The Yin and the Yang
NEED TO KNOW
The Yin and the Yang
BRAZIL
Right-wing Brazilian populist Jair Bolsonaro, who served as president from 2019 to 2023, is technically banned from running for president again until 2030. He also is facing criminal charges for allegedly attempting a coup.
Still, he recently told the Wall Street Journal that he plans to file papers for the election in 2026. If he runs, he would repeat the face-off that he lost in 2023 to his ideological rival, left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
A former army officer who tortured civilians under the military junta that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, the Guardian explained, Bolsonaro has denied the allegations that he planned a coup, saying the accusations are politically motivated. But the Economist wrote that his chances of facing jail time are increasing as the case against him becomes clearer, stronger, and the charges broader – they also include theft and corruption.
Prosecutors cite undercover agents who helped Bolsonaro hatch a plan to seize power. In one taped conversation among the coup plotters, a colonel tells a top commander in the Brazilian military that they need to act after voters elect Lula to a third, non-consecutive term in the presidency, according to the Associated Press.
“It will be either a civil war now or civil war later. We have a justification now for civil war; people are on the streets. We have massive support,” the colonel said. “Let’s do this now. Speak to 01,” 01 being code for the president.
Video evidence even showed Bolsonaro staying at the Hungarian Embassy in the capital Brasília, where some wondered if he was seeking diplomatic asylum, the Jerusalem Post reported. Bolsonaro has close ties with the illiberal leader of Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Bolsonaro is also close to President-Elect Donald Trump, Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei, and others who met recently in Buenos Aires to discuss free markets and conservative causes, added Reuters.
Those international connections are one reason Bolsonaro still enjoys the support of half of the Brazilian electorate, World Politics Review noted. Corruption remains endemic in the country, too, souring many on Lula and his socialist allies, who have dominated the country’s politics for the past 20 years.
Still, Lula’s base of working-class Brazilians who depend on public services is vast and well-organized, as a New York Times story showed. Lula has advocated for protecting the Amazon, recognizing Indigenous rights, and “reconciling economic growth with social inclusion,” as a Brazilian government press release explained.
As the Jerusalem Post noted, the problems faced by Bolsonaro show voters there is accountability in Brazil. However, his prosecution also has consequences for Brazil’s political landscape.
“These legal challenges mark a steep decline for Bolsonaro, who once positioned himself as a champion of Brazil’s right-wing movement,” it wrote. “(But) his absence from politics could leave a leadership vacuum in Brazil’s conservative ranks, (even as it is) reshaping the country’s political landscape and reinforcing accountability for undermining democracy.
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
Chasing the Winds
MIDDLE EAST
Iran’s supreme leader blasted the United States and Israel, accusing them of orchestrating the overthrow of one of its key allies, even as the US moved towards the conditional recognition of a new government run by a man with an American bounty on his head, the Guardian reported.
On Wednesday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a crowd in Tehran that Israel and its Western allies were to blame for the “blow of historic proportions,” as the Wall Street Journal called it: Iran’s loss of its ally means a decline in its influence in the region and a severe restriction on its ability to supply its proxies, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
“The main plotter, the main planner, the main agent, the main command room is in the United States and in the Zionist regime,” Khamenei said.
The comments were an echo of those by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who earlier this week said that the collapse of the Syrian regime was due to blows that Israel has dealt to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran over the past year.
Meanwhile, Iran’s comments also followed statements a day earlier by the US that it would offer conditional recognition of the new Syrian government if it met certain conditions.
“The transition process and new government must also uphold clear commitments to fully respect the rights of minorities, facilitate the flow of humanitarian assistance to all in need, prevent Syria from being used as a base for terrorism or posing a threat to its neighbors, and ensure that any chemical or biological weapons stockpiles are secured and safely destroyed,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Currently, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Turkish-backed rebel force that toppled Assad, is designated as a terrorist group by the US, with a $10 million bounty for the capture of its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, a former Islamic State and al Qaeda operative.
However, al-Jolani, who is leading a transitional government until March, has said he would run a technocratic administration for Syrians of all groups. He also said he is working with international organizations to secure the sites where chemical weapons may be located, the Times of Israel reported. Al-Jolani had already said that his group would not use those weapons under any circumstances.
He needs US recognition, too – that would mean the lifting of sanctions that have brought the Syrian economy to its knees.
Meanwhile, as the new Syrian government asserts control and regional players adjust to the new realities, some are using the transition to further longtime aims, the BBC reported.
For example, Israel pounded Syrian targets this week in hundreds of strikes on weapons depots and other military targets.
The Israel Defense Forces said it had eliminated as much as 80 percent of Syria’s strategic military assets located from Damascus to Latakia, including fighter aircraft, radar and air defense sites, and naval ships, as well as weapons stockpiles.
The IDF has also moved ground forces east from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights into a demilitarized buffer zone in Syria and, it now admits, just beyond, the BBC added.
Also taking advantage of the chaos to advance its goals in Syria is Turkey, wrote France 24. On Thursday, Turkey-backed rebel forces advanced against a Kurdish militia in northern Syria.
The Syrian Kurds are the US’ strongest ally in the country, and are seen as a buffer against the Islamic State. Now, however, the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Forces are facing losing control of growing swaths of territory, Al Monitor wrote.
Turkey has long viewed the Kurds as a threat.
Singing the Ballot Blues
MOZAMBIQUE
More than 30 people have been killed in Mozambique in one week, raising the death toll to 110 in the government’s bloody crackdown on protestors following a disputed election in October, the Associated Press reported.
Over the past two months, thousands of people in the southern African nation have taken to the streets of the capital Maputo, and elsewhere in protests against the governing Frelimo party, which has run the country since independence from Portugal in 1975.
Initially peaceful, the protests turned violent after police fired into the crowds. As a result, angry demonstrators have attacked police stations, courthouses, and Frelimo party offices, and even blocked the main border crossing with South Africa.
The protestors believe that the elections were rigged.
However, following the vote on Oct. 9, the electoral commission said the Frelimo party candidate, Daniel Chapo, won 71 percent of the vote.
International observers disagree, saying the ballot was marred by irregularities, according to the Economist. The independent candidate, Venâncio Mondlane, who won only 20 percent of the vote, has claimed that he is the true winner and has called for a revolution.
Mondlane, a leaning populist part-time pastor, has garnered support from young people in cities, influencing protests from exile abroad through Facebook broadcasts.
Now, countries around the world are concerned about the ongoing unrest and violence: Amnesty International reported that police have shot at least 329 people since the eruption of the protests, killing 110, including children and bystanders, and arrested more than 3,500 people arbitrarily.
Tensions rose when two prominent opposition officials were fatally shot in their car by unknown gunmen on Oct. 18, escalating the protests.
Meanwhile, Chapo is due to be inaugurated on Jan.15, but the election results have not been validated by the Constitutional Council due to legal challenges from the opposition. The protests are expected to escalate later this month.
A Dream, Deferred
GEORGIA
Protests continued this week in Georgia against the government’s move to delay the country’s longstanding bid to join the European Union, with more than 400 arrested over the past few weeks including a key opposition leader, Reuters reported.
Around 30 of those arrested face criminal charges for being part of “group violence” aimed at overthrowing the government.
The arrests are seen as an attempt to quash the wave of mass protests in the capital of Tbilisi which were sparked by the Georgian Dream party’s decision to halt talks on joining the EU until 2028.
Last week, Georgian opposition leader Nika Gvaramia was arrested along with other members of the opposition party when their offices were raided by Georgian police. The Coalition for Change opposition party said that Gvaramia had been “thrown into a detention car as he was physically assaulted and unconscious,” according to the Guardian.
At times, the protests have turned violent with demonstrators throwing firecrackers at police officers and building barricades on the central boulevard of the Georgian capital Tbilisi. Demonstrators say they were forced to defend themselves against riot police wielding tear gas, water cannons, and batons.
The interior ministry said that more than 150 police officers have been injured, reported Reuters.
In October, the Georgian Dream party won the parliamentary elections, with the opposition saying the election was marked by irregularities and fraud. The win, meanwhile, has provoked widespread anger because of the party’s pro-Russia stance and increasingly authoritarian tendencies.
Party officials, meanwhile, say they must defer any EU talks and cozy up to Russia, to safeguard peace amid the war in Ukraine.
Previously, Georgia had been seen as among the most pro-Western and democratic of the former Soviet Union states. Rights groups have said that the violent crackdown on protests is without recent precedent in the country, with Western governments condemning the government. The EU’s ambassador to Georgia has said that the crackdown merits sanctions.
Especially concerning Western governments are reports of gangs of masked men in black attacking opposition politicians, activists, and journalists over the past few days. Koba Hazabi, a prominent member of the Coalition for Change opposition party, was attacked inside his party’s headquarters and left with extensive head injuries.
“Of course, the government is behind this,” Khabazi told Reuters following the attack. “This government is built on violence.”
Georgian authorities deny their involvement, saying the attacks were likely carried out by the opposition themselves to make Georgia Dream look bad.
DISCOVERIES
Footprints in the Sand
Most would find the idea of sharing our planet with another distinct member of the hominin family quite odd. But 1.5 million years ago, it was normal, or so the theory went.
Now, scientists, for the first time, because of fossilized footprints made by two distinct species related to humans found on the shore of a Kenyan lake, have been able to say that Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei – the first possibly our direct ancestor, and the second a distant relative – did actually coexist at the same time and place.
They walked together, side-by-side, possibly for thousands of years.
The discovery fills in “exciting pieces of the human evolution story,” wrote Kevin Hatala, an anthropologist and lead author of a new study, in the Conversation, along with two other authors of the study. “(The footprints) stir the imagination: They invite you to follow, to guess what someone was doing and where they were going.”
The research team reached this conclusion after examining previously found skeletal remains and matching the four sets of footprints found in the Turkana Basin, a site in northern Kenya, to two types of hominins, P. boisei, and H. erectus, according to the study. The P. boisei had smaller brains, wide, flat faces, and massive teeth. H. erectus were more similar to modern humans.
Meanwhile, the researchers discovered three isolated footprints seemingly coming from the same hominin, and one long continuous trail of footprints from another. They then relied on earlier experiments that used X-ray technology to understand the imprints in the mud.
They could tell the prints were made by people with different anatomies and gaits.
For example, the researchers determined that the three single footprints had higher arches, suggesting they were more human-like and hypothesizing that they belonged to the H. erectus species. They also noticed that the species responsible for the trail of prints had a big toe that changed position from step to step, suggesting it came from earlier relatives of humans such as P. boisei.
Footprints from a site nearby the basin also showed a similar overlap of the two hominins that occurred more than 100,000 years later. The researchers concluded that the two species lived in harmony together for a long time.
“I would expect the two species would have been aware of each other’s existence on that landscape, and they probably would have recognized each other as being ‘different,’” Hatala told the Guardian. “This raises lots of fascinating questions about how they would have interacted, and we don’t have all of those answers yet.”
He added that they weren’t competing for resources because of differing diets, something they could discern by examining the remains.
Hatala and his team say it is intriguing to think about what the two species thought of each other, and what it would have been like to live among another humanlike species that is similar, but yet so different.
“Fossil footprints are exciting because they provide vivid snapshots that bring our fossil relatives to life,” Hatala said in a statement, continuing, “We can see how living individuals, millions of years ago, were moving around their environments and potentially interacting with each other.”