In this week’s Issue of the Monday Briefing we look into the immense tragedy happening right now in Sudan. On other more peaceful fronts Mamdani secures an historic electoral victory and Bolivia chooses a new path. Tanzanian government represses, while the wolrd salutes the one of the discoverers of DNA. In Europe, US troops leave Romania.
Spotlight: Sudanese Civil War enters its most brutal phase.
On October 26th, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) finally completed the conquest of the city of Al Fashir, in the Darfur region, after 18 months of relentless siege amidst the ongoing Sudanese Civil War. In the aftermath of this decisive victory for the forces opposing the internationally recognized government of Sudan, claims and evidence of atrocities committed by the RSF in the Darfur region and in the conquered city have reached the whole world. With tens of thousands of dead in the span of a few days, this often-forgotten brutal conflict enters its most dramatic phase yet.
The Sudanese Civil War started in April 2023, when the RSF tried to launch a coup against the military government of Sudan. The capital of Khartoum was a battlefield for months after this attempt, but eventually the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) repelled the RSF in May 2025, leading to the current strategic situation in the Country. The recognized Government, headed by General Abdel Fattah, rules most of Sudan from the provisional capital of Port Sudan, on the Red Sea Coast, including the capital. The opposing side has on the other hand a vast control over the Western part of the Country, with General Dagalo using the city of Nyala as its headquarters. Al Fashir was the only city in the western region of Darfur that was still in control of the Governmental forces, making its fall the final act in this de fact division of the country in two.
The scale of the human tragedy currently unfolding in Sudan cannot be understated. A UN report in 2024 stated that both parts of the conflict engaged in an “appalling range of harrowing human rights violations and international crimes”. ACLED, a non-profit that monitors conflicts, estimated that up until December 2024 28,000 people were killed in direct combat, with thousands more from war related malnutrition or displacement. The difficulty of making such estimates leads to wide disagreements among observers, with some even claiming as much as 150,000 casualties in the whole conflict. Nathaniel Raymond, from Yale University, has conducted analysis on video footage on the ground and on satellite images, coming to the conclusion that in the city of Al Fashir only “more people could have died [in 10 days] than have died in the past two years of the war in Gaza”.
While millions are suffering famine and displacement, the only clear fact is that the world is paying too little attention. Many international observers have pointed out to the complete absence of western involvement in this crisis: humanitarian help struggles to achieve its goals in such immense country, and no serious diplomatic movement has come from Washington or Bruxelles, as both blocks do not see Sudan as a priority. Regional actors fill in the void, with Egypt and Saudi Arabia supporting the SAF and the UAE playing a key role in supplying the RSF. Violence in Sudan does not appear to stop, with the further division of the country that appears ever more likely.
World News
Zohran Mamdani Claims NYC Mayoral Victory
By Veronika Nadzieja Lizier-Zmudzinski
On November 4th, elections across the United States took place. The most anticipated being the mayoral race in the US’s largest city.
Zohran Mamdani, a candidate for the Democrat Party, won with over 50% of the votes. Mamdani defeated the former Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo and the city’s former mayor, Eric Adams, who dropped out the race earlier this year.
Mamdani will be the city’s youngest mayor since 1892. He is also the first Muslim and first South Asian mayor of New York. He has continued to embrace his culture throughout the electoral campaign.
Mamdani during his campaign, reached many of the youth around the country, focusing on more socialist policies and continuing to maintain his stance that his priority is to help the people of New York City through public safety groups and centering his focus on making the city more affordable. He believes he can achieve his planned proposals through higher taxation.
James Watson’s epilogue: he had discovered ‘the secret of life’
By Alice Di Terlizzi
American Scientist James Watson, discoverer of DNA’s double helix and Nobel Prize winner,
has expired on Thursday, November 6th, at age 97. His revolutionary work precedes him: in 1953, alongside British scientist F. Crick, Watson left an extraordinary mark within the realm of molecular biology. Despite his remarkable contributions to shaping the newly defined boundaries of science, Watson’s ethnic considerations shed a negative light on his rather enlightening findings. The commendable rationality featured by his scientific mind would be stained by an almost inexplicable irrational thinking, leveraging differences in ethnicity as the means to justify unsupported-by-science racial discrimination.
Watson’s distinguishments have thus ranged from the preciousness of biological advancement, corroborated by positive spillovers on human societies at large, to detrimental inequality-fostering assertions on allegedly genetic IQ differences between White and Black people. The latter had been unfoundedly addressed as intellectually ‘less capable’, thus resulting in the withdrawal of Watson’s title of medical chancellor in New York, and in the scientist’s decision to sell his Nobel Prize to protest against the scientific community.
As a whole figure, James Watson has revolutionized contemporary scientific knowledge. Still, the relevance of such findings may still suffer from popular reluctancy to praise his successes, as resulting from the scientist’s belief in ethnic privilege and origin-produced intellective disparities.
Rodrigo Paz Sworn in as Bolivian President, Ending Decades of Left-Wing Rule
By Diego de Carvalho
Bolivia’s new president, Rodrigo Paz, was sworn into office this Saturday (8) in La Paz, after winning the country’s presidential elections on October 19th. His inauguration marks the end of 20 years of left-wing rule in Bolivia; the country had been governed by the socialist MAS since 2005.
Mr. Paz will inherit an economic crisis, as the country faces high inflation and fuel shortages. The center-right politician has signaled the adoption of market reform and pro-business policies, promising an era of “capitalism for all”. In one of his first actions as president, Mr. Paz also reestablished diplomatic relations with the USA, which were broken in 2008.
Despite being elected with a margin of over 10 percentage points, Mr. Paz will face political difficulties in ruling the country. His Christian Democratic Party does not have a legislative majority and will need to negotiate a coalition with the far-right Libre or the liberal Unity Bloc. Further, his government will face opposition from MAS, who boycotted the country’s general elections, but still has overwhelming support from Bolivia’s indigenous communities.
Guided elections, censorship and repression. The Tanzanian government shows its autocratic nature.
By Riccardo De Ambroggi
On October 29th, presidential elections took place in Tanzania and the citizens express their preference towards the incumbent President Samia Suluhu Hassan. It would have been the normal democratic process, except for the fact that the candidates from the two main opposition parties, Tundu Lissu of Chadema and Luhaga Mpina of ACT-Wazalendo, were excluded from the electoral race, the former arrested in April, the latter disqualified due to formal flaws. Without any real competition, Hassan won with 98% of votes, confirming the dictatorial power of her party, the Chama Cha Mapinduzi, now ruling the country for more than 50 years.
After the announce of Hassan’s victory, the Tanzanian people occupied the streets of Dar Es Salaam and other cities to protest against this dictatorial behavior. The government replied confirming its illiberal nature, imposing a curfew and shutting down Internet connection in the country, to make gathers harder and to make it difficult to verify reports. Furthermore, Chadema accused the security forces of killing between 500 and 800 people during the protests, but the UN has certified only 10 occurred before October 31st. This violence is not new to the Tanzanian executive: in recent months there have been several cases of enforced disappearances of opponents, threatening Tanzania’s relations with the European Union, that cannot accept these practices from one of its main partner in Africa.
The situation is far from being solved, and European intervention have increased the pressure on President Hassan leading probably to wider protests, strengthen by the global attention obtained.
European News
U.S. Troop Withdrawal from Romania Sparks Questions Over NATO’s Future
By Teodora Stefan
Earlier last week, the US has retreated 800 troops that were stationed in Romania. This move caused a wave of uncertainty within NATO countries and called into question the White House’s commitment to Europe’s defense.
In January, the US had announced that they are planning to decrease the number of soldiers present in Europe, following NATO’s agreement to increase national defense spending to 5%. The Trump administration was clear about their plan to reconfigure their geopolitical strategy and shift their focus towards the China-Pacific area. As such, this recent development is seen as a step that aligns with their vision and should not come as a surprise.
NATO officials have declared that they had received a prior announcement regarding the retreat, and that they are developing a plan to substitute for the now empty spots. Yet, European experts and diplomats are still unsure about the meaning of the US military’s broader scope. Former US negotiator for Ukraine Kurt Volker has stated that this measure could send negative signals to Russia and appear as a potential weakening of the allies’ efforts towards their defense against Putin. Going forward, both Washington and its European allies will need to redefine how to maintain a credible and coordinated defense posture.
Articles written by the various members of our team.
I’m Veronika. I grew up in the US but am half-Italian, half-Polish. I’m a first-year BIEM student and am interested in not only economics, but fashion, politics, books, and getting to know the community around me.
Hello everyone! My name is Teodora and I’m a 3rd year BIEM student from Bucharest, Romania. I spend my free time reading up on political issues from around the world and I’m particularly keen on topics concerning the European Union. On a more personal note, I’m passionate about art history, music and writing about the world around me.
