A party headed by a pro-Kremlin figure came out top after securing more votes than expected in an election in Slovakia, preliminary results show, in what could pose a challenge to NATO and EU unity on Ukraine.

According to preliminary results released by Slovakia’s Statistical Office at 9 a.m. local time, Robert Fico’s populist SMER party won 22.9% of the vote.

Progressive Slovakia (PS), a liberal and pro-Ukrainian party won 17.9%.

Fico, a two-time former prime minister, now has a chance to regain the job but must first seek coalition partners as his party did not secure a big enough share of the vote to govern on its own.

The moderate-left Hlas party, led by a former SMER member and formed as an offshoot of SMER following internal disputes, came third with 14.7% of the vote, and could play kingmaker.

With seven political parties reaching the 5% threshold needed to enter the parliament, coalition negotiations will almost certainly include multiple players and could be long and messy.

While not a landslide, SMER’s result is better than expected – last opinion polls published earlier this week showed SMER and PS neck and neck.

Fico has pledged an immediate end to Slovak military support for Ukraine and promised to block Ukraine’s NATO ambitions in what would upend Slovakia’s staunch support for Ukraine.

Michal Šimečka, the leader of PS, said the result was “bad news for the country.”

“The fact of the matter is that SMER is the winner. And we of course respect that although we think it’s bad news for the country. And it will be even worse news if Mr Fico forms the government,” he said at a news conference early on Sunday.

Slovakia’s President Zuzana Čaputová said before the election that she would ask the leader of the strongest party to form the government, meaning Fico will get the first stab at forming a government.

Fico and SMER have not yet commented on the results.

Šimečka said his party will do “everything it could” to prevent Fico from governing.

“I will be in touch with other political leaders of parties that were elected to parliament — on an informal basis — to discuss ways of preventing that,” he said. “We think it will be really bad news for the country, for our democracy, for our rule of law, and for our international standing and for our finances and for our economy if Mr Fico forms the government.”

Peter Pellegrini, the leader of Hlas, said his party was “very pleased with the result.”

“The results so far show that Hlas will be a party without which it will be impossible to form any kind of normal, functioning coalition government,” he said, adding that the party will “make the right decision” to become part of a government that will lead Slovakia out of the “decay and crisis that (the country’s previous leaders) got us into.”

Hlas has been vague about its position on Ukraine in the election campaign. Pellegrini has previously suggested Slovakia “had nothing left to donate” to Kyiv, but also said that the country should continue to manufacture ammunition that is shipped to Ukraine.

Serious consequences for the region

Slovakia, an eastern European nation of about 5.5 million people, was going to the polls to choose its fifth prime minister in four years after seeing a series of shaky coalition governments.

A SMER-led government could have serious consequences for the region. Slovakia is a member of both NATO and the European Union, was among the handful of European countries pushing for tough EU sanctions against Russia and has donated a large amount of military equipment to Ukraine.

But this will likely change under Fico, who has blamed “Ukrainian Nazis and fascists” for provoking Russia’s President Vladimir Putin into launching the invasion, repeating the false narrative Putin has used to justify his invasion.

While in opposition, Fico became a close ally of Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orban, especially when it came to criticism of the European Union. There is speculation that, if he returns to power, Fico and Orban could gang up together and create obstacles for Brussels. If Poland’s governing Law and Justice party manages to win a third term in Polish parliamentary elections next month, this bloc of EU troublemakers could become even stronger.

Meanwhile, the liberal PS party had been pushing for a completely different future for Slovakia – including a continued strong support for Kyiv and strong links with the West.

Fico previously served as Slovakia’s prime minister for more than a decade, first between 2006 and 2010 and then again from 2012 to 2018.

He was forced to resign in March 2018 after weeks of mass protests over the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kušnírová. Kuciak reported on corruption among the country’s elite, including people directly connected to Fico and his party SMER.

The campaign was marked by concerns over disinformation, with Věra Jourová, the European Commission’s top digital affairs official, saying in advance the vote would be a “test case” of how effective social media companies have been in countering Russian propaganda in Slovakia.

Polls suggest Fico’s pro-Russia sentiments are shared by many Slovaks.

According to a survey by GlobSec, a Bratislava-based security think tank, only 40% of Slovaks believed Russia was responsible for the war in Ukraine, the lowest proportion among the eight central and eastern European and Baltic states GlobSec focused on. In the Czech Republic, which used to form one country with Slovakia, 71% of people blame Russia for the war.

The same research found that 50% of Slovaks perceive the United States – the country’s long-term ally – as a security threat.

At least seven people were killed and four injured in a fire that broke out early on Sunday morning at a nightclub in Murcia, Spain, local authorities say,

The injured are two women, aged 22 and 25, and two men, aged 41 and 45, who were all taken to the hospital due to smoke inhalation, the Murcia emergency services website said.

Emergency services are still at the scene looking for more victims. The cause of the blaze is not yet known.

“Worried and dismayed by the news coming from there (Murcia). The emergency services continue working,” the President of the Murcia region posted on X, previously known as Twitter.

At the time of the incident, emergency services were dispatched, with local firefighters requesting the intervention of the helicopter from the General Directorate of Security and Emergencies, the emergency services said, adding later that ground resources were sufficient to put out the fire.

“The General Director of Security and Emergencies, Ricardo Villalba, is on-site coordinating with the Murcia City Council the necessary means to manage this tragedy,” the emergency services said.

“The Vice President and Minister of the Interior, Emergencies and Territorial Planning, Jose Ángel Antelo, is expected to arrive at the site,” they added.

Three days of mourning have been declared in the city of Murcia for “those who died in the fire that occurred at the Teatre de Atalayas nightclub”, Murcia mayor José Ballesta said on X.

A press conference is scheduled for 12.30 p.m. local time on Sunday to address the incident, the Murcia City Council said on X.

An information area for relatives of the victims was set up in the nearby Palacio de los Deportes, where a team of psychologists will be tasked to provide assistance.

Two terrorists carried out a bomb attack in front of Turkey’s Interior Ministry building in the Turkish capital Ankara ahead of the opening of parliament on Sunday, authorities said.

Two police officers suffered non life-threatening injuries in the attack, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said in a statement on X, previously known as Twitter.

The attackers arrived in a light commercial vehicle in front of the building’s entrance at about 9:30 a.m. local time, Yerlikaya. One assailant blew himself up and the other was “neutralized.”

Security footage of the incident obtained by Reuters shows a vehicle slowing down on the street near the building’s gated entrance.

The vehicle comes to a stop then the driver’s side door slowly opens. One individual exits as a second emerges from the other side of the car. The second person approaches the entrance in a tactical stance, though it’s unclear if the attacker is holding a firearm, while the first hides behind the car. The assailant in motion hurries quickly past what appears to be a guard tower. A large explosion then strikes.

After, through the smoke, the contours of what appears to be the first attacker move toward the gate before the 40-second clip ends.

A bomb found on the body of the neutralized terrorist was set off after the attack in a controlled explosion, one of at least two that could be heard on television footage.

Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said that an investigation has been launched into the incident.

“These attacks will in no way hinder Turkey’s fight against terrorism,” Tunc said on X. “Our fight against terrorism will continue even more determinedly.”

The bombing took place just hours before lawmakers are set to return to work after the summer break at 2 p.m.

No group had claimed responsibility as of Sunday morning.

Terror attacks in Turkey were tragically common in the mid to late 2010s, when the insecurity from war-torn Syria crept north above the two countries’ shared border.

Ankara saw two attacks by Kurdish assailants in 2016, one which targeted military personnel on a bus and another at a bus stop.

Twin bombings in 2015 that targeted a peace rally near the capital’s main train station claimed the lives of nearly 100 people.

The long fractious ties between Kosovo and Serbia are once again on edge after one of the worst outbreaks of violence in years.

The trigger for the latest flare-up was the killing of a Kosovar police officer and an ensuing shootout at a monastery last weekend, but the roots of the tensions go as far back as the 1990s and the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia.

The White House is concerned, warning of an “unprecedented” build up of advanced Serbian artillery, tanks, and mechanized infantry units near the Kosovo frontier and calling for an “immediate de-escalation.”

A history of ethnic tensions

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, following the 1998-99 war in which Kosovar Albanians attempted to break from what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, made up of today’s Serbia and Montenegro. The war was the culmination of decades of ethnic tensions between the region’s Albanian and Serb communities.

During the war, NATO intervened to protect Kosovo’s Albanian majority.

More than 20 years on, fragile peace has been preserved in Kosovo, while Serbia continues not to recognize Kosovo’s independence. Kosovo’s Serb minority view themselves as part of Serbia, and see Belgrade as their capital, rather than Pristina.

The majority of Kosovo’s Serbs – less than a tenth of the overall population – live in the northern regions, and have increasingly demanded greater autonomy from the ethnic Albanian popularity.

Disputes over the degree of autonomy for the minority Serbs persist, with the ethnic group sometimes responding with violent resistance to moves by Pristina that they see as anti-Serb.

What’s caused the latest flare-up?

A standoff between police and around 30 heavily armed Serbian men last Sunday was triggered by an ambush which left one Kosovo police officer dead and another injured.

During the subsequent shootout in the village of Banjska in northern Kosovo, police said they killed three armed attackers and arrested another. Some of the shooting took place near a Serbian Orthodox monastery, police say.

Authorities previously said they found “logistical equipment, suspected military vehicles, military uniforms as well as weapons and ammunition of different calibers” at a residential location being used by the attackers.

Like other villages in the north, Banjska is predominantly Serbian.

In a post on Facebook Sunday morning, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti described the shooting in Banjska as a “terror attack” conducted by what he said were “Serbian criminal gangs.”

Sunday’s outbreak of violence follows the unrest in May which saw dozens of NATO peacekeepers injured after they were attacked by ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo.

Violence broke out after Serbian demonstrators tried to block newly elected ethnically-Albanian mayors from taking office in the northern town of Zvecan, following a disputed election in April.

What are both sides saying?

Kosovo’s President Vjosa Osmani pointed the finger at Belgrade for inciting Sunday’s violence.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic denies the allegations, arguing that Serbia would not benefit from something that would jeopardize its position in EU-sponsored normalization talks with Pristina, Reuters reported.

Vucic also condemned Kosovo police for shooting dead one of the gunmen in the head after he had surrendered “from the distance of a meter,” describing it as an “execution,” according to Reuters. He pledged to investigate the events surrounding the violence, including the origin of weapons seized after the incident by Kosovo police.

In another development, a top Kosovo Serb politician, Milan Radoicic said he took part in the gun battle, Reuters reported.

In a letter sent to Reuters by his lawyer, Radoicic, who is wanted in Kosovo and lives in neighboring Serbia, said he “personally prepared logistics for the defense of Serb people” and received no help from the Serb authorities.

How is the rest of the world reacting?

The White House has warned that the incident represents a threat to the safety of not only Kosovo personnel, but international personnel including NATO troops.

“According to Kosovo authorities, at least 30 people were involved in this attack which resulted in the death of a police sergeant a Kosovo Police Sergeant,” National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby told journalists Friday.

“This is not the kind of an attack that carried out randomly, or ad hoc or by some small group. The amount and the types of arms that were found represent a threat to the safety of not only Kosovo personnel, but international personnel including NATO troops.”

He added that the US is now monitoring a large Serbian military deployment along the border with Kosovo.

“We believe that this is a very destabilizing development and it’s basically been taking place over the past week or so. And we are calling on Serbia to withdraw those forces from the border and to contribute to lowering the temperature,” he said.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said additional forces had been authorized for Kosovo following the deadly shootout, and also called for de-escalation.

At least 100,000 people have now fled the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karbakh – more than four-fifths of the population – since Azerbaijan reclaimed the territory in a lightening offensive, authorities in neighboring Armenia said.

The rapid exodus has prompted the United Nations to send its first mission to the territory in about 30 years.

Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, said the UN team on the ground would “identify the humanitarian needs for both people remaining and the people that are on the move.”

Though internationally seen as part of Azerbaijan, the Armenian-majority Nagorno-Karbakh had spent decades under the control of a separatist, de facto government until Azerbaijan’s victory last week. The former breakaway republic will cease to exist as of next year.

Azerbaijan has long been clear about the choice confronting Karabakh Armenians: Stay and accept Azerbaijani citizenship, or leave.

As of Saturday morning, 100,417 people had been “forcibly displaced,” the Armenian prime minister’s spokeswoman, Nazeli Baghdasaryan, told reporters.

Fears of ‘punitive actions’

Armenian authorities have responded to the outflux of people by asking the International Court of Justice, a judicial arm of the UN, to tell Azerbaijan to withdraw its troops – citing fears of “punitive actions.”

They requested the court order Azerbaijan to “withdraw all military and law-enforcement personnel from all civilian establishments in Nagorno-Karabakh,” while refraining from “taking any actions directly or indirectly” that would have the effect of displacing the remaining ethnic Armenians or preventing those who fled from returning.

Azerbaijan should also allow people to leave the region “without any hindrance” if they wanted to, the Armenian authorities demanded.

Armenia also asked the court to direct Azerbaijan to grant the UN and the Red Cross access to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan should “refrain from taking punitive actions against the current or former political representatives or military personnel of Nagorno-Karabakh,” the Armenian authorities said.

Commanders detained

The appeal comes as Azerbaijani state media reported Friday that the security services in the country had detained two former commanders of the self-proclaimed “Republic of Artsakh’s” military.

Loven Mnatsakanyan and Davit Manukyan were intercepted while attempting to cross from Nagorno-Karabakh into Armenia via the Lachin Corridor, the one road connecting the landlocked enclave to Armenia.

Mnatsakanyan, who reportedly served as defense minister from 2015 to 2018, was arrested Friday and taken to the Azebaijani capital of Baku, according to state media. He was accused of illegally entering its territory.

Manukyan, who reportedly served as the former deputy commander of Nagorno-Karbakh’s armed forces, was detained Wednesday, Azerbaijani state media reported.

He was accused of engaging in terrorism, setting up illegal armed groups, illegal possession of a firearm, and illegally entering Azerbaijan, though no evidence was presented to support the claims.

The announcement of the arrests came after the indictment of prominent Nagorno-Karabakh politician and businessman Ruben Vardanyan on multiple charges in Azerbaijan Thursday after being detained while trying to cross into Armenia the day before, according to state media citing the Azerbaijani State Security Service.

A former Minister of State of the self-proclaimed republic, Vardanyan is accused of financing terrorism, participating in the creation and activities of illegal armed groups, and illegally crossing Azerbaijani borders, according to state media. Azerbaijan has not presented evidence to support its claims.

On Thursday, local politician David Babayan, an adviser to Samvel Shahramanyan, the president of the self-styled “Republic of Artsakh,” wrote on Telegram that he would hand himself over to Azerbaijan.

“My failure to appear, or worse, my escape, will cause serious harm to our long-suffering nation, to many people, and I, as an honest person, hard worker, patriot and Christian, cannot allow this,” Babayan wrote.

After a nearly 4 billion-mile round trip, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully delivered NASA’s first asteroid sample to Earth.

The capsule containing rocks and soil, collected from the asteroid Bennu, stuck a perfect landing in the Utah desert on September 24 after blazing through Earth’s atmosphere at blistering temperatures — enough to completely char the outside of the receptacle.

Now, the rare contents are safely stowed at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where scientists will study them to help unlock the secrets of our solar system.

Countless people who have worked on the mission for years celebrated the historic achievement, including Queen guitarist Brian May, who also happens to be an astrophysicist and proud OSIRIS-REx teammate.

But the spacecraft’s epic journey isn’t over yet.

Across the universe

The newly renamed OSIRIS-APEX mission is setting a course for Apophis, an asteroid with a fear-inducing reputation.

The space rock — named for the Egyptian god of chaos and darkness — was once considered to be one of the most potentially hazardous asteroid threats to Earth.

Apophis isn’t on a collision course with our planet anytime soon, the latest research has suggested. But the asteroid will come so close to Earth in 2029 that people will be able to see it with the naked eye.

And that’s when OSIRIS-APEX will make its move, going into orbit around Apophis and studying it for 18 months. The spacecraft is no longer capable of collecting a sample, but it will use thrusters to kick up dust and rocks to study Apophis’ stony surface.

Unearthed

Archaeologists were excavating a 2,300-year-old tomb in Israel when they came across what may be the remains of a hetaira, or a courtesan of ancient Greece.

The woman’s cremated remains were found inside a cave, along with a well-preserved bronze folding mirror.

She may have been one of the first Greeks to arrive in the region, accompanying a government official or high general during the Hellenistic Age, or between 323 BC and 30 BC.

Several details about her burial, including the rare pristine mirror, hint at the woman’s origins, and researchers hope to uncover more of her story in the future.

Curiosities

Mysterious “fairy circles,” or dot patterns of barren dirt that appear in dryland grasses, have sparked intrigue for decades since being spotted in Southern Africa’s Namib Desert or the Western Australian outback.

A new atlas, pieced together by scientists in Spain using artificial intelligence, reveals that fairy circles may be present at hundreds of places around the world.

The phenomenon that shapes the circles remains a puzzle, but the global atlas will enable research that could illuminate why the polka-dot pattern appears.

Separately, scientists have predicted that the formation of a massive “supercontinent” could make Earth virtually uninhabitable in 250 million years, wiping out humans and mammals unable to cope with excessive heat.

Defying gravity

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio is finally back on Earth after spending a record-breaking 371 days in space — and his extended stay wasn’t planned.

The Soyuz spacecraft that delivered Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin for a six-month stint began leaking coolant after space debris likely struck it. A replacement spacecraft docked at the International Space Station in late February, and a fresh crew finally arrived on September 15.

Rubio’s calendar year aboard the orbiting outpost is the longest a US astronaut has spent in zero gravity, and now, he’s readjusting to life on Earth.

“We’re not walking, we’re not bearing our own weight (while in space),” he said, “and so it’ll be anywhere from two to six months before I essentially say that I feel normal.”

Meanwhile, a new film explores the story of astronaut José Hernández, the first former migrant worker to venture to space in 2009 after NASA rejected him 11 times.

Wild kingdom

A newly described tarantula species looks like it would be right at home slinging webs alongside Spider-Man.

The electric blue tarantula, named Taksinus bambus, was found living in tree hollows in southern Thailand last year.

“Blue is one of the rarest colors to appear in nature, which makes blue coloration in animals particularly fascinating,” said Narin Chomphuphuang, a researcher at Thailand’s Khon Kaen University who helped discover the spider.

Researchers believe that the unique structure of the tarantula’s hair, rather than the presence of blue pigments, contributes to the creature’s “mesmerizing” appearance.

Explorations

Get lost in these riveting reads:

— The Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine will be announced next week, awarding brilliant minds for their research — but the illustrious prizes draw criticism, too.

— Elusive pangolins are the world’s most trafficked mammals, but the recent discovery of an unknown species could help in the fight against the scale-covered animal’s extinction.

— Does gum really sit in your stomach for seven years? Here’s what experts have to say about the old wives’ tale and what really happens when you swallow gum.

— The James Webb Space Telescope detected a building block of life on the surface of Europa, an ice-covered ocean world orbiting Jupiter.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “vertical of power” – the way in which the entire structure of Russian political power rests on one man – has undergone profound stress testing in the wake of the Wagner mercenary group’s aborted march on Moscow in June.

But everything is now business as usual, and the remnants of Wagner are back in the government’s control, if Kremlin messaging is to be believed.

In a televised meeting Friday, Putin met with Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and former Wagner commander Andrey Troshev, according to a partial transcript published by the Kremlin.

The meeting was held in a long-familiar format. Putin was seated at the head of a conference table with briefing papers and notes, making some general remarks before settling down to official business. The language was sober, competent and relatively substance-free: It could have been a routine meeting with a regional governor to discuss economic plans, at least judging by the official readout.

But unpack the language, and Putin’s Friday meeting appeared to put a reassuring gloss on the Russian government’s attempt to bring the mercenary group to heel. Troshev – who goes by the call sign, ‘Sedoy,’ meaning ‘grey hair’ – is the man Putin tapped to run the mercenary outfit after its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s dramatic fall from grace.

After leading the group’s insurrection this summer and then accepting an apparent deal to end it, Prigozhin died in late August when his private jet plummeted from the skies over Russia’s Tver region. But the damage that Prigozhin did to Putin’s image of infallibility has lingered.

So Putin on Friday did one of the things he does best: Delving into the minutiae of governing.

“I would like to talk to you about issues of a social nature,” Putin told Troshev, without naming Wagner. “You maintain relationships with your comrades with whom you fought together, and now you continue to carry out these combat missions.”

Continued Putin: “We have created the ‘Defenders of the Fatherland’ fund, and I have said many times and want to emphasize again: regardless of the status of the person who performs or has performed combat missions, social guarantees must be absolutely the same for everyone.”

A glimpse of the future

By dangling the carrot of “social guarantees,” one might conclude that the Russian government will be taking on the system of cash handouts and compensation that Wagner fighters in Ukraine enjoyed under Prigozhin’s leadership, something that won the mercenary leader some measure of loyalty. That such guarantees accrue “regardless of status” would appear to acknowledge that mercenary activities are technically proscribed by Russian law.

The Russian leader also alluded to an earlier offer made to Wagner fighters after the short-lived rebellion: Sign contracts with the Russian ministry of defense, or head for neighboring Belarus. Wagner’s future in Belarus has since been thrown into doubt and the Russian government appears to be moving more energetically to bring the remnants of Wagner into conventional military structures, along with all the benefits that might entail.

“At the last meeting, we talked about the fact that you will be involved in the formation of volunteer units that can perform various combat missions, primarily, of course, in the zone of a special military operation,” Putin said, using the official doublespeak for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“You yourself fought in such a unit for more than a year. You know what it is, how it’s done, you know about the issues that need to be resolved in advance so that combat work goes on in the best and most successful way.”

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported Friday that Troshev “is already working with the defense ministry” – citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov – signaling that he will not be a freelance entrepreneur as Prigozhin was.

But that doesn’t answer the somewhat broader question of what the Russian state plans to do with all the work it has outsourced to Wagner in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. Wagner fighters have been active in several African countries, including Mali, the Central African Republic, and Libya.

The presence of Yevkurov in the meeting may offer one clue. In late August, Yevkurov led a Russian military delegation to the Libyan city of Benghazi to meet with the Libyan National Army, led by the renegade general Khalifa Haftar.

Wagner has supported the Libyan National Army for several years, reportedly backing Haftar’s 2019-2020 military campaign against the Tripoli-based government. The US military says Wagner has also used Libya as a logistical foothold, flying cargo flights into bases in eastern Libya to resupply its operations there.

Evidence has also emerged that Wagner has used bases in Libya to supply Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces.

Wagner has long acted as an often-deniable extension of Russian foreign policy. If Friday’s meeting is any guide, Yevkurov appears to be a point man for future Wagner activity while Troshev takes on a different brief: overseeing Wagner 2.0 for the war in Ukraine.

Built on the land of the Wakka Wakka people, Cherbourg’s modern motto of “many tribes, one community” reflects the varied origins of its 1,700 residents, descendants of people once forced to live there under laws of segregation.

Between 1905 and 1971, more than 2,600 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were forcibly moved from their land to Cherbourg, then known as Barambah, according to the Queensland government.

Some were marched barefoot through the Australian bush by colonial settlers under a law that called for the removal of Indigenous people from their traditional lands to be housed and educated in colonial ways.

Today residents live in neat rows of single story houses, their rent paid to a council that’s determined to turn the former government reserve into a thriving community where people want to live – and it seems to be working.

“We’ve got around 260 people waiting on our waiting list,” said Cherbourg Council CEO Chatur Zala. “There’s a huge demand for social housing because our rent is pretty reasonable.

“The rent in the big cities is so expensive, people can’t afford it.”

Life has changed for people in Cherbourg, but a divide still exists in Australia between non-Indigenous and Indigenous people on a whole range of measures – from infant mortality to employment, suicide and incarceration.

Indigenous people have proposed an idea they say may help close the gap, and on October 14 the entire country will vote on it.

A Yes vote would recognize First Nations people in the constitution and create a body – a Voice to Parliament – to advise the government on issues that affect them. A No vote would mean no change.

So how does Cherbourg, a community created from policies of segregation and assimilation, feel about what’s being billed as an historic step forward for Indigenous reconciliation?

“My community is very, very confused,” said Mayor Elvie Sandow, from her air-conditioned office in the center of Cherbourg. “They’re confused with the Voice, and then the pathway to [a] treaty.”

The mayor said residents will vote because if they don’t, they’ll be fined under Australia’s compulsory voting laws, then she immediately corrects herself.

“Well, they probably won’t vote,” she said. “They’ll just go out and get their name ticked off the [electoral] roll, so that avoids them getting a fine.”

The Voice referendum

A record number of Australians – some 17.67 million of a population of 25.69 million – have registered to vote in the country’s first referendum in almost 25 years, according to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).

Early voting has already started in remote communities, with AEC staff traveling vast distances by 4WDs, helicopters, planes and ferries to reach them.

Campaigners for both sides – Yes and No – have also been traversing the same routes, speaking to locals, organizing rallies and spending millions of dollars on radio, television and online advertising to win their votes.

“I think this is one of the most important events of my life,” said Erin Johnston, who was among thousands of people marching at a recent Yes rally in Brisbane, organized by the charity Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition.

“We have an opportunity to right a big wrong,” Johnston said.

But with two weeks to go before the vote, polls are showing that the referendum is on track to fail, a potential blow for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who made it an election pledge.

The prime minister has stressed that the Voice is not his idea but a “modest request” made by representatives of hundreds of Aboriginal nations who held meetings around the country in 2017.

Together they agreed a one-page statement called the Uluru Statement from the Heart which calls for “a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.”

When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish.

Uluru Statement from the Heart

“We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country,” it said.

A childhood in Cherbourg

Aunty Ruth Hegarty remembers her early days as a child in Cherbourg. There, children did not flourish, they did not walk in two worlds, and their culture was not seen as a gift but something to be erased.

Now 94, Aunty Ruth has written an award-winning book about growing up in the settlement. She was just a baby when her parents moved there from the Mitchell district in southwest Queensland looking for work during the Great Depression.

On arrival, the family was separated into different areas of the settlement. Then they realized they couldn’t leave.

The Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 (Qld) allowed authorities to remove Indigenous people to government reserves and govern almost every aspect of their lives.

Aunty Ruth was allowed to stay with her mother in the women’s section of a crowded dormitory until she was 4-and-a-half years old.

But after her first day at school, she was told she wouldn’t be living with her mother anymore. “You’re a schoolgirl now,” she was told, before being directed to the girls’ section where she shared beds, baths, towels and meals with other students.

“We were not allowed to cry,” Aunty Ruth wrote. “Crying always resulted in punishment.”

Punishment meant being caned, having their heads shaved, or being locked alone in a wooden cell at the back of the property, she wrote.

Mothers were sent to work as domestic staff for settlers while the men did manual labor, and when she was 14, Ruth was also sent away to earn money. At 22 she applied for permission from the state to marry, and when restrictions eased in the late 1960s, she moved with her husband and six children to Brisbane to start a new life outside the settlement.

Sitting beneath a pergola surrounded by flowers in her garden, Ruth still has the energy of an activist who has spent much of her life working to improve the lives of her people.

She wears an orange Yes badge and says she hopes the referendum will produce change.

“All I want is my constitutional recognition for me and my kids,” she said, leaning forward. “We need a change. We need change.”

Sitting to her right, her daughter Moira Bligh, president of the volunteer Noonga Reconciliation Group, said, “We’ve overcome disadvantage, but unless we’re all at our stage, we won’t stop.”

“I won’t stop,” Aunty Ruth added, “because I think it’s the right thing for us to do.”

The argument against the Voice

Across town on a Wednesday night, an audience of No voters at an event organized by conservative political lobby group Advance gives an indication of why this referendum is so contentious.

Wearing No caps and T-shirts handed out at the door, they cheer loudly as the leaders of the No camp urge them to reject division.

“The Yes campaign focuses on the past. We focus on the now and the future, the making of Australia the envy of the world,” said Nyunggai Warren Mundine, a member of the Bundjalung, Gumbaynggirr and Yuin people.

We focus on the now and the future, the making of Australia the envy of the world.

Nyunggai Warren Mundine

Sitting in the back row, carpenter Blair Gilchrist says Indigenous people wouldn’t need a Voice if politicians were doing their jobs properly and spending money where it was needed. He’s not a fan of Albanese’s Labor government.

“Money has got to be scrutinized better. I think that’s probably the main thing. That the money is spent well,” he said.

Successive governments have spent billions of dollars to close the persistent gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in national health and welfare statistics, yet many targets aren’t being met. And on some measures, the gap is widening – including rates of incarceration, suicide and children in care.

The Voice seeks to give non-binding advice to government about what might work to end the disparity – but critics say it’s not needed.

“Infant mortality has dropped, life expectancy has increased, it might not be at the levels we need it, but it’s heading in that direction,” Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, a descendant of the Warlpiri people, told the audience.

The death rate for Indigenous children ages 0-4 was 2.1 times as high as the rate for non-Indigenous between 2015 and 2019, according to government figures. On average, non-Indigenous men live 8.6 years longer than Indigenous men – for women it’s 7.8 years. The gap’s even wider in remote communities, statistics show.

“The Voice, it suggests that Indigenous Australians … are inherently disadvantaged, for no other reason but because of our racial heritage,” Price said. “It’s suggested that every one of us needs special measures and [to be] placed in the constitution. That again is another lie. I mean, look at me and Warren, we’re doing all right, aren’t we?” she said.

Both the Yes and No camps want more accountability – some proof that the billions of dollars spent each year on Indigenous programs are being used to help the most vulnerable. And both want a brighter future for the most disadvantaged Indigenous people, though they disagree about how to get there.

It’s suggested that every one of us needs special measures and [to be] placed in the constitution. That again is another lie.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price

Many in the Yes camp say that future needs to start with recognition that, as the world’s oldest continuous civilization, First Nations people occupied the land for 60,000 years before the arrival of British settlers just over 200 years ago.

The official No camp believes nothing separates Australians – from First Nations people to new migrants – and changing the constitution embeds division. For the Yes camp, Indigenous people do hold a special place in the country’s history and their existence must be acknowledged, along with a permanent body that can’t be dissolved on the political whim of future governments.

Other Indigenous people are voting No because it’s not enough – they want treaties negotiated between the land’s traditional owners and those occupying it.

Push for progress

Back in Cherbourg, visitors walk through the old ration shed, where people from hundreds of Aboriginal nations once queued for their weekly allowance of tea, sugar, rice, salt, sago, tapioca, slit peas, porridge, flour and meat.

It’s now a museum, where elders share stories of life in those days.

Zala said Cherbourg Council has made gains in recent years, since Mayor Elvie was elected in 2020. The number of council jobs has doubled to 130, mostly filled by local staff, Zala said.

“The highest employment rate of any Indigenous community,” he boasted.

They’ve opened the first recycling center in an Indigenous community, which handles waste from surrounding areas; and the first Digital Service Center staffed by Indigenous workers, who gain experience and qualifications.

Plans are afoot to expand the water treatment plant beyond upgrades unveiled last year. But most of all, the council is working on ways to provide new homes for the hundreds of people wanting to move there.

It’s a tough task – Cherbourg still operates as a Deed of Grant in Trust (DOGIT) community, meaning it relies on government funding. There’s very little private ownership – almost all homes there are owned and maintained by the council.

For years, the council has encouraged residents to buy the homes their families have lived in for decades, but few financial incentives exist – there’s no market for houses, meaning no capital gains, and some prospective homeowners balk at the cost of private upkeep after so many years of council support, Zala said.

As a lifelong resident, Mayor Elvie knows the issues well. Her mother lived in the Cherbourg dormitory until she was old enough to marry. By the time the future mayor was born in the 1970s, restrictions were being phased out.

She is not afraid of change, but she doesn’t see how a Voice to Parliament in Canberra is going to help address the daily challenges she faces to keep her community employed, housed and educated.

For that reason, she’s going to vote No.

“I don’t make my decision lightly,” she said.”I have had a number of conversations with different mayors and communities and some mayors are for the Yes vote. It’s very divided right up the middle.

“I’m going No because I just feel it’s a duplication. At the end of the day, I am the voice of Cherbourg because I’m the elected mayor for this community.”

I am the voice of Cherbourg because I’m the elected mayor for this community.

Mayor Elvie Sandow

Zala is one of the newer Australians the No camp says would be done a disservice if the country’s Indigenous population was given special recognition in the constitution. Born in Gujarat, India, he moved to Australia in 2006 and has been working to close the gap in Cherbourg since 2011.

“That’s still my motivation every day when I come here. I don’t accept why we have to be different than any other community. I always believed that we don’t want to create a community which is so much behind,” he said.

Of the Voice, he said he’ll be voting Yes.

“At least by voting Yes, you have hope. We don’t know the detail [of] what’s going to happen after the Voice, but it’s best to get it through and see if there might be something good come to the community,” he said. “And I think lots of people are going to do the same.”

Germany has hit back at Elon Musk after the billionaire businessman waded into the country’s debate on migration.

Musk reshared a post on the platform X, formerly Twitter, that criticized German NGO operations in the Mediterranean for “unloading illegal immigrants” in Italy.

The post also called for a victory for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in the next elections.

“There are currently 8 German NGO ships in the Mediterranean Sea collecting illegal immigrants to be unloaded in Italy. These NGOs are subsidized by the German government. Let’s hope AfD wins the elections to stop this European suicide,” the post from an X account with the handle “Radio Genoa” read.

Sharing the post to his 158 million followers on Friday, Musk, who owns the social media platform, wrote: “Is the German public aware of this?”

Hitting back at his comment, the German Foreign Office took to X to write: “Yes. And it’s called saving lives.”

Musk doubled down on his criticism on Saturday, writing in another post: “Frankly, I doubt that a majority of the German public supports this.”

Musk’s comments come with Berlin locked in a spat with Italy over NGO sea operations.

Earlier this month, Germany’s Interior Ministry said it would postpone “until further notice” its intake of migrants coming via Italy under a European voluntary solidarity plan.

Speaking at the sidelines of the 10th summit for MED9 countries on Friday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warned that problems regarding migration will “never be solved completely if every country thinks of unloading it on another.”

Leaders of the MED9, which includes France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Croatia and Slovenia, gathered in Valletta, Malta, on Friday.

Meloni said she spoke with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday and said it seemed Germany was “taking half a step back.”

“For us redistribution has never been the priority, for me the problem will never be solved completely if every country thinks of unloading it on another. The only way to solve everyone’s problem is the work we’re doing on the external dimension,” Meloni said.

Following Friday’s meetings, the MED-9 released a joint statement outlining the need to “respond rapidly to the recent challenge of increasing arrivals through Mediterranean routes.”

The statement said short and medium-term solutions were needed and called on the European Union (EU) to effectively reduce primary movements and prevent departures, to improve the rate of returns of failed asylum seekers, and to address the root causes of irregular migration.

Every year, tens of thousands of migrants fleeing war, persecution and poverty risk the treacherous route in search of safety and better economic prospects.

In many cases, their vessels are overcrowded and unfit for the journey, and the need to rescue migrants on board often leads to disputes between countries about who should take them in.

An Indian minister has accused Canada of giving “operating space” to terrorists and extremists, as he rejected claims by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the Indian government may have played a role in the assassination of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil.

“The Canadian (prime minister) made some allegations initially privately, and then publicly. And, our response to him, both in private and public, was that what he was alleging was not consistent with our policy,” India’s Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said during a discussion at the Hudson Institute in Washington D.C. on Friday.

The minister said India was “open to” further examine the event if the Canadian government “had anything relevant and specific they would like us to look into,” but added that the row between the countries preceded Trudeau’s allegations.

Relations between the two nations took a nosedive last week after Trudeau claimed his authorities had been investigating “credible allegations” of a potential link between “agents of the government of India” and the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an outspoken supporter of the creation of Khalistan – a separate homeland for the Sikhs that would include parts of India’s Punjab state.

India considers calls for Khalistan a grave national security threat. However, it has vehemently denied Trudeau’s claims, calling them “absurd and motivated,” and the growing spat has seen both countries expel each other’s diplomats.

But Jaishankar said on Friday that the differences went back further than the row over Nijjar’s death. He said the Indian government had long accused Canada of inaction in dealing with Sikh separatist extremism aimed at creating a separate Sikh homeland.

He said India believes Canada has a “very permissive Canadian attitude towards terrorists, extremist people who openly advocate violence.”

Those individuals “have been given operating space in Canada because of the compulsions of Canadian politics,” Jaishankar added.

Nijjar’s death shocked and outraged the Sikh community in Canada, one of the largest outside India and home to more than 770,000 members of the religious minority.

A number of groups associated with the idea of Khalistan are listed as “terrorist organizations” under India’s Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), though several Sikh organizations abroad have accused the Indian government of falsely equating them with terrorism.

Nijjar’s name appears on the list of UAPA terrorists and in 2020, the Indian National Investigation Agency accused him of “trying to radicalize the Sikh community across the world in favor of the creation of Khalistan.”

The US position

Jaishankar met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the State Department on Thursday.

The two diplomats made no comments during a brief photo-op ahead of the meeting. However, a State Department spokesman said Friday that Blinken urged his Indian counterpart to cooperate fully with the ongoing Canadian investigation into the killing.

The US ambassador to Canada confirmed that intelligence gained by the “Five Eyes” network, which includes the US, Canada, Britain, New Zealand and Australia, led to Canada’s public accusation that the Indian government may have played a role in the death of Nijjar.

At a different press conference Friday, Blinken said that those responsible for the murder of a Sikh activist in Canada “need to be held accountable.”

“We have engaged with the Indian government and urged them to work with Canada on an investigation, and I had the opportunity to do so again in my meeting yesterday with Foreign Minister Jaishankar,” said Blinken at a press conference with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai, Mexican Foreign Secretary Alicia Barcena and Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro.

Blinken said he hopes “our friends in both Canada and India will work together to resolve this matter.”

Jaishankar also noted he had spoken with both US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the matter.

“They obviously shared US views and assessments on this whole situation,” Jaishankar said. “So I think hopefully we both came out of those meetings better and forward.”

“Today, I’m actually in a situation where my diplomats are unsafe going to the embassy, or to the consulate in Canada. They are publicly intimidated. And that has actually compelled me to temporarily suspend even visa operations in Canada,” the minister added.

Canadian police have not arrested anyone in connection with Nijjar’s murder.

But in an August update, police released a statement saying they were investigating three suspects and issued a description of a possible getaway vehicle, asking for the public’s help.