BANGLADESH, the eighth largest populated country in the world, is going to elect its 11th Jatiya Sansad (national parliament) on December 30.  Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister of the country and leader of the ruling Awami League, said in one meeting that this election will not be a cake walk for her party and its allies.

A SIMPLISTIC answer to this question would be, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, popularly called AMLO, is the president-elect of Mexico. But this is not all. The real answer to the question can only be understood when it is located in the broad political conditions in which the Mexican elections had taken place, the politics of AMLO and his party.

A PUBLIC meeting of Indo Canadian Workers Association (ICWA) of Canada was organised in Surrey, Canada on June 30, 2018. Tikender Singh Panwar former deputy mayor of Shimla and member of the CPI(M)’s PD/Lok Lahar unit was the chief guest and the key note speaker. This public meeting was attended by near 100 people from different walks of life. Tikender had come to address the world cities congress in Montreal on climate change and on this occasion participated in the ICWA meeting.

THE allegations and counter allegations were flying thick and fast! The summit of the G-7 in Quebec in Canada saw these fireworks. This was not an abrupt development; but the magnitude of spat was mind boggling. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office released a photo of multiple leaders appearing to confront a displeased Trump. Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton, used the image in his own Twit criticising foreign leaders observed, “Just another #G7 where other countries expect America will always be their bank. The President made it clear today. No more.”

VENEZUELAN President Nicolas Maduro was re-elected as the president on May 20, with 6.2 million votes, beating out his closest rival Henri Falcon, who secured 1.9 million votes. Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) announced the result stating that Maduro had won with 67.79 per cent of all votes cast, ahead of Henri Falcon, who won 21.01 per cent. Due to a boycott announced by the main opposition parties of the right-wing Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) coalition, the turnout was 46 per cent, with only 9,085,629 of Venezuela’s 20,527,571 registered voters casting ballots.