South Asia
Samant Kumar Goel, the Chief of the Indian Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) travelled to Kathmandu “for a few hours” to meeting Prime Minister K.P. Oli and the Pushpa Kumar Dahal Prachanda, who is leading the rival faction of the Nepal Communist Party. During the meeting, reports suggest that the leaders discussed the need to bring an end to the ongoing intra-party conflict between Prachanda and Oli over a power-sharing deal. [The Print]
Indian IT Secretary Ajay Sawhney wrote a strongly-worded letter to the CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey after the platform showed Leh in Jammu Kashmir as a part of China. He said that this disrespected India’s sovereignty and integrity and further raised doubts on Twitter’s neutrality. [Times of India]
Central Asia and the Caucasus
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has said that his country’s forces have regained control over settlements in the Fuzuli, Jabrayil, and Zangilan districts, claiming that by liberating the Agbend settlement, “the state border between Azerbaijan and the Islamic Republic of Iran has been completely secured”. [TASS]
The Kyrgyz parliament has voted on a bill to postpone elections, approving a proposal for a full constitutional overhaul. This means that the do-over parliamentary vote to make up for the recently-failed elections can be carried out as late as June 2021. [Eurasianet]
East and Southeast Asia
The Thai government on Thursday rolled back emergency measures in Bangkok that were originally instituted to end the pro-democracy protests that have engulfed the capital in recent weeks. However, protesters have said that revoking the restrictions was not enough, and gave PM Prayut Chan-o-cha three days to resign. [Channel News Asia]
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised concerns about the environmental impact of Indonesia’s omnibus Job Creation Law and has called on the government to ensure sustainable and inclusive growth. [The Straits Times]
China signed a deal with the Mekong River Commission (MRC) on Thursday to share year-round water data amid rising concerns that Chinese dams could be causing drought downstream in Southeast Asia. [Reuters]
Europe
In what is being viewed as a major loss for the far-right Vox party in Spain, the Spanish Parliament rejected a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. Vox had introduced this motion over the ruling coalition’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. [Reuters]
Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal on Thursday effectively outlawed all kinds of legal abortion in the country when it ruled that the termination of pregnancy even in the case of fetal malformation is unconstitutional. [Balkan Insight]
US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden was accorded permanent residency in Russia on Thursday, where he has been living since 2013 to escape persecution after leaking classified papers regarding Washington’s surveillance programmes. [Euronews]
Latin America and the Caribbean
It has been revealed that lawyers are unable to locate the parents of 545 children who were forcibly separated from their parents at the southern US border. [NBC]
Trinidad and Tobago officials delivered some positive news by announcing that the damaged Venezuelan oil tanker in the Gulf of Paria is unlikely to cause an oil spill after previous fears that it could leak up to 1.3 million barrels of oil into the ocean. [Al Jazeera]
Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
Saudi Arabia’s Authority for Data and Artificial Intelligence signed MoUs with Alibaba, IBM, and Huawei to develop its smart cities programme using AI. [Reuters]
Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi and British leader Boris Johnson met at Downing Street on Thursday to discuss bilateral interests and recent security and political issues in the Middle East. The two agreed to cooperate more in the fight against terrorism, and Johnson expressed the UK’s strong support for the Iraqi administration as it tackles economic reforms, the pandemic, and efforts to defeat ISIS. [Arab News]
North America
The US government on Wednesday announced that it had designated six additional Chinese media outlets operating within its borders as foreign missions. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the restrictions would not curb what these entities can publish, but that they were a means to enable the American public to differentiate between news written by a free press, versus propaganda distributed by the Chinese Communist Party. [CNN]
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday voted to move forward with the confirmation of President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, despite a boycott from the committee’s Democrats. The final confirmation vote will take place on Monday. [CNBC]
Oceania
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that, with the exception of Western Australia, the country’s states and territories would open their borders by Christmas. He also revealed plans to repatriate 26,000 Australians from overseas, adding that of the 4,100 who were termed “vulnerable”, 1,278 had returned to Australia. [news.com.au]
Sub-Saharan Africa
African Union Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat “strongly condemn[ed]” the violence in Nigeria, and called on protestors to “remain peaceful” and urged security forces to “exercise restraint”. [Africa Feeds]
Voting is underway in Seychelles’ presidential and national assembly elections, as citizens take to the polls to decide whether to elect President Danny Faure, who only came into power after James Michel resigned from his position. One of the crucial concerns for voters remains the economy, which has been heavily impacted by the coronavirus due to the country’s heavy dependence on tourism. [Africa News]
World News Monitor: 23 October, 2020
A quick look at events from around the globe.
October 23, 2020
SOURCE: THE NATIONAL NEWS