- The National Salvation government, one of Libya’s self-established rival governing bodies, stepped down.
- The Islamic State has doubled the number of fighters in Libya over the last year and a half.
- Senegal resettled two Libyan detainees held at Guantánamo.
- Gun battles broke out early this week in the Republic of Congo after the re-election of President Denis Sassou-Nguesso, leaving 17 dead.
- The more than 30,000 people displaced by fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have been cut off from aid.
- A series of Nigerian military operations have rescued women and girls held captive by Boko Haram, but these survivors have lost their homes and remain under suspicious scrutiny.
- Boko Haram often turns female captives into terrorists.
- Long read: How jogging in Burundi became an act of war.
- Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir told the BBC he will step down in 2020.
- Armed South Sudanese rebels have taken up positions in the capital.
- Russia is blocking the release of a UN report on the multi-million dollar profits made off gold mining by pro-government militias in Darfur.
- Syrian state television reports that the Islamic State kidnapped 300 cement workers in a town northeast of Damascus.
- Interactive: Palmyra after the Islamic State.
- A mass grave was uncovered outside of Palmyra.
- Video: Channel 4 news surveys the consequences of the Islamic State’s long occupation of Palmyra.
- A sniper killed the last doctor in the Syrian town of Zabadani, besieged by government forces and by Hezbollah.
- Bashar al-Assad, buoyed by the army’s victories, is not interested in compromise.
- Video: a year-by-year look at the destruction of Homs.
- Despite Russia’s claims that it focused on Islamic State targets during its air campaign in Syria, a report by the Atlantic Council shows that the campaigncaused little damage to the group but rather sought to support the Syrian government.
- Rebel fighters downed a Syrian jet near Aleppo with a surface-to-air missile.
- Abu Firas, one of Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front’s leaders and founding members, was killed in a Syrian or Russian air strike.
- The Panama Papers leak shows that the Mossack Fonseca firm ignored sanctions and corruption allegations and maintained links to Rami Makhlouf, Bashar al-Assad’s cousin and financier.
- Long read: Investigative journalism persists in the Middle East.
- US bombs were used last month in a Saudi airstrike on a Yemeni market that killed 119 people.
- Palestine is seeking a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements.
- Turkey and Israel are expected to normalize ties soon.
- Fallujah is starving, besieged by the government, by Shi’a militias and trapped by the Islamic State.
- Iraqi women, lone women especially, are vulnerable inside displaced persons camps.
- Local Afghan officials say American airstrikes in Paktika province killed 17 civilians.
- The NATO training mission in Afghanistan is slowed by fighting.
- The killing of a student activist in Bangladesh is the latest in a long string of secular bloggers and writers fatally attacked there over the last few years.
- More than 50 were killed after violence broke out over the weekend in the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh. This was the worst violence between the Armenian and Azerbaijani forces since their war ended 1994. A ceasefire has been announced.
- Long read: Why everything about the way we report on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is wrong.
- Video: How does terrorism sway politics?
- Belgium released new footage of the Brussels airport bombing suspect.
- Explainer: What does nuclear terrorism mean?
- Fishermen operating in the midst of the South China Sea territorial dispute tell their stories.
- Cuba joined the global ban on cluster munitions.
- The world is re-arming –– looking at new global data on military expenditure from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
- Executions worldwide are at a 25-year high.
Hiba's curmudgeonly musings about books, politics & other trifles.
Die Denkende Nachteule.
