- Burundi began the process of withdrawal from the International Criminal Court, as did South Africa. Prior to this week, no nations had ever done so.
- Opinion: South Africa’s attempt to leave the ICC is unconstitutional.
- Explainer: Why are African nations leaving the ICC?
- The number of South Sudanese refugees in Congo doubledin September.
- South Sudanese rebel leader Riek Machar says he could return to the country next month.
- Ethiopia has arrested 1645 people since declaring a state of emergency over protests two weeks ago.
- The Chibok girls return home to face rejection from their communities.
- Interview: Libya analyst Mattia Toaldo talks about the state of the country five years after the death of Muammar Gaddhafi.
- A 72-hour ceasefire has gone into effect in Yemen.
- A report to the UN Security Council from a panel of experts deems Saudi Arabia’s “double tap” on a Yemeni funeral to be a violation of humanitarian law.
- Analysis: If the US and UK are now more involved in the war in Yemen, what’s their obligation to investigate Saudi war crimes?
- The wife of an American man, Wallead Yusuf Pitts Luqman, secretly detained in Yemen for over a year, went public with a Facebook plea for his release.
- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas calls for Fatah and PLO elections before the end of the year.
- Israel suspended ties with UNESCO after the agency passed a resolution criticizing their policies regarding holy sites in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
- Palestine is seeking a UN resolution compelling Israel to halt its settlement activity.
- Turkey and the Syrian rebels don’t share all the same goals.
- Turkey killed 18 Kurdish militants in Iraq and southeastern Turkey.
- Russia agreed to extend a “humanitarian pause” in Aleppo until Saturday and the Syrian government openedan evacuation corridor.
- Despite the temporary ceasefire and the promises from Moscow, many Syrians are staying put out of distrust for the Russian government.
- Iran lobbied hard for Egypt to have place at the Syria talks in Lausanne last week. Egypt’s foreign policy is realigning: its anti-terrorism stance bringing it in line with Russia and Assad’s Syria and turning it away from Saudi Arabia, despite Riyadh’s deep pockets.
- As the Mosul offensive gets underway, it should be remembered that the civilians in its path are at risk of terrible consequences. Aid agencies are preparing for the worst.
- The offensive tests the relationship between the Iraqi army and the Kurdish peshmerga, rivals bound together by a shared adversary.
- Dispatch: Kurdish fighters open up a new front.
- The Mosul offensive is putting the Islamic State’s spin machines to the test.
- An American troop killed by an IED in northern Iraq is the first US combat death in the Mosul offensive.
- Put on its heels, the Islamic State is pivoting from caliphate to insurgency. And what is the Islamic State without a state?
- The five cities that matter the most in the fight against the Islamic State? Dabiq, Raqqa, Ramadi, Fallujah, and Mosul.
- As the Mosul offensive is underway, Islamic State militants attacked Kirkuk.
- Iran sentenced an Iranian-American businessman and his father, a former UNICEF representative and provincial governor under the Shah, to ten years each for “cooperating with the hostile American government.”
- The decades of conflict have taken an extraordinary mental toll on Afghan citizens, a third of whom now contend with mental health problems.
- Two Americans were killed in an attack at an ammunition depot at Camp Morehead, six miles south of Kabul.
- An Indonesian court found a young man guilty of terrorism charges for his role in constructing the bomb in this year’s deadly Jakarta attack by the Islamic State.
- Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, has again started controversy after he vocally rejected the US and embraced China.
- Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany agreed on a roadmap for peace in Ukraine, and Putin has backed the deployment of OSCE armed observers.
- In photos: A mural goes up in Avidiyivka, between eastern and western Ukraine.
- Germany passed a new espionage law allowing their foreign intelligence agency to spy on European Union institutions and member states.
- The evictions of refugees from the Calais refugee camp means chaos for children.
- Analysis: “Gender really matters in national security policy.”
- A filing by federal prosecutors details the vastness of the breach allegedly committed by NSA contractor Harold Martin, who is accused of essentially hoarding a digital archive of 500 million thieved pages.
- Mohamedou Ould Slahi, the author of the memoir Guantánamo Diary, has finally been released and repatriated to Mauritania. He spent 14 years in captivity without charge and was severely tortured.
- In a surprising turn of events, a witness who did not appear during pretrial proceedings in the USS Cole case was taken into custody after the judge ordered the enforcement of the subpoena to testify.
Hiba's curmudgeonly musings about books, politics & other trifles.
Die Denkende Nachteule.
