Senegal woke up on March 26 to a new president-elect, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a former tax inspector and political newcomer who inspired voters, including many unemployed youth, with a vow to fight corruption and reform the economy.

Authorities in Chad have cleared 10 candidates for this year’s long-awaited presidential election, barring two fierce opponents of the military government from standing. Chad’s Constitutional Council announced on March 24 that outspoken opposition figures Nassour Ibrahim Neguy Koursami and Rakhis Ahmat Saleh would be barred.

Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip may amount to a “war crime,” the United Nations human rights chief says.

The appraisal on March 19 followed the release of a UN-backed report that said famine is likely by May in the besieged Palestinian enclave of 2.3 million people unless fighting in the more than five-month war between Israel and Hamas is brought to an end and aid shipments swiftly increased.

Thailand’s election body has said it will seek the dissolution of a pro-reform party that won the most votes in last year’s election, saying there is evidence the party “undermines the democratic system with the king as the head of state.”

Move Forward came top in last year’s election after promising major reforms, including to amend Thailand’s draconian lese-majesty law, under which criticism of the powerful royal family can lead to up to 15 years in prison. However, the party was blocked from taking power by military-appointed senators and has faced legal cases.

The number of people affected by violence in South Sudan surged by 35 percent in the last three months of 2023 due to intercommunal conflict, the United Nations has said.

The UN Mission in South Sudan documented 233 incidents of violence affecting 862 people. In a report released on March 18, it said 406 people were killed, 293 were injured, 100 were abducted, and 63 were subjected to conflict-related sexual violence.

President Vladimir Putin won a record post-Soviet landslide in Russia's election on March 17, cementing his already tight grip on power in a victory he said showed Moscow had been right to stand up to the West and send its troops into Ukraine.

Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel who first rose to power in 1999, made it clear that the result should send a message to the West that its leaders will have to reckon with an emboldened Russia, whether in war or in peace, for many more years to come.

The UN Human Rights Council released a report on March 15 on the human rights situation in Belarus during and after the country’s presidential election in 2020. It concludes that the crime against humanity of persecution may have been committed in Belarus.

Top military leaders in Brazil have alleged that former President Jair Bolsonaro presented them with a plan to reverse the results of the 2022 presidential election, according to court documents.

The filings, released on March 15, offer some of the first evidence that Bolsonaro was directly involved in an effort to subvert the vote, which he narrowly lost to left-wing candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Though it has yet to respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment, Israel continues to push back against the accusations of torture levelled at its armed forces in an unpublished report by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

The report details the extensive use of torture against Palestinians taken prisoner by the Israeli military in Gaza, including 21 UNRWA staff members, and 15 family members of UNRWA staff,  an accusation Israel has denied.