Brazilians will head to the polls again for a second round vote after the country’s two top presidential candidates both failed to secure enough support for an outright win.
Former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva managed to win by more than 3% over incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, but failed to get more than 50% of the vote.
As neither candidate won the majority of support, the race will go to a run-off election on 30 October.
The highly polarised vote will determine whether the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right leader in office for another four years.
Arguably Brazil’s most critical election since the end of the military dictatorship in 1985, Mr da Silva of the leftist Workers’ Party had 48.26% of the votes in his favour after 99.29% of the total ballots had been counted.
Mr Bolsonaro was in second, with 43.34% support.
Recent opinion polls had given Mr da Silva a commanding lead – with a survey on Saturday giving him a 50% to 36% advantage.
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But the election wound up being far tighter than anticipated, both in the presidential contest and those for governorships and congressional seats.
“The far-right has shown great resilience in the presidential and in the state races,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo.
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“It is too soon to go too deep, but this election shows Mr Bolsonaro’s victory in 2018 was not a hiccup,” he added.
Image: (L-R) Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Who is Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva?
Mr da Silva, who is affectionately known as Lula, is credited with building an extensive social welfare programme during his 2003-2010 tenure but is also remembered for his administration’s involvement in various corruption scandals.
The 76-year-old was jailed in 2018 on corruption charges – but these were later overturned by the Supreme Court.
Some believe the charges were politically motivated, as he was the frontrunner against Mr Bolsonaro in the presidential campaign taking place at the time.
Lula, a former factory worker and union leader, stepped down in 2010 after two terms in office, with approval ratings close to 90% at the time.
During his presidency, deforestation dropped 65% in Brazil, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research.
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Frontrunners cast their votes in Brazil election
Who is Jair Bolsonaro?
Mr Bolsonaro has been a divisive figure in Brazilian politics since he burst onto the scene over four years ago.
But the 67-year-old’s administration has been marked by incendiary speech, his testing of democratic institutions, his widely criticised handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the worst deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in 15 years.
Under President Bolsonaro, farmers and miners have been given free rein to cut down trees at record rates.
However, he has managed to grow a devoted base of supporters by defending conservative values and presenting himself as a protector from leftist policies, which he claims infringe on personal freedoms.
But he has built a devoted base by defending conservative values and presenting himself as protecting the nation from leftist policies that he says infringe on personal liberties and produce economic turmoil.
The IDF has admitted to mistakenly identifying a convoy of aid workers as a threat – following the emergence of a video which proved their ambulances were clearly marked when Israeli troops opened fire on them.
The bodies of 15 aid workers – including eight medics working for the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) – were found in a “mass grave” after the incident, according to the head of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Jonathan Whittall.
The Israeli military originally claimed an investigation found the vehicles did not have any headlights or emergency signals and were therefore targeted as they looked “suspicious”.
But video footage obtained by the PRCS, and verified by Sky News, showed the ambulances and a fire vehicle clearly marked with flashing red lights.
In a briefing from the IDF, they said the ambulances arrived in the Tel Sultan neighbourhood in Rafah shortly after a Hamas police vehicle drove through.
Image: Palestinians mourning the medics after their bodies were recovered. Pic: Reuters
An IDF surveillance aircraft was watching the movement of the ambulances and notified troops on the ground. The IDF said it will not be releasing that footage.
When the ambulances arrived, the soldiers opened fire, thinking the medics were a threat, according to the IDF.
The soldiers were surprised by the convoy stopping on the road and several people getting out quickly and running, the IDF claimed, adding the soldiers were unaware the suspects were in fact unarmed medics.
An Israeli military official would not say how far away troops were when they fired on the vehicles.
The IDF acknowledged that its statement claiming that the ambulances had their lights off was incorrect, and was based on the testimony from the soldiers in the incident.
The newly emerged video footage showed that the ambulances were clearly identifiable and had their lights on, the IDF said.
The IDF added that there will be a re-investigation to look into this discrepancy.
Image: The clip is filmed through a vehicle windscreen – with three red light vehicles visible in front
Addressing the fact the aid workers’ bodies were buried in a mass grave, the IDF said in its briefing this is an approved and regular practice to prevent wild dogs and other animals from eating the corpses.
The IDF could not explain why the ambulances were also buried.
The IDF said six of the 15 people killed were linked to Hamas, but revealed no detail to support the claim.
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Bodies of aid workers found in Gaza
The newly emerged footage of the incident was discovered on a phone belonging to one of the workers who was killed, PRCS president Dr Younis Al Khatib said.
“His phone was found with his body and he recorded the whole event,” he said. “His last words before being shot, ‘Forgive me, mom. I just wanted to help people. I wanted to save lives’.”
Sky News used an aftermath video and satellite imagery to verify the location and timing of the newly emerged footage of the incident.
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Aid worker attacks increasing
It was filmed on 23 March north of Rafah and shows a convoy of marked ambulances and a fire-fighting vehicle travelling south along a road towards the city centre. All the vehicles visible in the convoy have their flashing lights on.
The footage was filmed early in the morning, with a satellite image seen by Sky News taken at 9.48am local time on the same day showing a group of vehicles bunched together off the road.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has hit out at the US over its “weak” response to lethal Russian attacks on his hometown on Friday.
President Zelenskyy posted a lengthy and emotional statement on X about Russia’s strikes on Kryvyi Rih, which killed 19 people.
Meanwhile Ukrainian drones hit an explosives factory in Russia’s Samara region in an overnight strike, a member of Ukraine’s SBU security service told Reuters.
In his post, President Zelenskyy accused the United States of being “afraid” to name-check Russia in its comment on the attack.
“Unfortunately, the reaction of the American Embassy is unpleasantly surprising: such a strong country, such a strong people – and such a weak reaction,” he wrote on X.
“They are even afraid to say the word “Russian” when talking about the missile that killed children.”
America’s ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink had written on X: “Horrified that tonight a ballistic missile struck near a playground and restaurant in Kryvyi Rih.
“More than 50 people injured and 16 killed, including 6 children. This is why the war must end.”
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Strike on Zelenskyy’s home city
President Zelenskyy went on in his post to say: “Yes, the war must end. But in order to end it, we must not be afraid to call a spade a spade.
“We must not be afraid to put pressure on the only one who continues this war and ignores all the world’s proposals to end it. We must put pressure on Russia, which chooses to kill children instead of a ceasefire.”
Grandmother ‘burned to death in her home’
Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the city’s defense council, said the missile attack, followed by a drone attack, had killed 19 people, including nine children.
“The Iskander-M missile strike with cluster munitions at the children’s playground in the residential area, to make the shrapnel fly further apart, killed 18 people.
“One grandmother was burnt to death in her house after Shahed’s direct hit.”
Russia’s defence ministry said it had struck a military gathering in a restaurant – an assertion rebutted by the Ukrainian military as misinformation.
“The missile hit right on the street – around ordinary houses, a playground, shops, a restaurant,” President Zelenskyy wrote.
Mr Zelenskyy also detailed the child victims of the attack including “Konstantin, who will be 16 forever” and “Arina, who will also be 7 forever”.
The UK’s chief of the defence staff Sir Tony Radakin said he had met the Ukrainian leader on Friday, along with French armed forces leader General Thierry Burkhard.
“Britain and France are coming together & Europe is stepping up in a way that is real & substantial, with 200 planners from 30 nations working to strengthen Ukraine’s long term security,” Sir Tony wrote.
Global financial markets gave a clear vote of no-confidence in President Trump’s economic policy.
The damage it will do is obvious: costs for companies will rise, hitting their earnings.
The consequences will ripple throughout the global economy, with economists now raising their expectations for a recession, not only in the US, but across the world.