VALENCIA, Venezuela (AP) — Josselyz Essa and a friend, two 9-year-olds with a budding interest in politics as Venezuela starts toward its next presidential election, bubbled with eagerness waiting for the campaign rally to start. Then a thunderous noise spread over the crowd in the streets of the northern city of Valencia.

The girls stretched up on their tiptoes and joined in the uproar, screaming as loud as they could: “María Corina! María Corina!” — that is María Corina Machado, the opposition politician they want to be president.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s thrice-elected former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returned home Saturday on a chartered plane from Dubai, ending four years of self-imposed exile in London as he seeks to win the support of voters in parliamentary elections due in January.

He is expected to face tough competition from the party of former premier and his main rival, Imran Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 and is currently imprisoned after a court convicted and sentenced him to three years in a graft case.

GENEVA (AP) — Swiss voters this weekend elect a parliament that could reshape Switzerland’s executive branch at a time when key concerns include migration, rising healthcare costs and climate change, which has shrunk the country’s Alpine glaciers.

Final ballots will be collected Sunday morning after the vast majority of Swiss made their choices by mail-in voting. Up for grabs are both houses of parliament.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Friday warned Iran and Iran-backed Islamist militias like Hezbollah not to get involved in the war in Gaza.

"I'm warning Iran, I'm warning Shiite militias in Iraq, I'm warning the Houthi in Yemen not to ignite and join in the terror," Baerbock said in Tel Aviv following a meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and opposition politician Benny Gantz.

She accused Hezbollah of seeking to draw all of Lebanon into the growing conflict, which broke out after Palestinian militant group Hamas launched bloody attacks on Israel on October 7 that killed more than 1,400 people.

Baerbock also voiced criticism of Israel's decision to place the densely populated Gaza Strip under a "complete siege" that involves cutting off supplies of electricity, drinking water and food. Israeli forces have pounded Gaza with repeated strikes, leaving thousands dead.

Brazilian congressional panel on Wednesday accused former President Jair Bolsonaro of instigating the country’s Jan. 8 riots and recommended that he be charged with attempting to stage a coup.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt took control of the nation’s finances a year ago on Saturday, amid political chaos and turmoil in the financial markets caused by former prime minister Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A former justice official considered one of the main suspects in the killing of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in 2021 was arrested Thursday in Haiti’s capital after being on the run for more than two years, police said.

Joseph Badio once worked for Haiti’s Ministry of Justice and at the government’s anti-corruption unit until he was fired for alleged ethics violations weeks before the assassination.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — The sudden resignation of a Guatemalan Cabinet minister appears to signal a division within the administration of President Alejandro Giammattei over how to remove roadblocks by pro-democracy protesters that have stretched into a third week.

Interior Minister Napoleón Barrientos, a retired brigadier general, resigned late Monday following a shooting near one of the roadblocks that killed one person and wounded two others.

Barrientos had said publicly that he preferred to seek dialogue with protesters who have demanded the resignation of Attorney General Consuelo Porras over her office’s investigations into the election victory of President-elect Bernardo Arévalo.

Porras had urged the blockades’ immediate removal, with force if necessary. On Monday, hours before Barrientos quit, she had called for him to be fired for not heeding a court order to clear them.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — A leading Cambodian opposition politician who was sentenced last month to 18 months in prison on charges of issuing worthless checks was convicted and sentenced on Wednesday to three more years of imprisonment for alleged incitement to commit a felony and incitement to discriminate on the basis of race, religion or nationality.

Presiding Judge Chhun Davy of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court also ordered Thach Setha, a vice president of the opposition Candlelight Party, to pay a 4 million riel ($1,000) fine.

Opposition parties in Cambodia frequently face legal challenges initiated by the government.

The case against Thach Setha was based on remarks posted on social media that he made in January to Cambodian overseas workers about then-Prime Minister Hun Sen and Cambodia’s relations with neighboring Vietnam.

GOMA, Congo (AP) — Congo’s president said he will gradually ease the state of military rule in the conflict-riddled east and lift some restrictions imposed more than two years ago.

Speaking to the nation Thursday, President Felix Tshisekedi said there would be a gradual easing of the state of siege in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, which includes ending a curfew, allowing peaceful demonstrations and for people to live normal lives.

The announcement comes more than two months ahead of presidential elections, when Tshisekedi hopes to secure a second term.

He implemented the state of siege in 2021, allowing military and police to take control from civilian institutions, in an attempt to stem rising violence.

THE HAGUE, Nethlerlands (AP) — The International Criminal Court announced Thursday it was dropping about 20 charges including murder, extermination, deportation, torture and persecution against a former government minister from the Central African Republic, citing a lack of evidence and available witnesses.

Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor at the court based in The Hague in the Netherlands, issued a statement saying he was withdrawing all charges against Maxime Jeoffroy Eli Mokom Gawaka because there were “no longer any reasonable prospects of conviction at trial.”

Mokom, 44, was released soon after the court made the announcement. He was accused of coordinating operations of the anti-Balaka, a mainly Christian group that fought against the predominantly Muslim Seleka rebel group. The fighting left thousands dead and displaced hundreds of thousands in 2013 and 2014.

During a pretrial hearing in August, Mokom’s defense team told judges that prosecutors had already uncovered evidence that could exonerate Mokom, even before his arrest in neighboring Chad in 2022.

>As I write these words, I am sitting at home in Tel Aviv, trying to figure out how to protect my family in a house with no shelter or safe room, following with growing panic the reports and rumors of horrible events taking place in the Israeli towns near Gaza which are under attack. I see people, some of them my friends, calling on social media to attack Gaza more fiercely than ever before. Some Israelis are saying that now is the time to eradicate Gaza entirely — essentially calling for genocide. Through all the explosions, the dread and the bloodshed, speaking about peaceful solutions seems like madness to them.

>Yet I remember that everything that I am feeling now, which every Israeli must be sharing, has been the life experience of millions of Palestinians for far too long. The only solution, as it has always been, is to bring an end of apartheid, occupation, and siege, and promote a future based on justice and equality for all of us. It is not in spite of the horror that we have to change course — it is exactly because of it.

Microsoft researchers said on Thursday they found what they believe is a network of fake, Chinese-controlled social media accounts seeking to influence US voters by using artificial intelligence.

The Chinese embassy in Washington said in a statement that accusations of China using AI to create fake social media accounts were “full of prejudice and malicious speculation” and that China advocates for the safe use of AI.

In a new research report, Microsoft said the social media accounts were part of a suspected Chinese information operation. The campaign bore similarities to activity which the US Department of Justice has attributed to “an elite group within [China’s] Ministry of Public Security”, Microsoft said.

The researchers did not specify which social media platforms were affected, but screenshots in their report showed posts from what appeared to be Facebook and Twitter, now known as X.

The report highlights a fraught social media environment as Americans prepare for the 2024 presidential election.

The US government has accused Russia of meddling in the 2016 election with a covert social media campaign and has warned of subsequent efforts by China, Russia and Iran to influence voters.

The report provided limited examples of the recent activity and did not explain in detail how researchers attributed the posts to China.

Microsoft said in a statement that the company’s researcher used a “multifaceted attribution model”, which relies on “technical evidence, behavioural evidence and contextual evidence”

Generative AI can create images, text and other media from scratch. The new content is much more “eye-catching than the awkward visuals used in previous campaigns by Chinese nation-state actors, which relied on digital drawings, stock photo collages, and other manual graphic designs”, the researchers wrote.

The paper cited an example of one AI-generated image, which Microsoft said came from a Chinese account, that depicts the Statue of Liberty holding an assault rifle with the caption: “Everything is being thrown away. THE GODDESS OF VIOLENCE.”

The Microsoft statement said the identified accounts had attempted to appear American by listing their public location as within the United States, posting American political slogans, and sharing hashtags relating to domestic political issues

On August 26, Gabon’s Ali Bongo will be standing for a third term in office as president of the Central African country.

Bongo has been in office since his father died in 2009.

Six of the country’s biggest opposition parties have coalesced into the coalition movement Alternance 2023 to challenge the incumbent. The platform’s consensus candidate is Albert Ondo Ossa, a 69-year-old economics professor and cabinet minister under the older Bongo.

Ossa, who also ran in the 2009 presidential election, spoke to Al Jazeera about his chances this Saturday and his plans for Gabon.

Al Jazeera: The Alternance 2023 platform brought together six of the presidential candidates. Why were you chosen as the consensus candidate?

Ossa: I was chosen because the platform felt that I was the best person to represent their interests. Gabonese people were asking for a consensual candidate to put an end to the hegemony of the Bongo dynasty. It was essential that we put up a united front, and that’s what we did. Each candidate has shown his or her determination to put aside personal interests or those of their political family in order to bring about the changeover that the people of Gabon are calling for. I was appointed in the best interests of the nation. It’s very exciting, but at the same time, I feel the weight of responsibility. I will do my utmost to live up to the expectations of the Gabonese people.

Al Jazeera: What do you think Gabonese people expect from you? How do you plan to meet their expectations?

Ossa: First and foremost, the Gabonese people want to turn the page on the Bongos. We’ve had three presidents since independence, and two of them were called Bongo. They’ve been in office for 60 years and that’s too much, far too much. Things have got to change. But more than political change, Gabonese people also want a better life. Gabon is a rich country, from its soil and subsoil, and the Gabonese people don’t feel they are benefitting from this wealth, the population is getting poorer. I’m going to implement rational management of the country’s resources. I’m going to eradicate mismanagement and embezzlement so that the Gabonese people finally get their due.

Al Jazeera: Can you give a summary of your plans in the short to medium term, if elected?

Ossa: By the end of my five-year term, I want Gabon to have all the infrastructure it needs to recover and take off. First of all, we need to reduce energy problems. I want to build power stations and ensure that Gabon is self-sufficient in energy. I also want to put people at the heart of development, ie, ensure that all Gabonese can find housing, study, healthcare and employment. I want the Gabonese people to regain their dignity and I want all Gabonese people to benefit from the fruits of growth.

Al Jazeera: This year, there will be a single ballot paper for the presidential and parliamentary candidates to be voted for. You are an independent candidate, without an elected representative on your side, which means that by voting for you, people will likely abstain from the legislative election. Do you think this is a handicap?

Ossa: Not at all. The Alternance 2023 platform and I are boycotting this legislative election. The single ballot paper was introduced unilaterally by the ruling party a month before the election and it gives an advantage to those who are best rooted on the ground, in their constituency, and therefore in the rearguard of the Bongo system. I don’t have any party or elected representative following me. But if I’m elected, I’m committed to rerunning legislative elections that are representative of the Gabonese people, so that everyone, whether a party candidate or an independent, has a chance.

Al Jazeera: There have been concerns about the transparency of previous polls. Do you think this election will be free and fair?

Ossa: When one is faced with a dictatorship, one adapts to its traps. Bongo can feel his defeat and is multiplying a series of acts to maintain himself in office ad vitam aeternam. This electoral law is a trap, but we are going to foil it. The first way is for the people to give their vote. The second way is the international community.

No African power can function without the international community. Previously, Ali Bongo lost the elections but he was able to run the country because the international community recognised his position. This year, we have been working to raise awareness among the international community and if he cheats again, this time the international community will not be on his side.

If he is defeated, he must leave without a fuss, without any deaths. We are going to give him the status of former president in conformity with the regulations in force. As president of the Republic, I will defend his interests and his integrity.

Al Jazeera: You ran against President Bongo in 2009 and lost. Do you think you have a chance this time?

Ossa: In 2009, I warned everyone about the danger Ali Bongo represented for Gabon. I had met him when we were both members of the government. At the time, nobody listened to me. Today people realise that he has impoverished the country, so it’s different. It’s only been a few days since I became the consensus candidate, but judging by the popular fervour and the way I’ve been welcomed at each of my rallies, I’m sure I’ll be victorious from this election.

Al Jazeera: There are concerns about the president’s health issues since his stroke in 2018. Do you think he is fit to lead the country?

Ossa: I’m a Christian, a practising Catholic, and I’m not talking about Ali Bongo’s health. The arguments I develop against him are political arguments. I never refer to his health. What happened to him can happen to anyone. I pray that he will regain his strength.

Al Jazeera: You were a minister under Omar Bongo and that has led to speculation that you benefitted from the networks you are now speaking against. What is your response to this?

Ossa: I didn’t take advantage of the system, the system took advantage of me. I was part of Omar Bongo’s government for three years and I say it loud and clear: I never killed or stole. I have nothing to be ashamed of. That’s why I’m looking Ali Bongo straight in the eye today. Those in power have no leverage over me because I’ve always done everything by the book, I’ve never done anything that went against my convictions, and people know that. Those three years in government have been years of learning to better understand the country’s problems.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, former Pakistan foreign minister and a close aide of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan, has been detained after officials accused him of misusing a diplomatic cable for political gain.

Khan had claimed that the United States was behind a conspiracy to topple his government as he tapped into anti-American sentiment in a bid to mobilise support ahead of a no-confidence vote last April. He resigned after losing the vote, and later said he was aware of a secret cable – known as the “cypher” – that showed the US was behind his ouster. The former prime minister never revealed the content of the cable and later walked back on his allegations against the US

Earlier this month, The Intercept, a US-based media organisation, published the content of the “cypher”, which suggests the US administration wanted to remove the former prime minister from power last April.

Qureshi’s arrest on Saturday came hours after he held a news conference, announcing that his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party would challenge any delay to the country’s election in the courts and demanded a “level playing field” for the party in the country’s upcoming general elections.

He has been leading the PTI since Khan’s arrest earlier this month. Thousands of its members, including top leadership, have been arrested in a crackdown since May apparently at the behest of Pakistan’s powerful military.

Pakistan’s interim Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti said the PTI vice president was arrested in connection with the “cypher” case and his alleged role in exposing official secrets and harming state interests.

“All those nominated in the case will be arrested as per the law,” Bugti told reporters.

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has registered a case against Khan and his close aides including Qureshi for sharing information on the cable and violating the Official Secrets Act.

The agency has expanded the scope of investigations after the secret document was published by The Intercept, which has said that the source of the secret cable was a military official and not Khan’s PTI party.

“There is no justification to arrest Qureshi in the cypher case since he was already cooperating with the investigators,” PTI said in a statement.

The party said Qureshi was being punished for not parting ways with Khan and exposing plans to delay the general elections.

Qureshi had announced that his party would ask the top court to ensure elections within 90 days as per the constitution, which the electoral commission has said was not possible.

“It will be unconstitutional if the 90 days deadline is breached,” Qureshi told Saturday’s news conference.

PTI chairman Khan is barred from contesting any election for five years in one of the dozens of cases filed against him since his ouster last year. The cricketer-turned-politician denies any wrongdoing

PTI spokesperson Zulfi Bukhari condemned the arrest on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, saying he was “arrested for doing a press conference and reaffirming PTI stance against all tyranny and pre-poll rigging that is going on currently in Pakistan” The election is meant to be held within 90 days of parliament being dissolved last week, by November, but uncertainty looms over the date as the nation grapples with constitutional, political and economic crises.

The outgoing government approved a new census in its final days, meaning new electoral boundaries must be drawn up by the Election Commission.

The exercise of drawing fresh boundaries for hundreds of federal and provincial constituencies in a country of 241 million people may take six months or more, according to a former commission official.

The election commission said on Thursday that new constituencies would be finalised by December 14, state television reported. After that, the commission will confirm an election date.

Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, a little-known politician, was sworn in as prime minister on Monday.

Caretakers are usually limited to overseeing elections, but Kakar’s set-up is the most empowered in Pakistan’s history thanks to legislation that allows it to make policy decisions on economic matters

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday advised the country's president, Arif Alvi, to dissolve parliament, setting the stage for a general election as the world's fifth-most populous country wrestles with deepening political and economic crises.

Legally, an election should be held within 90 days of parliament's dissolution, but the outgoing government has already warned that polling day is likely to be delayed.

Speculation has lingered that there could be a delay to elections as the establishment contends with overlapping security, economic, and political crises.

The unlikely coalition between Pakistan's usually bickering dynastic parties, which combined forces to force Khan out of office, has gained little popular support.

A delay until well into next year is possible if Pakistan's election commission decides it needs to redraw constituency maps based on the results of a recent census.

Parliament's five-year term had, in any case, been due to expire on August 12, with Sharif's announcement merely ending it three days earlier

The announcement came as an appeal hearing was underway for former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who remains behind bars after the Islamabad High Court gave no immediate decision.

The 70-year-old has been at the heart of political turmoil since he was ousted as prime minister in a vote of no-confidence last year. While he remains popular among many voters, Khan has been barred from holding any public office for five years and under current circumstances would not be allowed to stand.

Khan began a three-year sentence on Saturday on charges of unlawfully selling state gifts that he and his family acquired during his 2018-2022 tenure. He was convicted of concealing assets.

The Islamabad High Court said it was seeking a "government response" and would hear from Pakistan's election commission lawyers before making a decision on the appeal.

The court adjourned without setting a date for the following hearing.

Humanitarian organisations continue to criticise Tunisia for its treatment of sub-Saharan migrants, even as the country denies it is expelling the migrants to its borders with Libya and Algeria.

The international NGO Avocats Sans Frontieres (“Lawyers without Borders”) called the expulsions “illegal” on Friday.

“These expulsions are very clearly illegal,” the group told Al Jazeera. “Migrants should not be sent back to situations of destitution or inhospitable conditions in which their safety or their human rights would be threatened, for example in cases of expulsions to the “no man’s lands” between borders.”

But on Thursday, Tunisian Interior Minister Kamel Fekih disputed comments made by United Nations deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq on Tuesday, when the latter said that the UN was “deeply concerned” about the expulsions.

The UN also demanded that refugees and migrants stranded in the desert be relocated.

“What was published by certain international organisations, and especially the statement by the UN spokesperson, is characterised by inaccuracy and even untruths,” the TAP news agency quoted Fekih as saying.

“The allegations about expulsion operations are unfounded,” Fekih said.

Humanitarian sources in Libya’s capital of Tripoli said on Thursday that 24 bodies, including women and children, have been recovered from the Libyan desert since the beginning of July

But Fekih called for “verification of the authenticity of the information before publication, given the negative repercussions” for its security forces who he said “spare no effort when it comes to rescuing and saving migrants on land and at sea”.

Fekih said that 15,327 migrants had been rescued between January and July, and that migrants are treated “in accordance with Tunisian law and international treaties”.

Tensions between Tunisians and refugees and migrants in the country have soared since February, when President Kais Saied made a speech in which he said the migration of Black sub-Saharan Africans threatened the country’s demographic makeup.

Hundreds have since been forced from their homes in the coastal city of Sfax, where clashes erupted earlier this month.

Authorities in recent weeks have rounded up refugees and asylum seekers living rough in Tunisian cities onto buses and left them stranded in remote desert areas near Algeria and Libya, leading to a sharp backlash from human rights organisations and an increasing focus on Tunisia’s treatment of refugees

West African defence chiefs have made a plan for potential military intervention to reverse last week’s coup in Niger, including how and when to deploy forces.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will not divulge to the coup plotters when and where it will strike, but Abdel-Fatau Musah – ECOWAS commissioner for political affairs, peace and security – said on Friday the decision will be taken by the bloc’s heads of state.

“All the elements that will go into any eventual intervention have been worked out here, including the resources needed, the how and when we are going to deploy the force,” Musah said at the close of a three-day meeting in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.

ECOWAS has already imposed sanctions on Niger and said it could authorise the use of force if the coup leaders do not restore power to elected President Mohamed Bazoum by Sunday.

The 15-member body sent a delegation to Niger on Thursday seeking an “amicable resolution”, but a source in the entourage said a meeting at the airport with the military’s representatives yielded no breakthrough.

“We want diplomacy to work, and we want this message clearly transmitted to them that we are giving them every opportunity to reverse what they have done,” Musah said.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu told his government to prepare for options, including the deployment of military personnel, in a letter read out to the Senate on Friday. Senegal has also said it would send troops.

Niger’s military rulers denounced outside interference and said they would fight back.

The 59-year-old coup leader, Abdourahamane Tchiani, served as battalion commander for ECOWAS forces during conflicts in Ivory Coast in 2003, so he knows what such missions involve.

Support for him from other military leaders in neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso, which are both ECOWAS members, could also undermine the regional response. The two countries have said they would come to Niger’s defence.

Borders opened

The coup leaders closed the borders of Niger on July 26 when announcing they had removed Bazoum from power. The borders were opened five days later.

Niger, which borders seven African countries – including Libya, Chad and Nigeria – is seen by the United States and former colonial ruler France as an important partner to address security threats in the region.

The country is the largest recipient of US military assistance in West Africa, having received an estimated $500m since 2012.

The country also hosts more than 2,000 Western troops, mostly from the US and France. Various Western nations have cancelled aid and cooperation agreements with the military administration since the putsch.

Niger’s coup was the seventh military takeover in less than three years in Western and Central Africa.

Given its uranium and oil riches and pivotal role in the war with rebels in the Sahel region, Niger also has strategic significance for China, Europe and Russia.

Bazoum, 63, who was elected in 2021, was detained at the presidential residence in Niamey. He said in his first remarks since the coup that he was a hostage in need of US and international help.

“If it [the coup] succeeds, it will have devastating consequences for our country, our region and the entire world,” he wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US envoy to the UN, said the United States recognised Bazoum as the legitimate leader of Niger, and Washington supported ECOWAS to find a path forward in resolving the situation.

“We are engaging diplomatically with countries in the region and at the United Nations to condemn what this military has done, and we will continue to keep pressure on them until they make the decision to allow this democratically elected government resume its place,” she told Al Jazeera.

Taliban leaders have met officials from the United States in Qatar for the first time since their return to power in Afghanistan two years ago.

A spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday that the two sides discussed confidence-building measures during the two-day talks, including the lifting of sanctions and travel bans as well as the return of Afghan central bank assets held abroad.

The delegations also discussed combating narcotics and human rights issues, Abdul Qahar Balkhi said.

No country has formally recognised the Taliban since its return to power.

The group took over in August 2021 as Afghanistan’s Western-backed government collapsed in the aftermath of the US’s chaotic withdrawal from the country after 20 years of conflict.

Since their takeover, the Taliban has faced international condemnation, including from several Muslim-majority countries, over restrictions the group has imposed on women’s education.

Afghanistan is also grappling with a humanitarian crisis, with almost half of its population – 23 million people – receiving assistance from the World Food Programme (WFP) last year. The US State Department said in a statement that its officials told the Taliban that Washington was open to technical talks on economic stability and repeated concerns about “deteriorating” human rights in the country.

Attendees – including US Special Representative Thomas West and Special Envoy for Afghan Women, Girls, and Human Rights Rina Amiri – voiced “grave concern regarding detentions, media crackdowns, and limits on religious practice”, according to the statement.

The officials also called anew on the Taliban to reverse bans on girls’ secondary education and women’s employment as well as for the release of detained Americans.

They also “voiced openness to continue dialogue on counternarcotics”, recognising a “significant decrease in cultivation” of poppies this growing season.

Taliban fighters used the plant, from which opium is extracted, to help fund their armed struggle for years. By 2020, 85 percent of the world’s opium was flowing out of Afghanistan, according to the United Nations. But since their takeover, authorities have banned the crop.

The US delegation also met representatives of the Afghan central bank and the Ministry of Finance, with the State Department saying it “took note” of falling inflation as well as rising exports and imports in 2023.

It said it would be open to “a technical dialogue regarding economic stabilisation issues soon”, the statement said.

The US froze about $7bn in Afghan central bank funds held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York after the Taliban took power. Half of the funds now are in a Swiss-based Afghan Fund.

A US-funded audit of the Afghan central bank failed to win Washington’s backing for a return of assets from the trust fund

After a month of rumors and speculation, one of the most intriguing stories in Chinese politics came to a resolution this week — well, kind of.

Qin Gang, China’s foreign minister and a proponent of President Xi Jinping’s aggressive foreign policy, was ousted under mysterious circumstances after weeks of speculation regarding his whereabouts.

Qin, a longtime ally of Xi, had not been seen in public for nearly a month; one of his last high-profile meetings was with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Beijing in June. Though the foreign ministry earlier implied he was experiencing health issues, neither Xi nor the Chinese Communist Party had given a definitive reason for his absence, and still haven’t explained his departure. Naturally, rumors have spiked about the reason for Qin’s absence from the world stage and his sudden dismissal at a sensitive time for US-China relations.

Wang Yi, China’s previous foreign minister and the head of the CCP’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission, reassumed his former post on Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported. That’s likely an interim solution as Xi and the Politburo, one of the highest echelons of power within the party, decide who will fill the post on a permanent basis.

The mystery surrounding Qin’s disappearance and dismissal is likely to persist, unless — and perhaps even if — the Chinese government gives a full accounting of what happened to him and why. At this early date, that’s likely the most important information we can draw from such a monumental and strange series of events — that the inner workings of China’s government are only likely to become more obscure and increasingly consolidated the longer Xi is in power. Wait, so where’d this guy go?

Qin was appointed to the foreign minister post just seven months ago, at the end of December, after previously serving as China’s ambassador to the US. At 57, he was one of the younger high-level officials in Xi’s government but had developed a close alliance with Xi that helped spur his rapid rise.

Qin had served as ambassador for only 17 months prior to his appointment to the foreign minister post; during his tenure as both ambassador and foreign minister, he had sought to maintain trade ties with the US while also insisting on China’s right to defend itself against what China sees as provocations from Western powers.

“If faced with jackals and wolves, China has no choice but to face them head-on,” Qin said at his first public appearance as foreign minister at the National People’s Congress in March. Qin was one of the first officials to promote the aggressive “wolf warrior” concept of Chinese diplomacy, part of the political ideology known as Xi Jinping Thought.

Though little is known about Qin’s personal life, he has built a career in foreign service, joining the diplomatic corps in his 20s, the Guardian reports. He served in the UK three times in the period between 1995 and 2011 and held important posts in the foreign ministry, including twice serving as the spokesperson between 2006 and 2014, and then in the role of chief protocol officer until 2018. In that capacity, according to Reuters, Qin handled Xi’s relations with international leaders.

After just six months in his new posting, Qin in late June stopped appearing in public, and perhaps most notably, did not attend an important gathering of Asian foreign ministers in July.

His absence and subsequent dismissal have been the subject of intense rumors and speculation. Though the Chinese state initially claimed his absence from the international stage and important diplomatic meetings was due to a vague health issue, rumors of an affair and potential child with a television presenter — who has also disappeared from public view — have swirled on Chinese social media. Other theories have run the gamut from Qin getting caught up in corruption investigations related to the military, to serious medical issues, and more.

“The opacity of the situation has led to a lot of rampant speculation about what could be going on here and why someone who is as prominent as Qin would be sacked so shortly after taking such a high-profile post,” David Stroup, a lecturer of Chinese politics at the University of Manchester, told Vox.

On Tuesday, the Chinese legislature’s standing committee announced simply that “after voting, the meeting decided to remove Qin Gang from the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs he concurrently held and appointed Wang Yi as Minister of Foreign Affairs.” They included no explanation for the change.

“There are a lot of theories that are bubbling up, and the most prominent of them that seems to have the most traction and is garnering the most attention is that Qin Gang was caught having an affair,” Stroup said, “and that this affair was both revealing in terms of internal corruption that might have been happening and also probably personally damaging to Xi Jinping’s brand as a leader.” This is really a story about Xi Jinping

Though it’s impossible to verify such rumors — and the Chinese government’s extreme secrecy means the full truth will likely never come to light — Qin likely would never have been removed from his job unless he had committed a serious error, and corruption would certainly fit the bill.

As the Economist’s Sue Lynn Wong explains in her podcast The Prince: Searching for Xi Jinping, Xi spent much of his early career routing out corruption and sees himself in a sense as an anti-corruption crusader.

Xi’s government is extremely circumspect about revealing information, and this situation is no different, Stroup explained. After an initial announcement that Qin would step down due to health concerns, government officials have refused to answer any further questions from reporters about his departure.

It’s not exclusive to Xi. As Mike Chinoy, a nonresident senior fellow at the University of Southern California’s US-China Institute, wrote on X, ”In 1967, famed reporter Theodore White described politics in China as ‘a struggle of sea monsters. Only bubbles come to the surface to tell us that there are terrible struggles, but we don’t know what they are struggling about.’ With ouster of Qin Gang, apt for today as well.”

But Xi’s leadership has exacerbated that opacity as he has consolidated power, valuing loyalty above all and moving away from the more committee-driven politics of China’s recent past.