Introducing the 36th edition of The PEP Weekly Digest, where we present to you the most recent updates and news on the global political stage.

Recent and upcoming elections influence the worldwide political landscape in eight nations, slated between January 26, 2024 and March 01, 2024. These elections hold significant importance, as they will determine the direction and governance of each respective country’s future.

One noteworthy event has occurred in Namibia, Nangolo Mbumba has been sworn in as the interim president of the southern African country of Namibia. He was installed Sunday, following the death of President Hage Geingob earlier in the day at a hospital in Windhoek. Geingob announced in January that he had cancer. Mbumba said Sunday that he does not plan to run for president in elections later this year. That means newly-installed Vice President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah could seek the presidential office. If she won, she would be first female president in southern Africa. However, she may face some challengers from within SWAPO, her political party. The South West Africa People’s Organization or SWAPO has been in power in Namibia since it gained independence in 1990. President Geingob recently upbraided Germany for supporting Israel against genocide charges at the International Court of Justice. Geingob said Germany committed genocide in Namibia in the 1800s, killing tens of thousands of Africans.

Shifting our focus to Japan, Two parliamentary secretaries who belonged to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s Abe faction have resigned over their failure to report political funds, but both said they would keep their Lower House seats. Takuo Komori on Jan. 31 stepped down as a parliamentary secretary in the internal affairs ministry, while Ryusho Kato resigned from the same post in the transport ministry. Komori failed to include 700,000 yen ($4,800) he received from the Abe faction in his 2022 political fund report, while Kato did not report 100,000 yen. The two said they would not resign from the Diet on grounds they were unaware they had failed to include the amounts in their reports. Speaking with reporters the same day, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida accepted responsibility for appointing the two, but he added that three other parliamentary secretaries from the faction once led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would remain in their posts. Komori was replaced by Lower House member Shoji Nishida, while Kato was replaced by Lower House member Masanao Ozaki.

In Yemen, Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council on Monday appointed its foreign minister Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak as the country’s new prime minister. Outgoing PM Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed will take on the role of an advisor to the Chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council. Bin Mubarak came to prominence in 2015 when he was kidnapped by the country’s Iran-aligned Houthis while he served as Yemen’s presidential chief of staff during a power struggle with then-President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Yemen, a nation in the Arabian Peninsula, is experiencing increased tensions as a result of a wave of Red Sea attacks on ships by Houthi rebels, which have triggered retaliatory strikes by the United States and the United Kingdom recently. Former Yemeni ambassador to the US, Bin Mubarak, is widely viewed as a fierce opponent of the Houthi rebels.

In the realm of regulatory affairs, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to combat and deter money laundering in the U.S. residential real estate sector by increasing transparency. The proposed rule would require certain professionals involved in real estate closings and settlements to report information to FinCEN about non-financed transfers of residential real estate to legal entities or trusts. FinCEN’s proposal is tailored to target residential real estate transfers considered to be high-risk for money laundering, while minimizing potential business burden, and it would not require reporting of transfers made to individuals. “Illicit actors are exploiting the U.S. residential real estate market to launder and hide the proceeds of serious crimes with anonymity, while law-abiding Americans bear the cost of inflated housing prices,” said FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki. “Today marks an important step toward not only curbing abuse of the U.S. residential real estate sector, but safeguarding our economic and national security.”

Shifting our attention to legal advancements, in India, Lucknow court on Friday held BJP’s Allahabad MP Rita Bahuguna Joshi guilty of violating the code of conduct during the 2012 assembly elections and sentenced her to six months’ imprisonment. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 1,100 on her. Joshi, who was with the Congress party at that time, had held an election meeting in violation of the model code.