Category World News

Zohran Mamdani will be the first Muslim-Indian mayor of New York City when he takes up the post in January 2026, following an election which has gained global attention.

Mamdani, 34, will be the city’s youngest mayor since 1892. Having entered the race as a largely unknown candidate, he won the Democratic nomination and campaigned on a promise of affordability for New Yorkers, including rent freezes, free buses and universal healthcare, gaining huge popularity among young voters.

The mayor-elect, who will be formally inaugurated on January 1, 2026, has also been a beacon for a large number of those in the city who come from immigrant backgrounds.

During a Democratic primary debate in June, his opponent for the nomination – former Democratic Mayor Andrew Cuomo – mispronounced his name several times.

“The name is Mamdani, M-A-M-D-A-N-I, you should learn how to say it because we’ve got to get it right,” he told Cuomo in the televised debate.

But what does Mamdani mean, and what is the significance of his full name, Zohran Kwame Mamdani?

Where is he from?

Mamdani was born in Uganda to Indian parents who have citizenship of Uganda and the US. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, was born in Mumbai (then known as Bombay), India and is Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and a professor of anthropology, political science and African studies at Columbia University, New York. His mother, Mira Nair, is a film director who was also born in India. The family moved from Uganda to South Africa when Mamdani was five, and then to New York when he was seven.

By 2018, Mamdani had become a naturalised US citizen but also retained his Ugandan citizenship. The mayor-elect still regularly visits Uganda with his family, and most recently travelled there to celebrate his wedding to the American illustrator, Rama Duwaji, in July this year.

What does Mamdani’s name mean?

Zohran Kwame Mamdani is a name which reflects his multicultural identity.

His surname, Mamdani, is a common Gujarati name for Khoja Muslims, a sect of Islam.

Etymologically, Mamdani roughly translates to “Mohammadan”, a name for followers of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.

His first name, Zohran, has both Arabic and Persian origins and carries several meanings, including “light”, “radiance”, and “blossom”.

His middle name, Kwame, is a traditional name of the Akan people, from the ethnic Kwa group who live primarily in Ghana as well as in parts of the Ivory Coast and Togo in West Africa.

Mamdani’s father is known to be a great admirer of the Ghanaian freedom fighter, Kwame Nkrumah, who led the fight for independence from British rule and served as the newly independent country’s first president from 1957.

What is the significance of his middle name, Kwame?

Kwame literally translates to “born on Saturday” in the language of the Akan people. It also means “wisdom” and “leadership”.

Outside of its literal definition, however, the name is strongly connected with the Ghanaian revolutionary, Kwame Nkrumah, who led his country’s independence movement. Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African nation to gain independence from British rule in March 1957. Nkrumah served as its first prime minister and, later, its first president until he was overthrown in a coup in 1966.

He was influential across the continent as an advocate of pan-Africanism, an ideology which promotes unity across the African continent and within its diaspora in defiance of the imperialistic division of African nations under European colonial rule.

Under his administration, which was both nationalist and predominantly socialist, Nkrumah oversaw the funding of national energy projects and a robust national education system which also promoted pan-Africanism.

One month into the declaration of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, Israel has violated the agreement with near-daily attacks, killing hundreds of people.

Israel violated the ceasefire agreement at least 282 times from October 10 to November 10, through the continuation of attacks by air, artillery and direct shootings, the Government Media Office in Gaza reports.

The office said Israel shot at civilians 88 times, raided residential areas beyond the “yellow line” 12 times, bombed Gaza 124 times, and demolished people’s properties on 52 occasions. It added that Israel also detained 23 Palestinians from Gaza over the past month.

Israel has also continued to block vital humanitarian aid and destroy homes and infrastructure across the Strip.

Al Jazeera tracks the ceasefire violations to date.

What are the terms of the ceasefire?

On September 29, the United States unveiled a 20-point proposal, without any Palestinian input, to end Israel’s war on Gaza, release the remaining captives held in the enclave, allow the full entry of humanitarian aid into the besieged territory and outline a three-phase withdrawal of Israeli forces.

Some of the main conditions of the first phase, which is ongoing, include:

• An end to hostilities in Gaza by Israel and Hamas
• Lifting the blockade of all aid into Gaza by Israel and stopping its interference in aid distribution
• Release of all captives held in Gaza – alive or dead – by Hamas
• Release of some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and disappeared people from Israeli jails
• Withdrawal of Israeli forces to the “yellow line”

Following mediation by partners including Egypt, Qatar, and Turkiye, representatives from some 30 countries gathered on October 13 for a ceremony to sign the Gaza ceasefire agreement, led by US President Donald Trump.

However, Israel and Hamas were notably absent, raising doubts about the summit’s ability to achieve tangible progress towards ending the war and resolving the core issues of Israeli occupation and the 18-year-long siege of Gaza.

Israel has pledged not to allow a Palestinian state, and the US has continued its large-scale arms transfers and diplomatic backing to Israel throughout its genocidal war on Gaza, while offering only vague statements about Gaza’s future.

Israel attacks Gaza nearly every day

According to an analysis by Al Jazeera, Israel has attacked Gaza on 25 out of the past 31 days of the ceasefire, meaning there were only six days during which no violent attacks, deaths or injuries were reported.

Despite continuing attacks, the US insists that the “ceasefire” is still holding.

Israel still killing Palestinians

Since the ceasefire took effect at noon on October 10, Israel has killed at least 242 Palestinians and injured 622, according to the latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

On October 19 and 29 – two of the deadliest days since the latest ceasefire – Israel killed a total of 154 people.

On October 19, accusing Hamas of violating the ceasefire after two Israeli soldiers were killed in Rafah, Israeli forces killed 45 people in a massive wave of air raids across the Gaza Strip.

Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, pointed out that Israel controls the Rafah area and it had no contact with any Palestinian fighters there.

On October 29, Israel killed 109 people, including 52 children, after an exchange of gunfire in Rafah that killed one Israeli soldier.

Israel also said a body transferred from Gaza by Hamas via the Red Cross did not belong to one of the captives due to be released under the ceasefire.

“The Israelis hit back, and they should hit back,” Trump told reporters, calling Israel’s attacks “retribution” for the soldier’s death.

Here are the latest figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, tracking the casualties from October 7, 2023, through November 10, 2025:

• Confirmed killed: at least 69,179 people, including 20,179 children
• Injured: at least 170,693 people

Israel still choking aid

The ceasefire stipulated that “full aid will be immediately sent into the Gaza Strip”. However, the reality on the ground remains very different.

According to the World Food Programme (WFP), only half the required food aid is currently reaching Gaza, while a coalition of Palestinian relief agencies says total aid deliveries amount to just one-quarter of what was agreed under the ceasefire.

From October 10 to November 9, only 3,451 trucks have reached their intended destinations inside Gaza, according to the UN2720 Monitoring and Tracking Dashboard, which monitors humanitarian aid in Gaza.

According to truck drivers, aid deliveries are facing significant delays, with Israeli inspections taking much longer than expected.

According to the Government Media Office, as of November 6, only 4,453 trucks had entered Gaza since the ceasefire began, out of an expected 15,600.

This averages about 171 trucks daily, far short of the 600 trucks per day that were supposed to enter.

Yet the White House says nearly 15,000 trucks carrying commercial goods and humanitarian aid have entered Gaza since October 10, a figure sharply disputed by Palestinians and aid groups.

In addition, Israel has blocked more than 350 essential and nutritious food items, including meat, dairy, and vegetables crucial for a balanced diet. Instead, non-nutritious foodstuffs are being allowed, such as snacks, chocolate, crisps, and soft drinks.

Did Hamas release the captives it’s supposed to release?

On October 13, as per the ceasefire deal, Hamas released all 20 remaining living Israeli captives in exchange for 250 Palestinians serving long prison sentences and 1,700 Palestinians disappeared by Israel since October 7, 2023.

As part of the deal, Hamas is also expected to return the bodies of 28 Israeli captives in exchange for 360 Palestinian bodies held by Israel.

As of November 10, Hamas had returned 24 Israeli captives’ bodies, with four remaining in Gaza. The group has said it requires heavy excavation equipment to recover the remaining bodies buried under the rubble from Israeli bombardment.

Israel has so far returned 300 Palestinian bodies, many of which were mutilated and showed signs of torture. Many remain unidentified.

What does international law say about ceasefires?

According to Lieber Institute, a ceasefire is designed to halt active combat, or ” freeze a conflict in place”, but it can be ambiguous in international law.

The suspension of hostilities is best understood as a cessation of active hostile military operations.

At 38, Rob Jetten, with his confident smile and “We can do it” slogan, is on course to become the Netherlands’s youngest prime minister.

His liberal-progressive D66 party almost tripled its number of seats in parliament in the October 29 general election.

Dutch far-right firebrand Geert Wilders suffered significant losses in the vote, as his anti-immigration, anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV) shed 11 seats, returning to the opposition after a hobbling first stint in a coalition government.

While this result was cast as a victory for the centre over the far right, and a good omen for Europe’s liberal front, experts sound a note of caution.

“There was a return to the centre in the sense that a number of centre parties gained in these elections,” Leiden University professor Bernard Steunenberg told Al Jazeera.

Jetten’s D66 bagged 26 seats, a gain of 17 seats since the last election. The Christian Democrats (CDA), another party near the centre, won 18 seats, nine more than in 2023.

But “we still have a rather substantial right-wing volume of voters”, Steunenberg added.

Wilders’s PVV and Jetten’s D66 both won 26 seats in the Dutch parliament, becoming the biggest parties by seat numbers. The former won over the latter by a slim margin of 28,400 votes, out of more than 10 million cast.

PVV won about 17 percent of the vote, down from about a quarter in 2023, its second-highest election score.

Experts say that far-right ideas and policies have not been sidelined in the Netherlands. Yet, the centrists’ huge gains may hold a lesson for other European parties.

Far-right vote splinters

Rather than shrinking, support for the far right splintered.

Some former PVV voters backed other hard-right parties, such as the Forum for Democracy (FvD). Having won just three seats in the November 2023 election, FvD secured seven this time around.

FvD was born as an Eurosceptic think tank in 2015 and entered politics two years later. Compared with PVV, it focuses on traditional values as well as the rejection of state intervention, including on issues such as climate change and COVID-19.

Similarly, the more moderate-sounding Juiste Antwoord 2021 (JA21) party increased its seats from one to nine. Armida van Rij, a researcher at the Centre for European Reform, described the JA21 as “a PVV-light party, with equally extreme ideas but presenting themselves as more palatable to the electorate and other parties”.

Of a total of 150 seats in the Dutch lower house, the far-right bloc in parliament has remained roughly the same size; it won 42 seats, compared with 41 in 2023.

The grouping has witnessed a steady ascent. After the 2021 election, Dutch far-right parties had a combined share of 28 seats.

“This doesn’t mean that the right-wing parties are coherent and form a solid bloc – they are quite fragmented, and it’s very difficult to form a right-wing coalition in which the PVV is participating,” Steunenberg said.

Wilders was responsible for the downfall of the previous government, a teetering alliance between the far-right PVV, the conservative liberals (VVD), the centre-right New Social Contract (NSC) and the agrarian Farmers-Citizens Movement (BBB).

Less than a year after it was established, the 62-year-old triggered a cabinet crisis over tougher measures to curb migration, leading to the snap vote.

Rather than skirt away from the far-right ideology, voters appear to have penalised the party for Wilders’s decision to pull out of government after only 11 months, as well as for its perceived failure to deliver on issues such as affordable housing and better healthcare.

Signpost for Europe

At a time when populist parties are vying for power across Europe, the Dutch general election could be a signpost.

But analysts warn against drawing narrow comparisons.

“We should be modest in thinking what this means for other countries in the European Union, because it depends on how the political situation is in different member states,” Steunenberg said.

“For example, in France, the centre – which is [President] Emmanuel Macron – has been very disappointing to many, and it has triggered a new movement towards [the fringes] on the left and right.”

Despite the differences, the Dutch vote holds a few takeaways for centrist parties.

Elizabeth Kuiper, associate director at the Brussels-based European Policy Centre (EPC) think tank, described Jetten’s campaign as “Obama-esque” – a nod to former United States President Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” campaign.

D66 led a campaign that was “very positive” and focused on heartfelt issues, she said.

“In these past years, we have seen [Dutch] voters feeling alienated from their governments, especially when it comes to affordable housing, green energy and healthcare,” Kuiper told a conference organised by EPC.

“D66 approached these topics from a very positive perspective, whereas the others tried to win the competition with Wilders when it comes to migration – being much more toxic and making it a problem.”

According to Kuiper, while other centrist parties adopted some far-right ideas and policies on the issue of migration, D66 fought Wilders with a more “positive” agenda.

Steunenberg said that centrist parties should rely on more “positive” campaigns that focus on what voters would like to see changed, “instead of framing it in very simplistic terms in which blame is being shifted towards different groups in society”.

D66 now faces difficult choices about whom to enter into government with, and bears the responsibility of delivering on its electoral promises.