Israel holds first election since October 7th attacks

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Brazil's defeated presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro says a court has barred him from leaving the country. And AI giant Anthropic sets out its stall ahead of its potentially historic stock market listing. Also in the podcast. I don't think this is a very big deal. I think as a person of faith, I like to think that faith can play a role in guiding decisions like that. One of the great things about this country is the separation between church and state, which has become increasingly blurred. The row over Catholic bishops seem praying with President Trump. Three years on from the October the 7th massacre, Israelis are deciding whether to keep Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister. The 77-year-old has so far managed to avoid taking responsibility for the security failings that day, despite allegations he ignored warnings prior to the attack. But now voters are having their say at the ballot box. So how do they see this election? It's about the future of Israel and how we are going to manage this state after October 7th. I want to get peace for both nations, the Palestinians and the Israelis. I want to have security in my country and I want the corruption in the Israeli government and the religious fanatics out of the country. Yeah, economics, socialized problems, educational problems, health problems. 70% of Gaza is in our hands and the work is not finished. I want to change the government because I believe everyone who was in duty on the 7th of October must go home. More than half a million Israelis living abroad are eligible to vote and tens of thousands have been flying back in to cast their ballots, including British Israeli Daniel Tubkin. Half of the flight yesterday from Europe was full of Israelis coming back to vote. Many of my friends in Manchester have come back and also my friends from overseas, from America. America and Australia have also traveled back to vote. This election has been waited for ever since the 7th of October. The tension and the desire to take action and apply our democratic vote has been waiting for this moment. So it does carry an additional meaning for me to be here at this time. It is about accountability for me personally. The current leadership. Despite many achievements, have not been held accountable for that day. I believe that they have lost any moral prerogative to lead the country and it requires change. And they have been actively objecting for a state inquiry. And that's the only way for the Israelis to come to terms with that terrible massacre of the 7th of October. And if they won't allow it to happen, then they must go. In order for that to happen, it means that I will vote for the anti-BB block, the opposition block, as it says. I've not made my mind up fully to who I'm going to vote for within that block, but I know which block I tend to. And many of my friends are in that position as well. Daniel Tubkin. The main opposition leader, Gadi Eisenkot, has accused Mr. Netanyahu of playing up the threat from Iran for political gain. And on the eve of voting, reports emerged of a rift between the prime minister and Israel's military chief, General Eyal Zamir, over an alleged plan to strike Iran ahead of the poll. So could this affect Mr. Netanyahu's chances? I asked James Landau in Jerusalem. Well, it's certainly the issue that has been defining the last few hours of campaigning. And it has been a dispute between both sides, simply because the opposition parties have been accusing Mr. Netanyahu of using, the war in Iran for political purposes. Essentially, the allegation is, on the basis of various reports coming out of Israeli media, is that somehow Mr. Netanyahu is putting pressure on the Israeli army in unclear ways to try and take actions that potentially could have triggered some kind of conflict with Iran in the run-up to the election and allowed Mr. Netanyahu to play a security card ahead of the election. That's the charge. That's the charge that he's facing. That's what he's been denying. But certainly, it was such a row of such intensity and such speculation that the defense secretary, Mr. Katz, was forced to come out and not just deny the story, but make clear that Israel was not about to attack Iran and wanted to make that as clear as he possibly could. Whether or not voters are swayed by this row is less likely, simply because the vast majority of voters have made up their minds on this issue a long time ago. And how significant is this election for the people of Israel? Well, I think it is significant simply because this country is so divided. This is a country that is divided over who should be accountable for the October 7th attacks, who is the best leader to keep them safe from their enemies. It's divided over its future as a state. Should it be secular? Should it be religious? Whether or not young ultra-Orthodox men should be exempt from military service, whether or not young ultra-Orthodox men should be exempt from military service, all of these issues are incredibly contentious. Both sides have different positions. Where I think it's notable that there are fewer divisions is over the wars that Israel is fighting on many fronts at the moment, in Lebanon, in Gaza, in Iran. This is not an election of competing visions of peace plans, of two-state solutions, Palestinian statehood, or anything like that. There are some marginal differences over the way West Bank, settler violence should be handled. But fundamentally, this is an election about Israel looking internally about itself rather than the wars that it's fighting elsewhere. And will President Trump's support help Benjamin Netanyahu? Well, I think it's significant that Mr. Trump felt the need to repeat his endorsement. He'd already done it once before. The fact that he had to do it for another time suggests that somebody within Mr. Netanyahu's team thought it would be worth it. I think it would be worthwhile having President Trump do that again. Some analysts have been inferring from that that it was a sort of last-minute piece of panic by the Netanyahu camp. But on the other hand, there are some voters here for whom Israel's close relationship with the United States is absolutely crucial. And therefore, any reinforcement of that might convince some voters to say, yeah, look, we need to stick with Mr. Netanyahu because he's just going to have a better relationship with the Trump White House. Our diplomatic correspondent, James Landale, in Chicago. After his shock defeat in the Brazilian election on Sunday, the right-wing opposition candidate Flavio Bolsonaro says he's now been banned from leaving Brazil. Mr. Bolsonaro said it was all linked to a comment from his brother, U.S.-based former lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, that he should leave if he lost the election. Flavio Bolsonaro had earlier called for an annulment of the result after a surprise win for 80-year-old left-wing President Lula da Silva following a voting extension ordered by the Supreme Court. President Trump, a Bolsonaro ally, had this to say about the outcome. Well, it looked terrible to me. I thought it was a terrible look. And I didn't. I didn't take sides, but it looked like another rigged election, frankly. I didn't take sides, but it was a terrible look for the world. It's another election. You know, elections have to be indisputable. And it looked very bad to me. However, Mr. Bolsonaro's party has now accepted the result. And this was Diego Scardoni, an advisor to a party in Lula's coalition. Despite interference from big techs, despite interference from the. US government and despite the attempts of the opposition to make it harder for people to reach the police stations. The campaign reached the internet in a way that we have never seen before. This request to contest the results will not prosper because it has no grounds. It's quite curious to mention that Bolsonaro's coalition itself also requested the extension of voting times in a few states. Donald Trump's claim of a rigged election came against the backdrop of his administration's efforts to assert US influence over Latin America, as we heard from political scientist Oliver Stunkel. The United States has pursued a strategy of partisan interventionism in Latin America, has sought to actively support and elect candidates aligned to the MAGA movement that has been extraordinarily successful. So over the past 20 months, we've had seven presidential elections, and in seven of them, the left has lost. Now the eighth one in Brazil has been the big one. The first one in 20 months where the left has won, and where a candidate opposed to Donald Trump's agenda has been reelected. That's a setback for Trump. And paradoxically, I would say that Trump's interference in Brazil has actually benefited Lula because Lula was able to articulate a narrative of this election being a choice between the defense of sovereignty and a candidate who was supportive of US meddling. The big question is, of course, will it matter if Trump doesn't officially recognize the result? I think given the low risk of unrest in Brazil, after all, Flavio Bolsonaro lost by a significant margin different from four years ago, I think at some point, pragmatism will prevail in the White House. After all, this is a relevant relationship the United States has with Brazil, and not recognizing will end up only driving Brazil further towards other centers of power, such as China. Political scientist Oliver Stunkel. Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane has become the first English footballer in a quarter of a century to win the most prestigious individual award in the game, the Ballon d'Or. The women's prize went to Spanish World Cup winner and former Barcelona captain Alexia Puteas for the third time. Our sports reporter Ben Croucher told me first about the victory for Harry Kane. It's hugely significant. 25 years since England last had a winner of the award. And for Kane, it comes following a season where he won the Bundesliga in Germany with Bayern Munich, scored 61 goals for his club, 12 for his country, six at the World Cup as England finished third. He beat Kylian Mbappe and World Cup winner Laminia Mal to the award. He paid tribute to his coaches, clubs and family for their support and joined a select group to have won the award in the last decade. We're talking the biggest names in world football. Ousmane Dembele, Rodri, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo. And he's the first Englishman to win the award since 2001, since Michael Owen. Fitting, perhaps, then, that the ceremony was taking place in London for the first time in its history in honour of the first ever winner of the award. In Sir Stanley Matthews, there have been seven different British winners in total. Sir Kane now joins the likes of Dennis Law, Bobby Charlton, George Best, Kevin Keegan and Owen, having lifted the Ballon d'Or. And a hat-trick of wins now in the women's competition for Alexia Puteas. And that is a joint record as well. Along with her Spanish compatriot, Aitana Bonmati. She plays for the London City Lionesses now, does Alexia Puteas. But it's her exploits with Barcelona that have won over the judging panel of journalists. She's scored 21 goals and 13 assists in her last season with Barca. They won the quadruple. And she won from a stacked list of nominees as well. Ava Payor was second and Manchester City's Khadija Shaw was third. And it was a dominant night, indeed, for Spanish coaches and players, with Spaniards winning both of the young talent. Both of the coach awards and the goalkeeper awards as well. And it maintains that streak of Spanish wins for the Ballon d'Or. Bonmati had won the last three and Puteas had won the two before that. And she thanked her teammates and said, don't listen if someone tells you you can't do it. Believe in yourself. And there were a couple of hiccups early on, which almost revealed the winner prematurely. Yeah, it was curious, this one. So the Ballon d'Or website appeared to publish a series of articles, basically saying who had won. It also published red herrings, too. So the first one that we saw was Harry Kane's won the Ballon d'Or. And we were like, oh, hang on a minute, if they press the button by accident. And then one appeared to show that Kylian Mbappe had won it. And then there was another one about Laminia Mal and they were one of coaches and various things as well. They had a load prepared just in case. And some did go live very briefly by accident. There were a few other hiccups. The ceremony was delayed by a good 45 minutes to an hour. There was traffic and fans around the London Palladium. So not everyone was able to get in on time. And then when the ceremony did get going, the presenters, Kate Scott and Thierry Henry, had to rely on their cue cards after the auto cue of the teleprompter went down. Luckily, the rest of the evening went off without a hitch. Ben Croucher. Still to come on this podcast, we reveal Dictionary.com's word of the year and he believed Vegemite was part of Australian culture and denying him Vegemite would be a breach of his human right to enjoy his culture. The Australian prisoner who won't get access to the nation's favourite yeast-based spread. Investing with Schwab is like spending a Saturday at a great farmer's market. You can fill your reusable tote with a bit of everything. Maybe you go for some free-range self-directed investing. Or perhaps you pick up a few farm-fresh trades while you peruse. You can even get help from a dedicated advisor. That's Full Service Wealth Management. Mix, match and change your mind whenever you want. Because at Schwab, you can invest your way. 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In its prospectus, the Claude chatbot maker said AI was a history-shaping technology that also carried existential value. The company reported even bigger losses. Our North America technology correspondent, Lily Jamali, spoke to Valerie Sanderson. The key numbers that we're focused on are their revenues and their losses. So how much do they bring in and how much did that cost them? So we got those figures in their S-1, which of course is this document that they have to file with securities regulators in order to sell shares to the public. For the first half of this year, they brought in about $16 billion in revenue. That represents stunning growth, you know, more than well over a thousand percent growth from the same time a year ago, again, for the first half of this year. But then looking at the losses category, they had $80 billion to report there. Some of that is the result of a one-time charge, but it is somewhere on the order of five to six times what their losses were during the same period last year. So the question becomes, when does Anthropic, break even? There are very serious risks to consider for any investor who is thinking about investing in any AI company, but Anthropic stands out because it's a pure play AI company going public for the first time. And of course, it's a company that's repeatedly warning it might be creating AI that poses an existential risk to humanity. I mean, does that put people off? It very well might. You know, that was in a 90 plus section of this, a document that we saw these potential risk factors. And the one that you mentioned is obviously the standout. So they are flagging this concern about how their AI system, the most advanced ones could pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity if they're not developed, deployed and operated with the right safeguards, with the right oversight, especially as they say, if such systems are misused or if they're weaponized. And so it's really up to companies like Anthropic and these other players to regulate themselves against that kind of risk. that Anthropic is flagging here. Lily Jamali talking to Valerie Sanderson. So what to make of it all? Mohamed El-Arian is an economist from the University of Pennsylvania. Most innovations are what I call 80-20. 80 is good, 20 has to be risk managed. Think of when cars came in. There were risks to be managed. And the challenge to society with every major innovation, electricity being another one, is unleash the 80 and you do your utmost to risk mitigate the 20. What's different and makes this equation even more important is that AI isn't just what's called a general purpose technology like electricity. It can be used almost anywhere. It is also what's called an IMI, an invention machine for inventions, which, if you like, takes the 80 to the power of X and it takes the 20 to the power of X. And that's why. And that's why we've got this contrast. The valuations we'll see as to where the market puts it. I reckon it will be closer to the 1.2 than the two trillion, but that's still going to be enormous. And we will see what happens to the other companies. To touch upon something really important. There's what's called big AI and small AI. Big AI are people who are interested to be at the frontier, but most of us don't need to be at the frontier. If you are going to suddenly enable a clinic in rural Malawi to have access, not to a doctor who comes every two weeks, but a whole library, medical library that's available 24-7, you don't need to be at the frontier. In national security, I can guarantee you that they'll want to be at the frontier. So it's going to solve at different levels for different activities. Economist Mohamed El-Erian. Two Catholic bishops in the US have said they regret visiting President Trump at the White House after images of him and his wife were shared on social media. They say they regret visiting President Trump at the White House after images of him and his wife were shared on social media. After images were published of them praying together. The footage prompted questions over whether the clergymen were making a political statement, but they said it was supposed to be a private meeting and were unhappy it had been politicised. Our White House reporter Bernd Busman has the details. According to the two bishops that have spoken out about the incident, they were invited to a meeting with the White House Faith Office on the 22nd of October, which in and of itself is not unusual. It's actually the second such meeting that's taken place in recent months. They had things to discuss. Immigration, visas for foreign clergy, the exploitation of the disenfranchised in the United States. But they were very much under the impression that this would be a private meeting. Now, once they got to that meeting, they weren't even 100% sure they would meet with President Trump himself, but they were brought into his office and they did a prayer in his office. And Margot Martin, who is a special assistant to the President and a communications director at the White House, who very often posts behind-the-scenes videos of what the President is doing, what he's doing on any given day, she posted this video. And that's really what prompted the confusion here, that they were under the impression this was a private meeting and it turned out not to be. And they both heard about it from their congregants back home in Milwaukee and in Iowa, many of whom are opposed to the Trump administration on certain policy issues, particularly immigration. They acknowledged that and said that they were essentially believed this meeting had been hijacked for political purposes just a few weeks before the midterms take place. And to Bozeman, well, the row has sparked mixed reactions as we heard from Republican and Democratic strategists Joel Rayburn and Mary Ann Marsh. I'm sorry the clergymen were, you know, offended by it. But I think as a person of faith, I like to think that faith can play a role in guiding decisions like that, that people are praying for our national leaders. So it seems like a bit of an overreaction. Maybe there was miscommunication, maybe. But I just don't think this is that big a deal. I don't see this swinging the election one way or another. One of the great things about this, about this country is the separation between church and state, which has become increasingly blurred over a number of presidential terms, especially with Donald Trump and others. And I feel bad for the priests involved here because clearly they didn't expect it. Now, I can't imagine this is a coincidence. The Catholic vote is always important in big elections, specifically in presidential elections. It is really much coveted. And I don't think it's any kind of coincidence that this video is this way out just a week, 10 days plus before an election. I don't think that's a coincidence at all. It's a shame. And the fact that, especially given the position that the Pope and many Catholic clergy have on the treatment of immigrants, how ISIS treated innocent people in this country, many of them have spoken out about it and provided refuge for them. It is disheartening that if you're a priest and you go to the White House, you think you're going to end up in some political video, which tells you everything about where we are right now. It is apparently one of Australia's favourite foods. But Vegemite is at the heart of a curious tale involving the right to eat it in prison. A convicted murderer, Andre McKechnie, argued that the ban on the divisive spread infringed his cultural rights and took the case to court. He's now lost his challenge. Christian Silver from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation told us more. McKechnie was trying to overturn the state's ban on Vegemite which is a popular spread. It's a bit like Marmite, I suppose, sort of a salty yeast extract that you put on bread. And it's really a staple of many diets of people who live in Australia. So McKechnie, he ended up taking this case all the way to the Supreme Court, resulting in the prison staff having to be called to give evidence. And earlier, the judge, Justice Clare Harris, ruled against McKechnie for a couple of reasons. McKechnie had said that his request for Vegemite was because he believed Vegemite was part of Australian culture and denying him Vegemite would be a breach of his human right to enjoy his culture. So he lost on that ground and he also lost on a ground where he was trying to argue that Vegemite was necessary for his health and wellbeing in the prison. Now, the reason why Vegemite is banned is that the prison authorities believe that it can be used to assist in the creation of homebrew alcohol. And the corrections staff also believe that Vegemite can hamper the ability of drug detection dogs to sniff out contraband. But it's worth mentioning at this point that I don't really think there's a great deal of scientific evidence that proves any of this. But it is an interesting case in the sense that McKechnie was trying to make an argument about cultural rights. And what the judge found was that something like Vegemite isn't something that you can equate to a person's request to have vegetarian food, for example, or halal food. That is considered very differently to a product that is popular. Christian Silver from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Finally, what do 6-7, demure and hallucinate have in common? They're all recent words of the year from Dictionary.com. The winner for 2026 has just been revealed, and it is maxing. The slang term's been added to a whole host of activities or attributes to indicate they've been optimised to the full. Popular examples include looks-maxing, sleep-maxing, and even Catholic-maxing. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth adopted the term lethality-maxing to describe the Pentagon's focus on killing. But unlike other common viral trends, word-maxing has actually been around for quite some time, according to linguist and author Adam Oleksik. The word-maxing has been around since at least the 1970s in tabletop role-playing games, the idea of min-maxing your character for a certain stat. And then that was carried over to video game culture, and eventually on 4chan extended to the idea of yourself as a character. You can maximise your own stats. So it's been around, but the modern usage of it absolutely popularised to social media. TikTok, particularly 2022, 2023, is when we start seeing this word hit the mainstream. I wouldn't read too much into the word of the year. It's primarily a marketing event to sell more dictionaries. Last year at 6/7, I don't think that has a long-standing applicability. But maxing is a suffix that we see productively applied to a lot of new words, and it does seem to have the potential to stick around. But its entry into the dictionary canon doesn't really change how people are using it, I think. It's an interesting reflection of our society as a whole. I do think there's a trend toward optimisation and maximising that is reflected in this word. And it's a way to understand, kind of, more broadly, what's going on in our culture right now. I think this drive toward optimisation is one of the central tensions of modern society. But you have to understand there's simultaneously a tongue-in-cheek aspect to the word "maxing". There's an ironic valence to it, where you could say, "Oh, I'm China-maxing" or "I'm Catholic-maxing". And that doesn't mean, like, you're fully — it could be dangerous if you're lethality-maxing or if you're fibre-maxing and you do it to the point of ignoring other aspects. You optimise out the wholeness of this greater totality. But if you say it in kind of a funny way, that's all right. And I do think that's a common usage of the word. Adam Oleksik. And that is all from us for now, but the Global News Podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Holly Smith and produced by Gigi Arnn. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye.