 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from around the world. Our headlines? Ugandan Opposition candidate Bobby Wein to mount legal challenge against presidential election results. Palestine said to hold legislative and presidential elections after 15 years. Many arrested in Tunisia during protests against worsening economic crisis. And finally in our video section, we look at the US diplomatic assault on Cuba and its implications. In our first story, Ugandan Opposition front-runner Bobby Wein has announced that he will challenge President Joeri Mussaveni's electoral victory in court. Mussaveni was declared the winner of the January 14th elections amid allegations of rigging and anti-opposition violence. The elections were held under a countrywide internet shutdown and a ban on all social media platforms. The election commission declared Mussaveni the winner with 58.64% of the votes on January 16th. Bobby Wein was second with a vote share of 34.83%. The chief of the election commission had previously stated that the results would arrive at the National Tally Center not through the local internet but through the commission's own system. However, no details regarding the system were provided. Wein first raised allegations of fraud and rigging on January 15th during the announcement of the provisional results. The Ugandan military proceeded to surround his house and subsequently entered it. He has since been placed under conditions of house arrest and is unable to contact party officials or journalists. A member of parliament Francis Zarkiev was also arrested and beaten for trying to reach his residence and had to be hospitalized. The forces also raided the offices of Wein's party, the national unity platform today. The months leading up to Thursday's elections witnessed a sustained and violent crackdown on the opposition by the administration of President Mussaveni, who has been in power since 1986. Irregularities and delays witnessed in the polling booths and election day were also consistent with similar reports from previous elections. The African Union was reported the only organization to send monitors for the election, as the EU and UN were not permitted to observe the proceedings. In our next story, Palestine is set to hold its first legislative and presidential elections in 15 years. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree to this effect on Friday, January 15th. Legislative elections are scheduled to be held across the occupied West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem on May 22. These will be followed by the presidential election scheduled for July 31. The announcement follows the start of a reconciliation process among Palestinian factions over long-standing tensions. Rifts had emerged after the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority government announced the decision to resume security coordination with Israel last year. Fatah subsequently also did not participate in a joint military exercise along with other groups including Hamas. Despite this, Hamas has issued a statement welcoming the announcement of elections. Anandres' concerns remain around the election process in occupied East Jerusalem, which has been annexed by Israel as part of its idea of an undivided eternal capital. Palestinian Election Commission Chairman Hana Nasir has stated that while there may not be guarantees regarding Jerusalem, there do exist precedents. Palestinians had participated in elections held in 1996 and 2006. Israel is yet to officially respond to the election announcement. Two million Palestinians will be eligible to vote in the upcoming elections. A 25% quota had also been reserved for women candidates in the 132-member national parliament. Palestinian factions will reportedly meet next week in Egypt's capital Cairo to participate in further talks regarding the elections. The election commission will initiate a five-day process of voter registration on February. We now go to Tunisia where protests entered the third day as thousands gathered across the country on January 17 amid a worsening economic crisis. People first took to the streets following an announcement of a renewed lockdown starting from January 14. Protests also grew following the release of the video footage of a police beating a shepherd in the city of Siliana on January 15. As protests spread to nearly 15 cities, police forces deployed tear gas and water cannons in places to suppress the crowds. A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry has stated that over 600 people including minors have been arrested by the authorities so far. Tunisia's domestic economic conditions have worsened under the COVID-19 epidemic. The country's GDP strash ranked by 9% in 2020, with crucial sectors of tourism and unemployment being the worst hit. The price of essential commodities and consumer products have increased rapidly while approximately one-third of the country's debt is unemployed. The country is now also facing a second wave of COVID-19 infections as fresh cases have risen significantly. 2,589 new cases and 76 deaths were recorded in the country on January 17. The protests also coincided with the 10th anniversary of the Revolution, which ousted a corrupt and undemocratic regime of Zainal Abdin Minali. However, the persistence of low economic growth and lack of adequate public services continue to affect large parts of the country. In our final story, we look at some of the recent decisions the Trump administration which has gone on a diplomatic war path. Last week, it initiated measures to put Cuba on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism and also sanctioned a minister. Newspaper Bipur Kaisa analyzes the impact of these decisions. And Cuba are facing imperial onslaughts for the longest time. And we see that the recent announcement that they've started the process to put Cuba on the list of countries supporting terrorism. And this had been removed earlier during the Obama administration, now the attempt to bring it back, whether it will actually happen or not is a different question because the procedures might take some time. But more importantly, what we see again is that despite Cuba's amazing service to the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, nonetheless, the US strategy over the decades is still being intensified right now. Well, you know, Cuba is of course has always been in the crosses of the United States because it's a holdout. It represents a kind of history which the Latin Americans respect, and that reverence that you can stand up as a small country. You can stand up to the might of the United States, which has a number of new colonies and has had the Mondo doctrine earlier. A whole set of things which reduced Latin America to near colonial status that Cuba could break from it and chart a new course. So that is the attraction that Cuba has for Latin America. So it's not Cuba, so much as the fact what it represents that is under attack. So if they can overthrow Cuba, then they think they will have removed that center of dissent to American dominance of the South Americas, which is what all the Central Americas for that matters. So this is really the reason why Cuba has always been under attack and it's been intensified with Trump administration because they don't want any normalcy in this part of the world. But more than that, they want essentially the Bolivarian revolution to fail. And that is the other part of it. The Cuba is an ideological guarantee of some sort against the kind of ideological onslaught that has been lodged by the United States and its allies and you have a whole bunch of them in Latin America which are trying to turn the wheel of history in the opposite direction. Now Venezuela is of course a classic issue. Ecuador is another, but you have also Argentina, you have also Chile. So there is a whole bunch of countries where the right versus left is coming issues coming up and knocking Cuba out in the Cuban doctors and nurses. As you talked about the COVID-19 help that Cuba provided to different parts of the world. This is something that they need to dislodge because you see this is one picture. What is the other picture? The American vaccine nationalism at its worst. We will take care of ourselves. The devil take the hindmost and if any vaccine is left over, we will charge exorbitant amounts of money for delivering it to the next to other parts of the world. This is the philosophy with which it is developing and you can see Cuba is at the moment. It has four vaccines that it is testing out. Unfortunately Cuba doesn't have the COVID-19 pandemic unlike the United States and the UK and parts of Europe. So they have a difficult task where to actually test it out. The same problem the Chinese also had. But you can see that the approach of the Cubans has been this is for the world, this is not for us. Unlike the United States, which is really, we will have it first and then we will see how much we can fleece the rest of the world. And I think that is the kind of ideological issue which really accentuates what the Cubans stand for and what the US stand for. And of course, again, trying to clear the pitch in any thought in Latin America by targeting Cuba. That's all we have time for today. We'll be back tomorrow with more news from around the world. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.