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Following massive, youth-led anti-corruption demonstrations in Nepal, the country's former Chief Justice Sushila Karki looks set to become interim prime minister. This week, protesters set fire to the Parliament and other government buildings, and at least 21 people were killed in a police crackdown. The protests continued even after the government lifted its ban on social media platforms and Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli resigned.
"We don't really know what is happening at the moment … since most of our state institutions have been either destroyed or are nonfunctional," says Pranaya Rana, a writer and journalist based in Kathmandu. "We really are counting on the new generation, the Gen Z, who led the protests, to take us forward."
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Brazil's Supreme Court has sentenced former President Jair Bolsonaro to more than 27 years in prison for plotting a military coup and seeking to "annihilate" democracy in Brazil following his election defeat in 2022. The sentencing marks the first time a former Brazilian head of state is brought to trial and convicted for attempting to overthrow the government. Bolsonaro and his co-conspirators, who were also sentenced to prison, hatched a plan that involved using armed forces to assassinate the President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
The decision was made amid political pressure from the Trump administration to drop the case against Bolsonaro. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledged that the U.S. would "respond accordingly," calling the ruling a witch hunt. "Latin American countries need to be united and have a very strong position to defend democracy and to defend our sovereignty and independence," says Maria Luísa Mendonça, director of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights in Brazil.
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