DAKAR, Senegal — Senegal will head to the polls Sunday to vote in a tightly contested presidential race that has fired up political tensions and tested one of West Africa’s most stable democracies. The presidential election will take place after much uncertainty following President Macky Sall’s unsuccessful effort to delay the Feb. 25 vote until … Read more
LONDON — LONDON (AP) — Vaughan Gething’s election as the next leader of Wales marks a milestone: For the first time, none of the U.K.’s four main governments is led by a white man. It’s a striking moment in a country still grappling with racism and the legacy of empire. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has … Read more
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A proposal to install new leadership in Haiti appeared to be crumbling Wednesday as some political parties rejected the plan to create a presidential council that would manage the transition. The panel would be responsible for selecting an interim prime minister and a council of ministers that would attempt to chart a … Read more
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Colombia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday selected the nation’s new attorney general following a month of deliberations that were interrupted by protests outside the court and complaints from President Gustavo Petro, who argued the judges were stonewalling his nominees. Ultimately the court selected Luz Adriana Camargo, a seasoned prosecutor with few political ties, … Read more
This year, billions of people will vote in elections around the world. 2024 will see — and has seen — high-stakes races in more than 50 countries, from Russia and Taiwan to India and El Salvador. Demagogic candidates — and looming geopolitical threats — would test even the most robust democracies in any normal year. … Read more
TEL AVIV, Israel — A top Israeli Cabinet minister headed to Washington on Sunday for talks with U.S. officials, sparking a rebuke from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to an Israeli official, in a sign of widening cracks in Israel’s wartime government nearly five months into its war with Hamas. The trip by Benny Gantz, … Read more
BEIJING — One burning issue dominates as the 2024 session of China’s legislature gets underway this week: the economy. The National People’s Congress annual meeting, which opens Tuesday, is being closely watched for any signals on what the ruling Communist Party might do to reenergize an economy that is sagging under the weight of expanded … Read more
HAVANA — Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello, a veteran Cuban dissident who never left the island despite being imprisoned twice and accused of being a United States agent, will be awarded the 2024 International Women of Courage Award, the U.S. Department of State said Friday. Roque, 78, who spent decades protesting against her country’s single-party model, … Read more
A U.S. airman died after setting himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 25 in order to protest what he called a “genocide” of Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas war. Aaron Bushnell’s action is part of a long and controversial history of self-immolation as political protest. In the past, … Read more
MOSCOW — For the hundreds of political prisoners in Russia’s brutal penitentiary system, word of the death of the country’s most prominent jailed dissident, Alexei Navalny, took days to arrive — and carried a terrifying, if obvious, reminder: None of them are safe. News of Navalny’s sudden death on Feb. 16 in an Arctic penal … Read more