At the UN podium today: Iran and Ukraine
The presidents of two different countries currently at war with nuclear superpowers are at the mic today, as Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky address the hall. Pezeshkian gave Iran’s side of the story, calling out US President Donald Trump by name and defiantly declaring Iran refuses to “bend the knee.” The speech came after Trump yesterday threatened again to annihilate the country if it doesn’t come to terms now. Pezeshkian is mostly a figurehead, but his message reflects what Iran’s deeper power centers – the military elite and the Supreme Leader – want the world to hear. Zelensky, meanwhile, will once again ask the world this afternoon for more help in his fight against the Russian invasion. Zelensky is under pressure even from his allies, though, as European leaders told him yesterday that he has to accelerate governance and rule-of-law reforms before they’ll spot him another $100 billion.
Philippine Senate makes it easier to disqualifying Duterte
A rule change by the Philippine Senate has effectively reduced the number of votes needed to convict Vice President Sara Duterte in her impeachment trial. The Vice President, an early frontrunner in the 2028 presidential race, is accused of misusing public funds and threatening the lives of the president and his family, after a speech in which she appeared to suggest she had arranged for him to be assassinated if she herself was ever killed. Duterte and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., scions of the Philippines' two most influential political families, ran for office together in 2022, but quickly fell out. The new ruling, pushed by Marcos allies, maintains the two-thirds majority required to convict, but excludes from the total count four of the country’s 24 senators on the grounds that they face legal proceedings of their own, or haven’t participated in the trial. In practice, that lowers the threshold for conviction from 16 to 14. If convicted, Duterte will be banned from running for president in 2028.
New rebel alliance targets Ethiopia’s Prime Minister
Ethiopia could be on the brink of another civil war, just four years after its last one ended. On Sunday, seven rebel groups across the country – including the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which fought against the government in the previous conflict from 2020 to 2022 – announced a new alliance aimed at removing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed from power. In a fresh shot across the bow, the TPLF has already reportedly seized control of airports from federal forces in the Tigray region. Tensions have been building over the past year in the ethnically patchworked East African country of 139 million people. During national elections in June, Abiy’s government suspended voting in Tigray, citing security concerns. Abiy, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for ending Ethiopia’s long-running conflict with neighboring Eritrea, has faced growing accusations of cracking down on political opponents and restricting political freedoms.
