World politics

World politics

Guinea's military government leader, Mamady Doumbouya, has officially entered the presidential race, submitting his candidacy for the December 28 elections, aimed at restoring constitutional order following the general's 2021 coup. Doumbouya arrived at the West African country's Supreme Court in an armoured vehicle on Monday to formally hand in his candidacy, surrounded by special forces. He left without giving a statement.

Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi has reportedly acknowledged that her office released a video of troops abusing a Palestinian detainee. Israeli police have arrested a former military prosecutor after she leaked a video appearing to show soldiers abusing a Palestinian detainee. Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi was detained overnight on Monday, according to the country's national security minister, following a scandal that erupted after she leaked a video, resigned and then disappeared.

Ifirst heard the expression "strategic incompetence" in El Salvador in December 1993. Along with my partner and two friends, I'd been recruited to do some electoral training there. We were working with the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, or FMLN, a coalition of leftist parties that had led a long-running guerrilla war against a series of US-backed autocratic governments. I'd visited El Salvador once before, during the 1989 elections, when armed troops were overseeing the voting.

"First of all, quotas are so important," she said in conversation with Hala Gorani, a contributing correspondent at NBC News. "If you don't have quotas, women always will be excluded. So we need to put quotas in from the beginning." She estimated that her industry is 70% female, and most of her new appointees are women, not because of their gender but because they're highly qualified.

"Iraq is the best it's ever been," Khudair al-Ali, a young man who works for one of Iraq's oil companies but drives cars for Careem, the Middle East's version of Uber, on weekends, enthuses. "But we still have problems," he says, gesturing at potholes he's trying to avoid. "The streets need to be fixed and there are too many cars in Baghdad."

Opposition members accuse President Samia Suluhu Hassan of cracking down on dissent to stay in power. Voters in Tanzania are heading to polling booths on Wednesday to vote for a new president, as well as members of parliament and councillors, in elections which are expected to continue the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) or Party of Revolution's 64-year-long grip on power.

The main Palestinian factions have said they have agreed that an independent committee of technocrats would take over the running of Gaza after Hamas said it had received clear guarantees from mediators that the war has effectively ended. A joint statement published on the Hamas website said the groups had agreed in a meeting in Cairo to hand over the administration of the Gaza Strip to a temporary Palestinian committee composed of independent technocrats', which will manage the affairs of life and basic services

In an article last week, Gu Jianyi, a researcher at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said China could consider developing a new industrial ecosystem inspired by successful US firms such as SpaceX, Palantir and Anduril. Such an ecosystem would be defined by Silicon Valley-style innovation, software-centric design, agile development and civil-military integration.

The takeaway for leaders? Empathy and adaptability aren't soft skills; they're strategic imperatives. There is a growing recognition among leaders that stress triggered by external events is no longer peripheral. In today's world, it's a central management challenge. To explore these dynamics, we conducted a cross-national study to understand how leaders respond when external unrest threatens to destabilize the emotional and operational rhythm of their teams.

US President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Russia's top oil firms, Rosneft and Lukoil, on Wednesday in an effort to pressure Putin to reach a ceasefire in his country's invasion of Ukraine. Trump's sanctions carried the threat of risks to foreign financial institutions that do business with these firms a warning that could make it harder for countries like India to continue to buy oil from Moscow.

For decades, USAID was one of the greatest tools America had to promote democratic values in Russia. The agency extended humanitarian assistance while fostering political reform, and in doing so endeared the United States to Russians even as it undercut the Kremlin's authoritarian ambitions. It was a supreme example of soft power: working "through attraction and persuasion rather than coercion," as the political scientist Joseph S. Nye Jr. defined the term.

Afghanistan and Pakistan will begin peace talks on October 18 in the Qatari capital of Doha after border clashes and attacks raised fears of an all-out war between the two countries. Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to extend their 48-hour truce late on October 17 for the duration of the Doha talks, as they aim to resolve the worst violence between the two countries since the Taliban seized power in Kabul in 2021.

TOKYO Japan's former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, who was known for his 1995 "Murayama statement" apologizing to Asian victims of his country's aggression, died Friday. He was 101. Murayama died at a hospital in his hometown Oita, southwestern Japan, according to a statement by Mizuho Fukushima, the head of Japan's Social Democratic Party. As head of what was then known as the Japan Socialist Party, Murayama led a coalition government from June 1994 to January 1996.

United States President Donald Trump has expressed optimism about ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as he hosted his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House. On Friday, Trump also told reporters that Zelenskyy will be in touch during upcoming negotiations in Hungary, where the US president will meet with Russia's Vladimir Putin. list of 3 itemsend of list But direct talks between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders are unlikely, according to Trump, who reemphasised there's a lot of blood between the two presidents.

The recent clashes underscore a simple truth: kinetic escalation along a porous frontier is a multiplier. Airstrikes, artillery duels, and intermittent border closures do not remain local nuisances. They force displacement, interrupt trade and humanitarian access, and create openings for transnational violent actors to regroup and expand. At the same time, high-level diplomatic gestures, like India's reception of a Taliban foreign minister-help normalize engagement without demanding verifiable commitments from Kabul on , human rights, or governance.

Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto thought he was having a private word with US president Donald Trump at the Gaza peace summit in Egypt this week. Instead what unfolded was a hot-mic slip up, with Prabowo heard asking Trump to line up a call with his son Eric, or his son Don Jr, who both serve as executives at the Trump organisation.

The United States is lurching toward neo-fascism with alarming speed, courtesy of President Donald Trump, who is using all the resources of the repressive apparatus of the U.S. state to stifle dissent and crush opposition to his extreme agenda. He is so keen on imposing his dystopian vision on the country that he has sought to criminalize anti-fascist struggle itself. How do we fight back?