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1. Which party won the most votes in Slovakias early parliamentary elections on Saturday?

The liberal PS party

The populist Smer party

The center-left Hlas party

The conservative KDH party

Smer, which won 22.9 percent of the vote, is led by Robert Fico, a pro-Russian former prime minister who has promised to stop aid to Ukraine. Even with a victory, though, Fico will have to work hard to secure a government, Amanda Coakley wrote last month.

2. In other election news, who won the Maldives presidential election runoff over the weekend?

Mohamed Muizzu, leader of the opposition Peoples National Congress

Incumbent President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih

Former Home Minister Umar Naseer

Maldives Reform Movement leader Ahmed Faris Maumoon

he election was, in part, seen as a referendum on great-power competition between China and India, Foreign Policys Michael Kugelman wrote in South Asia Brief last month.

3. The European Union on Tuesday announced an aid package worth some $680 million to which country?

Somalia

Afghanistan

Myanmar

Ethiopia

The pledge came a day before the deadline for renewing an investigation into human rights abuses during Ethiopias recent war in its Tigray region. Kate Hixon and Kehinde A. Togun argued in FP in July that reengagement with Ethiopia should not come at the expense of holding its government to account.

4. Which British government official turned heads on Tuesday with a speech that railed against undocumented immigrants and loose national borders?

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak

Home Secretary Suella Braverman

Defense Secretary Grant Shapps

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly

Bravermans speech highlights a global turn toward isolationism, a phenomenon explored in a new book that was recently reviewed in FP by Jan-Werner Mller.

5. Kenyan lawmakers on Wednesday said what was required before police could be deployed for a peacekeeping mission in Haiti?

Funding from the United Nations

Advanced weapons from the United States

Approval by Kenyas Parliament

Housing in Port-au-Prince

The pushback from Kenyas political opposition comes after the United Nations approved the deployment of the multinational force, which FPs Alexandra Sharp reports on in World Brief.

6. A teenage Iranian girl is reportedly in a coma after a confrontation with police in the Tehran metro on Wednesday over what?

Violating the hijab law

Tampering with the metro tracks

Throwing rocks at the officers

Protesting freedom of speech restrictions

The encounter follows Irans parliament passing a bill seeking to enforce the mandatory hijab law more strictly, Sina Toossi wrote in September.

7. FIFA announced on Wednesday that it would hold some 2030 mens World Cup games in which three Latin American countries?

Argentina, Paraguay, and Chile

Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia

Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador

Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay

The early games in South America are a nod to the tournaments earliest days, with Uruguays match slated to be played in the stadium that hosted the first-ever World Cup in 1930, FPs Catherine Osborn writes in Latin America Brief.

8. A South Korean report on Thursday said North Korea has stopped the nuclear reactor at its main atomic complex in order to do what?

Modernizing renovations to speed up production

Extract plutonium for weapons production

Investigate recent nuclear waste accidents

Convert it into a uranium enrichment facility

The expected harvesting of plutonium comes alongside a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over weapons production and technology-sharing negotiations, FPs Jack Detsch reported last month.

9. Danish researchers this week announced that Viking buildings possessed what?

Glass windows

Running water

Ventilation systems

Bathrooms

The glass panes can be dated from pre-medieval times, suggesting that Vikings were more advanced than previously thought, The Associated Press reports.

10. A Saudi Arabian athlete broke a Guinness world record when she rowed a boat how many miles across open water in just over 57 minutes?

5 miles

6.2 miles

8.6 miles

12.3 miles

She attempted the record in the Red Sea off the coast of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, UPI reports. The effort was complicated by extreme heat, among other factors.

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Slovakia's Election and Iran's Police - Foreign Policy

The Indian mens kabaddi team will take on familiar foes Iran in the final of the Asian Games 2023 in Hangzhou, the Peoples Republic of China on Saturday.

The India vs Iran kabaddi final will be played at Xiaoshan Guali Sports Centre at 12:30 PM IST on Saturday. The IND vs IRI match will be available on live streaming and live telecast in India.

India have been the most dominant kabaddi team in Asian Games history. Indian men won seven successive gold medals since kabaddi was introduced at the Asian Games at Beijing 1990 but their juggernaut was halted by Iran at Jakarta 2018.

India lost to Iran 27-18 in the semi-finals of the 2018 Asian Games for bronze. However, Indias squad for the Asian Games 2023 kabaddi features a completely different set of players.

Indian kabaddi team captain Pawan Sehrawat leads the 12-member squad that includes seasoned raiders from Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) Naveen Kumar, Arjun Deshwal and Aslam Inamdar. The defence is being manned by vice-captain Sunil Kumar and Parvesh Bhainswal.

En route to the final at Hangzhou 2023, India beat Pakistan in the semi-finals. They topped their group unbeaten with wins over Thailand, Bangladesh, Chinese Taipei and Japan.

Meanwhile, Iran, led by their star defender Fazel Atrachali and all-rounders Mohammad Esmaeil Nabibakhsh and Mohammad Reza Shadlu, produced the goods against Chinese Taipei in the semi-finals. They also went unbeaten in the group with wins over Pakistan, Malaysia and the Republic of Korea.

Fazel Atrachali, as captain, and Mohammad Esmaeil Nabibakhsh were part of the gold medal-winning Iran kabaddi team at the 2018 Asian Games.

India will also play the final in the womens kabaddi event. The Indian womens kabaddi team, led by Ritu Negi, will play Chinese Taipei in the final. The two sides played out a tie in the group stages. Chinese Taipei showed the door to 2018 champions Iran in the semi-finals and will play for gold against two-time champions India.

The womens Asian Games 2023 kabaddi final will also be held on Saturday.

Excerpt from:
India vs Iran kabaddi, Asian Games 2023 final: Where to watch live ... - Olympics

Iranian producer Elaheh Nobakht, whose credits include Dreams Gate, the doc depicting an all-female Kurdish militia that launched earlier this year from Berlin, has been banned by Iranian authorities from traveling outside the country.

Nobakht who is a board member of the Iranian Producers Association (IPA) and of the Iranian Documentary Producer Association (AOIDP) was stopped by security guards in early August upon re-entering Iran from a film presentation in Portugal at Tehrans Imam Khomeini airport. The guards confiscated her passport, laptop and mobile phone, according to a knowledgeable source. No reason has been given for this action.

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Due to the travel ban Nobakht has been unable to travel from Iran toArmenias Apricot Tree Film Festival, where she had been selected to serve as a member of the jury, and to Spains San Sebastian fest. Nobakht, who is a fixture on the international film festival circuit, had been invited to San Sebastian to present new projects in the pipeline at her Tehran-based Eli Image production and distribution company. The ban has also prevented her from attending a co-production workshop in Turkey.

Besides Negin AhmadisDreams Gate other recent Eli Image productions include Farnaz Jurabchian and Mohammadreza Jurabchians doc Silent House, on the impact of the 1979 revolution on three generations of an upper-middle-class Iranian family, which launched last year from Amsterdams IDFA fest; and Mahmoud Ghaffaris The Apple Day, about the economic hardships of an Iranian family in a mountain village that bowed in February from Berlin.

News of Nobakhts travel ban surfaced Friday, on the same day of the announcement that this years Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, who is currently imprisoned for advocating for womens rights in the country.

Human rights efforts in Iran have long been an urgent issue in the entertainment industry, with filmmakers hailing from the country raising their voices about the oppression being endured. Last week Iranian directorJafar Panahiwrote an impassioned plea demanding that his set designer, Leila Naghdipari, be released from jail after she was arrested during protests marking the one-year anniversary of Mahsa Aminis death.

Today, Iranian independent cinema is more that ever struggling to breathe under the boots of the security forces, Panahi wrote, adding: Im worried about Leila and Im worried about Iranian cinema.

Naghdipari, who is a board member of the Iranian Film Designer Guild, was reportedly granted bail and released from jail on Oct. 2, following appeals from the Berlin Film Festival and many other international film institutions.

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Iranian Authorities Ban Dreams Gate Producer Elaheh Nobakht From Traveling to Festivals - Yahoo Entertainment

1. US supplies Ukraine with a million rounds of ammunition seized from Iran  The Guardian
2. US sends seized Iranian ammunition to Ukraine  Reuters
3. US Sends Ukraine 1.1 Million Rounds of Ammunition Seized from Iran  The New York Times

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US supplies Ukraine with a million rounds of ammunition seized from Iran - The Guardian

In June 2014, Dina Esfandiary and Ariane Tabatabai wrote an article in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, making the case that Iran had genuine and reasonable concerns about its nuclear fuel supplies and that it would need many more centrifuges to become energy independent. There had to be a mechanism to guarantee Iranian supply, they wrote, a position plainly sympathetic to Tehrans interests.

The Bulletin identified Esfandiary as a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and Tabatabai as a political scientist at the RAND Corporation. What it did not say was that both women belonged to the Iran Experts Initiative. According to blockbuster reporting in Semafor and Iran International, it was a high-level informal influence operation, involving a handful of scholars of Iranian descent, that was conceived and manipulated by the Iranian regime.

Another well-known participant in I.E.I. was Ali Vaez, now the Iran Project director at the International Crisis Group. Over several years, the trio wrote guest essays (including in The Times) and gave scores of interviews to major Western media outlets, making them unusually influential in the debates about Iran.

Vaez is also close to Robert Malley, who helped lead the Obama administrations negotiations over the nuclear deal. Malley returned to government as the Biden administrations special envoy to Iran. Tabatabai joined his team at the State Department and later moved to the Pentagon, where she is now chief of staff to Christopher Maier, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations.

Then things got interesting. In April, Malleys security clearance was suspended by the State Department on suspicion of mishandling information. In June, he was put on leave. In July, Semafor reported that he is under F.B.I. investigation. (Maier told a House committee last week that Tabatabais security clearance was being investigated.)

Around the same time, Iran International, a London-based, Persian-language opposition news channel, obtained a trove of Iranian government emails. Many center on Mostafa Zahrani, a top Iranian diplomat.

The messages are not the smoking-gun evidence of some sort of treasonous Iranian spy ring, as they have been described in some quarters. But they do paint a picture of the subtle ways the Iranian regime was able to use a group of influential intellectuals, hungry to maintain access to high-level Iranian officials, that quickly turned into opportunities for Iranian manipulation.

As an Iranian, based on my national and patriotic duty, I have not hesitated to help you in any way, Vaez unctuously wrote Javad Zarif, who was then the foreign minister, from proposing to your excellency a public campaign against the notion of breakout a fast transition from nuclear energy to nuclear weapons to assisting your team in preparing reports on practical needs of Iran.

Tabatabai also checked with Zahrani about attending a conference in Israel.

I am not interested in going, but then I thought maybe it would be better that I go and talk, rather than an Israeli like Emily Landau who goes and disseminates disinformation, she wrote, referring to an Israeli nuclear policy analyst who died in 2020. I would like to ask your opinion too and see if you think I should accept the invitation and go. Tabatabai may have worried how a visit to Israel might affect her extended family in Iran, but that only underscores Zahranis implicit power over her.

The International Crisis Group flatly denies the thrust of the reporting, telling me that they were replete with inaccuracy and mischaracterization and noting that I.C.G. is also the subject of criticism from Tehran. The Iranian government never directed the substantive research and conclusions of our staff, Richard Atwood, the Crisis Groups executive vice president, wrote me.

Its true that emails and texts can always be quoted selectively and misleadingly. Its true that these scholars almost surely saw themselves as pursuing an honorable aim that required them to cultivate relationships with all sides. And its true that Iranian officials, in their internal communications, may have been exaggerating the extent to which I.E.I. was a tool in their hands.

But whats damning here wasnt the scholars purpose, which was in line, overall, with U.S. foreign policy. It wasnt even the appearance of taking direction from a despotic regime.

Its the lack of transparency. Readers of their opinion essays deserved to know from them about their links to I.E.I. and its masters in Tehran. Full transparency was also owed to their think-tank funders, academic deans, newspaper and magazine editors and the government. Without it, honest advocacy becomes malign influence peddling.

The Justice Department defines a foreign agent as one who engages within the United States in political activities, such as intending to influence any U.S. government official or the American public regarding U.S. domestic or foreign policy or the political or public interests of a foreign government or foreign political party.

No matter how the investigation into Malley ends, its worth asking how the authors of these emails can retain any position, public or private, of trust and responsibility.

Link:
Opinion | Iran's Captive Minds - The New York Times