The Russian election is perhaps the only one this year for which the results had been reported well before the first ballots had been cast. 

Driving the news: People in Russia and occupied Ukraine are heading to the polls this weekend to vote in the national election, but given the lack of genuine opposition to current President Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader is all but guaranteed another six years in power. 

As the situation worsens in Haiti, some Canadian diplomats are getting out. 

What happened: Canada evacuated most of its embassy staff in Haiti, leaving only essential employees in the Caribbean nation, including Ambassador André François Giroux. Meanwhile, the ~3,000 Canadian citizens in Haiti have received shelter-in-place orders. 

Of all the days to decide how the constitution should define the duties of women in society, Irish voters headed to the polls on International Women’s Day to cast their votes. 

Driving the news: Yesterday’s referendum posed two questions to citizens — to vote “yes” or “no” to loosen the definition of family and to remove references to a woman’s role being solely as a caregiver within the home, long seen as crucial to the “common good” of society.  

 On this week’s episode of Free Lunch by The Peak, we sat down with Joe McReynolds, a co-author of the book Emergent Tokyo, to talk about what Western cities can learn from Japan’s capital — including how the city manages to keep rent super low for residents.  

A history of using Danish schnapps to smooth over land disputes could set the tone for a budding friendship between Greenland and Canada. 

Driving the news: Greenland, a 57,000-person island nation that also happens to be the 12th-largest country in the world, is looking to strengthen political and economic ties with Canada and the U.S. as part of a larger push to become more economically independent. 

Perhaps Canadian NHL teams looking to win the Stanley Cup could learn something from Japan’s stock market about breaking decades-long curses. 

What happened: This week, the Nikkei 225, Japan’s largest stock market index, rose to a record high for the first time in more than 34 years. It’s become the world’s best-performing major index so far in 2024, rising about 17.5% this year, and 42.4% over the past 12 months.

Nearly five months into a war between Israel and Hamas, officials in Israel, Egypt, the U.S., and Qatar are struggling to move towards a solution. 

What happened: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put forward a post-war blueprint for Gaza that calls for an indefinite Israeli security presence in the enclave.

A decade-long effort to take down a so-called ​​"party of thieves and crooks" has left one of Russia’s most prominent opposition leaders dead. 

What happened: ​​A wave of outrage gripped the international community after authorities confirmed that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny had died in a Siberian prison. He had been jailed since 2021, and was serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges.

Meet Prabowo Subianto. He loves cats. He gets jiggy with it. He was the head of military special forces under a dictatorship. And he’s going to be the next president of Indonesia.  

Driving the news: Indonesia held one of the largest democratic elections in the world this week, with almost 205 million eligible voters. Early results show that Subianto, the defence minister and ex-general, is all but guaranteed to win the race and take office in November.  

While most of us are trying to save up these days, NATO nations are spending on defence like a rich kid who got their hands on their daddy’s credit card.

Driving the news: NATO projects that 18 of its 31 member states will meet the military bloc’s goal of spending at least 2% of annual GDP on defence this year. That’s over 58% of members, compared to 35% just last year and a paltry 14% of members a decade ago.