Patrick PiersonBy Patrick Pierson.
Authorities in Germany have arrested three people with links to a planned Islamist attack against state security forces. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble says that Muslim migrants who don’t like the “European way of life” should go elsewhere. The parliament in Italy has approved new measures to speed up asylum applications for migrants, but there are worries that the faster processing times may limit migrants’ rights. The UN has requested that EU member states not send asylum seekers back to Hungary for processing given the country’s harsh treatment of migrants. In a significant policy reversal, US President Donald Trump has declared that NATO is not, in fact, obsolete. In the lead up to presidential elections in France, Facebook has closed 30,000 fake accounts tied to the country.
ISIS militants were arrested in Kuwait and the Philippines after plans surfaced of potential bombings against US military personnel in Kuwait. Philippine forces killed a leader of the Abu Sayyaf militant group this week on Bohol Island. On Thursday, the United States dropped its most powerful non-nuclear bomb on Islamic State targets in Afghanistan. A military court in Pakistan sentenced an Indian national accused of espionage to death earlier this week. The Pakistani state executed two members of the Pakistani Taliban who had been found guilty by a military court of staging attacks against the state. Authorities in Pakistan have also captured a number of senior militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The Chinese government is undertaking a massive project to relocate over 250 million people.
A lawyer in Egypt has been sentenced to a decade-long jail term for a set of online posts. Dr. Stella Nyanzi, a research fellow at Uganda’s Makerere University, was arrested this week for criticizing the country’s First Lady, Janet Museveni. Reports have surfaced of a slave market for West African migrants in Libya. Residents in South Sudan are reporting targeted ethnic killings carried out by government soldiers. Authorities in Senegal arrested three suspected foreign jihadists in Dakar. Security forces in Nigeria claim to have thwarted planned attacks by Boko Haram against the British and US embassies in the country. Anti-corruption officials in Lagos seized more than $43 million in cash from an apartment on Wednesday. In DRC, the government has banned all opposition protests and demonstrations. The Burundian government has suspended a key opposition party for six months while claiming that the party was planning to start a rebel group. A number of Tanzanian police offers were killed in a roadside ambush about 70 miles south of Dar es Salaam.
The US, Canada, and Mexico have announced a joint bid to host the 2026 men’s World Cup. Next time you’re in Mexico City be sure to check out the “Corruptour”, an activist-led tour that “shows off what organizers say are Mexico City’s monuments to graft, fraud, and impunity.” A man’s body was tossed from a plane onto the roof of a hospital in Mexico’s Sinaloa state, a region infamous for drug traffickers, on Wednesday. Earlier this week, authorities in Guatemala arrested a top leader of the Salvadoran gang network Mara Salvatrucha. Latin America continues to dominate the annual listing of the world’s deadliest cities. This article attempts to provide answers for “Latin America’s Murder Epidemic.” A Supreme Court justice in Brazil has opened investigations into dozens of sitting lawmakers and government ministers with alleged ties to the Odebrecht corruption scandal. Opposition protests continue in Venezuela, and the death toll is starting to rise. A thirteen-year UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti is coming to an end.
