- Egypt freed uprising activist Ahmed Maher after three years in prison.
- Chad closed its border with Libya and deployed forces in an attempt to block the flow of militant fighters.
- The three French judges investigating allegations that French peacekeeping forces raped children in the Central African Republic have not requested any charges.
- Several peacekeepers are reportedly dead in separate instances of violence across the Central African Republic.
- Descendants of the Namibian Herero and Nama people are suing the German government over an early 1900s genocide by German colonial troops that resulted in more than 100,000 deaths.
- Developing now: Gunfire erupted at two military camps in the Ivory Coast after ex-soldiers demanded back pay and the AP is now reporting mutinies in three cities over pay.
- Burundi’s environment minister, Emmanuel Niyonkuru, was assassinated in Bujumbura
- As former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta’s ICC trial threatens to collapse for lack of evidence, Kenyans fear they will never get justice.
- The World Wildlife Foundation is facing a human rights investigation after reports that the anti-poaching guards the organization partially funds and supports destroyed property and made physical threats against the Baka tribe in Cameroon’s rainforests.
- In Gambia, President Jammeh continues to refuse delivery on his election loss and is hiring mercenaries.
- A New Year’s Eve nightclub attack in Istanbul left 39 people dead. The attacker remains at large and is believed to be an ethnic Uighur.
- The attack was the final act of a brutal year for Turkey, a year which not only included a failed coup and intense crackdown, but a series of deadly terror attacks.
- Israeli forces killed 32 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank in 2016, making it the deadliest year for children in the West Bank in a decade.
- An Israeli soldier, Sgt. Elor Azaria, was convicted of manslaughter for killing a wounded Palestinian attacker in the West Bank in March. The trial centered on a video of the killing taken by the Abu-Shamsiya family, who have decided to document nearby violence as a means of resistance.
- Twice this week, investigators questioned Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu over possible corruption.
- Even since the ceasefire, bombs have rained down on the Wadi Barada valley.
- Fighting north of Damascus has disrupted the city’s water supply, and the UN is warning the government that targeting water sources is a war crime.
- Russia says it is beginning to draw down forces in Syria.
- The State Dept added Osama bin Laden’s son, Hamza, to its Specially Designated Global Terrorist list.
- At least 17 people were killed in two car bomb attacks in Baghdad on Thursday.
- Iraqi paramilitary forces are using weapons sourced from 16 different countries, and have a pattern of systematic human rights abuses.
- According to Iraq’s joint operations commander, 70 percent of Mosul has been retaken from the Islamic State.
- Russia’s plans for Afghanistan in the coming year may include a growing relationship with and support for the Taliban in service of battling the Islamic State.
- The wife of Paul Overby, a Massachusetts man missing in Afghanistan for two years, revealed in a statement that he was kidnapped by the Haqqani network.
- In a gunfight in Dhaka, Bangladesh police killed the prime suspect in the July café attack that left 20 hostages dead.
- A photo of a dead Rohingya toddler named Mohammed Shohayet, who drowned last month trying to escape persecution by government forces in Myanmar, evokes the image of Aylan Kurdi.
- A policeman’s video footage of officers abusing Rohingya villagers has also garnered a lot of attention.
- A commission set up by Myanmar’s government says there is no evidence of genocide against the Rohingya, but the report’s conclusions and methodology were strongly condemned by Human Rights Watch.
- Experts say that North Korea has the capacity to make good on its promise to test an ICBM this year.
- In court, a French olive farmer defended helping dozens of refugees crossing illegally from Italy.
- Greek anarchist leader Panagiota Roupa, called the country’s most-wanted terrorist, was arrested in Athens.
- In 2016, he United States dropped 26,171 bombs in seven countries (this is probably not the full number).
- Outgoing Director of National Intelligence James Clapper defended the intelligence community’s assessments of Russian hacking at a Senate Armed Services hearing. This came after Trump continued to question the conclusions of multiple agencies and tweeting approvingly of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.
- A new intelligence report presented to President Obama on Thursday identified the go-betweens Russians used to provide WikiLeaks with the stolen emails. Intercepted messages also showed Russian officials celebrating Trump’s victory.
- Longread: Cyberwar for sale.
- Trump’s Twitter account is the most powerful publication in the world and it is very insecure.
- Four Yemeni prisoners were released from Guantánamo and settled in Saudi Arabia.
- The US Army issued updated rules to grant religious accommodations for turbans, beards, and hijabs.
- Another weekly round-up to keep tabs on: The New York Times’ This Week in Hate.
Hiba's curmudgeonly musings about books, politics & other trifles.
Die Denkende Nachteule.
