Update at 16.:17 GMT, Jan 29, 2023

A Palestinian gunman shot seven people dead at a synagogue in east Jerusalem on Friday night. Police killed the shooter and later arrested 42 people, including members of his family. On Saturday a 13-year-old Palestinian boy shot and wounded two Israelis before himself being shot. On Thursday Israeli troops had killed nine Palestinians during a raid on Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. The forces said they were targeting Islamist militants.

The Memphis Police Department released four videos of Tyre Nichols, a black man, being beaten by officers during a traffic stop on January 7th. Mr Nichols died from his injuries three days later. The five officers involved have been sacked and charged with second-degree murder. Protests, which were mostly peaceful, took place in the Tennessee city and others around America.

Petr Pavel, a retired general, won the second round of the Czech Republic’s presidential election, beating Andrej Babis, an oligarch and former prime minister. With nearly all ballots counted, Mr Pavel had more than 58% of the vote. The country’s presidency is a largely ceremonial position, but Mr Pavel has been a strong supporter of NATO and providing aid for Ukraine.

Russian missile strikes killed three people and wounded at least two in Kostiantynivka, a small city in eastern Ukraine, according to local officials. Separately, reports emerged of fierce fighting in the town of Vuhledar, also in the Donetsk region. On Friday Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, described the situation at the front as “extremely acute”, especially in Donetsk.

Japan and the Netherlands reached a deal with America to limit exports of chipmaking tools to China as the White House seeks to restrict China’s ability to develop advanced semiconductors and bolster its own chip industry. Dutch and Japanese support is essential: ASML, Nikon and Tokyo Electron are leading manufacturers of chipmaking kit.

More than $50bn was wiped from the value of Gautam Adani’s conglomerate days after Hindenburg Research, a short-seller, accused it of fraud. The share price of Adani Enterprises—the flagship in the empire of India’s richest man—plunged by 17%. Nevertheless the firm proceeded with a share auction, in which it aims to raise $2.5bn. It called Hindenburg’s report “maliciously mischievous”.

Peru’s congress refused to bring the country’s presidential elections forward to December 2023, despite a plea from the incumbent, Dina Boluarte. Peru has been gripped by almost daily protests demanding her resignation since she took office after a bungled coup attempt by her predecessor, Pedro Castillo, in early December. Forty-seven people have been killed in clashes between demonstrators and security forces.

Word of the week: Blat, Russian for an “economy of favours”, meaning one based on contacts, cunning and petty bribery. Read the full story.

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The Trump campaign begins again

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

Donald Trump will be in South Carolina on Saturday trying to stabilise his 2024 presidential bid after a rocky start. The former president announced his comeback campaign days after his party endured a humiliating setback in the midterm elections. Since then he has been plagued by scandal, including one over his dinner with a white nationalist. The growing appeal of rivals such as Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has left Mr Trump’s grip on the Republican Party in question.

Saturday’s event will not be one of the epic rallies he is known for, but a staid address at the statehouse for an audience of 500. It is proving difficult for the campaign to muster Republican grandees to appear behind Mr Trump because so many are holding their endorsements until other challengers arrive. That suggests that the king’s return may be a prelude not to a happy coronation but a bloody civil war.

In search of gas, Italy looks to Libya

PHOTO: REUTERS

On Saturday Libya’s National Oil Corporation will sign a giant gas deal with Eni, Italy’s oil major. The $8bn agreement—part of a broader plan by Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, to strengthen energy ties with Africa—will allow Eni to develop two of Libya’s offshore gasfields. NOC says the sites could ultimately produce a total of 24m cubic metres of gas a day, about an eighth of what Italy currently consumes.

By reducing its gas exports to Europe, Russia has triggered a hunt for alternative supplies. In 2022 the EU inked gas deals with Azerbaijan, Egypt and Israel, among others. Many countries in the bloc are pursuing agreements on their own. This one, though, looks trickier than most. Political instability and civil war have long prevented Libya from capitalising on its vast natural-energy reserves. Two rival factions still claim control of the country. The eastern-based parliament says the government in Tripoli, the capital, lacks the legitimacy to sign anything.

 

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Stumble at the Royal Rumble

PHOTO: REUTERS

Every January since 1988, World Wrestling Entertainment has gathered its elite wrestlers together for its Royal Rumble. Unlike other wrestling events, competitors enter the ring at fixed times rather than all at the start. The lycra-clad hall of fame includes Hulk Hogan, Shawn Michaels, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and The Rock, who have each come out on top over the years.

This year’s event, held in San Antonio, Texas, on Saturday, also comes with plenty of drama outside the ring. Vince McMahon retired as WWE’s chief executive last year after an internal investigation found that he had paid $15m to settle sexual misconduct allegations by four women. However, he returned to the board of directors this month and has hired JPMorgan to explore selling WWE. With a market capitalisation of $6.3bn, the world’s largest wrestling institution has bidders circling. Decades after it was founded, its scripted theatrics continue to keep fans enthralled.

Psychotherapy on screen

PHOTO: PLANET PHOTOS

Jimmy Laird, the protagonist of “Shrinking”, a new series from Apple TV+, is a very bad therapist. Grieving for his dead wife and stupefied by drinking, drugs and self-pity, he ditches the guiding rules of his profession and decides to become a “psychological vigilante”. He tells one patient to leave her husband or he will stop treating her, and invites another to live in his spare room.

The number of Americans who report having been treated for mental health has almost doubled since 2002. That explains why portrayals of therapy are proliferating on screen, in shows such as “The Patient”, “Couples Therapy” and “Stutz”. Though few therapists want to be seen as vigilantes, they will understand the need for a compelling narrative arc. More concerning in their eyes would be to suggest that treatment makes no difference.

 

Weekend Profile: Olga Tsukanova, Russian anti-mobilisation activist

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

Last weekend Olga Tsukanova was heading to Moscow from her home in Samara, near the border with Kazakhstan, to deliver 700 letters written by disgruntled mothers of Russian soldiers to the prosecutor’s office. But at an airport in Samara she was detained, not for the first time, and warned she may be charged with “discrediting the army”. Ms Tsukanova has become the face of protests against Vladimir Putin’s mobilisation of Russian troops, though she is also uncomfortably close to peddlers of conspiracies about the war.

Ms Tsukanova is a 46-year-old mother who says her son, who joined the army in July, faced pressure to deploy to Ukraine despite earlier assurances that he would not have to. (An official says her son is serving inside Russia.)

After Mr Putin announced a “partial mobilisation” of recruits in September, Ms Tsukanova formed the Council of Mothers and Wives, which campaigns for better conditions for troops. Russian authorities have tolerated some criticism of the army’s incompetence in Ukraine. But there is little room for dissent in Mr Putin’s Russia: the government - opposition even before the invasion last February. Ms Tsukanova’s organisation has become a vehicle for broader anger over the military mobilisation—a stance that avoids a blatant anti-war message, but puts authorities in an awkward position.

To shut down the group would look bad, and Mr Putin clearly recognises the symbolic power of a soldier’s mother. In November he convened a televised meeting of women the Kremlin said were mothers of troops serving in Ukraine (all were sympathetic to the government). Ms Tsukanova rebuked Mr Putin for excluding her. The next month she was stopped by police. “They are afraid of us,” she declared.

This is not Ms Tsukanova’s first foray into politics. She once stood as a candidate for Volya, a party that was later banned. Its leader, Svetlana Lada-Rus, is a spiritual healer and noted conspiracy theorist who once ran for president of Russia. Now Ms Tsukanova’s activism is complicated by her ties to another organisation affiliated with Ms Lada-Rus. The National Union of the Revival of Russia calls for the restoration of the Soviet Union and peddles anti-Semitic lies about the war’s origins. Ms Tsukanova’s council distributes that group’s conspiracy theories about covid-19 vaccines.

To confront Mr Putin’s regime, you must be either courageous or crazy. Ms Tsukanova may be both.