Djibouti’s President Ismail Omar Guelleh is expected to extend his two-decade rule of the tiny Horn of Africa nation as the country heads to the polls Friday. Guelleh, 73, is facing political newcomer Zakaria Ismail Farah, his only rival after traditional opposition parties decided to boycott the election. A businessman specialised in the importation of cleaning products, Farah, 56, is seen by observers as unlikely to pose a significant challenge to the strongman who has been in power for 22 years. Djibouti is a largely desert country strategically situated on one of the world’s busiest trade routes and at the crossroads between Africa and the Arabian peninsula, a short distance from war-torn Yemen. Under Guelleh, the country has exploited this geographical advantage, investing heavily in ...
The Pitch: In 2016, a near-perfect South Korean zombie flick crawled across the consciousness. Back then, Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan—premised upon an extremely contagious virus turning people into man-eating monsters—reaped a whirlwind of success. When Sang-ho returned to make the sequel Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula, he couldn’t have predicted the prescient nature of his action-horror film. But amidst the resultant lockdowns and quarantines from Covid-19, the concept plays vastly different today. Following a former army captain and a small family surviving in Incheon, Peninsula combines components from I Am Legend, Mad Max, and the Fast & Furious series for a nonsensical joy ride that, while entertaining, lacks the sharpness of its predecessor. In Your Head: Peninsula opens to...