- The Guardian
- Issue #2116
ALGERIA: 78-year-old Algerian president Abdelmaijid Tebboune won the presidential election held last Saturday with 94.65 per cent of the vote, according to the official count. Tebboune had the support of the National Liberation Front, the majority party in parliament which has ruled Algeria since independence from France in 1962. The Islamist candidate of the Movement for a Society for Peace (MSP) was second with 3.17 per cent of the vote. He was followed by the candidate of the Front des Forces Socialists (FFS) with 2.15 per cent. Algeria is Africa’s largest country by area and has a population of 45 million people. It is Africa’s second most populous country after South Africa.
WEST BANK: 26-year-old US activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi succumbed to her wounds on 6 September after being shot by Israeli forces at a protest in Beita, to the south of Nablus. Headlines from Western mainstream media sources have already attempted to obscure who killed the solidarity activist, with CNN stating, “American activist shot dead during protest in West Bank, Palestinian officials say,” CBS News writing, “American woman Aysenur Eygi killed in Israeli-occupied West Bank, US confirms,” and BBC writing, “American activist shot dead in occupied West Bank.” The shooting occurred while Israeli forces were violently suppressing a weekly protest against an Israeli settlement. Israeli forces employed live ammunition, stun grenades, and tear gas. The Israeli attack also resulted in the injury of an 18-year-old Palestinian man via shrapnel.
IRAN: Iranian authorities are planning to relocate the country’s capital to the south, closer to the Persian Gulf. According to the Iranian president Masoud Pezeshhkian, it is becoming impossible to keep Teheran as the capital for economic reasons and other difficulties. Teheran is often plagued by “water shortages, land subsidence, and air pollution,” the president said, describing the capital as “facing problems to which we have no solution.” He also stressed economic reasons for the move to the south, as key trading routes are there. “Further development of the country is impossible with the continuation of the current trend, when we bring the resources from the south of the country and the sea to the centre.”
AFGHANISTAN: The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that Afghanistan currently has more than three million internally displaced people and nearly 6 million refugees in nearby countries. Conflict is no longer the main cause of displacement. However, 3.2 million people remain displaced within the country and more than 6.82 million are registered refugees or in refugee-like situations in the region, mainly in Iran and Pakistan. The International Organisation for Migration reported that the number of people leaving Afghanistan to Iran and Pakistan increased by 11 per cent. According to the organisation’s figures, nearly 65,000 people returned from Iran and Pakistan last week, while more than 72,000 left for those countries.
RUSSIA: Russian president Vladimir Putin has been asked about his preferred candidate in the coming US elections. “Firstly, Biden recommended that all his supporters back Ms Harris. This is what we are going to do too – we are going to back her. Secondly, her laugh is expressive and contagious which means that she is doing just fine. Trump has imposed more sanctions on Russia than any other president has imposed before, and if Harris is doing just fine then perhaps she will refrain from such actions,” Putin said.
US: Former US president Donald Trump jokingly admitted that he was “very offended” by the Russian president’s support for his rival. “I know Putin, I knew him well. The other day he endorsed Kamala – I was very offended by that. I think it was done maybe with a smile,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Wisconsin.
