This Week's Brief

It’s been a pretty busy week in politics, society and business across the world. Here’s what we don’t want you to miss on the moves women leaders are making across the globe.

(These pins mark the stories with deeply buried, but globally significant signals.)

📌 Nobel Freedom Manifesto

📌 Japan & China: Can they de-escalate?

📌 Bangladesh Passes Death Sentence on Former PM

📌 Marcos Siblings Feud: Claims of Presidential Micro-Dosing Drugs

📌 AMD warns of $1 trillion chip market and higher graphics prices

📌 Roblox to use facial recognition for age verification

📌 Aftermath of Ariana Grande Attack: Singapore jails Australian

📌 Definition of ‘gender’ threatens Cop30 talks

Politics This Week

María Corina Machado outlines Venezuela’s “Freedom Manifesto”

Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado has published the Freedom Manifesto, charting a democratic, pluralistic future for the country. The plan targets Nicolás Maduro as U.S.-Venezuela tensions spike. Washington is now preparing to label a Venezuelan drug cartel allegedly linked to Maduro a foreign terrorist organisation, which critics are calling a potential regime change attempt by the U.S.

Ms. Machado’s Manifesto calls for rule of law, human dignity, individual liberty, free speech, voting rights, safe return for exiles, accountability for crimes against humanity, economic regeneration, education, protection of land and resources, and reintegration into the global democratic community. Read the Manifesto at The Washington Post

Japan seeks to ease tensions with China over Taiwan

Japan is trying to cool an escalating row with China after PM Sanae Takaichi said a few days ago, a Chinese attack on Taiwan threatening Japan could trigger a military response. Her remarks are a break with past Japanese governments’ policy of avoiding public discussion of any such scenario. China in the meantime has urged its citizens to halt travel to Japan as both sides work to resolve the dispute. Japan has since also warned its nationals in China. Read more at South China Morning Post

Bangladesh sentences ex-PM Sheikh Hasina to death

Sheikh Hasina, who fled to India during 2024’s student-led uprising in Bangladesh, has been sentenced to death (in absentia) over the deadly crackdown on the protests. The interim government led by Muhammad Yunus called it “historic” and urged calm. Bangladesh has now asked India to extradite Hasina and former interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal (also sentenced to death). India has said it would “engage constructively,” but is unlikely to return Hasina to Dhaka. Read more at Reuters

Drug Claims In Philippines Family Fued

Senator Imee Marcos has publicly accused her brother, President Bongbong Marcos and the entire first family, of long-term drug use. She delivered the claims of the President microdosing cocaine and cannabis to 600,000 people at a rally. Her claims deepens a bitter family feud and signals a shift in power, with Imee now aligning herself with her brother’s political rival, Sarah Duterte. Read more at Rappler

EU softens tone on China amid rare earth and chip tensions

While EU officials have neither commented nor confirmed the story, a story by the SCMP claims EU officials are in “de-escalation mode” on their public rhetoric as they press ahead with de-risking plans. The paper claims the move comes as Brussels is under pressure from Beijing over rare earths and the Nexperia dispute. The SCMP also claims Brussels is close to agreeing on a one-year general licence for rare earth exports, up from the current three months, as it seeks steady supply for hi-tech manufacturing and Nexperia’s Chinese operations. Read more at South China Morning Post

Business This Week

AMD warns of $1 Tnn chip market and higher graphics prices

AMD CEO Lisa Su says the chip market is “insatiable,” forecasting it will hit $1 trillion by 2030 at a 40% annual growth rate, covering CPUs, networking chips, and AI processors competing with Nvidia. Meanwhile, AMD plans to raise graphics card prices as customers face a squeeze on the supply of memory chips, building on earlier increases for industry customers that have yet to filter through to retail customers. Read more at Semafor

Dear Parents, Roblox to use facial recognition for age verification

Gaming platform Roblox will require users to verify their age via facial recognition from January 2026 to chat with other players. The move, the company says, aims to curb adult–child communication. It follows global criticism over Roblox’s failure to protect children from predators and sexual exploitation. The company is currently facing multiple lawsuits in the U.S. from the attorneys general of Texas, Kentucky and Louisiana, as well as private plaintiffs. Read more at Tech Crunch

Society This Week

Gunmen abduct female students in attack on Nigerian school

Gunmen attacked a government girls’ boarding school in Nigeria’s Kebbi State early on Monday, killing the vice principal and abducting 25 female students, police said, in the latest mass kidnapping in the country’s northwest. Northwest Nigeria has witnessed repeated school abductions by armed gangs seeking ransom, despite government pledges to improve security in the region. Read more at Reuters

Singapore sends a clear message on stage-crashers

Singapore has jailed Australian serial stage invader Johnson Wen for nine days after he rushed at Ariana Grande at a film premiere, drawing near-unanimous applause from locals. The extended sentence – up from seven days – marks the first custodial consequence for Wen, whose past antics in Australia and Europe were largely brushed off. Read more in Rolling Stone

Definition of ‘gender’ threatens Cop30 talks

A row over the meaning of “gender” could derail key negotiations at Cop30, where countries aim to agree on a ‘Gender Action Plan’ to ensure climate policies reflect and support women’s experiences. Conservative states are pushing to define gender as “biological sex,” a move advocates warn would roll back UN language and exclude trans and non-binary people. Read more in The Guardian

Pretty Cool Stuff

Scientific Storytelling: 12,000-year-old figurine hints at early myth-making

A clay figurine unearthed at a prehistoric village near the Sea of Galilee in Israel depicts a woman and a goose, possibly one of the world’s oldest mythological scenes. Dating back 12,000 years, it suggests the Natufians (a hunter-gatherer culture in the Levant from approximately 15,000 to 11,500 years ago) saw humans and animals as spiritually linked. “It bridges the world of mobile hunter-gatherers and the first settled communities,” according to Professor Leore Grosman at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology, highlighting early symbolic thinking in human culture. Read more at Live Science

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