Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has vowed to allow France to prospect for oil again on its territory if she is elected in May, a proposal reminiscent of US President Donald Trump’s “drill, baby, drill ” policy to speed up fossil fuel development.

In a speech to her National Rally party, at a meeting that it billed as the launch of her presidential campaign, Le Pen said she would abolish a 2017 law that banned the issuing of new exploration permits for hydrocarbons, in favour of renewable energies.

It also banned exploration and extraction of shale gas. The law was named after Nicolas Hulot, a former environment minister.

Le Pen called it “the stupid Hulot law.”

Le Pen’s nearly hour-long address to supporters gathered in the city of Orleans went back over her familiar nationalist, anti-immigration themes, centred around her view that France has been ruined by its leaders but that she can give it a brighter future.

“The fires are going out of the old great parties, my friends, and they’re stirring on a pile of ashes,” she said.

“We’re living not the end of the world but the end of a world, of their world. It’s up to us to reinvent the one that is coming,” she added.

The 58-year-old Le Pen is making her fourth campaign for the French presidency.

She is seen as the current favourite to succeed President Emmanuel Macron, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term.

Her supportive crowd shouted “We’re going to win” and “Marine, president” as she spoke.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has returned to the South American nation after nearly a year ‌outside the country.

“I’m here. With you all,” the Nobel ‌Peace Prize-winning Machado wrote on social media early Sunday.

Her return risks straining ties with the ‌US Trump administration, which she has sought to cultivate as an ally since before it removed President Nicolas Maduro from power in January.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed support for interim President Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s former deputy, and hailed deals on oil production and other business ventures by US ‌companies in the ‌South American ⁠country.

Trump said in September it is too soon to ​consider democratic elections in Venezuela.

International energy firms committed last month to expanding projects in the country in a signing ceremony overseen by Rodriguez and US Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

Machado has said only a “serious, democratic government” can provide the stability needed by investors.

In June, she said she would do ⁠whatever it took to come home and help ‌the ​survivors of devastating twin earthquakes that month, which killed at least 6500 people and left thousands ​missing.

Machado was ‌barred by Maduro’s government from exiting Venezuela but secretly left in late 2025 to ​receive the Nobel Peace Prize, after spending more than a year living mostly in hiding.

Her desire to return had caused friction in Washington, with US officials asking her ​to ​delay her trip, Reuters reported in June.

Machado ​did not disclose more details about her ‌current location, or how she returned.

A faction of the opposition and the interim government held their latest session of talks this month, which aim to remake the top court and electoral council, among other goals, ahead of eventual elections.

They do not include Machado’s political movement.

Edmundo Gonzalez, a ​former presidential candidate for Machado’s movement who has been living in Spain, confirmed her return ​in his own post ⁠and said he would soon join her.

Pope Leo has called for an end to the violence in Yemen, as he addressed the Catholic faithful from ‌the window over St Peter’s Square, less than two weeks after having surgery for lung ‌cancer.

The 71-year-old pontiff said he was particularly concerned about the humanitarian situation in the ‌southwestern Yemeni city of Taiz, “where the population suffers due to the lack of food, water and medical assistance”.

He waved and smiled to the crowds after reaching the window unaided — the same spot where he announced on October 11 that he would have an ‌operation to remove ‌a small ⁠growth on his lung, in the first health scare ​of his papacy.

“I’m making a heartfelt appeal for the hostilities to stop, so that the people in Yemen and across the entire region can live in peace,” he said in a very firm and clear voice.

The pope said he was also praying for ⁠those who had been killed and wounded ‌in ​the “terrorist attack against Orthodox faithful” at the Hamoud church in Jordan on Friday.

“I’m close ​to that community ‌and the entire country, which is known for the peaceful and respectful coexistence ​of different religions,” the pontiff said.

Pope Leo urged everyone to accompany with prayers a meeting of religious leaders to promote peace that will take place ​in the ​Italian city of Assisi on ​Tuesday.

He had been due to attend that ‌event, but cancelled his visit on the advice of doctors to aid his recovery, the Vatican said on Friday.

The pope had the lower lobe of his right lung removed in surgery on October 13 after being diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, the most common ​form of lung cancer.

Last week, doctors said he would not need any ​further therapy, indicating that his ⁠tumour had not spread.

Many Iranians are bracing for a return to all-out war as Israeli and US leaders sharpen their threats ahead of elections in both countries in the coming days, and as Iran’s leaders remain defiant despite mounting pressure.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces a close vote Tuesday, says Iran’s leadership must be eliminated. 

US President Donald Trump vows to “finish the job” in Iran eight months after the war began, as a third aircraft carrier and thousands of troops make their way to the region. 

Some fear attacks just after the US midterms on November 3.

The Associated Press spoke with Tehran residents who described growing anxiety. 

Some were preparing to leave the capital. Iran’s president has accused the US of disrupting negotiations that have shown little sign of progress for months.

Fereshteh Hajipour, 35, the mother of a toddler, said she was stockpiling over-the-counter medicines and food for fear of a “possible war and bigger bombs”.

Iran’s leadership believes that Trump will likely order new strikes regardless of the results in the midterm elections, and “they are planning for the scenarios so they can take remedial measures,” said a former government official and foreign policy professor at the University of Tehran, Sasan Karimi.

“They’ve accepted that he will attack us again, before or after the elections,” Karimi said.

Iran has again threatened US military bases and allies in the Middle East, and has warned that it could attack new targets, including undersea data cables that snake through the Strait of Hormuz. 

This month has seen the highest number of reported attacks on commercial ships transiting the strait since the war’s opening weeks in March.

Meanwhile, a US naval blockade of Iranian ports has restricted oil exports on which Iran’s government depends, increasing the economic pain as each side tries to outlast the other. 

Trucks have piled up at borders as Iran’s trade shifts overland.

The blockade has caused medicine shortages in Iran, though there is no sign of shortages of food or other essential goods. 

Iranians have seen livelihoods and purchasing power crumble as their currency’s value has nose-dived, losing much of its value in the past year. Inflation has soared.

Iranian officials have accused the US of aiming to foment unrest.

“Economic warfare is the main axis of the war against us,” Iran’s parliamentary chief and lead negotiator in past rounds of talks with the US, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, told a gathering of officials this month.

President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran faces “a dangerous turning point” as the government seeks to manage growing economic problems and find consensus within the Islamic Republic’s fractious power structure.

Memories are fresh of the nationwide protests sparked by economic pressures that led to a deadly crackdown weeks before the war.

A supermarket trip can eat up half a month’s salary.

Even for middle-class Iranians, affording basic groceries has become difficult. 

Prices for staples have risen steeply since the war began. Rice is more than 60 per cent more expensive, and beef more than 150 per cent.

Mohammad Mohammadi, 36, said a trip to the supermarket can burn through half a monthly mid-range salary of 400 million rials (roughly $A215).

Despite the high prices, Mohammad Abedi, 39, said the rising attacks on the Strait of Hormuz spurred him to buy extra supplies for his family, including dried dates, cooking oil and rice.

“I’m worried that the situation could get worse,” he said.

Political moderates are calling for a deal with the US to salvage the economy.

“With the increase in the exchange rate, the conditions for governing the country have become difficult for the executive branch,” warned politician Mohsen Hashemi Rafsanjani in an editorial this month in the reformist daily Saazandegi.

But economic pressure won’t change Iran’s negotiating positions, said Karimi, the former official who served under Pezeshkian. 

“This is a tested thing. No economic pressure will convince people here to make a deal.

“Tehran is calculating based on resistance, because they are convinced that will change the calculations of the other side.”

There has been little said publicly about negotiations via mediators after Trump rejected an Iranian proposal last month to end the war and fully open the Strait of Hormuz within a week if Washington met certain conditions like lifting the blockade.

Some Tehran residents are preparing to leave the city.

Tehran is dotted with bombed-out buildings from US and Israeli strikes during the height of the war in March and April. 

Thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed.

Hashem Vajdani, 45, a gym trainer, said he plans to leave the city as anxiety grows.

“I have already packed my belongings to go to a safer town in the north of the country,” he said. 

“Today I bought more canned food, crackers and extra blankets.”

There are concerns that new fighting could bring a higher toll for Iranian civilians. Thousands have been killed in the war. Trump has repeated threats to take out power plants and other infrastructure.

Anger at the US president has found expression in a billboard set up days ago at a major Tehran square. 

Passersby have gawked at a Trump impersonator languishing behind bars as footage airing behind him shows a deadly strike on a wedding party in southern Iran that was blamed on the US

Staring up at the cage, Farzaneh Arabzadeh, 30, said she hoped the scene would happen in reality. 

Trump said he launched the war to help Iranians, she said, but he “put our people in a worse situation”.

The elections in Israel and the US are expected to reflect voters’ anger over the war and other issues. 

Trump’s political support could be weakened, while Netanyahu is in a tight race at a time of anger over Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack, and a series of inconclusive wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

Israel’s elections are especially important, Tehran-based analyst Rahman Ghahremanpour said. 

If Netanyahu stays, there is a higher chance of all-out war resuming because of his willingness to take major risks, he added.

Tehran residents said neither election is likely to improve relations.

“It makes no difference. Their hostility toward us remains unchanged,” said Rasool Ghanbari, 50.

US President Donald Trump will rally Republicans in eastern Michigan a day after former president Barack Obama campaigned for Democrats in the state, ‌underscoring its importance in midterm elections.

Michigan has one of the nation’s most competitive US Senate contests, an ‌open-seat race between former Republican Representative Mike Rogers and Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed that will help decide control of ‌the chamber.

Despite repeatedly attacking El-Sayed from the Oval Office and at rallies across the country, the Republican president had not yet campaigned in Michigan this year.

If he wins, El-Sayed would be the first Muslim elected to the US Senate.

Trump has sought to paint El-Sayed as a Muslim extremist and repeatedly mocked his ‌middle name, Mohamed, ‌a common Muslim ⁠name.

El-Sayed has dismissed the accusation and, in a recent advertisement, defended his ​religion, saying, “Faith is a thing there’s just too little of in Washington”.

Rogers has alleged without evidence that El-Sayed has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist groups.

“If you are going to go to the United States Senate, we need to know: are you for America or are ⁠you for these terrorist groups overseas?” Rogers said at a ‌debate ​last week.

El-Sayed has denied affiliation with the group and says it is “shameful” for Rogers to question his allegiance ​to the US.

At Saturday’s rally in Detroit, Obama framed the attacks on El-Sayed as an attempt by opponents ​to make him look “less patriotic and less American than they are”.

The former president compared it to his experience as the target of false claims that he was born in Kenya.

“We have seen ​this ​movie before,” Obama said.

“I starred in it … ​This stuff didn’t work on me. Not in ‌Michigan. It’s not going to work on Abdul.”

Trump’s rally in Port Huron, part of an area of Michigan he won in the 2024 presidential election with more than 66 per cent of the vote, will also highlight the US-Canada tariff standoff.

The trade fight has affected the Detroit-based US auto industry, prompting Rogers to distance himself ​from the president’s policy.

Democrats need a net gain of four seats in both the US Senate and ​US House of Representatives ⁠to overturn Republicans’ narrow 53-47 and 218-214 majorities.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham says he wants a ‌discussion about returning to the European Union’s freedom of movement rules for workers, a key issue in the 2016 Brexit referendum that led to Britain leaving the bloc.

Building on previous comments about the need to rethink ties with Brussels, Burnham told the Sunday Times the influx of EU workers into Britain before Brexit posed significant challenges.

“But, at the same time, it was a type of immigration that perhaps wasn’t as difficult (as now),” he said.

“Revolving door migration where people would come and then go back is ‌different.

“The balance of ‌migration has changed, hasn’t ⁠it, since then? I think we’ve just got to have an honest discussion about ​those things.”

Official data shows long-term net migration in 2025 fell to close to its level before a new post-Brexit immigration system was introduced at the start of 2021.

In September, two months after replacing Keir Starmer as Labour Party leader and prime minister, Burnham said Britain should consider options for its relationship with the EU, including possibly rejoining the bloc one day.

He had previously backed the ⁠pledges of Starmer’s government, which included no return to freedom of movement ‌- something Brussels sets ​as a condition for being part of the bloc’s single market.

In his interview with the Sunday Times, conducted on ​October 19, Burnham said ‌the issue of freedom of movement could be part of a broader reset of Britain’s relationship with the EU, ​including on data sharing and migration.

“You’ve got to see it in the round, rather than just looking at freedom of movement on its own,” he said.

Burnham – who is trying to find ways to speed up Britain’s economy – ​is ​due to meet top EU officials for a ​summit on November 20.

He said he could not imagine recommending ‌Britain adopt the euro currency or the EU’s border-free travel arrangements.

A new referendum would be needed to rejoin the EU but not necessarily to join the bloc’s single market or a customs union, the Sunday Times quoted Burnham as saying.

Former conservative finance minister Jeremy Hunt, who campaigned to stay in the EU in 2016, said it would be a mistake to reopen one of the ​fundamental debates of the referendum.

He said relaxing immigration rules would hurt people in Britain.

“I think it will ​be a hammer blow to getting ⁠people off welfare and into work,” Hunt told Sky News.

Brazilians are voting in a tight runoff election that ‌could shift Latin America’s largest nation sharply rightward, bringing it closer to the United States as part of a broader conservative shift across ‌the region.

The runoff pits leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva against right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of convicted former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Flavio scored a major upset at the start of October by defying pollsters to lead voting in the first round.

A victory for Bolsonaro, 45, would extend a wave of right-wing victories for Latin American candidates friendly to US ‌President Donald Trump, while ‌a fourth mandate ⁠for Lula would be a disappointment in Washington, which has clashed with his government ​over trade and security.

The election race has been dominated by corruption scandals, economic anxiety and accusations of US meddling, which Washington denies.

It has also been coloured by fallout from Jair Bolsonaro’s 2025 conviction for plotting a 2022 coup, with Flavio pledging to free his father if he is elected.

Trump has called the case a “witch hunt” and imposed a 50 per cent tariff on Brazil in ⁠2025, in a decision explicitly linked to Jair Bolsonaro’s trial.

While many ‌of ​those were later watered down, Trump unleashed new levies against Brazil this year, citing unfair trade practices.

Lula has cast the Trump ​administration’s proximity to ‌the Bolsonaro clan as part of an attempt to sway the election, while labelling tariffs and other punitive measures as ​bullying.

On economic issues, despite falling inequality and unemployment, Lula has struggled to win over an electorate grappling with high living costs and heavy household debt.

Endemic gang violence also weighs on voters’ minds.

Bolsonaro has sought to capitalise ​on ​cost-of-living concerns and has also promised a heavy-handed ​approach to fighting crime, pledging maximum-security jails and chemical castration for serious ‌sexual offences.

Polls show the candidates are practically tied going into the runoff, as Lula has closed the gap in the final days.

Historical precedent favours Bolsonaro, however, as no candidate has won the presidency after coming second in the first-round vote.

Bolsonaro picked up 47 per cent of ballots cast in the first round, while Lula trailed with 45 per cent.

The senator’s first-round ​win sent Brazil’s markets and currency soaring on expectations of pro-business reforms.

His first-round success was mirrored in congressional elections ​for his Liberal Party and ⁠other right-wing politicians, which could pave a legislative path for him, or complicate governance for Lula.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has returned from a surprise one-day trip to the ‌Chinese border city of Dandong, where he visited a historic Korean War memorial.

Kim visited the city ‌on Saturday and returned by road, crossing a newly opened bridge that connects North Korea to its biggest international backer and trading partner.

The quick trip symbolised a push by Beijing and Pyongyang to expand trade ties.

North Korean state media emphasised the historical weight of the visit, which came a day before the anniversary of China joining the Korean War on Pyongyang’s side.

The bilateral relationship ‌is an “unbreakable” bond ‌forged during the 1950-1953 ⁠conflict between North Korea and the US-backed South, state media said.

The two Koreas are technically ​still at war after the conflict ended in an armistice, rather than a peace treaty.

Kim stated ​during his tour that the North Korean people would “forever remember the glorious years of fighting alongside the Chinese people” and pass down “generational gratitude to the Chinese people who helped our revolution with blood”, state news agency KCNA reported.

Beijing and Pyongyang have been seeking to bolster their economic relationship ahead of ⁠a trip to the region by US President Donald Trump in November. ‌

It also ​highlights a delicate diplomatic balancing act by Pyongyang, which has also been deepening military ties with Russia in the past two years.

Guided ​by Wang ‌Huning, the fourth-highest-ranking official in the Chinese Communist Party, Kim visited Dandong’s Memorial Hall of the War to Resist US Aggression ​and Aid Korea, accompanied by a high-level North Korean delegation that included his sister, Kim Yo-jong, and Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui.

Touring the memorial, Kim viewed an archival photograph of his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, and ​Mao Zedong, ​founder of the modern Chinese state, footage from ​North Korea’s state-run television KRT showed.

Kim presented a commemorative plaque featuring ‌Kim Il-sung as a gift to the museum before holding a formal meeting with Wang and inspecting a bus factory in Dandong.

Kim last visited Beijing in September 2025 for a military parade, and Chinese President Xi Jinping visited North Korea in June.

“Enjoying a bird’s-eye view at the middle ‌point of the newly-inaugurated bridge, Comrade Kim Jong-un expressed expectation that the bridge would undoubtedly and correctly fulfill its historic mission of linking the two countries and firmly joining the minds of the peoples of the two countries,” KCNA reported.

Aviation fanatics have seized their chance to be a part of history as the first flight from Australia’s youngest airport takes off.

Western Sydney International Airport, also known as Nancy-Bird Walton Airport, opened for its first commercial flights on Sunday after around eight years of construction and eight decades of planning.

The airport’s inaugural flight, a Jetstar service to the Gold Coast on Sunday morning, sold out in 45 minutes.

Self-described “aviation geek” Jack Coffey was one of the 188 people who secured a seat. 

He left from his home in Newcastle at about 5am to fly to the Gold Coast before returning on the same day.

“I’m so excited. I cannot contain myself,” he told AAP before the plane took off.

“It’s a big part of aviation history today in Australia. I had to be here for the major milestone.”

Hundreds of punters also turned out to watch through the airport windows as the inaugural flight left the tarmac.

The aviation hub, located about 50km from the city centre, is the first major greenfield airport to open in Australia since Melbourne’s Tullamarine was unveiled in 1970.

It will operate without a curfew, unlike Sydney Airport, in the city’s south, which is closed to commercial flights between 11pm and 6am.

Western Sydney resident James Irwin was also making the round trip to the Gold Coast, bringing his parents along for the ride. 

“I wanted to be a part of history,” he said.

“They move airports, they get new terminals, but somewhere with a brand new airport – when’s that going to happen again?”

He welcomed the opportunity to travel from an airport that was easier and cheaper to access from his home in Penrith, about a 25-minute drive from the site.

Pilot Aglaya Papadokokolakis, from Blacktown in western Sydney, said she was honoured to fly the first commercial plane out of an airport in her own backyard.

“This is a very special day,” she said. 

“The whole community is excited.”

Construction on the airport began in 2018 after the Abbott government formally signed off on the Badgerys Creek location in 2014.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese officially opened the airport at a ceremony on Sunday morning.

Liberal prime ministers Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott were in the audience.

“Western Sydney International is our first new major airport for more than five decades and a wonderful new chapter in the life of our nation,” Mr Albanese told the crowd. 

“This is Australia’s best airport, without question, in the way that it will function going forward.”

Many leaders have long believed Australia’s most populous city deserved an around-the-clock, second airport for both cargo and passengers.

The chief executive of WSA Co – established by the federal government to develop and operate the new facility – is confident the airport will deliver on the brief.

“It’s genuinely difficult to fathom the impact Western Sydney International will have on Greater Sydney,” Simon Hickey said at the opening event. 

The airport was expected to host 10 million passengers annually by the 2030s and support up to 8,500 jobs. 

The capacious Nancy-Bird Walton terminal – named for the pioneering Australian aviator – was designed through a selective competition.

Its design also incorporates First Nations references as well as material from the nearby Nepean River.

Seven international and domestic airlines will operate from the airport from the onset, with the first overseas flight touching down on Monday morning.  

Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said around 13,000 people had helped the project come to life.

“What an extraordinary legacy for their families as they come past and come through this airport, being able to say: I’ve built this and I’ve built this for western Sydney,” Ms King said.

US President Donald Trump has been telling voters to view the mid-term elections as if he were on the ballot, and one of his Democratic ‌predecessors has done just that.

Ten days out from the elections that will determine control of the closely divided Congress, Barack Obama took ‌to the campaign trail on Saturday to accuse the Republican president of corruption, deride his strategy for Iran and skewer the gilded ‌aesthetic he has applied to White House renovations.

Obama stumped for Democratic candidates at rallies in Cleveland and Detroit, lampooning the Trump administration. 

Campaigning in Michigan for US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, Obama framed the November 3 vote as a “circuit breaker” to “at least rein in some of the foolishness” of Trump’s presidency.

“We got to flip that circuit breaker, bring some accountability ‌to this government,” Obama ‌said.

Obama remains the Democratic Party’s best motivator nearly a decade after leaving the White House and he’s taking his star power on the road in the final days of the mid-term elections, which will help determine the balance of power in American politics.

They hope that bringing him into the race can fire up their supporters for a tight US Senate race in which El-Sayed faces Republican Mike Rogers, a former US representative.

The former president obliged the Michigan crowd by playing to Democrats’ frequently repeated criticisms of Trump and of Republicans’ willingness to go along with him.

“We have never ⁠seen a president excel in straight-up grifting, on your dime, ‌like this,” ​Obama said. 

“Never seen a president so intent on selling favours like this … Now the party seems to stand for corrupt ​government, or ‌inept government, or no government.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll in ​August found that 63 per cent of Americans think the president and his family have inappropriately profited from cryptocurrency since he returned to the White House in 2025 and 69 per cent believe his policy decisions are influenced ​by his ​private business dealings.

Obama also ridiculed the administration’s ​claims of victory against Iran. He argued that the war ‌has given Iran more economic leverage because its threats to attack shipping in the Strait of Hormuz have unsettled oil exporters.

“Iran now has veto power over the Strait of Hormuz, where oil goes through to get to the world,” Obama said.

The former president also accused the Trump administration of emphasising trivial matters, sarcastically calling Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth someone “laser-focused ​on important matters like the jawline and testosterone levels of our troops” and ridiculing White House renovations as tacky.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he seems very focused on home renovation,” Obama quipped. “He should be on HGTV,” he said. 

“There’s gold everywhere. He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”

with AP