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Bolsonaro Contests Brazil Election Loss, Wants Votes Voided  (AP / VOA News)
More than three weeks after losing a reelection bid, President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday blamed a software bug and demanded the electoral authority annul votes cast on most of Brazil’s nation’s electronic voting machines, though independent experts say the bug doesn’t affect the reliability of results.
Such an action would leave Bolsonaro with 51% of the remaining valid votes — and a reelection victory, Marcelo de Bessa, the lawyer who filed the 33-page request on behalf of the president and his Liberal Party, told reporters.
The bug hadn’t been known previously, but experts said it also doesn’t affect results.
The head of the electoral authority issued a ruling that implicitly raised the possibility that Bolsonaro’s own party could suffer from such a challenge.
Alexandre de Moraes said the court would not consider the complaint unless the party offers an amended report within 24 hours that would include results from the first electoral round on October 2, in which the Liberal Party won more seats in both congressional houses than any other.

Qatar Signs 27-Year Deal With China as LNG Competition Heats Up  (Reuters ? VOA News)
QatarEnergy has signed a 27-year deal to supply China’s Sinopec with liquefied natural gas (LNG), the longest such LNG agreement so far as volatile markets drive buyers to seek long-term deals.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, competition for LNG has become intense, with Europe in particular needing vast amounts to help replace Russian pipeline gas that used to make up almost 40% of the continent’s imports.

Iran Considered Carrying Out Terror Attack at World Cup: IDF Intel Chief  (Zoe Strozewski, Newsweek)
Iran allegedly considered carrying out a terror attack at the men’s soccer World Cup in Qatar in an attempt to disrupt the event, the military intelligence chief of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Monday. Speaking at an Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, Major General Aharon Haliva said that the “only thing” stopping Iran from an act of terror was concern over how host country Qatar might respond, according to The Jerusalem Post. The 2022 World Cup kicked off Sunday and is set to last through December 18. Iran’s national team is one of 32 that secured a place in the World Cup, but turmoil at home has shifted additional attention to its participation in the event. Iran began experiencing massive protests and civil unrest after the death in September of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was arrested by the country’s “morality police” for allegedly wearing an “improper” form of hijab in the Iranian capital of Tehran. Iranian authorities have denied accusations that the severe beatings she allegedly suffered while in custody caused her death. Mehdi Taremi of Iran looks on during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Group B match between England and Iran at Khalifa International Stadium on November 21, 2022, in Doha, Qatar.

U.K. Troops May Go to Ghana in Shift of Strategy Against Terror  (Will Brown, The Telegraph)
Britain may be invited to send special forces to Ghana after it was forced withdraw all of its 300 peacekeepers from Mali in the face of bands of Russian mercenaries and jihadist groups, The Telegraph understands. British ministers will this week fly to Ghana to hammer out a new security agreement. It is unclear if the move is a face saving operation in the wake of the mission in Mali being shut down or something more significant as British forces already train troops in Ghana. Three years ago, Britain announced a major ‘pivot’ to the jihadist-stricken Sahel region on Europe’s southern flank to great fanfare at home. New embassies were opened. Hundreds of millions of pounds were promised in humanitarian and military aid. And 300 crack troops were sent deep into Mali to scout for gunmen allied to Islamic State and Al Qaeda. This was post-Brexit Global Britain in action, ministers said. But now that policy, like the land on which it played out, has turned to dust. Thousands of French troops were chased out of the same region by the Malian military junta they were supposed to protect in August. And now the Brits are following suit. Last week the UK announced it was withdrawing all of its troops from Mali, which until only a few months ago, Whitehall officials were describing as “the new frontline of the war on terror.

Home Affairs Keeps Sensitive Report on Terrorist Assessments Hidden from Public View  (Andrew Greene, ABC Australia)
A report criticizing methods for assessing the risk posed by terrorists once they leave prison is being kept hidden by the Department of Home Affairs for “operational security reasons”. The existence of the “sensitive” research commissioned by the department was revealed during an inquiry by the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor (INSLM), which is examining laws that allow terrorists to be detained after serving their sentences. In 2020, Victorian Abdul Nacer Benbrika became the first convicted terrorist to be subjected to a continuing detention order in Australia after he completed a 15-year jail term for terror offences but was found to still pose a threat. Section 105A of the Criminal Code, allowing the use of continuing detention orders (CDOs) against terrorists deemed to pose an unacceptable risk of committing another offence, was introduced in 2016. Grant Donaldson, who heads the INSLM, told a hearing in Canberra he had “very real concerns” and that it was “not appropriate” for the department’s 150-page report on the powers to not be publicly available. The research titled, “Testing the reliability, validity, and equity of terrorism risk assessment tools” was completed by ANU academic Emily Corner and handed to the department in May 2020. “I have formed the view that the report does not contain operationally sensitive information,” Donaldson said.

Will Mexico Be the Next Venezuela?  (Bret Stephens, New York Times)
In 2018, I wrote a column calling the soon-to-be-elected Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO, a left-wing version of Donald Trump. Readers were unpersuaded. The comparison between the two men, wrote one person in the comments section, “was absurd.” Another called the column “shockingly ignorant.”
Let me recant. AMLO isn’t just another version of Trump. He’s worse, thanks to being a more effective demagogue and bureaucratic operator.