The Freedom Party secured the first far-right national parliamentary election victory in post-World War II Austria on Sunday, finishing ahead of the governing conservatives after tapping into anxieties about immigration, inflation, Ukraine and other issues. But its chances of governing were unclear.

Preliminary official results showed the Freedom Party finishing first with 29.2% of the vote and Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s Austrian People’s Party was second with 26.5%. The center-left Social Democrats were in third place with 21%. The outgoing government – a coalition of Nehammer’s party and the environmentalist Greens – lost its majority in the lower house of parliament.

Herbert Kickl, a former interior minister and longtime campaign strategist who has led the Freedom Party since 2021, wants to be chancellor.

But to become Austria’s new leader, he would need a coalition partner to command a parliamentary majority. Rivals have said they won’t work with Kickl in government.

The far right has benefited from frustration over high inflation, the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic. It has also built on worries about migration.

In its election program, titled “Fortress Austria,” the Freedom Party calls for “remigration of uninvited foreigners,” for achieving a more “homogeneous” nation by tightly controlling borders and suspending the right to asylum via an emergency law.

The Freedom Party also calls for an end to sanctions against Russia, is highly critical of Western military aid to Ukraine and wants to bow out of the European Sky Shield Initiative, a missile defense project launched by Germany. Kickl has criticized “elites” in Brussels and called for some powers to be brought back from the European Union to Austria.

“We don’t need to change our position, because we have always said that we’re ready to lead a government, we’re ready to push forward this change in Austria side by side with the people,” Kickl said in an appearance alongside other party leaders on ORF public television. “The other parties should ask themselves where they stand on democracy,” he added, arguing that they should “sleep on the result.”

Nehammer said it was “bitter” that his party missed out on first place, but noted he brought it back from lower poll ratings. He has often said he won’t form a coalition with Kickl and said that “what I said before the election, I also say after the election.”

More than 6.3 million people were eligible to vote for the new parliament in Austria, an EU member that has a policy of military neutrality.

Kickl has achieved a turnaround since Austria’s last parliamentary election in 2019. In June, the Freedom Party narrowly won a nationwide vote for the first time in the European Parliament election, which also brought gains for other European far-right parties.

Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, whose party dominates the Netherlands’ new government, congratulated the Freedom Party on social network X Sunday. So did Alice Weidel, a co-leader of the Alternative for Germany party.

The Freedom Party is a long-established force but Sunday’s result was its best yet in a national parliamentary election, beating the 26.9% it scored in 1999.

In 2019, its support slumped to 16.2% after a scandal brought down a government in which it was the junior partner. Then-vice chancellor and Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache resigned following the publication of a secretly recorded video in which he appeared to offer favors to a purported Russian investor.

The leader of the Social Democrats, a party that led many of Austria’s post-World War II governments, positioned himself as the polar opposite to Kickl. Andreas Babler ruled out governing with the far right and labeled Kickl “a threat to democracy.”

While the Freedom Party has recovered, the popularity of Nehammer’s People’s Party declined sharply compared with 2019. Support for the Greens, their coalition partner, also dropped to 8%.

During the election campaign, Nehammer portrayed his party, which has taken a tough line on immigration in recent years, as “the strong center” that would guarantee stability amid multiple crises.

But crises ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and resulting rising energy prices and inflation also cost it support. The government also angered many Austrians in 2022 with a short-lived coronavirus vaccine mandate, the first in Europe.

But the recent flooding caused by Storm Boris that hit Austria and other countries may have helped Nehammer slightly narrow the gap as a crisis manager.

The People’s Party is the far right’s only way into government, and now holds the key to forming any administration.

Nehammer repeatedly excluded joining a government led by Kickl, describing him as a “security risk” for the country, but didn’t rule out a coalition with the Freedom Party itself — which would imply Kickl renouncing a position in government. But that looks very unlikely with the Freedom Party in first place.

The alternative would be an alliance between the People’s Party and the Social Democrats — with or without the liberal Neos, who took 9% of the vote.

A final official result will be published later in the week after a small number of remaining postal ballots have been counted, but those won’t change the outcome substantially.

About 300 protesters gathered outside the parliament building in Vienna Sunday evening, holding placards with slogans including “Kickl is a Nazi.”

Days of heavy monsoon rains in Nepal have triggered widespread flooding and landslides across the Himalayan nation, killing almost 200 people and causing widespread destruction.

Images from the capital show much of southern Kathmandu and nearby cities underwater or buried in thick mud as incessant torrential rains caused major rivers to swell far above danger levels.

The floods and landslides have destroyed hundreds of homes, cut off highways, and downed power lines, which hit just months after the country experienced deadly record rainfall and flash flooding that scientists say has intensified as a result of the climate crisis.

Search and rescue teams have struggled to reach residents buried under their homes or trapped by flooding in remote areas.

In hard-hit Lalitpur, south of Kathmandu, images showed the Nepal Armed Police Force using zip lines to traverse a flooded river, while elsewhere rescue teams could be seen digging with their bare hands to free residents buried under mud and rubble, or using boats and helicopters to reach people stranded on rooftops.

More than 3,700 people have been rescued, police said, but authorities believe the death toll will rise as rescue teams reach more remote and cut off areas.

Floods and damage from landslides have also affected much of the central and eastern parts of the country.

The bodies of 16 people were recovered Sunday from two buses that had been traveling along a key road out of Kathmandu when they were hit by a huge landslide, according to Reuters. One image showed a tourist bus partially submerged in mud with its windshield smashed in.

Video posted by Nepal Police shows the moment a two-year-old boy was rescued from his collapsed house in Bhimeshwor, Dolakha district, following a landslide. According to police, the boy’s parents and brother died.

Parts of the capital reported rain up to 322.2 millimeters (12.7 inches), pushing the level of its main Bagmati river up 2.2 meters (7 feet) past the danger mark, Reuters reported.

Further west of the capital, one international student described how “water was rushing through the streets in Pokhara,” the country’s second most populous city and a popular tourist destination known as a gateway for trekking in the Himalayas.

On Sunday, rains had eased in several areas allowing a major clean-up operation to begin. However, Kathmandu remained cut off with three highways into the city blocked by landslides, Associated Press reported. Schools have also closed for three days, according to Reuters.

Nepal is no stranger to heavy annual monsoon rains, but experts say this year was particularly bad.

“I’ve never before seen flooding on this scale in Kathmandu,” said Arun Bhakta Shrestha, the environmental risks expert at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), in a statement.

Experts there said in a statement the impacts of the weekend’s extreme rainfall in Nepal have been exacerbated by rampant development and urbanization, including unplanned construction on floodplains and poor drainage.

They have called on the government and city planners to increase funding for underground stormwater and sewage systems and the restoration of wetlands to help cities absorb more water.

South Asia is home to about a quarter of the world’s population and is among the most vulnerable to the impacts of the human-caused climate crisis and its intensification of extreme weather. Recent studies have shown that Asia will only become more vulnerable to extreme rain and flooding by 2030.

China has taken a step forward in its ambitious plan to land astronauts on the moon by 2030 – unveiling the specially designed spacesuit its crew will don for what’s expected to be a landmark mission in the country’s space program.

The new red-and-white suit – revealed by the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) over the weekend – is made to withstand the moon’s extreme temperatures, as well as radiation and dust, while allowing astronauts physical flexibility to perform tasks on the lunar surface, according to state media.

The moon-landing suit is equipped with a built-in long and short-range camera, an operations console, and a glare-proof helmet visor, according to a video shared by state broadcaster CCTV, which featured well-known Chinese astronauts Zhai Zhigang and Wang Yaping demonstrating how astronauts wearing the suit can bend and climb a ladder.

The new technology has caught international attention.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared a post on the platform X featuring the CCTV video and his own caption.

“Meanwhile, back in America, the [Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)] is smothering the national space program in kafkaesque paperwork!” he wrote, in an apparent reference to the perceived speed with which China has bolstered its space program relative to the US.

SpaceX’s fortunes – and Musk’s personal wealth – have been boosted in recent years by huge government contracts as NASA has sought to tap into the private sector on space exploration and logistics.

Space leader

China’s reveal of the moon-landing spacesuit comes as the country has mounted a significant effort to establish itself a major player in space – a domain that nations, including the United States, are increasingly looking to not only for scientific benefit, but also with an eye to resources and national security.

The China National Space Administration has in recent years carried out a series of increasingly complex robotic lunar missions, including the first-ever return of lunar samples from the far side of the moon earlier this year. It has been angling to become the second country to land astronauts on the moon, saying its first crewed mission will take place “by 2030.”

The US, which has not sent astronauts to the moon since 1972, is also planning to send a crew this decade, though it has delayed its initial timeline for its Artemis III mission. That mission will not take off until at least September 2026, NASA said earlier this year. The agency revealed a protoype of its Artemis III spacesuit prototype, the AxEMU, in 2023.

China’s new spacesuit was hailed across state media as a major step forward in the country’s crewed mission timeline, with experts noting the need for specifically formulated suit for lunar conditions versus those used in spacewalks by astronauts at China’s Tiangong orbital space station.

Thanks to its thin exosphere, the moon is an unforgiving place, exposed to both the sun’s rays and the cold of space. Temperatures near the Moon’s equator, for example, can spike to 250°F (121°C) in the day and then plunge at night to -208°F (-133°C), according to NASA.

“Unlike low-Earth orbit missions, astronauts will be in a harsh natural lunar environment during lunar extravehicular activities. Complex environmental factors such as high vacuum and low gravity, lunar dust and lunar soil, complex lunar surface terrain, high and low temperatures, and strong radiation will have a significant impact on work and protection,” Wu Zhiqiang, deputy chief designer of astronaut systems at the China Astronaut Research and Training Center, told state broadcaster CCTV.

Others also hailed the aesthetics of the suit, with state media describing the red stripes on its upper limbs are inspired by ribbons from the “flying apsaras,” or deities that appear in ancient art in western China’s Dunhuang city, while those on its lower limbs resembling “rocket launch flames.”

Another designer, Wang Chunhui, told state media the suit’s proportions would make the astronauts “look more spirited and majestic” and “make us Chinese look strong and beautiful when we step on the moon.”

Earlier this year, Chinese officials released the name of the spacecraft for the crewed lunar mission – with the spaceship dubbed Mengzhou, or Dream Vessel, the lander, Lanyue, or Embracing the Moon.

The mission is designed as part of a broader set of lunar ambitions, which include China’s plans to establish an international lunar research station at the moon’s south pole by 2040.

Hassan Nasrallah, whom Israel believes it killed in a strike on southern Beirut, turned Hezbollah into one of the most powerful paramilitary forces in the Middle East. His death caps a series of devastating blows for the group, already reeling from the humiliation of having its communications network comprehensively infiltrated, and suggests that one of Israel’s most formidable enemies is deeply wounded.

One of the founding members of the group formed four decades ago with the aid of Iran, Nasrallah ascended to the top of Hezbollah in 1992. He replaced his predecessor and mentor, Abbas Musawi, as secretary-general of Hezbollah, after he was killed by an Israeli helicopter strike.

Born to a grocer and his wife in Beirut in August 1960, Nasrallah spent his early adolescence under the shadow of Lebanon’s civil war.

His family were forced to flee the capital when the fighting erupted in 1975, moving further south to a village near the coastal city of Tyre.

One year later, Nasrallah moved to Iraq to attend a Shiite seminary. But he was swiftly expelled during the persecution of Shiite Muslims under Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s repressive regime – returning to Lebanon to study under his teacher, Musawi.

When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, Nasrallah rallied a group of fighters to resist the occupation – which would evolve into Hezbollah.

Israeli forces took almost half of Lebanon’s territory that year, and were held responsible for the killing of at least 17,000 people, according to reports and an Israeli inquiry into a massacre at a Beirut refugee camp.

Transformation of Hezbollah

Known for his fiery speeches, the leader oversaw the transformation of Hezbollah, from a rag-tag group of militants in the 1980s to an organization that mounted a concerted campaign to drive out Israeli occupation in 2000.

The Lebanese militant group became a regional fighting force under Nasrallah. He led the growth of Hezbollah’s forces – his fighters and reservists are thought to number 100,000 – as well as the proliferation of its arsenal, which boasts long-range as well as medium and short-range missiles and drones.

Nasrallah commands a dedicated following of hundreds of thousands of largely Shiite Muslims – in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. His influence in the Iran-backed so-called axis of resistance grew exponentially after the US assassinated Iran’s top general Qassem Soleimani, the architect of the region-wide axis, in 2020.

Hezbollah is the most robustly armed non-state group in the region – and is the most dominant political force in crisis-ridden Lebanon. Much of the Western world has designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

‘Lebanon will not stop supporting Gaza’

The Lebanese militant group has increasingly traded strikes with Israel since it launched its assault on Gaza after the Hamas-led October 7 attacks – inflaming tensions in the region.

Hezbollah says it has been firing on Israel in solidarity with Hamas, and Palestinians trying to survive Israeli attacks in Gaza, which have killed more than 41,000 people, according to the Ministry of Health there.

Days before he was killed, Nasrallah vowed to continue striking Israeli positions until Israel’s offensive in Gaza ends. “I say clearly: no matter the sacrifices, consequences, or future possibilities, the resistance in Lebanon will not stop supporting Gaza,” he said in a speech on September 19.

Fears of an all-out war peaked earlier this month, after Israel unleashed a wave of lethal explosions across Lebanon targeting Hezbollah fighters. Many of those killed were civilian bystanders.

In the days since, hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon have been forced from their homes by Israeli attacks. In total, since October 7, more than 1,500 civilians in Lebanon have been killed and over 200,000 people displaced, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Lebanese officials estimate the true number of displaced is closer to half a million.

Human rights advocates have fiercely condemned the violence – including UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who warned that Lebanon is suffering its bloodiest period “in a generation” and called on Israel and Hezbollah to “stop the killing and destruction.”