France will deploy some 70,000 police officers in Paris and other cities ahead of a new round of nationwide protests on Saturday, with Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez warning of "very high risk of public disorder". The minister pledged an "extremely firm" response after mass protests on October 17 degenerated into rioting and looting.

French minister warns of 'very high' violence risk as country braces for Halloween protests

Polish President Karol Nawrocki has canceled a planned trip to Senegal and is returning to Poland after Prime Minister Donald Tusk ordered a raid on the country’s top court. The court has described the raid as a “coup.”

Riot police surrounded the headquarters of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw on Friday night, and judges Bogdan Swieczkowski – the court’s president – and Bartlomiej Sochanski were suspended and had their profiles scrubbed from the court’s website.

Shortly after officers cordoned off the building, the court’s official X account claimed that the website had been subjected to an “unlawful takeover,” and that the two justices had been wrongfully removed. “All persons participating in these actions are committing the crime of a coup d’état,” the court stated.

Too often, the Global South is portrayed through crisis and through outsiders’ eyes. In this speech to the Belt and Road Journalists Forum, Gordon Joseph details how stronger media partnerships and fairer access to technology could put local voices in control.

Gordon Joseph
The Global South doesn't lack stories. It lacks the power to tell them

Let me begin with a question.

Who has the right to tell our stories?

Who decides which suffering deserves international attention? Whose tears make the headlines? Whose voices are trusted to explain a crisis, a conflict, a struggle for human rights or the everyday realities of ordinary people?

Atlanta: The US was forced to cancel the traditional “family photo” of foreign ministers at the G20 in Atlanta after diplomats from around the world refused to appear alongside Russia’s Sergey Lavrov, who is attending at the invitation of the American hosts.

The photo had been scheduled for 10am Friday (Atlanta time) but did not take place. There was no statement from the US about the cancellation, but an official said they did not want the issue to become a distraction.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong made it known she would not participate in a photograph with Lavrov, a source with knowledge of the matter said. Reuters reported Canada also objected, citing a diplomat familiar with the situation. Wong was contacted for comment.

There is a certain kind of travel itinerary you learn to recognize after a career in the intelligence business. A politician under criminal investigation, ordered by his country’s Supreme Court to surrender his passport, slips across a border at night. Within forty minutes he is aboard a private jet with a colorful ownership history. The jet avoids his home country’s airspace, refuels in a third country and lands at an airfield in Miami with a long and storied past. By the time anyone in Brasília has finished drafting a press release, he is in Florida, holding a fresh immigration status and promising to lead his nation from exile.

Flávio Bolsonaro’s Great Escape, Brought to You by the Usual Suspects

by Larry C. Johnson

The German pharmaceutical giant Bayer won a trial on Thursday over claims the Roundup weedkiller, manufactured by subsidiary Monsanto, caused cancer in three women.

The Missouri jury sided unanimously with Bayer. It's the first trial since a US Supreme Court ruling that limits complaints over the product.

It’s been said that truth is the first casualty of war. What about the Ukraine war? I’ve followed the news closely, and have found ample evidence in headlines and storylines that the old adage holds true today. Too often the Ukraine news stories we see are misleading instead of informative.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Ukraine News

by William Dunkerley

For instance, in March 2014 CNN reported that Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution was “standing up on behalf of democracy.” A month earlier, The Week cited many pundits and policymakers also characterizing events as a victory for democracy. It was a clear and compelling news theme.

The most pervasive form of discrimination against Jewish Australians comes from progressives motivated by social justice who give antisemitism a “respectable veneer”, argues a new report from Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism (ASECA).

The report describes this mainstream group as combining the hostility of Islamist extremism with far-left ideology delivered through a progressive lens, singling them out for making antisemitism acceptable and even fashionable.

ASECA Priorities, a new road map report to be released on Friday, identifies evolving threats and progress in tackling antisemitism, with envoy Jillian Segal also levelling heavy criticism at universities and the ABC.

It includes recommendations for reforms across society, from health and the arts to migration and the digital world.

China is a modern superpower, as is the U.S., but a qualitatively different one. The U.S. uses military aggression, coups and sanctions to impose U.S. corporate interests worldwide. China is a predominantly peaceful power that respects national sovereignty, mutual development, and non-interference.

Revolutionary Third World Leaders Praise China’s World Role

By Stansfield Smith

Despite opposing imperialism, too many in the Western left recycle Western anti-China narratives that liken Chinese conduct to Western imperial conduct, as in Sri Lanka, Congo and Occupied West Bank. Some even criticize China for lack of aid to Cuba.

Under federal legislation, the prime minister has the power to decide how many staff members each MP gets beyond the five electorate officers afforded to every politician. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has repeatedly petitioned Albanese to let her hire five more staffers now that her party has achieved minor party status, following the defection of former National Party leader Barnaby Joyce last December.

Hanson has twice written to Albanese to request staffing equity with the Greens, which would increase One Nation’s allocation from four to nine and raise salaries so the party could attract more experienced staff. Her requests have not received a formal response.

Canada and the European Union (EU) agreed to "ever closer association" but dropped the contentious idea of associate EU membership in a joint declaration seen by Reuters ahead of a Montreal summit hosted by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney starting on Thursday.

Canada and EU drop associate membership plan in bid to deepen ties

For four years, Europe presented its energy break with Russia as a strategic and moral necessity, with Brussels expanding sanctions, promising to cut Moscow’s revenues and preparing a complete ban on Russian liquefied natural gas. Yet European companies bought more LNG from Russia’s Yamal project in the first nine months of 2026 than in the same period of 2025.

Europe’s Energy Hypocrisy, Russian LNG Profits and US Dependence

BY Freddie Ponton

EU ports received a record 12.18 million tonnes of Yamal LNG between January and September 2026, an increase of 9.5% over the same period in 2025. The gas arrived in 167 cargoes, roughly one every 1.6 days. The EU received 85% of Yamal’s recorded deliveries by volume even as the project’s worldwide shipments fell by 1.3%.

They have left everything behind to get away from US President Donald Trump's America. Entrepreneurs, academics, scientists and students: tens of thousands of US citizens have moved to Ireland in recent years. Last year alone, some 10,000 Americans settled there and nearly 100 even applied for asylum – citing political, racial or gender persecution. 

For some US citizens, moving to Ireland feels like coming home. Around one in 10 Americans claims to have Irish roots, with ancestors who fled famine and hardship in the 19th century onwards, and applications for Irish passports have never been higher.

This time of year, there is no shortage of monsters to frighten us.

Hollywood has given us vampires, zombies, mad scientists, masked killers and creatures that emerge from the darkness to prey upon the unsuspecting.

But perhaps the most frightening monster of all is the government that has become so accustomed to wielding extraordinary power that it cannot imagine a future in which that power is diminished.

The Doomsday Government: Preparing for the End of the World, Not the End of Power

by John W. And Nisha Whitehead