Ethiopia seems to be descending into chaos; the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, is fighting a civil war against the Tigray rebels. Before he was elected in 2018, the Tigray People's Liberation Front held control of the country for 27 years. Foreign countries are pulling out almost all of their citizens. Although he has suffered a series of losses, Mr. Abiy still has a lot of public support.

Julian had already shared this article, but I think it's very relevant to what we've learned recently; economic forces are clashing with indigenous rights to land. The Guatemalan government is forced to choose, and they have chosen to protect businesses at the cost of the environment.

Guatemala has a small but growing film industry. 'Cadejo Blanco' has been internationally recognized and could prompt foreign investment.

Volcon is a company that sells electric offroading vehicles. It seems like they are mostly targeting tourists with this expansion. Tourism is a significant share of the Guatemalan economy.

Choc Che was an Indigenous Mayan medicine specialist and worked to preserve herbal remedies and traditional knowledge. He was tortured and killed by his Christian neighbors for practicing witchcraft. This is part of the pattern of violence against indigenous people by Christian extremists.

Despite the government's imprisonment of protesters, there are plans for a protest on November 15th in Cuba. They are protesting the inequality that exists in Cuba despite its government supposedly being communist. They are led by Yunior García, an artist.

Russia is hitting its highest daily cases of COVID since the beginning of the pandemic despite being the first to authorize a vaccine. They have plentiful supplies but like the U.S., they are suffering from vaccine hesitancy. Putin is ordering a one-week lockdown starting October 30th.

This article talks about the economic conditions in Iran, which have been made much worse by US sanctions.

I think this article gives a quick summary of the contentious issues in the Canadian election happening today. It also gives some insight into how the parliamentary system works in practice; Trudeau's party, the liberals, is receiving criticism from both the NDP (further left) and the conservative party. I thought it was interesting how their system in practice ends up being not unlike ours; I think you can draw a parallel between their left parties and factions within the Democratic Party.

Intelligence officials are saying that even after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the biggest threats to the US are from other countries. Because we can't go to war with everyone (and the number of people that wars hurt fuel anti-US sentiment) I wonder if a more effective strategy against these threats will be developed.

A man stabbed 6 people with a knife in a grocery store; the knife was from the store. This is New Zealand's first terrorist attack since the Christchurch shooting in 2019 which prompted stricter gun regulation. It would be interesting to compare different levels and effectiveness of terrorism across different countries, especially ones with different levels of gun control.