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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is seeking a third presidential term, with the election scheduled for 10–12 December. He is expected to win and remain president until at least the next election in 2029. Sisi has been in power since 2014 after leading a coup d’état the previous year against the country’s first-ever democratically elected leader, Muhammad Morsi, who belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood. Since then, Sisi has prioritised stability and security, but has also presided over the worst economic crisis in Egypt’s recent history.

Democracy under Sisi has been moribund and at times farcical. During the last election, in March 2018, the government blocked the president’s opponents from standing against him, using intimidation and threats of arrest. Sisi ultimately won the election with 97% of the votes. The president’s primary opponent had initially campaigned for him and only became a candidate to validate the election. Many Egyptians joked that even Sisi’s opponent voted for him.

In the 2023 election, a key opposition figure, Ahmad Tantawi, withdrew in October, citing his inability to obtain the minimum number of endorsements. His supporters argued, however, that the Egyptian authorities stopped them from offering their endorsements. Tantawi is currently facing prosecution, as are several individuals involved in his campaign.

In late 2017, as the self-proclaimed Islamic State lost the territory it once controlled in eastern Syria, the prospect that the region’s hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons would soon return to their homes gained renewed attention. For those contemplating a return, however, the decision is far from straightforward. That is particularly true of those from Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, two of the most important cities in eastern Syria. Both have suffered heavy destruction since the start of the uprising in 2011, causing population displacements prior to the Islamic State’s arrival, during the group’s period in control, and following the cities’ liberation.

While it has devastated homes, livelihoods, public services, and state institutions, the war in Syria has also deprived cities of the economic and political functions they played prior to 2011. The conflict has drawn in a wide array of local and foreign actors and fragmented the country’s social structures. That is particularly true in areas that were under Islamic State control, where complex economic, social, military, and political dynamics emerged. In Raqqa, for instance, both before and after the rise of the Islamic State, the local population had almost entirely fled the city as a result of fighting.1 Deir Ezzor, in turn, no longer fulfills its prewar role as a political and economic hub for eastern Syria, and today’s cross-section of antagonistic military and political forces makes lasting stability improbable. Kurdish-Arab tensions add another complicating factor to prospects for a durable settlement in Syria’s east.

A notorious Russian military unit has carried out cyber-attacks on Ukrainian allies around the world designed to disrupt aid efforts, according to a joint defence briefing by Western intelligence agencies.

They said attacks both before and after the full-scale invasion in February 2022 were carried out by the same group believed to be behind the poisonings of a former Russian double agent and his daughter in Salisbury in 2018.

Unit 29155, which has been linked to high-profile espionage and sabotage campaigns in recent years, expanded into cyber operations in 2020, agencies in the UK, US and several other countries said in a joint statement.

The intervention comes as European governments seek to counter what they say is increased Russian espionage in the wake of the Ukraine war.

Iran reached an agreement with Russia to transfer hundreds of missiles in 2023, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, but the Sept. 10 announcement was the first time that the United States confirmed that Iran shipped any missile systems to Russia.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a Sept. 10 press conference in London that the United States had warned Iran publicly and privately that transferring the missiles would be a “dramatic escalation.” Blinken said that Russia is likely to use the weapons within the next several weeks.

Iran called the accusation “a vile propaganda ploy” and said that the United States is disseminating “misleading information.”

Iran was prohibited from transferring missiles and related technologies under UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and modified UN sanctions on Iran. The missile restrictions expired in October 2023. Prior to the expiration, Iran transferred drones to Russia in violation of the UN restrictions. Iran admitted to exporting some drones, but denied it was a violation of Resolution 2231.

The United States and European countries responded to the missile transfer by announcing additional sanctions against Iran, including against Iran Air.

France, Germany, and the United Kingdom said in a Sept. 10 statement that the transfer of missiles is “a direct threat to European security.” The move is “further escalation of Iran’s military support to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and will see Iranian missiles reaching European soil,” the statement said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Tehran and Moscow are cooperating in “sensitive” areas, but did not confirm or deny the transfer of missiles.

Blinken said the missile involved was the Fath-360, which has a range of 75 miles. He said Russian military personnel were trained in Iran to use that system and suggested that Russia will use the Iranian systems for “closer-range targets.”

U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that Iran benefits militarily from the security relationship with Russia. The two countries share technology and tactics, he said

For over three decades, every Chinese foreign minister’s first overseas trip of the year has been to Africa. This year continued the tradition with China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, visiting Egypt, Tunisia, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire. Notably, every one of these countries is coastal. And yet, at a time of continued speculation over China’s next military installation in Africa, none of these countries has featured prominently as potential locations in previous analyses. 

We might, therefore, reasonably ask what China’s current considerations are around basing in Africa. Faced with an increasingly multipolar and assertive Africa at a time of domestic economic challenge, however, China’s long-term strategy remains unclear.

When Vladimir Putin was named president in 1999, Russia’s constitution limited the president to two consecutive terms. That’s why, after his second term ended in 2008, he served as prime minister before becoming president again in 2012. However, in January 2020 Putin drafted a constitutional amendment that would allow him to remain president for two more terms. It was included in a package of amendments that was approved by the Russian legislature and, in July 2020, by Russian voters in a national referendum. In the two decades of Vladimir Putin’s reign, he has consolidated his rule and projected to the Russian people an image of Russia as a global power. He turned Russia from a nascent democratic state into an autocratic one, expanded Russia’s influence in the Middle East, strengthened Russian relations with China, and displayed a willingness to use force to achieve his goals, as in his annexation of Crimea in 2014 and his large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The Iran nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is a landmark accord reached between Iran and several world powers, including the United States, in July 2015. Under its terms, Iran agreed to dismantle much of its nuclear program and open its facilities to more extensive international inspections in exchange for billions of dollars’ worth of sanctions relief.

Proponents of the deal said that it would help prevent a revival of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and thereby reduce the prospects for conflict between Iran and its regional rivals, including Israel and Saudi Arabia. However, the deal has been in jeopardy since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from it in 2018. In retaliation for the U.S. departure and for deadly attacks on prominent Iranians in 2020, including one by the United States, Iran has resumed its nuclear activities. UN inspectors reported in early 2023 that Iran had enriched trace amounts of uranium to nearly weapons-grade levels, sparking international alarm. 

President Joe Biden said that the United States would return to the JCPOA if Iran came back into compliance, but after more than two years of stop-and-go talks, the countries are nowhere near a compromise, and as of late 2023, provisions of the agreement have started to expire.

Uranium particles enriched to near bomb-grade levels have been found at an Iranian nuclear facility, according to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, as the US warned that Tehran’s ability to build a nuclear bomb was accelerating.

In a restricted report seen by CNN, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that uranium particles enriched to 83.7% purity – which is close to the 90% enrichment levels needed to make a nuclear bomb – had been found in Iran’s Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP), an underground nuclear facility located some 20 miles northeast of the city of Qom.

The report says that in January, the IAEA took environmental samples at the Fordow plant, which showed the presence of high enriched uranium particles up to 83.7% purity.

Iran increases its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium, which was announced as 62.8 kilograms in September 2021, to 751 kilograms over three years

- Iran states that it will realign its nuclear activities with the agreement if US returns to nuclear deal and relevant sanctions are lifted

TEHRAN

After the US withdrew from the nuclear deal six years ago, Iran has accelerated its nuclear activities, increasing its stockpile of 60% enriched uranium more than 14-fold in three years.

In 2015, an agreement was signed between Iran and the permanent members of the UN Security Council -- the US, Russia, China, the UK, France, and Germany (5+1) -- to regulate and oversee Tehran's nuclear activities.

The nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), allows Tehran to continue enriching uranium up to 3.67% and to possess no more than 300 kilograms of uranium.

The agreement allows Iran to sell excess uranium. Previously, Iran enriched uranium up to 20% purity.

On May 8, 2018, under former US President Donald Trump, Washington withdrew from the agreement and reimposed sanctions on Iran. A year later, Iran began suspending some commitments due to lack of counteraction against the sanctions by other parties.