the industrial heartlands and conservative poorer regions, where economic progress has been slow and the allure of Europe seems distant and faint.

“It is tempting for the opposition to dismiss that Ivanishivli’s party has no support, that they completely bought the elections,” said one western official in Tbilisi. “But the reality is that Ivanishvili appears to have won this battle for the time being.”

The multi-billionaire owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, continued facing criticism throughout the weekend because executives from his aerospace company met with Donald Trump on the same day the newspaper prevented its editorial team from publishing an endorsement of his opponent in the US presidential election.

Senior news and opinion leaders at the Washington Post flew to Miami in late September 2024 to meet with Bezos, who had reservations about the paper issuing an endorsement in the 5 November election, the New York Times reported.

Amazon and the space exploration company Blue Origin are among Bezos-owned business that still compete for lucrative federal government contracts.

And the Post on Friday announced it would not endorse a candidate in the 5 November election after its editorial board had already drafted its endorsement of Kamala Harris.

Friday’s announcement did not mention Amazon or Blue Origin. But within hours, high-ranking officials of the latter company briefly met with Trump after a campaign speech in Austin, Texas, as the Republican nominee seeks a second presidency.

Trump met with Blue Origin chief executive officer David Limp and vice-president of government relations Megan Mitchell, the Associated Press reported.

Meanwhile, CNN reported that the Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy, had also recently reached out to speak with the former president by phone.

Those reported overtures were eviscerated by Washington Post editor-at-large and longtime columnist Robert Kagan, who resigned on Friday. On Saturday, he argued that the meeting Blue Origin executives had with Trump would not have taken place if the Post had endorsed the Democratic vice-president as it planned.

“Trump waited to make sure that Bezos did what he said he was going to do – and then met with the Blue Origin people,” Kagan told the Daily Beast on Saturday. “Which tells us that there was an actual deal made, meaning that Bezos communicated, or through his people, communicated directly with Trump, and they set up this quid pro quo.”

The Post’s publisher Will Lewis, hired by Bezos in January, defended the paper’s owner by claiming the decision to spike the Harris endorsement was his. But that has done little to defuse criticism from within the newspaper’s ranks as well as the wave of subscription cancelations that has met the institution.

Eighteen opinion columnists at the Washington Post signed a dissenting column against the decision, calling it “a terrible mistake”. The paper has already made endorsements this election cycle, including in a US senate seat race in Maryland. The Washington Post endorsed Hillary Clinton when Trump won the presidency in 2016. It endorsed Joe Biden when Trump lost in 2020, despite Trump’s pledges to retaliate against anyone who opposed him.

In their criticism of the Post’s decision on Friday, former and current employees cite the dangers to democracy posed by Trump, who has openly expressed his admiration for authoritarian rule amid his appeals for voters to return him to office.

The former Washington Post journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who broke the Watergate story, called the decision “disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process”.

The former Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron said in a post on X, “This is cowardice with democracy as its casualty”.

The cartoon team at the paper published a dark formless image protesting against the non-endorsement decision, playing on the “democracy dies in darkness” slogan that the Post adopted in 2017, five years after its purchase by Bezos.

High-profile readers, including author bestselling author Stephen King as well as former congresswoman and vocal Trump critic Liz Cheney, announced the cancellation of their Washington Post subscriptions with many others in protest.

The Post’s non-endorsement came shortly after the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, refused to allow the editorial board publish an endorsement of Harris.

Many pointed out how the stances from the Post and the LA Times seems to fit the definition of “anticipatory obedience” as spelled out in On Tyranny, Tim Snyder’s bestselling guide to authoritarianism. Snyder defines the term as “giving over your power to the aspiring authoritarian” before the authoritarian is in position to compel that handover.

Bezos is the second wealthiest person in the world behind Elon Musk, who has become a prominent supporter of Trump’s campaign for a second presidency. He bought the Washington Post in 2013 for $250m.

In 2021, Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon, claiming during a podcast interview that he intended to devote more time to Blue Origin.

The New York Times reported Bezos had begun to get more involved in the paper in 2023 as it faced significant financial losses, a stream of employee departures and low morale.

His pick of Lewis as publisher in January seemingly did little to help morale at the paper. Employees and devotees of the paper were worried that Lewis was brought on to the Post despite allegations that he “fraudulently obtained phone and company records in newspaper articles” as a journalist in London, as the New York Times reported.

Nonetheless, in a memo to newsroom leaders in June 2024, Bezos wrote, “The journalistic standards and ethics at the Post will not change.”

The former Bolivian leader Evo Morales said on Sunday his vehicle was hit by gunfire that was captured in a video, reflecting how political tensions have turned violent between Morales and his former ally and now president, Luis Arce.

Morales posted a video on Facebook taken from inside a moving car, showing him sitting in the front passenger seat and at least two bullet holes in the windshield. The driver appeared to have been injured. Morales wrote that the government was to blame.

The incident and claims could spark further unrest and instability at a time of already high tensions, with Morales supporters blocking key highways and clashing with security forces trying to clear them.

In a radio interview, Morales said two vehicles intercepted him on the road and fired upon his car, and he claimed a bullet passed centimetres from his head. “I don’t know if they were soldiers or police,” he said.

The deputy security minister, Roberto Ríos, told journalists that police had not carried out any operation against the former president. “As authorities in charge of state security, we are obliged to investigate any report, whether it is true or false,” Ríos said.

On Saturday the government had accused Morales of destabilising the country with two weeks of road blockades that have jammed up supplies of food and fuel around the country. It accused him of trying to “interrupt democratic order”.

The government said in a statement that some groups allied to Morales were armed and it warned about violence, saying 14 police officers were wounded trying to break up the blockades.

Morales and Arce, his former economy minister, are part of the same Movement for Socialism (MAS) political party but have clashed increasingly over the last year, part of a power struggle before elections due in 2025.

The country is grappling with dwindling gas production, drained foreign currency reserves and rising inflation, which is heaping pressure on the ruling party and leading to increasingly messy political infighting.

Morales is also facing allegations that he had relationships with minors. He was formally summoned by regional prosecutors to testify in the case but did not appear and now faces an arrest warrant. Morales denies the accusations.

Japan’s ruling coalition could lose its majority in parliament in Sunday’s general election, according to exit polls, after taking losses amid voter anger over a funding scandal and a cost of living crisis in the world’s fourth-biggest economy.

A poll by the national broadcaster NHK showed that the Liberal Democratic party (LDP), which has ruled Japan almost without interruption since the mid-1950s, and its junior coalition partner, Komeito, were on course to win between 174 and 254 of the 465 seats in the lower house of parliament.

The main opposition Constitutional Democratic party (CDP) was predicted to win 128 to 191 seats. The outcome may force the LDP or CDP into power-sharing agreements with other parties to form a government. The official result is not expected until Monday morning.

The LDP’s ability to form a government will depend on whether it can continue as the senior partner in a coalition with Komeito, a much smaller party that was also projected to lose seats. The two parties together need 233 seats to retain a majority.

While the result is not a repeat of the political seismic shock of 15 years ago – an unprecedented defeat for the LDP – it has left the party significantly weakened and will raise questions about the future of the recently installed prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba.

Ishiba had warned that the LDP had work to do to regain public trust after months of controversy over MPs’ undeclared slush funds. “We want to start afresh as a fair, just and sincere party and seek your mandate,” he told supporters on the eve of the vote.

Ishiba, a former defence minister, became the party’s president – and Japan’s new prime minister – last month after his predecessor, Fumio Kishida, announced he was stepping down to take responsibility for the funding scandal.

Dozens of LDP lawmakers were found to have siphoned unreported profits from the sale of tickets to party gatherings into slush funds.

Several senior figures were disciplined, and the party withdrew its support for several candidates in Sunday’s vote – moves that failed to repair the damage inflicted by the funding scandal.

Ishiba, who is battling low approval ratings just weeks into his premiership, was wrongfooted days before the vote when the media reported that the party had given millions of yen in campaign funds to local party chapters whose candidates had lost the party’s endorsement.

Japan’s longsuffering opposition was pinning its hopes on the scandal triggering a repeat of the 2009 lower house election, the last time the LDP was deposed.

The CDP leader, Yoshihiko Noda, accused the LDP of ignoring the needs of ordinary people, as polls said most voters wanted action on rising prices, as well as tax cuts and wage rises. “The LDP’s politics are all about quickly implementing policies for those who give them lots of cash,” Noda told supporters on Saturday. “But vulnerable people have been ignored.”

Takeshi Ito, a 38-year-old voter, said he would support the LDP in the absence of a viable alternative.

“Even if I were to switch to an opposition party, it’s still unclear whether they could push forward reforms, and I don’t know if I can trust them or not at this point,” Ito said. “I want to see the party in power continue to move forward.”

Japan’s ruling coalition could lose its majority in parliament in Sunday’s general election, according to exit polls, after taking losses amid voter anger over a funding scandal and a cost of living crisis in the world’s fourth-biggest economy.

A poll by the national broadcaster NHK showed that the Liberal Democratic party (LDP), which has ruled Japan almost without interruption since the mid-1950s, and its junior coalition partner, Komeito, were on course to win between 174 and 254 of the 465 seats in the lower house of parliament.

The main opposition Constitutional Democratic party (CDP) was predicted to win 128 to 191 seats. The outcome may force the LDP or CDP into power-sharing agreements with other parties to form a government. The official result is not expected until Monday morning.

The LDP’s ability to form a government will depend on whether it can continue as the senior partner in a coalition with Komeito, a much smaller party that was also projected to lose seats. The two parties together need 233 seats to retain a majority.

While the result is not a repeat of the political seismic shock of 15 years ago – an unprecedented defeat for the LDP – it has left the party significantly weakened and will raise questions about the future of the recently installed prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba.

Ishiba had warned that the LDP had work to do to regain public trust after months of controversy over MPs’ undeclared slush funds. “We want to start afresh as a fair, just and sincere party and seek your mandate,” he told supporters on the eve of the vote.

Ishiba, a former defence minister, became the party’s president – and Japan’s new prime minister – last month after his predecessor, Fumio Kishida, announced he was stepping down to take responsibility for the funding scandal.

Dozens of LDP lawmakers were found to have siphoned unreported profits from the sale of tickets to party gatherings into slush funds.

Several senior figures were disciplined, and the party withdrew its support for several candidates in Sunday’s vote – moves that failed to repair the damage inflicted by the funding scandal.

Ishiba, who is battling low approval ratings just weeks into his premiership, was wrongfooted days before the vote when the media reported that the party had given millions of yen in campaign funds to local party chapters whose candidates had lost the party’s endorsement.

Japan’s longsuffering opposition was pinning its hopes on the scandal triggering a repeat of the 2009 lower house election, the last time the LDP was deposed.

The CDP leader, Yoshihiko Noda, accused the LDP of ignoring the needs of ordinary people, as polls said most voters wanted action on rising prices, as well as tax cuts and wage rises. “The LDP’s politics are all about quickly implementing policies for those who give them lots of cash,” Noda told supporters on Saturday. “But vulnerable people have been ignored.”

Takeshi Ito, a 38-year-old voter, said he would support the LDP in the absence of a viable alternative.

“Even if I were to switch to an opposition party, it’s still unclear whether they could push forward reforms, and I don’t know if I can trust them or not at this point,” Ito said. “I want to see the party in power continue to move forward.”

A cargo truck collided with a passenger bus in northern Mexico on Saturday, leaving at least 19 people dead and six injured, authorities said.

Officials adjusted the death toll after initially reporting 24 deaths, citing information from first responders.

In a statement, Rodrigo Reyes, a senior Zacatecas state official, said: “Following rescue efforts and expert work carried out at the scene, the confirmed number is, unfortunately, 19 people.”

He said six people were being treated in hospital.

The accident, on a highway that connects Zacatecas with the central state of Aguascalientes, occurred when a container filled with corn fell off the truck, causing the bus with 25 people onboard to overturn.

The bus was travelling between the city of Tepic, in western Nayarit state, and Ciudad Juárez on the US border.

The highway was closed to traffic, Reyes said, adding that army, National Guard and civil protection forces were deployed.

Traffic accidents in Mexico have been on the rise since 2020, when there were just over 300,000.

Last year there were 381,048 accidents, leading to 4,803 deaths and more than 90,000 injuries, according to the Inegi national statistics institute.

A scheme designed to boost the numbers of French children able to travel to Britain for school trips is reportedly in peril as a result of an overhaul of entry requirements in the UK.

New rules for French school trips were introduced in December last year after a meeting between the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the then UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak.

The pair struck a deal to allow French pupils to travel to Britain using national identity cards, and for their non-EU classmates to enter without the need for a visa, in an attempt to address a decline in visits after Brexit.

However, the Financial Times reported that the scheme was at risk because of the UK’s new electronic travel authorisation (ETA) scheme, which is due to come into force on 2 April 2025 and will require all EU visitors to register before travelling to the UK, a process that requires children to have a passport.

The FT cited a letter written by Valérie Boned, the president of Les Entreprises du Voyage, the main trade body for travel agencies in France, to the UK home secretary, Yvette Cooper, on 8 October asking whether the programme for French school groups would be retained. The group said it had not received a reply from the Home Office.

The Home Office declined to comment.

Boned wrote in her letter, seen by the FT: “The sooner we manage to clear the situation, the less impact it will have on the number of school trips for 2025,.”

According to data from Les Entreprises du Voyage, the scheme has led to a 30% increase in school trips to the UK from France, which it said had been 60% below 2019 levels when the scheme was introduced.

The FT also cited French government officials who had “expressed concern” to the UK government over how the ETA programme would affect the school trips scheme.

The Labour government has committed to “resetting” relations with the EU. The prime minister, Keir Starmer, is under pressure from Brussels for the reset to include opening discussions on a youth mobility scheme that would allow young people from the EU to live and work in the UK for a fixed period, and vice versa.

However, Starmer has repeatedly ruled out such a measure, despite the UK having similar arrangements with more geographically distant partners such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

China will take “countermeasures” to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the government said, lambasting a $2bn arms sale package by the United States to Taiwan.

The Pentagon on Friday said the United States had approved a potential $2bn arms sale package to Taiwan, including the delivery for the first time to the island of an advanced air defence missile system battle-tested in Ukraine, including advanced surface-to-air missile systems and radar. The deal awaits approval by Congress.

In a statement late on Saturday, China’s foreign ministry said it strongly condemned and firmly opposed the sales and had lodged “solemn representations” with the US.

China urges the US to immediately stop arming Taiwan and stop its dangerous moves that undermine peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, it added.

“China will take resolute countermeasures and take all measures necessary to firmly defend national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity,” the ministry said, without elaborating.

The US is bound by law to provide Chinese-claimed Taiwan with the means to defend itself despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties, to the anger of Beijing.

The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said the new sale consisted of $1.16bn in missile systems, and radar systems worth an estimated $828m.

The missile system sale is for three National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (Nasams) medium-range air defence solutions that includes the advanced AMRAAM Extended Range surface to air missiles, it added.

“This proposed sale serves US national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient’s continuing efforts to modernise its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability,” it said in a statement. “The proposed sale will help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance, and economic progress in the region.”

Demand for Nasams has increased since the system was employed in Ukraine. Taiwan’s defence ministry welcomed the announcement, noting the “proven” use of Nasams in Ukraine and saying it would help Taiwan’s air defence capabilities in the face of China’s frequent military manoeuvres.

China has over the past five years stepped up its military activities around democratically governed Taiwan, whose government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, including staging a new round of war games earlier this month.

Taiwan’s government welcomed the new arms sale, the 17th of the Biden administration to the island.

“In the face of China’s threats, Taiwan is duty-bound to protect its homeland, and will continue to demonstrate its determination to defend itself,” Taiwan’s foreign ministry said, responding to the arms sale.

Beijing’s foreign ministry hit back in its statement late on Saturday, saying the latest arms package “seriously damages China-US relations, and endangers peace and stability” in the strait.

China has refused to rule out using force to bring Taiwan under its control.

In September, Beijing sanctioned US defence companies in retaliation for Washington’s approval of the sale of military equipment to Taiwan.

Australia has rejected far-right provocateur Candace Owens’ visa application ahead of a planned national speaking tour, with the immigration minister, Tony Burke, saying she had the “capacity to incite discord”.

The US conservative influencer and podcast host, who has advanced conspiracy theories and antisemitic rhetoric including minimising Nazi medical experiments in concentration camps, will be blocked from coming to Australia after the federal government voiced alarm about her record.

“From downplaying the impact of the Holocaust with comments about [notorious Nazi doctor Josef] Mengele through to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the capacity to incite discord in almost every direction,” Burke said on Sunday.

“Australia’s national interest is best served when Candace Owens is somewhere else.”

Owens had scheduled a five-date speaking tour of Australia in November, with events in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. Tickets ranged from $95 for general admission to $295 for a VIP meet and greet and $1,500 for a private dinner with the conservative media personality.

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She has courted controversy with incendiary claims about Jewish, transgender and Muslim people. In July, she appeared to cast doubt on well-documented Nazi medical experiments on prisoners, calling such accounts “completely absurd” and “bizarre propaganda”.

The US Anti-Defamation League, which works to combat antisemitism, has accused Owens of coming to “embrace and promote antisemitic tropes and anti-Israel rhetoric”, noting comments where she called Judaism a “pedophile-centric religion”. LGBTQ+ advocacy organisation Glaad has pointed to allegedly anti-trans comments from Owens, including calling the trans equality movement “evil” and “satanic”. She has also claimed “white supremacy and white nationalism is not a problem that is harming Black America”.

Owens’ Australian tour had been opposed by some local Jewish groups while the opposition home affairs spokesman, James Paterson, called her “a dangerous antisemite and a conspiracy theorist” during a Sky News interview.

Burke told Nine newspapers in August that he had asked his department for a brief on her visit and consulted the federal antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal.

Nine first reported on Sunday that Owens would not be allowed to enter Australia. Burke’s office confirmed her visa had been denied.

Guardian Australia contacted Owens’ management and the local tour promoters, Rocksman, for comment. Neither responded immediately to requests and Owens has not addressed the visa news on her social media accounts.

“Candace Owens Live! Australian and New Zealand Tour event will appeal to audiences seeking alternative viewpoints and in-depth discussions on pressing political and social topics. Owens’ provocative approach often sparks debate, making the event a must-see for those who enjoy candid conversations about controversial issues,” the tour website states.

The Zionist Federation of Australia chief executive, Alon Cassuto, welcomed the news Owens had been denied entry to Australia.

“Bigotry and antisemitism are unacceptable in any form, regardless of whether they originate from the far left or right,” he said on Sunday.

“For the sake of our nation’s social cohesion, there is no place in Australia for Candace Owens.”

During the pandemic, Owens suggested the US military invade Australia to free its people “suffering under a totalitarian regime” while drawing comparisons to Hitler, Stalin and the Taliban.

Stevie Nicks thrust herself into the ongoing fight for access to abortion in the US because she had “been there, done that”, the legendary singer-songwriter says in a new interview.

“I tell a good story,” Nicks remarked in an interview conducted by CBS News Sunday Morning, a clip of which was circulated by the network in advance.“So maybe I should try to do something.

“I was also there.”

Nicks’ comments come after the release in September of her new single The Lighthouse, which was inspired by progressives’ battle to reinstate federal abortion rights in the US.

She wrote the rock song after three US supreme court justices appointed by the Donald Trump White House voted to essentially overturn the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that gave Americans a constitutional right to an abortion.

In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Nicks discussed her certainty that if she had not gotten an abortion in the 1970s, it would have marked the end of the renowned band Fleetwood Mac that she ultimately helped launch to rock immortality.

Nicks at the time had a contraceptive intrauterine device but nonetheless became pregnant with singer Don Henley after breaking up her prior relationship with Fleetwood Mac bandmate Lindsey Buckingham, she told Rolling Stone. She said she decided to terminate the pregnancy in about 1977, or going into 1978, as Fleetwood Mac sat atop the world after its album Rumours.

Rumours won Fleetwood Mac the Grammy for album of the year in 1978, a year that saw the band play 18 live shows in 11 US states. Three of the album’s singles – Go Your Own Way, Don’t Stop and You Make Loving Fun – reached the top 10 on the charts. Dreams, with Nicks’ vocals, went No 1 as Rumours eventually finished seventh on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

“Now what the hell am I going to do?” Nicks said to Rolling Stone about her thought process at the time of her aborted pregnancy. “I cannot have a child. I am not the kind of woman who would hand my baby over to a nanny, not in a million years.

“So we would be dragging a baby around the world on tour, and I wouldn’t do that to my baby. I wouldn’t say I just need nine months. I would say I need a couple of years, and that would break up the band period.”

Nicks, 76, said she doesn’t “really care” if people become upset with her over having decided to get an abortion. “My life was my life, and my plan was my plan and had been since I was in the fourth grade,” Nicks said to Rolling Stone, adding that Fleetwood Mac would have been “done” if she had decided otherwise.

Nicks’ remarks to Rolling Stone about her personal experience with abortion elaborate on ones she delivered to the Guardian in 2020, when she said: “There’s just no way that I could have had a child then, working as hard as we worked constantly.”

Meanwhile, after the reversal of Roe v Wade as Trump set his sights on a second presidency in the 5 November election, Nicks said she heard everywhere around her that “somebody has to do … [and] say something” to support abortion rights.

“And I’m like: ‘Well I have a platform,’” Nicks said after CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Tracy Smith asked the singer about the courage needed to “step into the waters of the abortion debate”.

The result was The Lighthouse, a rare new release for Nicks, whose last album of entirely fresh material was put out in 2011. The single casts her as a lighthouse guiding women to campaign for their rights as voters choose between Kamala Harris and Trump, whose supporters include a conservative thinktank that is urging him to step up attacks against sexual and reproductive health and rights.

“They’ll take your soul, take your power, unless you stand up, take it back,” Nicks sings on the track. “Try to see the future and get mad/It’s slipping through your fingers, you don’t have what you had/And you don’t have much time to get it back.”