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Eritrean asylum seekers clash with police during a demonstration in Tel Aviv.

dpa via Reuters Connect

Eritrean riot fuels Bibi backlash

Over 150 people were injured, eight seriously, during violent clashes between hundreds of Eritrean migrants in Tel Aviv, Israel, over the weekend. Protesters breached police barriers, smashing storefronts, car windows, and an event set-up at the Eritrean embassy. Riot police responded with tear gas and stun grenades, and at least 30 officers were injured in battles with demonstrators. Thirty-nine suspects, including some found to be carrying weapons, tear gas, and an electrical stun gun, were arrested.

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picture of Planet Earth.

Annie Gugliotta

Ukraine’s war and the non-Western world

A new poll provides more evidence that Western and non-Western countries just don’t agree on how best to respond to the war in Ukraine.

Most Americans and Europeans say their governments should help Ukraine repel Russian invaders. Many say Russia’s threat extends beyond Ukraine. People and leaders in non-Western countries mainly want the war to end as quickly as possible, even if Ukraine must surrender some of its land to Russia to bring peace.

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US President Joe Biden during a campaign stop ahead of the midterm elections in Hallandale Beach, Florida.

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

What We're Watching: Biden's secret papers, Ukrainians in Oklahoma, Tigrayan demobilization

Check your closets for classified docs

It’s been a rollercoaster kind of week for US President Joe Biden.

On the downside, it seems he just plumb forgot to return not one but two batches of classified documents from his days as VP. The first cache was reportedly found on Nov. 2 – yes, you read that right, just days before the midterms – but not reported publicly until Monday. Then, on Wednesday, reports emerged of a second tranche of unreturned docs discovered at another location. Biden, keen to distinguish himself from the way former President Donald Trump handled his own classified documents scandal, said his lawyers followed protocol and immediately contacted the National Archives about returning the documents. A Justice Department review is underway.

The good news this week for Biden is that for the first time since the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in Aug. 2021, his approval rating (46%) is now higher than his disapproval (45%), according to an Economist/YouGov survey. Why the uptick? Biden has signed major pieces of legislation like CHIPS and the Inflation Reduction Act in recent months. Meanwhile, Republicans blew their chance for a “red wave” in the midterms, and the GOP's chaotic election of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy shows just how deep divisions in the party are. Still, House GOP members are hellbent on investigating Biden over a range of issues including, perhaps, the newfound classified files. Biden has had a good nine months — could the GOP-controlled house change his fortunes?

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Supporters gather in front of the house of Argentina's Vice-President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner after she was attacked in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian

What We’re Watching: Argentine VP assassination attempt, Ethiopian escalation, Zaporizhzhia tour

Argentine VP survives assassination attempt

Argentina's influential VP Cristina Fernández de Kirchner survived an assassination attempt on Thursday night outside her residence in Buenos Aires. A gunman took aim from close range, but his loaded weapon failed to fire. Cops then arrested the man, a Brazilian national with a history of following hate groups on social media. We don’t know the motive and political violence in the country rarely gets bloody, but political tensions have been running very high since last week, when a prosecutor asked for the far-left firebrand VP and former president to be sentenced to 12 years in prison for corruption. Still, her trial will be anything but swift, and Cristina — as she’s universally known — is unlikely to go to jail for charges she calls a "witch hunt." President Alberto Fernández (no relation, nor a big fan of the VP) declared a national holiday on Friday, which the conservative opposition decried as a gambit to turn out crowds in favor of Cristina.

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What We’re Watching: SCOTUS immigration ruling, Barbecue runs Haiti quake relief, Eritreans back in Tigray

SCOTUS brings back "Remain in Mexico" policy: The US Supreme Court has ordered the Biden administration to reinstate a Trump-era immigration rule that requires asylum-seekers who attempt to cross the US southern border to wait in Mexico until their applications get processed. This is bad news for Joe Biden for two reasons. First, he cancelled that policy because it failed to accomplish its stated goal of reducing processing backlogs, while leaving thousands of migrants stranded in Mexico in legal limbo. Second, Biden knows he can't actually implement the policy anew if Mexico doesn't agree to accept migrants whom the US wants to send back. More broadly, the ruling throws yet another wrench into an already testy US-Mexico relationship — with tens of thousands of vulnerable human beings caught in the middle. Biden, who's tied up with the Afghanistan fiasco these days, wants to avoid a tussle with the Mexicans amid record numbers of migrants arriving at the US border so far this year. The Mexicans, for their part, will probably want something in exchange (maybe COVID vaccines) to be helpful.

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A building is seen through a bullet hole in a window of the Africa Hotel in the town of Shire, Tigray region, Ethiopia, March 16, 2021. Picture taken March 16, 2021.

REUTERS/Baz Ratner

Is Ethiopia’s Tigray region really on the road to peace?

For eight months, one of the world's most gruesome civil wars has raged in the East African nation of Ethiopia, pitting the national government against militant leaders in the ethnically-distinct region of Tigray. But earlier this week it looked like the conflict had suddenly stopped after an unexpected ceasefire offer from the government. Will the truce hold, and what's at stake for the country and the wider region? Let's take a look.

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What We’re Watching: UK vaccine rollout, Eritrea in Tigray, football diplomacy

UK rolls out COVID vaccine: The United Kingdom on Tuesday kicked off the first COVID-19 vaccination campaign in a Western country amid global hopes of seeing a light at the end of the coronavirus tunnel. "Go for it," said the first patient to be inoculated, a woman who turns 91 next week. Great Britain is pioneering a vaccine jointly developed by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German company BioNTech which has proven to be 95 percent effective against COVID-19 infections. Meanwhile, Russia "launched" its own national vaccination campaign just ahead of the UK despite the fact that its miracle drug, Sputnik V, is still in the midst of clinical trials to test its safety and efficacy. With the US thought to be next in line to start vaccinating large swaths of residents, the success of these national vaccine rollouts — which will likely take way longer to carry out in developing nations — will be crucial towards global efforts to end the pandemic as soon as possible.

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Ethiopia at war with itself

Ethnic tensions between Ethiopia's federal government and nationalist forces in the northern Tigray region have erupted into a full-blown armed conflict. Are we on the brink of yet another civil war that could upend the Horn of Africa?

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