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Andrej Babiš is eyeing a return to power in the Czech Republic next year, as the Eurosceptic former premier counts on voters to punish the ruling coalition parties for their infighting.

In an interview with the Financial Times, the billionaire businessman-turned-politician, who has sparred with Brussels and questioned the EU’s continued support for Kyiv, predicted that feuding within the current government coalition in Prague would ease his comeback. 

“I would say that the ruling parties have another full year to prove to the citizens of the Czech Republic that they are completely incompetent and unqualified to govern the country, as they have been demonstrating these past three years,” Babiš said. 

A Babiš comeback could cement the illiberal flank in central Europe led by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico in Slovakia, raising alarm bells in the EU and Nato about maintaining unity in helping Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.

In regional elections last week, Babiš and his ANO party won in 10 of the country’s 13 regions. ANO is also expected to consolidate its advance following a second round of voting for the Senate on Friday and Saturday.

Although the national parliamentary elections are still one year away, “Babiš is riding the wave and we might become a second Slovakia,” said Pavel Havlíček, research fellow at the Czech Association for International Affairs, a think-tank. Slovakia’s premier Fico returned to power last October for a fourth term in office after campaigning to stop migration and halt military aid to Ukraine.

In Prague, Babiš would face an uneasy cohabitation with Petr Pavel, a former Nato general who defeated Babiš in presidential elections last year. The two men sparred during that campaign, with Pavel accusing Babiš of doing Russia’s bidding and the billionaire claiming Pavel was warmongering.

Pavel has used his military credentials to spearhead western help to Kyiv, notably by announcing in February a Prague-led initiative to deliver extra ammunition to the Ukrainian army.

Asked for his latest position on Ukraine, Babiš replied that “even the EU and Nato countries are not united on how to proceed in Ukraine”, adding that Europe’s main goal should be peace. “But let us be realistic: the US elections will decide the war in Ukraine,” he said in reference to the November vote in which former president Donald Trump faces vice-president Kamala Harris.

Babiš said that “a Trump win would be good for Europe because he promised to end the war immediately”.

Following elections to the European parliament in June, Babiš teamed up with Orbán and France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen to form the third-largest group in the EU assembly, called Patriots for Europe.

Babiš, 70, said ANO “shared priorities rather than complete ideological alignment” with its Patriots partners, such as devolving powers from Brussels to national governments.

At home and abroad, he remains a polarising politician.

After building up his Agrofert food and chemicals business into one of the biggest Czech conglomerates, Babiš entered politics in 2011, founding ANO, which was initially part of the European liberals. He first became prime minister in 2017 and adopted a defiant stance towards Brussels, particularly after the European Commission demanded the reimbursement of EU funds received by Agrofert. He was acquitted of fraud charges in a Czech retrial in February.

“There’s a lot of speculation about whether I would return as prime minister, even if ANO wins next year, but for me it’s not about personal victory,” Babiš said. Voters want the next government to focus on issues like lowering energy bills and securing pensions, he said, and “not on individual political wins”.

Tensions within the current five-party coalition boiled over after Prime Minister Petr Fiala fired his deputy and regional development minister, Ivan Bartoš, who also leads the Pirate party. Bartoš called his dismissal “a dirty trick” and his Pirates announced a day later that they would quit the coalition, thereby reducing Fiala’s parliamentary majority.

Babiš accused Fiala of mishandling his coalition partner like “a scheming and lying back-stabber”.

“This soap opera is not only weakening our coalition but also opening the door for Babiš,” said Danuše Nerudová, an EU lawmaker with the Mayors and Independents, another party within Fiala’s coalition.

A wave of killings and kidnappings in a northern Mexican city has left residents scared to leave their houses during an internal cartel war set off by the US arrests of two high-level drug traffickers.

Hundreds of heavily armed special forces have been deployed in and around Culiacán, Sinaloa, over the past three weeks in which more than 90 people have been killed and another 90 kidnapped, according to local media.

Last week soldiers swept through an upmarket shopping centre on a Saturday afternoon, sending diners in a ramen restaurant to the floor, videos on social media show. Customers in a café dived behind the counter before a fierce, hours-long gun and grenade battle erupted one block away.

The latest wave of violence has been unleashed in the aftermath of the US arrest of two of Mexico’s most notorious drug traffickers, both leaders in the largest factions of the Sinaloa Cartel. One of the men, Ismael “El Mayo” Zamabada, alleges he was kidnapped, illegally taken out of Mexico and handed to the US by the other, Joaquín Guzmán, a son of notorious jailed kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Initially, the confusing and conflicting stories about the arrests told by the US and Mexican governments and the criminal groups themselves resulted in several weeks of “tense calm” in the city, locals suggested.

Then in early September battles kicked off between the two factions, and there is little sign they are abating.

Hardened Culichis, as residents of the city are known, have lived through violence before, but say they have never experienced anything as terrifying and prolonged as this.

They check daily reports of metal spikes set up on roads to puncture tyres, masked civilians grabbing young men off the street and bodies being dumped around the metropolitan area. Shops are shutting early, workers are scared to turn up and public concerts and celebrations are cancelled.

“It’s like a narco pandemic,” one 35-year-old resident said. “The city is being held hostage.”

The army commander overseeing the response in Culiacán told reporters that it was not in the military’s control to stop the violence. “It doesn’t depend on us,” he said. “It depends on the antagonistic groups stopping fighting between themselves and leaving society in peace.”

Mexico’s outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been reluctant to confront the drug-trafficking groups, with his catchphrase “hugs not bullets”.

The flare-up underscores the security challenge facing López Obrador’s successor, president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, who takes office next week. It also underlines the high cost Mexicans pay for the US strategy of extracting kingpins to try them for their crimes.

“They knew this would lead to a very big conflict, and a big conflict between the two groups of the Sinaloa Cartel was always going to be disastrous, very tragic and deadly,” said Juan Carlos Ayala, professor at the University of Sinaloa. “The United States government has a lot of the blame because they did things unilaterally.”

The US ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, has said what was happening in Sinaloa was not the fault of the US, and the unrest would have to be solved via deep collaboration.

Consolidated in the 1990s moving drugs such as marijuana and cocaine, the Sinaloa Cartel today is made up of factions. Today’s violence is the result of a rupture between the two strongest: the Chapitos, aligned with the sons of “El Chapo”, and the Mayitos, aligned with Zambada.

“It’s like fighting with your brother,” said Adrián López, publisher of Culiacán-based newspaper Noroeste. “They are related in many ways and that’s what makes this different . . . they are fighting in territory where we are too, regular citizens.”

The image of the cartel locally has changed with the succession from founders such as El Chapo, who grew up poor working in the fields and was a hero-like figure to some. His sons, the Chapitos, have pushed the group into synthetic drugs including fentanyl and citizens say they feel the violence more directly.

Ayala said: “Most of the comments now [from society] are of being fed up, tremendous anger.”

Policymakers and even security experts struggle to articulate clear strategies to dismantle Mexico’s powerful criminal groups. Co-operation with the US is at a low point after Zambada’s arrest.

Sheinbaum, the former mayor of Mexico City, has touted her police-led strategy in the capital and wants to focus on better coordinating investigations and responses between different levels of government.

Her choice of security secretary, Omar Garcia Harfuch, a former senior police officer whom a drug cartel tried to kill in 2020, has raised some hopes the situation may improve.

But overcoming the corruption and complex local dynamics is a gigantic task. Winning the trust of citizens back is harder, as authorities in Sinaloa have found trying to get parents to take their children to school.

“Those 15 minutes on the journey will be complete terror,” the 35-year-old resident said of the school run. “There’s been violence before, but we’ve never lived anything like this.”

A CRUISE veteran has revealed the one item he always packs that most people forget to take with them.

Bradley Jones has gone on every trip from a weekend jaunt to a nine-month round-the-world expedition and has found a gadget that saves him money and effort wherever he goes.

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Bradley, from Wales, has gone on so many cruises that many operators have awarded him “elite” status, granting him a range of extra perks.

But for all the luxuries he can enjoy on his travels, his one must-have is much simpler.

When packing for a trip, his top priority is to make sure a particular gizmo is always in his bag.

He told LadBible: “My biggest tip for cruisers is when it comes to cruising as a couple of family is always take a universal plug adapter.

“In a cabin you’ve quite limited some times, especially on an inside cabin.

“And you’ve got to charge the phones, the kid’s iPads, my hair dryer, straighteners.

“Some of these companies, such as Princess or Cunard, some of them are American.

“When people catch these ships in Southampton they automatically think they’re British so they take British plugs.

“Last time we cruised there was a British couple who said ‘I didn’t even think, I thought there would be normal British plugs‘.

“That little thing is huge, people need that.”

The adapters can be found with UK three-prong or USB input ports connecting to an adjustable set of plugs that can match multiple sockets.

Some can be used on all 15 sockets across the world, while others offer 3-in-1, 4-in-1 or 5-in-1 options.

They can be picked up online, in electronics shops or in supermarkets.

On Amazon, the most popular example is on offer for £14.999 with £4.49 delivery.

It comes after another experienced holidaymaker shared seven must-have items for trips to holiday parks.

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Prices for eggs have soared as devastating bird flu outbreaks around the world and shifting consumer tastes put pressure on supplies.

Global average prices are 60 per cent higher than in 2019, according to analysts at Rabobank, a rapid appreciation has led to political point-scoring by JD Vance on the US election campaign trail. Egg shortages have also created temporary curbs to McDonald’s breakfast service in Australia.

A key factor in surging prices has been the devastating outbreaks of avian flu in North America and Europe, which have led to the culling of tens of millions of laying birds.

Roughly 33mn commercial laying hens and pullets were culled in the US between November 2023 and July this year, hard on the heels of another bird flu outbreak in 2022 that culled 40mn layers, Rabobank found.

“The lingering effects” of bird flu have been compounded by rising demand, said Karyn Rispoli, managing editor of eggs at Expana, a commodity trading data provider.

She said consumers were also switching to eggs as a more affordable source of protein than meat. Concerns about the carbon footprint of meat consumption was also driving demand for eggs, added Rabobank.

These factors had led to Americans paying more than three times as much for eggs today than five years ago, Rabobank said. In comparison, South African egg prices had only doubled in the same period while Russia, Japan, Brazil and Europe and India had experienced prices rises of between 50 and 90 per cent, said Rabobank.

“While prices are higher relatively globally, there are big regional differences,” said Nan-Dirk Mulder, global specialist, Animal Protein with RaboResearch, part of Rabobank. The main exception is China where the industry is suffering from too fast expansion of supply and a relatively weak economy, he added.

Data has indicated that egg lovers in the US have been subject to big swings in the price in recent years. Mulder says producers in the US are also grappling with regulations restricting the sale of eggs between states.

The price of a packet of a dozen eggs peaked at $4.82 in January 2023, as global feed prices spiked in the wake Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Yet within months they had halved. By August this year they reached $3.02.

The fluctuations drew criticism from Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance in the swing state of Pennsylvania this month as he blamed Kamala Harris, the Democrat presidential candidate, for egg price inflation.

Egg sales generally fall in the summer months, but this year retail demand was unusually high, according to Emily Metz, president and chief executive of the American Egg Board.

She added that US farmers were trying to shore up the supply of eggs. “Ideally, we need about one bird for every American,” said Metz, who estimated that the US had about 300mn egg-laying hens for roughly 345mn Americans. “Increasing the flock size to meet demand takes time, but we’re working on it.”

Globally, the avian flu outbreak is hitting other markets, notably Australia, which has led to egg rationing by some supermarkets. In July McDonald’s the global fast food giant, temporarily curbed breakfast service hours in some Australian outlets, reportedly in response to the bird flu egg shortage. McDonald’s Australia did not respond to a request for comment.

In the medium term there are signs of relief for US consumers with wholesale US egg prices falling 49 per cent since August 16, as laying bird stocks recovered.

However, Mulder is cautious as to whether this will translate to much lower prices on the supermarket shelves.

“For the time being, until the end of the year, I think we will continue to see relatively high prices, perhaps a bit lower than now as the stocks rebuild,” he said.

“But as for the future: it all depends on whether there will be further avian influenza outbreaks over the winter — and that’s difficult to predict.”

THE exact amount the state pension will rise by is set to be confirmed in a matter of weeks.

Millions of people are expected to get a bumper rise of £460 to their state pension next year.

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However, this will not be official until September’s inflation rate is released by the Office for National Statistics.

That’s because the triple lock system sees the state pension rise in line with whatever is highest out of: wages for May to July, 2.5% or September’s inflation figures.

Growth in employees’ average total pay was 4% in the three months to July.

While the UK’s rate of inflation remained at 2.2% in August after rising to the same figure the month before.

With inflation highly unlikely to rise above 4% in September, it means the state pension is expected to rise from £11,502.40 to £11,962 per year – a £460 boost.

Although, this will not be confirmed officially until October 16, when the previous month’s rate is announced.

Weekly it would mean a rise from £221.20 to around £230, an increase of almost £9 a week.

Meanwhile, older pensioners who retired before April 2016 will see their weekly payment rise from £169.50 to £176.30 – an increase of £6.80.

Annually, their payments will rise from £8,814 to £9,167, adding £353 a year.

Although it’s worth noting, people on the old system who also have “additional” state pension (SERPS) will see that part of their pension rise only in line with inflation which hasn’t been published yet.

Any decision on a pension increase will be made by Secretary of State Liz Kendall ahead of October’s budget.

The state pension is increased each year in line with the triple lock mechanism, which all major political parties committed to before the general election in July.

Earlier this month, Chancellor Rachel Reeves reaffirmed the Government’s backing of the triple lock until the end of this Parliament.

How much is the state pension?

State pension payments increase every April.

This year, the full rate of the new state pension rose from £203.85 a week to £221.20 – rising 8.5% in line with last September 2023’s wage growth.

This equates to £11,502.40 in total over a year.

This is what the state pays those who reach state pension age after April 6, 2016.

The amount of new state pension you receive depends on your National Insurance (NI) record throughout your adult life. 

If you have made at least 35 years of qualifying NI contributions or NI credits you may qualify for the maximum amount.

You can get NI credits if you’re caring for a relative or raising children instead of working, for example.

How do I claim the state pension?

You won’t automatically get the state pension – you need to claim it once you’re eligible.

You should receive a letter no later than two months before you reach state pension age, explaining what to do.

You can find out more here. 

You can choose to defer getting the state pension – you don’t have to take it as soon as you are eligible when you reach state pension age.

Leaving your state pension untouched can boost the amount you eventually get.

If you opt to defer your state pension, your entitlement increases by the equivalent of 1% for every five weeks you do so.

As the state system can be tricky to navigate, a key part of any pension planning involves requesting a state pension forecast.

This will help you get your head around how much you could be eligible to receive, and from what age. 

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

Plus, you can join our Sun Money Chats and Tips Facebook group to share your tips and stories

For more than three decades, Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, whom Israel killed in an air strike, oversaw the Shia Islamist movement’s transformation from a guerrilla group into the Middle East’s most powerful transnational paramilitary force. 

In his 32 years at the helm of Hizbollah, the 64-year-old cleric was credited with making it the pre-eminent force in Iran’s regional network of proxies known as the axis of resistance. 

This gave Nasrallah an unrivalled position as both a public face and crucial strategist in the network — “more junior partner than proxy” in the axis, according to Hizbollah expert Amal Saad.

Rarely seen without his clerical garb, Nasrallah was viewed as one of the most important figures in the axis, second only to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, following the US assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in 2020.  

Nasrallah’s forces helped train fighters from Hamas, as well as other members of the Iran axis, including Iraq’s Shia militias and Yemen’s Houthis.

He will be remembered among his supporters for standing up to Israel and the US, and restoring Arab might. His enemies will point out that he was the leader of what they consider a terrorist organisation, which furthered Iran’s geopolitical agenda and was accused of widespread atrocities, both at home and abroad.

In Lebanon, Hizbollah is referred to as “a state within a state”, with a parallel network of social services that rival those of the government it has worked for decades to undermine. 

Nasrallah was reviled by many in Lebanon’s Christian and Sunni communities, who blamed him for eroding the nation’s state institutions, putting Iran’s interests ahead of the country’s and turning his movement’s weapons inwards to quash dissent and opposition.

He was also loathed by many Syrians, after Hizbollah fighters helped president Bashar al-Assad’s regime brutally crush the opposition after civil war erupted in Syria in the wake of a 2011 popular uprising.

All the while, Nasrallah crafted his public image, weaponising his charisma and his battlefield victories to hone a cult of personality that led his supporters to revere him as near-omnipotent.

His face appears on billboards and key chains, mugs and candlelit shrines. Lebanese routinely trade Nasrallah stickers on WhatsApp while snippets of his speeches are often turned into memes. 

The portrait painted by people who knew Nasrallah or met him over the past 40 years is of a strategic thinker with a commanding presence, a man feared and admired in equal measure, revered by Islamist militants and Middle Eastern tyrants.

Very few people met him in person in recent decades. Those who have described Nasrallah as courteous, perceptive and funny.

A powerful orator, he spoke colloquial Arabic – not classical – while a life-long speech impediment, which left him unable to pronounce his Rs, was widely viewed as disarming.

Nasrallah was born on August 31, 1960 in an impoverished Beirut neighbourhood that was home to Christian Armenians, Druze, Shia and Palestinians. He said he was “an observant Muslim at the age of nine”, more preoccupied with his prayers than helping his father in his vegetable shop.

When Nasrallah was 16, he sent himself to a seminary for aspiring Shia clerics in the Iraqi city of Najaf. He left less than two years later, fixated on resistance to Israel.

While in Najaf, he came under the influence of Abbas Mussawi, a Lebanese cleric just a few years older than him, with whom he would eventually found Hizbollah in the early 1980s. 

He climbed quickly up the ranks, forging close ties with the men suspected of plotting some of the group’s earliest terror attacks –including the 1983 bombing of the Beirut barracks housing US and French peacekeepers, which killed at least 360 people.

“After 1982, our youth, years, life and time became part of Hizbollah,” Nasrallah told a Lebanese newspaper in 1993, a few months after he was appointed leader of the militant group following Mussawi’s assassination by Israel. 

Unlike other paramilitary leaders, Nasrallah was not known to have personally fought. But his leadership earned him respect among Hizbollah’s ranks as a battlefield commander, particularly after his 18-year-old son Hadi was killed by Israeli commandos in 1997.  

“We, Hizbollah’s leadership, do not jealously guard our children,” Nasrallah said the day after Hadi’s death, cementing his reputation as a wartime leader who was willing to make sacrifice for their cause. Nasrallah shared at least three other children with his wife Fatima. 

Nasrallah’s reputation grew regionally when Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. “He achieved what few if any Arab states and armies had done fighting Israel,” Saad said. His reputation was enhanced after Hizbollah fought Israel in a 34-day war in 2006.

This also made him one of Israel’s prime targets. He lived largely underground, “somewhere between southern Lebanon, Beirut and Syria”, to evade assassination attempts.

When thousands of Hizbollah’s electronic devices detonated this month killing dozens and maiming thousands more in attacks widely blamed on Israel, Nasrallah was said to be unharmed. He never handled electronic devices, which were always heavily screened before being allowed in his vicinity.

He was also rarely known to answer his own phone after Israel was allegedly able to reach him on his personal landline, which exists only on Hizbollah’s parallel telecommunications network. 

His frequent speeches were delivered via secure live feed to his legions of followers, broadcast from unknown locations and he sent emissaries to meet with his political allies and foes. This helped him deepen his enigmatic aura and the reverence his public had for him. 

As Israel has stepped up its attacks on Hizbollah over the past year, it has killed many of the group’s leadership, targeting its field officers before taking aim its senior most command. 

Almost none of the original members of the group’s jihad council, Hizbollah’s top military body that Nasrallah oversaw, is left alive, according to people familiar with the group’s operations.   

​​Many Lebanese remember the destruction wrought the last time Hizbollah went to war with Israel in 2006, as waves of Israeli bombs that rained down over Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh. It was considered a last-ditch Israeli attempt to kill Nasrallah. 

When that war ended, Nasrallah said he would “absolutely not” have launched the attack that triggered the conflict “if I had known . . . that the operation would lead to such a war”.

It was in Dahiyeh where Friday’s strike killed Nasrallah.

Additional reporting by James Shotter in Jerusalem