World

Nepal’s prime minister KP Sharma Oli has resigned after nationwide demonstrations descended into bloodshed. At least 22 people have been killed and hundreds injured in the country’s deadliest protests for nearly two decades. Spearheaded by the Nepal’s disaffected youth, the ‘Gen Z protest’ has evolved into one targeting the corruption of the government coalition led by the Congress and Communist parties. The protests were triggered by the government’s decision last week to issue a blanket ban on 26 social media platforms After events took a violent turn on Monday when authorities unleashed fury on the protestors, killing at least 19, demonstrators responded by targeting state institutions in Kathmandu. They ransacked government buildings, including the country’s parliament, and targeted politicians’ homes. Rajyalaxmi Chitrakar, the wife

When the government of Qatar condemned the Israeli airstrike in Doha as a ‘cowardly’ act, it revealed less about the operation itself than about the priorities of the state voicing the charge. In reality, the strike was an extraordinary and unprecedented move: Israel launched a precision airstrike inside Qatari territory targeting senior Hamas leadership, aiming to eliminate figures at the apex of the group’s external political and financial hierarchy. It was a direct and deliberate attack on the masterminds behind terrorism, carried out by Israeli fighter aircraft with exceptional range and accuracy. The operation marked a bold assertion of Israeli extraterritorial power and strategic doctrine. There is nothing cowardly in

As expected, the government of François Bayrou has lost its vote of confidence in the National Assembly. Three hundred and sixty-four MPs voted to bring down the centrist coalition government, ten months after Michel Barnier’s administration collapsed in similar circumstances. On that occasion 331 MPs cast their ballots against the Prime Minister. Bayrou has been a marked man since he unveiled his budget proposals in July, the objective of which was to slash €44 billion (£38 billion) in spending by 2026 in order to reduce France’s huge public debt. MPs from across the political spectrum condemned his budget. During an afternoon of impassioned debate in parliament, Bayrou had warned MPs:

‘Rejuvenation is unstoppable, we will prevail,’ blared the editorial in the Chinese newspaper Global Times. The subject was China’s resurgence, but it looked oddly apposite in light of an inadvertently overheard conversation between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Some Western journalists have mistaken this as evidence of Putin’s hubris and his personality cult ‘Biotechnology is continuously developing,’ commented Putin as the two men walked towards the podium in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square during the military parade to mark 80 years since Japan’s surrender in World War Two. ‘In the past, it used to be rare for someone to be older than 70 and these days they say that at 70 one’s still a