President Donald Trump on Monday announced by tweet that he had fired his defense secretary Mark Esper, further destabilizing a government already navigating Trump’s refusal to concede election defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. “Mark Esper has been terminated. I would like to thank him for his service,” Trump said on Twitter, announcing his replacement by […]

Ivory Coast’s constitutional council on Monday validated President Alassane Ouattara’s reelection to a third term after his landslide victory in an October 31 ballot marred by clashes and an opposition boycott. Ouattara, 78, won by more than 94 percent of the vote, but Ivory Coast is caught in a standoff after opposition leaders boycotted the […]

Turkey’s lira surged to a five-percent gain against the dollar Monday after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law gave up his finance minister brief following the appointment of a new central bank chief. Investors read the resignation of Berat Albayrak  — the powerful husband of Erdogan’s elder daughter Esra — and of the central bank’s Murat […]

Joe Biden, the new president-elect of the United States, on Monday announced the formation of a task force of medical experts to plan his response to the coronavirus pandemic. The transition Covid-19 advisory board would guide preparations of Biden’s federal response to the coronavirus pandemic until he assumes office in January, according to a statement. […]

Russia’s elections chief said Monday that voting by mail in the US presidential election had paved the way for massive voter fraud, echoing rhetoric from the campaign of Donald Trump. Ella Pamfilova, the head of Russia’s elections commission, said she had carefully studied mail-in voting in the United States and found the process vulnerable to […]