ASIA UZBEKISTAN The big story of the day is obviously the aftermath of Tuesday's terror attack in New York, and we'll get to that later but here I wanted to try to say something about the US media's immediate obsession with Uzbekistan. The attacker, alleged I guess, was an Uzbek national named Sayfullo Saipov, and … Continue reading Asia/Africa update: October 31-November 1 2017

IRAQ Well this is probably bad news: Iraq says negotiations with the Kurds over the deployment of federal forces along the borders of their autonomous region have failed. The body overseeing Iraq's security forces said Wednesday that Kurdish forces had delayed talks in an effort to strengthen their defenses, and that as a result, both … Continue reading Middle East update: October 31-November 1 2017

CLIMATE CHANGE We did it everybody! We set a record! Concentrations of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere surged to a record high in 2016, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).   Last year's increase was 50% higher than the average of the past 10 years.   Researchers say a combination of human activities and … Continue reading Europe/Americas update: October 30 2017

ASIA AFGHANISTAN At least 15 Afghan police officers were killed on Monday in two separate Taliban attacks, one Ghazni province and the other in Zabul. Also on Monday, the Taliban said that Kevin King, an American professor it kidnapped from Kabul University in August 2016, is gravely ill with heart and kidney problems. Stimson's Ali … Continue reading Asia/Africa update: October 30 2017

IRAQ Masoud Barzani's supporters didn't take the news of his kind-of-resignation very well: Barzani’s statements incited his followers in Irbil, Zakho and Dohuk to attack opposition politicians, storm the parliament building, and go after the media and political offices. First, parliamentarian Rabum Maruf of Change was attacked while he was giving a speech to reporters … Continue reading Middle East update: October 30 2017

ASIA AFGHANISTAN A Taliban attack on a checkpoint in Kunduz province killed at least 13 Afghan police officers on Sunday. Meanwhile, in the city of Peshawar, Pakistan, the deputy governor of Afghanistan's Kunar province, Mohammad Nabi Ahmadi, was reportedly kidnapped by...somebody. The Afghan Taliban denied involvement in the kidnapping, saying that they don't do that sort … Continue reading World update: October 28-29 2017

IRAQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya1GWB2AMnY You don't have Barzani to kick around anymore (sort of): The president of Iraq’s self-ruled northern Kurdish region, Masoud Barzani, dissolved his powers as president Sunday, distributing them between the Kurdish prime minister, Parliament and the judiciary, a Kurdish official told The Associated Press.   Barzani also informed parliament that he will not seek … Continue reading Middle East update: October 28-29 2017

MIDDLE EAST IRAQ/SYRIA I'm lumping these two together today because both Iraqi and Syrian forces are pushing ISIS back to a region that straddles the border, and ISIS appears to be consolidating in two towns--al-Bukamal on the Syrian side, and Qaʾim on the Iraqi side. Both the Syrian army and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces … Continue reading World update: October 27 2017

ASIA KAZAKHSTAN Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Thursday started the ball rolling toward shifting Kazakhstan to the Latin alphabet. By my understanding this is approximately the 87th alphabet change Kazakhstan has gone through in roughly the last 100 years. That might be slightly exaggerated--it switched from Arabic script to Latin script in the 1920s, then to … Continue reading World update: October 26 2017

If this is a little abbreviated it's because I'm getting a really late start, apologies. SYRIA Probably today's biggest story is that the United Nations' Joint Investigative Mechanism made its report on the Khan Shaykhun chemical weapons attack to the UN Security Council and found the Syrian government responsible. Hey, I said it was a big … Continue reading Middle East update: October 26 2017