Decades ago, Mozambique’s liberation party, Frelimo, easily attracted adoring crowds. The promise of salvation from Portuguese colonizers, and a life with jobs and housing for all, was an easy sell in a southern African nation that was suffering under racist rule.

But when Daniel Chapo of Frelimo became president on Wednesday, he assumed the leadership of a country more dissatisfied with his party than at any point during its 50 years of independence. Tens of thousands of people took to the street after the October election, which voters, international observers, opposition leaders and rights groups have roundly criticized as fraudulent.

The country of 33 million has been roiled by political chaos since the vote. And now, Frelimo’s grip on power is being tested like never before at a time when Mozambique faces urgent economic and social crises, analysts say. Two of the three opposition parties boycotted the inauguration and the opening of Parliament on Monday.

The anger among voters exploded into huge street protests in the past several months that led to clashes with the police. At least 300 people have been killed.

Mr. Chapo and his party had likely hoped that the inauguration on Wednesday would help move the country toward reconciliation and stability. But early signs suggested a difficult path toward unity.

The police quickly moved to disperse a few dozen peaceful protesters about two blocks from the inauguration in the capital, Maputo. The demonstrators fled when officers marched toward them with barking dogs lunging on leashes.

Officers fired several rounds of live ammunition to quell the demonstrations. But the show of force only angered the protesters, who yelled, “They won’t govern,” referring to Frelimo.

“We’re going to burn Mozambique,” said Angelina Chissano, one of the protesters in the capital on Wednesday.

Such demonstrations offered a glimpse of the new reality that Frelimo must contend with.

“Frelimo became used to seeing themselves as the chosen party,” said Gabriel Muthisse, a former top party official who remains an active member. “They believed that elections were only a formality for the people to confirm their leadership. Over the past five, 10 years, things are showing that that is false.”

After taking the oath of office, Mr. Chapo attempted to extend a hand to Mozambicans. He vowed to cut state spending by downsizing the government and reducing expensive perks that ministers receive. (The government is often criticized for spending lavishly on officials, while failing to meet many citizens’ basic needs.)

“I know many of us feel that leaders are distant, inaccessible and disconnected from the real concerns of the people,” Mr. Chapo said. “This will change.”

Mr. Chapo appeared to be taking a page out of his rival’s playbook. Venâncio Mondlane, the opposition leader, is seen by many to be the true champion of ordinary Mozambicans. The fiery populist claims to have won the election and has drawn a huge following, particularly from disaffected young voters.

When Mr. Mondlane, 50, returned to Mozambique last week after a self-imposed exile, the police responded with deadly force against supporters who took to the streets to greet him.

Mr. Mondlane has called for continued protests, though this week has not attracted the mass demonstrations that shut down the capital and other cities in previous months.

In an interview in Maputo, Mr. Mondlane said that he had communicated with Mr. Chapo through a mutual friend. He expressed hope that the president would negotiate a resolution to end the political crisis and accept reforms put forward by him in a recent proposal. On top of amending the constitution and overhauling government institutions, those reforms include building three million houses for poor Mozambicans and creating a half-billion-dollar fund for startups led by women and young people.

“You must give the people something very crucial and something tangible,” Mr. Mondlane said. “I don’t know if all the items that are in my proposal will be satisfied or not. But I think that we will begin a platform of dialogue.”

Protests were still needed, he added, because to ensure that reforms will happen, “you must put the government under pressure.”

Mr. Chapo, 48, emerged last year as Frelimo’s surprise presidential candidate. Unlike others in the party, he did not lobby for the nomination. He entered public office just 10 years ago, but came face to face with the country’s troubled political history long ago.

When he was 5, he said, his family was kidnapped by guerrilla forces fighting Frelimo during Mozambique’s 16-year civil war. A lawyer by training, he served as a provincial governor before running for the presidency for the first time last year as a member of Frelimo.

Branquinho João da Costa, a 43-year-old doctor living part time in Maputo, recalled his grade school days when the glory of Frelimo was drilled into him and his classmates through freedom songs. “It’s very difficult to be completely disconnected from Frelimo,” he said.

Many Mozambicans are now disgruntled with the party over accusations of corruption and its failure to address rising prices, which Mr. da Costa called “a new kind of slavery for the people.” He said the Frelimo of his childhood was more in touch with the party’s socialist roots, and that it was led then by officials who cared less about wealth and power.

“The real aim of Frelimo was serving people,” Mr. da Costa said. “Now many of them, they fight to get political positions just to steal from us.”

Frelimo no longer has the luxury of ignoring such criticism, some party members say. The past few months have been a warning, said Alsácia Sardinha, who was sworn in this week for her third term as a member of Parliament for Frelimo.

“We have to reinvent ourselves to respond to the demands of the people,” she said. That reinvention includes the party policing its own government against wrongdoing, she added.

Mr. Muthisse, the former Frelimo official, said that Parliament can no longer rubber stamp laws put forward by the president. The party needs to focus on reforming institutions, like the electoral commission and the courts, in order to regain public trust, he said.

That reform should be at the center of negotiations with the opposition, Mr. Muthisse said.

“Everybody has to bring ideas,” he said, “so that in the next elections, we all believe.”

Mediators rushed on Wednesday to clinch a deal between Israel and Hamas on a cease-fire that would release hostages held in Gaza, after more than a year of devastating war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and destroyed much of the enclave.

Neither Israel nor Hamas has publicly endorsed the agreement, and Israeli and U.S. officials have said that they were waiting for a final response from Hamas. The Palestinian group said on Tuesday that the negotiations had entered their “final stages.”

Negotiators and mediators in Qatar were attempting to address outstanding issues, according to two officials familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

Those issues included maps of how Israeli forces would redeploy inside Gaza during the cease-fire, as well as lists of Palestinian prisoners slated for release in exchange for Israeli and foreign hostages, one of the officials said.

Israel has also demanded a system to prevent armed fighters from returning to northern Gaza. Mediators are also trying to iron out details on inspections of the hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians who would be expected to head to northern Gaza from the south, where many have been displaced, in the event of a truce, the official said.

The latest round of talks is being held in Qatar, a key mediator alongside Egypt and the United States. Majed al-Ansari, the spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, said on Tuesday that the two sides had overcome major disagreements.

But in order to implement the deal, Hamas’s negotiating team in Doha must also obtain the consent of the group’s commanders in Gaza, including Mohammad Sinwar, whose brother Yahya led the group before being killed by Israel in October.

Hamas officials did not respond to questions about whether Mr. Sinwar had responded to the proposal.

In Israel, some hard-line members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have also voiced opposition to the deal. But on Wednesday, Gideon Saar, the Israeli foreign minister, said he believed that a majority would sign off on an agreement if it came to a vote in the cabinet.

Months of shuttle diplomacy have failed to end the war in Gaza, which began after Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that killed 1,200 people and saw 250 taken hostage. Around 105 captives were later released in a weeklong cease-fire in November 2023 in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.

Israel and Hamas have since held numerous rounds of indirect talks, all of which ultimately collapsed amid mutual recriminations. Officials familiar with the negotiations have expressed cautious optimism while noting that there is always a chance that the discussions will founder.

The current deal is broadly similar to a three-phase cease-fire framework publicized by President Biden in late May, according to several officials familiar with the talks. Israel and Hamas would first observe a six-week cease-fire in which Hamas would release women, older men, and ill hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinians jailed by Israel.

Under that proposal, Israel and Hamas would then declare a “permanent cessation of hostilities,” Israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza and the remaining living hostages would be swapped for Palestinian prisoners. But the details have been a major point of contention: Hamas has demanded Israel commit to ending the war, which Israel has resisted.

As Panama’s president laid a wreath to honor those who died protesting the American occupation 60 years ago, the ceremony attendees were resolute.

The commemoration this month came just days after President-elect Donald J. Trump falsely claimed China was controlling the Panama Canal and suggested he could use military force to retake the waterway.

The threat rippled through a country still haunted by the events of 1964, when students trying to plant the Panamanian flag in the U.S.-occupied canal zone were met with deadly force.

“My brother did not die for nothing,” said Carlos E. Bonilla Cacó, whose brother was killed in the demonstrations that sparked the movement leading Panamanians to regain sovereignty.

The country’s leader agreed.

In the foothill near the Panama Canal Authority’s office, President José Raúl Mulino was firm. “The canal is and will continue to be Panamanian,” he said.

The statement directly challenged Mr. Trump, who some analysts say is only posturing to press Panama to lower fees for American goods traversing the canal, a subject he has recently railed against.

But former American officials warn that he may alienate Panama at a time when China is trying to woo the country as an ally and expand its influence in Latin America.

“Trump’s saber rattling could dampen the Panamanian government’s desire to broaden the relationship with the U.S. economically” said Ramon Escobar, who until September served on the National Security Council and is currently the managing director at Actum, a global consultancy firm.

He “may end up pushing them away at a time when there is a real opportunity to get Panama back into our orbit,” Mr. Escobar said.

The canal was constructed by the United States in the early 20th century, but Panama took back full control in 1999 and has since operated the waterway through the Panama Canal Authority.

Today, Panama holds special strategic significance for China because of the canal, but Beijing has been working to expand its influence in Latin America, and among developing countries more broadly. It has portrayed itself as an alternative to what it calls American hegemony and bullying, casting itself as a more sympathetic, fellow developing country.

And with significant investments in port construction worldwide, China is positioning itself to influence global commerce and monitor international activities.

Specifically, U.S. officials have grown increasingly concerned about two seaports at each end of the Panama Canal, which have been operated for decades by CK Hutchison Holdings, a company based in Hong Kong.

While CK Hutchison is a publicly listed conglomerate whose largest owner is a Hong Kong billionaire family, Beijing could still use its national security laws to force the company to assist in intelligence-gathering or military operations.

Panamanian officials argue, however, that China doesn’t pose a risk. The canal is open to the public, they say, and any Chinese interference would be visibly obvious.

“Anyone can use a satellite to see what is going in and out of the port,” Ilya Espino de Marotta, the deputy administrator of the Panama Canal, said in an interview last week. “The canal runs through the country, along national roads and is visible to the public.”

During his first administration, Mr. Trump did bring up the Panama Canal internally, indicating that he sees the waterway as unfinished business, said John Feeley, who served as U.S. ambassador to Panama from 2015 until 2018.

In June 2017, Mr. Trump met with the Panamanian president at the time, Juan Carlos Varela, and complained that the U.S. Navy was paying too much to traverse the canal — about $1 million annually, Mr. Feeley said. (That cost is so minuscule it would be akin to a rounding error in the Pentagon’s budget, analysts say.)

But Mr. Trump never brought up China’s presence or supposed influence over the canal even though just weeks previously Panama had broken off relations with Taiwan and aligned with Beijing, said Mr. Feeley, who attended the White House meeting between the leaders.

The former ambassador said he tried to get the White House to focus on China’s rising influence in Panama, but the issue never grew to a level of serious alarm.

At the time, China was promising to invest in big-ticket infrastructure items in Panama, including a canal bridge, as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. Through the initiative Beijing has increased its influence globally by investing in seaports, roads and trains from Kenya to Sri Lanka and, most recently, Latin America. Critics say Beijing uses the program to saddle foreign governments with failing projects or unsustainable debt in order to wield China’s leverage.

Mr. Feeley said he tried to get American companies to bid on such projects to counter China. But the U.S. Embassy in Panama City never got the White House’s backing to persuade American companies to bid, he said.

“It’s not that we are losing to China in Latin America; in most cases we aren’t even showing up to the commercial battlefield,” Mr. Feeley said.

Latin American governments like Panama’s have complained that when they put out bids for expensive infrastructure projects, the United States is often absent, forcing them to rely on others from Europe to China to get the work done.

“The U.S. isn’t bidding on big infrastructure projects here, but China is,” said Giulia de Sanctis, the president of the Panamanian Association of Business Executives. “Are we supposed to tell them now: ‘It’s time to get out of Panama; Trump doesn’t like you.’ Would anyone feel safe investing here then?”

The Panama Canal Authority has said that while the United States built the canal for military purposes, the Panamanians developed it into a major hub of global trade.

Once the U.S. military handed it over, the authority invested more than $5 billion to widen the waterway and accommodate the giant cargo ships that travel from the United States to East Asia, its most popular route.

“If it wasn’t for our investment, the canal would be irrelevant on the scale of global trade,” said Ms. Espino de Marotta.

“Our neutrality is our greatest business asset, and it enables us to be a route for global commerce,” she said. At the Atlantic entrance of the canal, three ports are separately operated by companies based in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the United States, she said.

“These ports have been managed by Hong Kong since 1997, throughout Trump’s first administration,” she added. “Trump never said a thing about it then, so why now?”

Some Panamanians are reluctant to allow China to invest further in the country. Although Mr. Varela shifted Panama’s diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan and entered into several business agreements with Beijing, subsequent governments have sought to scale back these commitments.

Ramón Martínez, who served as the minister of commerce after Mr. Varela stepped down, expressed his discomfort with the political and economic agreements made by the earlier administration with China. He said he halted a free-trade agreement with China that was under negotiation. The bridge over the canal that China pledged to build was also paused.

Mr. Martínez emphasized that for Panama, its most important ally will always be the United States.

Last week, hundreds of tourists gathered on a terrace at the Miraflores Visitors Center, giving them a bird’s-eye view of the Panama Canal. They waved as a towering cruise ship squeezed its way through the canal.

“At first it made me laugh, the insanity of it all,” said Jacqueline Williams of Mr. Trump’s threats against Panama as she waved to a passing cruise ship. The 67-year-old nonprofit educator was visiting the canal from New York City.

“But then you think: This is a guy who idolizes Putin,” she said, referring to the Russian president. “Trump said on the campaign trail he wanted to restore peace to the world, but now he is threatening military expansionism.”

Alex E. Hernández contributed reporting from Panama City, Vivian Wang from Beijing and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega from Mexico City.

Chris Wright, Donald J. Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Energy, landed the job during his first encounter with the past and future president.

The founder and chief executive of Liberty Energy, a fracking services company based in Colorado, Mr. Wright was among about 20 oil and gas executives whom Mr. Trump gathered at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in April. Mr. Wright had not met Mr. Trump before but caught his attention by making what two people in the room described as a forceful case for fossil fuels.

“Want to be my energy secretary?” Mr. Trump asked, seemingly in jest, according to those present. Days after the election, though, Mr. Trump chose Mr. Wright to lead the agency.

On Wednesday, Mr. Wright will appear before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. It will be the first of three confirmation hearings this week for Mr. Trump’s picks to run the agencies at the center of his plan to increase the production and use of coal, oil and gas.

Mr. Wright has been an evangelist for that cause. On podcasts and in speeches, he frequently makes a moral case for fossil fuels, arguing that the world’s poorest people need oil and gas to realize the benefits of modern life.

He also has distorted climate science, researchers and activists said. For example, Mr. Wright inaccurately claimed on a podcast last year that a top United Nations scientific body had found that climate change “is a slow-moving, modest impact two or three generations from now.”

In fact the scientific body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has recommended that nations make an immediate and drastic shift away from fossil fuels to prevent the planet from crossing a critical global warming threshold.

Meg Bloomgren, a spokeswoman for Mr. Wright, said in a statement that he had spent his career focusing on improving lives, “including studying and determining that climate change is real and a problem we must solve together with relentless U.S. innovation and technology solutions.”

Democrats on Tuesday offered mixed impressions of Mr. Wright.

Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado described him as smart and thoughtful on energy issues but said he remained concerned about how Mr. Wright and other cabinet choices would address climate change.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said Mr. Trump’s picks were “here to loot our public treasury and pollute our public spaces.”

He noted that the Mar-a-Lago event was where Mr. Trump had asked oil industry leaders to raise $1 billion for his campaign and had promised that companies would save far more than that when he eliminated climate regulations, according to people present. “Trump’s big donors want payback,” Mr. Whitehouse said.

Senator Mike Lee, the Utah Republican who leads the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the hearings would be an opportunity to discuss what he called the Biden administration’s energy policy failures.

“With high energy prices hurting Americans and restrictive policies limiting access to public lands and critical resources, it’s essential to prioritize domestic energy production and restore trust in public land management,” Mr. Lee said.

On Thursday, Mr. Lee’s committee will hear from Douglas J. Burgum, the Republican former governor of North Dakota, whom Mr. Trump has tapped for the Interior Department. Also on Thursday, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will consider Lee Zeldin, a former United States representative from Long Island, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

If confirmed to head the Department of Energy, Mr. Wright would help oversee approvals of liquefied gas export terminals, which the Biden administration has tried to slow, angering Republicans.

Mr. Wright graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and did graduate work on solar energy at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1992, he founded Pinnacle Technologies, which created software to measure the motion of fluid beneath the Earth’s surface. The software helped bring about a commercial shale gas revolution.

Mr. Wright started Liberty Energy in 2011, and the company has worked with others on geothermal energy and small, modular nuclear reactors.

Mr. Wright holds 2.6 million shares in the company, which are worth more than $55 million based on the current stock price. A recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing put his compensation last year at $5.6 million.

Mr. Wright filed a separate document with the S.E.C. after Mr. Trump tapped him for energy secretary, indicating that he intended to step down from Liberty Energy. A transition official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the financial disclosures were not yet public, said Mr. Wright intended to divest his holdings once confirmed.

Democrats sought to delay Mr. Wright’s hearing because they had not received his financial disclosure statements, documents typically made public before confirmation proceedings. Republicans declined to delay the hearings.

Senate officials said Mr. Wright’s disclosures had become available to lawmakers late on Tuesday, though they were not yet publicly available online at the Office of Government Ethics.

Ukraine’s national electricity operator introduced emergency power cuts on Wednesday after the country came under what the energy minister called a “massive” missile attack.

Air-raid sirens wailed at around 5:45 a.m. in the capital, Kyiv, as most of the country was put on alert for missile launches. As people huddled in shelters into a third hour and the air force warned of incoming cruise missiles, the energy minister, Herman Galushchenko, announced emergency steps.

“Due to the massive attack, the transmission system operator is applying preventive restriction measures,” Mr. Galushchenko, wrote in a statement on Facebook.

Emergency power shutdowns were applied in six regions across the country, including Kharkiv in the northeast and Zaporizhzhia in the south, according to Ukrenergo, the national electricity operator.

Russian forces have repeatedly targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure in campaigns to black out, and wear down, the country in wintertime.

The scale of the assault on Wednesday was not immediately clear. It came a day after Moscow threatened to retaliate for what it said was Ukraine’s use of Western-made long-range rockets to strike inside Russia.