Brazil's presidential election will head to a runoff on Oct. 25 after no candidate secured a majority of valid votes in the first round of ballot, official results showed Sunday.
According to results released by the Superior Electoral Court, with over 99 percent of the ballots counted, Flavio Bolsonaro, presidential candidate of Brazil's Liberal Party and son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, garnered about 47 percent of valid votes. Incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party came in the second with about 45 percent.
Since Brazil established its two-round presidential election system in 1988, Fernando Henrique Cardoso has been the only candidate to win in the first round, in the 1994 and 1998 presidential elections.
Incumbent president, rival candidate head to runoff in Brazil presidential election
Yemeni government announced a large-scale military operation on Sunday to retake areas seized by the Houthis, as the Saudi-led coalition pledged continued combat support, marking one of the sharpest escalations in the country's years-long conflict.
Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council, declared the launch of the operation in a televised address broadcast by Yemeni state television from the Saudi capital Riyadh, saying the government was moving "from the preparation phase to the action phase" after weeks of mobilization.
He said he had ordered the armed forces, security forces and all military formations to begin executing the plan, describing its mission as "not merely to restore the land, but to restore the state to it." Houthi fighters who lay down their weapons and stop fighting would be granted amnesty, Al-Alimi said.
The campaign comes in the wake of an intensified Houthi offensive against government forces that has seen the group capture a string of critical strategic locations, including the Red Sea port city of Mocha and Mayun Island, also known as the Perim Island. On September 11, the Yemeni government reported that Houthi fighters had seized control of the country's entire western coast and pushed their advance into the southern province of Lahj. Local officials said that by Sunday, the group had also secured several vital areas in the southwestern province of Taiz, cutting off a key road linking Taiz with the neighboring province of Lahj and the southern port city of Aden.
The Saudi-led coalition said on the same day that it would continue to provide "full operational support" for the Yemeni government and its armed forces.
In a statement, coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki accused the Houthis of "deliberate and systematic targeting of civilians and civilian objects" in Riyadh and other Saudi cities, attempting to strike the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and threatening Saudi vessels in the southern Red Sea and the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait.
He said the coalition would take necessary measures to curb Houthi hostilities, safeguard Saudi security and sovereignty, and eliminate the threats to freedom of maritime navigation in the southern Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Such threats, he warned, endanger not only regional and international security but also international trade, the global economy and the interests of all nations.
Yemen's conflict has entered one of its sharpest escalations in years, with heavy fighting spreading across southwestern Yemen and renewed missile, drone and air attacks reviving direct hostilities between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia.
Yemen's conflict began in late 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa and much of northern Yemen, prompting the Saudi-led coalition to intervene in March 2015 in support of the internationally recognized Yemeni government.
Yemeni government announces military operations to retake Houthi-held areas
