Days of protests have rocked Georgia following the government’s controversial decision to delay the former Soviet country’s bid to join the European Union.

Tensions have been brewing for months in the South Caucasus nation of 3.7 million people, where critics accuse the ruling Georgian Dream party of following increasingly authoritarian, pro-Russia policies in a turn away from the West that has tempered hopes for Georgia’s long-promised path to EU membership.

The protests have been met with a violent police crackdown as the ruling party and thousands of protesters become locked in a deepening battle over the country’s future and whether Georgia should forge closer ties with Russia or Europe.

Here’s what you need to know.

What sparked the protests?

Tensions intensified in late October when Georgian Dream claimed victory in a contested election that was widely seen as a referendum on joining the EU.

Georgia, which gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, has for years pursued EU membership, with the goal of joining the bloc written into its constitution.

Most Georgians support the policy, polls consistently show, and it appeared to be on track last year when the country gained EU candidate status.

But on November 28, the government signaled a pivot away from Europe in a move which sparked widespread anger.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said Georgia would suspend EU accession talks for four years after the European Parliament rejected the country’s election results, citing alleged irregularities.

The Georgian Dream governing bloc accused the EU of using the prospect of accession talks to “blackmail” Georgia, and to “organize a revolution in the country.”

“We have decided not to put the issue of opening negotiations with the European Union on the agenda until the end of 2028,” it said. “Also, we refuse any budgetary grant from the European Union until the end of 2028.”

What’s happening at the protests?

The government’s move brought thousands of pro-European Georgians to the streets of the capital Tbilisi, where they have rallied for consecutive nights despite a violent police backlash.

Reuters videos show protesters waving Georgian and EU flags and chanting “Russian slaves” at police officers guarding the parliament building. Police fired water cannons and tear gas at protesters, while men wearing balaclavas were seen running into the crowds and beating individuals.

The protests have spread beyond the capital, with Georgian media reporting demonstrations in at least eight cities and towns, according to Reuters.

Opposition TV channel Formula showed people in the central town of Khashuri throwing eggs at the local Georgian Dream office and tearing down the party’s flag. Demonstrators also blocked an access road to the country’s main commercial port in the Black Sea city of Poti, according to Georgian news agency Interpress.

More than 100 people have been arrested, according to Georgian officials, who claimed protesters threw stones and glass bottles at law enforcement. Dozens of people have also been hospitalized.

Residents have remarked on the forcefulness of the police response, which has been widely condemned internationally.

Salome Zourabichvili, the country’s pro-Western president whose powers are mostly ceremonial, claimed that police “targeted journalists and political leaders.”

She lambasted what she called “brutal and disproportionate attacks on the Georgian people and media, reminiscent of Russian-style repression” at the protests.

How did Georgia get here?

Nearly 80% of Georgians support European integration, according to a poll in December last year by the US non-profit National Democratic Institute.

Many Georgians also feel a deep hostility towards Russia, which invaded Georgia in 2008 and today occupies about 20% of its internationally recognized territories.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, thousands of Russians – especially men of service age – have fled to Georgia to avoid conscription, tearing at the country’s social fabric as many Georgians express fears of creeping Russification.

Georgian Dream, founded by a billionaire who made his fortune in Russia, has taken a sharp authoritarian turn in recent years. Earlier this year, it pushed through a new Russian-style “foreign agent” law that allows the government to clamp down on watchdogs, alarming the EU, the US, and its political opponents within Georgia.

Experts have warned the suspension of EU talks is another sign the country is going down an undemocratic path under Georgian Dream.

She said she fears Georgia is “becoming a state that is non-democratic, unfree, where liberties are not respected.”

How have the EU and US reacted?

The United States and the EU have criticized what they see as growing authoritarianism in Georgia and the aggressive response to protesters by police.

The US State Department condemned “the excessive use of force by police against Georgians” and said it was suspending the US-Georgia Strategic Partnership due to “anti-democratic actions” by the ruling party.

“We reiterate our call to the Georgian government to return to its Euro-Atlantic path, transparently investigate all parliamentary election irregularities, and repeal anti-democratic laws that limit freedoms of assembly and expression,” spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc stands “with the Georgian people and their choice for a European future,” in a post on social media.

“We condemn the violence against protesters & regret signals from ruling party not to pursue Georgia’s path to EU and democratic backsliding of the country,” she said. “This will have direct consequences from EU side.”

How has Georgia responded?

Prime Minister Kobakhidze dismissed the US criticism and said police had “successfully protected the state from another attempt to violate the constitutional order,” according to Reuters.

Georgian Dream has also denied it is linked to Russia.

Kobakhidze has insisted the party remains committed to Georgia’s EU bid and is only pushing back on “blackmail and manipulation” by EU politicians.

But the West has become skeptical of the party’s intentions.

So too have hundreds of Georgian diplomats and civil servants, who have signed open letters calling the delay of EU talks unlawful.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is yet to comment on the situation in Georgia.

But Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president prone to hyperbole who currently sits on the Security Council of Russia, described events in Georgia as an attempted revolution warning on Telegram that the country was “moving rapidly along the Ukrainian path, into the dark abyss. Usually this sort of thing ends very badly.”

Australian police seized the country’s largest haul of cocaine aboard a fishing boat that had broken down near the coast of Queensland, arresting 13 people alleged to be part of a drug-smuggling syndicate.

Authorities tracked a recreational fishing boat as it traveled out to sea where it allegedly met a mothership in international waters to fetch the cocaine – some 2.34 metric tons with a street value of nearly half a billion dollars.

The boat suffered a suspected mechanical breakdown, leaving the alleged traffickers stranded 18 kilometers (11 miles) off the northeastern tip of K’gari island, formerly known as Fraser Island, on Saturday.

Police seized their chance to board the boat, arresting two men at sea in a joint investigation between federal and local forces. Another 11 were arrested on shore, including two juveniles.

The arrests include the Brisbane vice president of the Comanchero Outlaw Motorcycle Gang, which is accused of engaging in violence, extortion and trafficking, police said.

All the suspects are accused of being part of a criminal syndicate and have been charged with conspiracy to import a commercial quantity of drugs. The maximum penalty is life imprisonment.

Police said the haul was the equivalent to 11.7 million individual street deals.

“We know that criminals go to extreme lengths, and often risk their own lives, to smuggle drugs into Australia with no regard to the harm they cause to Australian communities,” Commander Stephen Jay said.

“This alleged attempt to collect more than 2 tons of cocaine from the ocean shows that criminals will do anything for their own greed and profit.”

The police operation began in November following a tip-off that the Comanchero biker gang was allegedly planning to bring the drugs into the country.

Australian police have warned in recent years that international drugs cartels are increasingly targeting the country, where a surge in cocaine use combined with some of the highest street prices in the world has fueled a lucrative illicit market.

Last week, six so-called “narco subs” stuffed with cocaine were captured in a Colombian-led international anti-drug operation. Among the haul was 225 metric tons of cocaine, 5 tons of which was found aboard a semi-submersible vessel plying a marine trafficking route from Colombia to Australia, according to the Colombian Navy.

A bear that ran amok in a supermarket in northern Japan has been caught two days after it attacked a worker, the latest in a surge of encounters between bears and people in the country.

The bear wandered into the store in Akita City on Saturday and attacked a 47-year-old employee, who sustained a minor head injury, police said.

It was two more days before authorities were able to trap the animal – and in that time it ransacked the meat section and damaged some shelves, police said, citing the store manager.

Bear attacks are becoming a growing headache for the country, especially in northern Japan, where mountain ranges and lush bush provide an ideal habitat.

But climate change is interfering with flowering and pollination schedules, disrupting bears’ traditional sources of food, forcing them to venture out to urban areas in search of sustenance, some experts have suggested.

The bear, believed to be 1-meter (3 feet) long, remained in the store after attacking the worker, so authorities sent a drone inside on Sunday to find it, public broadcaster NHK reported.

Outside, police officers in protective gear and holding shields entered the supermarket from an entrance covered by a piece of plastic, according to local media footage.

The bear was later found in the storage area, so workers set up a box trap, with honey and apples to attract the interloper. The bear was caught on Monday.

The number of bear attacks in the prefecture was higher than usual this year after hitting a record last year, the spokesperson said.

Japan also recorded the highest number of injuries or property damage as a result of bear attacks in the fiscal year that ended in March, according to NHK.

There’s a name for that feeling you get after spending too long scrolling aimlessly, and Oxford University Press (OUP) has chosen it as its word for the year for 2024.

“Brain rot” took the title in a vote in which more than 37,000 people participated, as well as public commentary and analysis of OUP’s language data.

In a statement released Monday, OUP, which publishes the Oxford English Dictionary, defined “brain rot” as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.”

While the use of “brain rot” rose 230% this year, it actually first appeared more than a century ago.

According to OUP, it was first used by author Henry David Thoreau in his book “Walden” as he criticised society’s tendency to devalue complicated ideas in favour of simple ones.

“While England endeavours to cure the potato rot,” wrote Thoreau, “will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot – which prevails so much more widely and fatally?”

All these years later, it seems brain rot is well and truly established.

The term has gained traction over the past year, however, especially as worries grow about the impact of over-consuming low-quality content online.

Earlier this year, a behavioral healthcare provider in the United States began offering treatment for brain rot, describing it as a condition of “mental fogginess, lethargy, reduced attention span, and cognitive decline.”

The healthcare company cited doomscrolling and social media addiction as examples of brain rot behavior, which could be prevented by setting limits on screen time or doing a digital detox.

“’Brain rot’ speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time,” said Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, in Monday’s announcement.

“I also find it fascinating that the word ‘brain rot’ has been adopted by Gen Z and Gen Alpha… These communities have amplified the expression through social media channels, the very place said to cause ‘brain rot,’” he added.

“It demonstrates a somewhat cheeky self-awareness in the younger generations about the harmful impact of the social media that they’ve inherited.”

The word beat out five other shortlisted contenders, which included “lore,” meaning a body of (supposed) facts, background information and anecdotes required to fully understand something; “romantasy,” a portmanteau for literature combining elements of romantic fiction and fantasy; and “slop,” which refers to low-quality content generated by artificial intelligence.

“Demure,” a word that went viral over the summer following a popular TikTok video, was also shortlisted. The word, which means being reserved in appearance or behavior, had already been named word of the year by Dictionary.com last week.

Last year, Oxford chose “rizz” as its word of 2023. Derived from the word charisma, it refers to a person’s ability to attract a romantic partner.

A highly decorated former Israeli defense minister has caused a firestorm by accusing Israel of carrying out ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in northern Gaza.

Moshe Ya’alon, who served for three decades in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), including in the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, and as the military’s chief of staff, also said that he believed Israel was losing its identity as a liberal democracy and becoming a “corrupt and leprous fascist Messianic state.”

“Conquering, annexing, ethnic cleansing – look at northern Gaza,” Ya’alon told Israel’s Democrat TV.

The interviewer expressed surprise at Ya’alon’s use of the phrase “ethnic cleansing,” asking, “Is that what you think – that we’re on the way there?”

“Why ‘on the way?’” he responded. “What’s happening there? There’s no Beit Lahia. There’s no Beit Hanoun. They’re currently operating in Jabalya, and essentially, they’re cleaning the area of Arabs,” he said, referring to the IDF.

The Israeli military has for two months been carrying out an intense and deadly operation in northern Gaza, targeting what it says are resurgent Hamas militants. It has told all civilians that for their own safety, they must go to a humanitarian area in southern Gaza. Thousands of Palestinian civilians have refused to leave, after more than a year of being told to evacuate to areas of Gaza that are then also targeted by Israeli strikes. Vanishingly few aid deliveries have been allowed into northern Gaza, according to the World Food Programme.

The Israeli military, responding to Ya’alon, denied that it was ethnically cleansing northern Gaza and said that it operated “in accordance with international law, and evacuates civilians based on operational necessity, for their own protection.”

The government has not yet presented a plan for post-war governance in Gaza. It has also denied it is implementing a “surrender or starve” proposal in northern Gaza put forward by a retired military general, Giora Eiland – though it did consider the plan.

“I held up a mirror to the statements of many ministers and Knesset (parliament) members in the government,” Ya’alon said in a second interview, with Channel 12. “Under this title, ethnic cleansing is effectively being carried out; I don’t have another word for it.”

The interviewer said that such a phrase evoked “dark periods” in history.

“That’s right, and I purposely used this term to ring the alarm bells,” the former defense minister responded.

Extremist factions in Israeli politics have called for Jewish settlement in Gaza nearly since the outset of the war , following Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack. Soldiers serving in Gaza have regularly promoted the return of Gush Katif – Gaza settlements destroyed when Israel unilaterally withdrew from the territory in 2005. And the ideas have gained traction: In October, hundreds of activists and several senior sitting ministers attended a Gush Katif conference near the Gaza border.

“We need to stay there, we need to establish a flourishing Jewish settlement there,” Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said in an interview with Israel TV channel Kan on Monday. “Both because this is the land of Israel and also because this guarantees the security of the residents of the South.”

Ya’alon joined a growing chorus in recent weeks referring to Israel’s military operation in northern Gaza as “ethnic cleansing.”

Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an editorial at the end of October titled: “If it looks liked ethnic cleansing, it probably is.” Human Rights Watch last month said in a 154-page report that Israel had overseen the forced mass displacement of Palestinians in Gaza in a deliberate and systematic campaign that amounts to a war crime and a crime against humanity. Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, said he believes that “it is not by chance that the words ‘ethnic cleansing’ are increasingly used to describe what is going on in north Gaza.”

The International Criminal Court last month issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, saying it had “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu bears criminal responsibility for war crimes including “starvation as a method of warfare” and “the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.” It also issued a warrant for a senior Hamas official.

The former defense minister said that upon seeing what’s happening in Gaza, he could no longer use the oft-cited monicker for the IDF as the “most moral” military in the world.

“The IDF is not the most moral army today,” he said. “It’s hard for me to say that.”

His intervention drew harsh criticism from former military colleagues. “To lie and harm the State of Israel and the IDF is not following a compass – this is lawlessness,” the politician Benny Gantz, who also served as IDF chief of staff, said in a statement. “The IDF has bent over backwards to minimize loss of civilian life,” Naftali Bennett, who also served in the Sayeret Matkal commando unit, said. “The population is moved away from danger for its own safety. It is not only the IDF’s right to do so, itis its obligation.”

Ya’alon said that while military commanders may believe their actions are purely operational, politicians have other plans in mind – and his words were aimed at them.

“I’m talking about soldiers moving populations, thinking it’s for operational purposes,” Ya’alon said. “But the intention of Smotrich, Ben Gvir, Strook, and Daniela Weiss” – all avowed settlers – “is an open and declared one.”