The United States on Monday said that it was increasing its reward for information leading to the arrest of three key leaders of Somalia’s al-Shabab jihadist group to $10 million apiece, following a spate of deadly attacks.
A year after the October 2021 elections, the Iraqi Council of Representatives finally ended the stalemate and confirmed the country’s fifth president. The election of Abdul Latif Rashid removed the complex constitutional obstacle prior to government formation. The intra-Kurdish competition for the Iraqi presidency was the de jure reason for the one-year delay to finalize the process of what was supposed to be an early election to swiftly replace Adel Abdul Mahdi’s government. In real time, the new government—which was seated after the natural end of its predecessor’s term—may be an interim government, as another early election seems to be the only way to restore the political equilibrium in Baghdad.
The Wagner Group has been mired in controversy ever since the day of its founding. A Russian paramilitary organization, the mercenary group has conducted operations that the Russian Ministry of Defense has silently approved of while maintaining plausible deniability. After years of denials and silence, the Kremlin has now formally admitted the organization’s existence, despite mercenaries being formally illegal under the Russian constitution.
On 2 November, the Federal Government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front signed an agreement in Pretoria to end the two-year civil war in the country’s north. Besides committing to a permanent cessation of hostilities and restoration of constitutional order, the parties announced that the African Union’s (AU) 2019 Transitional Justice Policy (AUTJP) would accompany the deal.
The Ministry of Interior of Turkey has said since the beginning of this year, it has deported more than 57,000 Afghan citizens who entered the country “illegally”.
Anadolu Agency reported that on Saturday Turkish government officials reported 57,174 Afghan citizens have been returned to their country this year.
After Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev visited Albania on Tuesday in the first-ever visit of its kind, Albanian President Bajram Begaj declared the welcoming of Azeri investments and the possible establishment of diplomatic missions.
Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti doubled down on the decision not to allow the creation of an Association of Serb Municipalities, noting it is unconstitutional and not wanted by the local population, rather only from Belgrade.
In a sign of resistance to Western calls to choose between Moscow and the West, Serbian President Aleksander Vucic said his country’s brotherly relations with Russia cannot be destroyed, and Belgrade would never succumb to pressure during a meeting with Turko Daudov, an advisor to controversial Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
TotalEnergies said Tuesday it has completed the joint acquisition with ConocoPhillips of the 8.16% interest held by Hess in the Waha concessions, in Libya. As a result of this transaction, TotalEnergies’ interest in these concessions is increased from 16.33% to 20.41%.
In response to Russian aggression in Ukraine, European nations have drastically reduced imports of crude oil, refined petroleum products, and natural gas from Russia. The 2021 levels of these energy imports were around 2.2 million barrels per day (mbd) of crude oil, 1.2 mbd of refined products, and 155 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas on an annual basis.