- Violence erupted in Gabon, where people are vigorously protesting the re-election of President Ali Bongo.
- The crisis of child malnutrition in northeastern Nigeria deepens.
- Exhausted by massacres and vulnerability, people in the Democratic Republic of Congo are forming their own militias––a risky move.
- UN Security Council diplomats will visit South Sudan this week.
- Messy implementation of Kenya’s Al-Shabaab amnesty plan is leading to trouble.
- Libya handed over its last stockpile of chemical weapons ingredients.
- An Algerian appeals court upheld a two-year sentence for a journalist jailed for posting a poem offensive to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on Facebook.
- Tunisia’s local branch of the regional Al Qaeda affiliate AQIM claimed an ambush of Tunisian soldiers in the Kasserine Governorate.
- Smugglers bringing refugees across the Mediterranean are using increasingly dangerous strategies to boost their profits, with deadly consequence.
- Israel retroactively legalizes unauthorized “pirate” settlements in the occupied West Bank.
- Human Rights Watch criticizes Palestinian authorities for cracking down on dissent and abusing local activists and journalists.
- Long read: The scars of civil war fade slowly in the Lebanese village of Brih.
- Dozens were killed in an Islamic State suicide bombing in the Yemeni city of Aden.
- Analysis: Political rivals battle for control of Yemen while the population suffers.
- A UN aid program has awarded tens of millions of dollars to contractors with close ties to President Bashar al-Assad.
- Al Qaeda gains strength in Syria.
- The world was captivated by the image of injured young Omran, but here are pictures of injured Syrian children who went unnoticed.
- Following the evacuation of the Damascus suburb of Daraya, which some are calling a forced displacement, another neighborhood begins uprooting for government shelters.
- Does anyone in Syria fear international law?
- An airstrike killed Islamic State chief propagandist Abu Muhammad al-Adnani.
- A survey of mass graves in Iraq and Syria concluded that the Islamic State has buried as many as 15,000 victims of genocide in at least 72 sites.
- Report: Cluster Munition Monitor 2016.
- Iraqi militias fighting for/with the government haverecruited children out of at least one displaced persons camp.
- Suicide bombers killed at least 11 people in twin attacks in northern Pakistan.
- The condition of Uzbek president Islam Karimov remainsunclear: Reuters reports him dead, while the country’s cabinet contends he is in critical condition following a stroke.
- Iran and Russia agreed on a ten-year plan to build two new nuclear power plants in Bushehr.
- A funeral and re-interment for the long-dead King Habibullah Kalakani, a Tajik who ruled Afghanistan for nine months in 1929, turned violent after clashes with supporters of General Dostum over the burial site.
- Opinion: We ignore Kashmir at our own risk.
- China tightens its regulation of online maps amid territorial disputes.
- The Chinese air force says it is developing a new long-range bomber.
- Analysis: How Brexit affects EU defense policy.
- A secret report concludes that German intelligence broke the law and violated privacy rights with its systematic sweeps of personal telecommunications data.
- Long read: France begins an experimental de-radicalization program.
- In eastern Ukraine, “it is not full-blown war, but it is not much of a ceasefire, either.”
- Human Rights Watch gathers evidence of disappearances and secretive detention practices by the Ukrainian security services.
- Five women, the mothers of children killed in the Beslan school massacre, were arrested for wearing t-shirts emblazoned with “Putin is the executioner of Beslan” at a commemoration ceremony. Two journalists were also arrested for trying to film.
- Long read: Human Rights Watch detailsChechnya’s “vicious crackdown on critics.”
- Peru sentenced former army officers and soldiers to prison for the 31-year-old massacre at the Andean village of Accomarca, where 71 civilians were killed.
- Proliferating gang violence in Central America––especially the Northern Triangle of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras––is a humanitarian crisis.
- One million Venezuelans showed up in the streets of Caracas to call for the ouster of President Nicolas Maduro.
Hiba's curmudgeonly musings about books, politics & other trifles.
Die Denkende Nachteule.
Hiba's curmudgeonly musings about books, politics & other trifles. 