PRAGUE (AP) — Czechs cast ballots on Friday in the second round of voting for a third of the seats in Parliament’s upper house, the Senate.
The current ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Petr Fiala has a clear majority in the Senate though the main opposition group, led by former populist Prime Minister Andrej Babis, has the most candidates advancing from last week’s first round to the runoff for 27 seats in the 81-seat Senate.
The top two finishers in each district faced each other in a head-to-head vote. Babis’ ANO, or YES in English, had 19 candidates advancing to the runoffs, the best first round result for the centrist movement.
Five candidates reached the 50% threshold in the first round to win seats outright, leaving 22 seats to be decided in runoffs.
Parliament’s lower house dominates the legislative process, but the Senate plays an important role in passing constitutional amendments and approving Constitutional Court judges.
The results of the two-day vote will be known later on Saturday.
In a separate vote last week, ANO also dominated Czech regional elections, winning 10 of the 13 regions contested.
In another setback for the ruling coalition, a junior party, the Pirates, said earlier this week that it would leave the Cabinet over Fiala’s decision to fire the party leader. Fiala said he had lost trust in Ivan Bartos’s ability to deal with the problems linked to a new digital system for issuing building permits.
Fiala’s government will retain a majority in Parliament’s lower house, even without the Pirates.
A man votes in the second round of voting for a third of the seats in Parliament’s upper house. at a polling station in Otrokovice, Czech Republic, Friday Sept. 27, 2024. (Dalibor Gluck/CTK via AP)
A man votes in the second round of voting for a third of the seats in Parliament’s upper house. at a polling station in Prague, Czech Republic, Friday Sept. 27, 2024. (Roman Vondrous/CTK via AP)
BEIRUT (AP) — The Israeli military said Friday it carried out an airstrike on the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut, where a massive explosion leveled buildings in a southern district, sending clouds of orange and black smoke billowing in the skies.
The strike in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the U.N., vowing that Israel's campaign against Hezbollah would continue. Not long before the explosion, thousands were massed in the suburb for the funeral of three Hezbollah members, including a senior commander, killed in earlier strikes.
There was no immediate word on casualties in the strike. The Israeli army spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said it targeted the main Hezbollah headquarters, located beneath residential buildings. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said four buildings were reduced to rubble in the blast, so powerful it rattled windows and shook houses some 30 kilometers north of Beirut. Ambulances were seen headed to the scene of the explosions, sirens wailing.
Earlier in the day, an Israeli airstrike killed a family of nine in a Lebanese border village, authorities said, as Lebanon struggled to deal with a rising death toll, a wave of tens of thousands fleeing their homes and the possibility of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Israel dramatically intensified its airstrikes in Lebanon this week, saying it is determined to put an end to more than 11 months of Hezbollah fire into its territory. The scope of Israel’s operation remains unclear, but officials have said a ground invasion to push the militant group away from the border is a possibility. Israel has moved thousands of troops toward the border in preparation.
At the U.N., Netanyahu vowed to “continue degrading Hezbollah” until Israel achieves its goals, further dimming hopes for an internationally backed cease-fire.
That has Lebanese fearing a repeat of the last Israel-Hezbollah war, in 2006, which lasted a month and caused heavy destruction over parts of their country. Or worse, they fear, Lebanon could suffer devastation on the scale caused in Gaza by Israel’s nearly yearlong campaign against Hamas.
At least 25 people were killed in Israeli strikes early Friday, Health Minister Firass Abiad said, bringing the death toll in Lebanon this week to more than 720. He said the dead included dozens of women and children.
The Israeli military said it carried out dozens of strikes over the course of two hours around the south on Friday, including in the cities of Sidon and Nabatiyeh. It said it was targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers and infrastructure. It said Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets toward the northern Israeli city of Tiberias.
Mourners bury the bodies of their relatives, killed in Israeli airstrikes in the village of Karak, Bekaa Valley, eastern Lebanon, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
