Our daily journey around the world

🇷🇺🤝🇨🇳 Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to China last week to meet with President Xi Jinping. A two-day event centered around China’s Belt and Road global infrastructure project was held in Beijing last week, with more than two dozen world leaders mainly from the Global South in attendance. Over the course of the event, both Putin and Xi stressed the close diplomatic ties between their countries, and laid out a vision of an alternative world order less dominated by the US and its Western allies.

🇰🇪⚖️ Kenya is cracking down on fake lawyers. On Saturday, Kenya’s government announced probes into six individuals accused of fraudulently posing as lawyers and trying cases in recent years. Several news reports claimed one of the fake lawyers had won all 26 cases he handled in various courtrooms – but the president of Kenya’s top bar association rejected those claims as false and misleading. Other Kenyan officials say those posing as lawyers should be allowed to keep practicing law if they pass a fair and transparent examination.

🇮🇷 A teenage Iranian girl who fell into a coma after an alleged altercation with morality police was declared brain dead. Armita Geravand, 16, collapsed and was hospitalized shortly after boarding a metro train in Tehran on October 1. Witnesses from the train say Geravand was beaten by Iran’s morality police for not wearing a hijab, while Iranian officials claim she suddenly fainted. The incident occurred slightly over a year after 22-year-old Mahsa Ahmini died while being detained by Tehran’s morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab "improperly," which sparked ongoing mass anti-government protests across Iran (as well as a violent government crackdown).