Guinea-Bissau sets election date following last year’s coup

Following the coup that ended President Umaro Sissoco Embalo in late last year, the military government of Guinea-Bissau has set a date for new elections, according to a statement from the army leader.

Major-General Horta Inta-a read a decree read on Wednesday that read, “All the requirements have been met for organising free, fair, and transparent elections.

Recommended Stories

list of 3 itemsend of list

On December 6, the statement added, there will be legislative and presidential elections.

Embalo was removed as head of the military administration in a November coup, and Inta-a, a former army chief of staff, was given the task of overseeing a one-year transition period.

Inta-a, a close Embalo associate, is prohibited from running for office by a transitional charter that was published in the first few days of December.

The military claimed to have taken control as Embalo sought a second term in a presidential election to “avoid a bloodbath between the rival candidates’ supporters.”

Guinea-Bissau, one of the poorest nations in the world, has been plagued by coups and attempted coups since gaining its independence from Portugal more than 50 years ago, including an attempted coup last October.

The nation, which has 2.2 million people, is known as a hub for drug trafficking between Latin America and Europe, a practice that, according to experts, has contributed to its political unrest.

An Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) mission led by Sierra Leonean President Julius Maada Bio and his Senegalese counterpart Bassirou Diomaye Faye traveled to Guinea-Bissau several weeks after making the announcement.

The two leaders have urged a quick, organized, and transparent transition following discussions with the military leaders.

Additionally, they have demanded the release of political rivals, including opposition leader Domingos Simoes Pereira, who were detained the day of the coup.

Since 2020, there have been numerous coups in West Africa, typically with the intention of preventing insurgency or fixing bad governance.

Does the World Economic Forum still matter in a fractured global economy?

The World Economic Forum in Davos has been a global cooperation symbol for countless years. Its relevance is being debated today.

The World Economic Forum in Davos is a crucial time for the political and corporate elites of the world.
The world is in excruciating levels of geopolitical strife.

A US president has a clear skepticism of open trade and multilateral cooperation.

Donald Trump threatens to end the world order by using tariffs as a tool for economic and political leverage.

The summit has a lot of talk but little action, according to critics.

However, opponents’ claims that keeping rivals talking might help to contain some of the world’s biggest issues remain.

Who pays for Gaza’s reconstruction?

Europe cannot condemn colonialism à la carte

The annual gathering of the world’s elite, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday declared that this is “not the time for new imperialism or new colonialism.”

Of course, this was in reference to Donald Trump’s current plans for the United States, which has repeatedly threatened to seize the Panama Canal and has recently kidnapped the president of Venezuela.

Trump himself took to the podium in Davos on Wednesday for a typically rambling speech, in which he occasionally mused about windmills, snidely praised Macron for his “beautiful” reflective sunglasses, and declared he would not “use force” to acquire Greenland, which he unintentionally called Iceland.

Indeed, Trump’s island designs have sparked Europe’s ire, and the European Parliament has publicly condemned the statements made by the Trump administration regarding Greenland, which “refuse fundamentally international law, the UN Charter, and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a NATO ally” with unwavering condemnation.

Following Macron’s speech at Davos, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported that European leaders had “lined up” to protest the “new colonialism” that the French leader had denounced.

It goes without saying that the utterly insane Donald Trump should not be discouraged from conducting extortive international operations. However, it is important to point out that Europe is rarely a conversation maker when it comes to colonialism and imperialism.

Let’s start with France, which still has power over a dozen countries spread out across the globe, many of which are marketed as exotic vacation spots, including the Mayotte archipelago and the Guadeloupe islands in the Caribbean Sea.

Although these regions have officially transitioned from lowly colonial status to legitimate French Republic departments, making them a part of the European Union, France struggles to overcome the outdated imperial mindset and associated superiority complex.

When cyclone-ravaged Mayotte, France’s poorest overseas territory, residents in December 2024 criticized the ineffective government response to the disaster, Macron charmingly retorted: “If it weren’t for France, you would be in way deeper s***, 10, 000 times more.

How about some “new colonialism”?

France has a particularly appalling track record on that front, as well as the tried-and-true “old” colonialism. In the 1954-1962 conflict for Algerian independence, 1.5 million Algerians were killed.

Macron has consistently refrained from offering a formal French apology despite previously claiming that French colonization of the North African nation was a “crime against humanity” characterised by widespread torture and other brutality.

However, it’s not just France. Other European nations that are suddenly opposed to colonialism also have eminently brutal legacy systems all over the world.

Indeed, it’s difficult to find anything more than a speck of land in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, or anywhere else in the world that hasn’t been the victim of past centuries of European plunder, enslavement, mass murder, and other atrocities.

King Leopold II of Belgium presided over the deaths of 10 million or so Congolese people starting in 1885 when he established the “Congo Free State” as his own personal property. Britain, the Spaniards, decimated Indigenous populations wherever it could.

Belgian King Philippe apologized publicly for the abuses that occurred during the colonial era in 2022, but he withheld an official statement of apology. According to one article about the non-apology, “villages that missed rubber collection quotas were notoriously made to provide severed hands in the place of that.”

British historian Ian Campbell estimates that Addis Ababa’s 19 to 20% of Ethiopian population was completely exterminated in just three days during the Italian military occupation of East Africa in 1937.

The list of atrocities committed in Europe is endless.

Of course, this isn’t intended to suggest that Trump should be able to plunder or commit any crimes at his own volition. Simply put, it serves as a reminder that colonialism can’t be fought against by one person. Up until recently, Greenland was a total colony of Denmark.

In terms of colonial atrocities, Europe hasn’t been sufficiently up in arms over the massive slaughter in the Gaza Strip over the past two years, choosing to pursue a path of superficial criticism and de facto complicity.

According to the Trumpian perspective, Gaza is now being administered by a so-called “Board of Peace” and presided over by – who else? The killing continues under the guise of a US-brokered ceasefire. Trump himself

Benjamin Netanyahu, the president of Israel, and genocidaire extraordinaire, will also be on the board, which undoubtedly indicates a “new colonialism” of the most sinister kind.

Unfortunately, bloody hypocrisy is not new, sadly for the rest of the world.

Israeli minister approves gun licences for 18 illegal West Bank settlements

As the right-wing government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presses to expand illegal outposts that stifle the development of a two-state solution, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir approved the issuance of gun licenses to Israelis in 18 additional illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The decision is based on the fact that these settlements will be able to submit personal weapon application applications, according to far-right minister Ben-Gvir, who claimed the efforts were intended to “enhance self-defence and increase personal security.”

Recommended Stories

list of 3 itemsend of list

Israeli settlers are encouraged by a large-scale armament campaign spearheaded by Ben-Gvir at the start of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, as well as the near-total impunity with which they carry out attacks.

Israelis who reside in the occupied West Bank have been given military-grade weapons, including pistols and drones, from US-made M16s. Local and international organizations have long documented the organized, forced displacement of Palestinians from their ancestral lands, despite Israeli authorities’ claim that having arms is necessary for their safety.

Israel’s plans to expand settlements near Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley, and across Ramallah were formalized last year, and now it is expected to move forward.

Another 19 settler outposts that had been constructed without government approval were retroactively and legally recognized by Israel’s government as official settlements in December. Since 2022, there have been 141 to 210 settlements and outposts in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, totaling nearly 50%.

In a 2024 decision, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory should end “as soon as possible.”

Since the policy’s expansion, Ben-Gvir’s stated that more than 240, 000 Israelis have been granted gun permits, compared to the 8, 000 permits that were issued annually in the previous years.

He continued, “An unprecedented number,” adding that this “helped to thwart attacks, prevent infiltration, and stop attackers even before security forces arrived.”

More than 1,800 settler attacks against Palestinians were documented in 2025, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, leading to more than 350 new settler attacks per year. About five per day resulted in casualties or property damage in 280 West Bank neighborhoods.

Trump seeking ‘regime change’ in Cuba by end of the year: US media report

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, US President Donald Trump wants to oust Cuba’s leadership and is actively looking for government insiders in Havana who would like to “push out the Communist regime” in exchange for funding.

Unnamed US officials cited by the US newspaper who claimed the Trump administration did not have a “concrete plan” for Cuba, but that the US military’s recent abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was “left behind as a blueprint and a warning for Cuba.”

Recommended Stories

list of 4 itemsend of list

In order to identify a government official in Cuba who might “want to cut a deal,” a US official told the newspaper that meetings had been held with Cuban exiles and civic organizations in Miami and Washington, DC.

Trump has also made a direct threat to Cuba, stating earlier this month, “I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS LATE.”

The White House may be “too optimistic” in believing that threats alone will be enough to overthrow the Cuban government, which is led by President Miguel Diaz-Canel, according to David Smith, an expert on US politics and foreign policy at the University of Sydney’s US Studies Centre.

Trump’s theory that if there was a sufficient threat, the Iranian government might just cave was confirmed by Smith in an interview with CNN.

He claimed that the Iranian regime was very weak and that he was actually encouraging the protesters, but it turns out that it was still strong, oppressive, and unwavering.

According to Smith, outsiders are unsure of the state of the Cuban government, including its level of power and its officials’ decency.

Former US president Ricardo Zuniga, who helped negotiate a brief detente between Havana and Washington from 2014 to 2017, said Cuba’s leadership would be “a much tougher nut to crack” than Venezuela’s. Zuniga was a former official with the US president’s administration.

Zuniga told The Wall Street Journal, “There is no one who would be drawn to work on the US side.”

Since the 1959 revolution, which brought the country’s well-known revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro, to power, many US politicians have dreamed of erasing the Cuban leadership.

During the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1962, the US attempted and failed to overthrow Cuban leadership. Ernesto “Che” Guevara, an American-born Cuban revolutionary, was executed by Bolivian forces in 1967 after the CIA made numerous attempts to assassinate him during his lifetime.

Cuba is only 150 kilometers (93 miles) from South Florida, and many Cubans have left the country in search of the US, citing economic difficulties and political unrest.

A significant portion of US voting is made up of senior Trump figures, including former Cuban dictator Marco Rubio, who has long criticized Cuba’s communist government.

According to Smith, the University of Sydney’s Smith, “There’s always been this sense for anti-Communist hawks in the administration that this place is so small and so close, it’s a real humiliation that this place is allowed to continue as it is.”

Djokovic eases past qualifier Maestrelli at Australian Open