Community organizers in East Saint Louis in Illinois are trying to build power for the disenfranchised Black community by rooting their political demands in the unresolved past: A 1917 race riot that killed more than 100 Black people, displaced 6,000 residents and destroyed $9.4 million in property. Frances Madeson reports.
For more than two months, residents of Sinjar have protested the presence of armed groups following May’s clashes in Iraq’s Yazidi-majority district. Those clashes triggered—yet again—an exodus of Yazidi minorities seeking shelter in the Kurdish Region of Iraq (KRI). This comes as tens of thousands of Yazidis have already dealt with protracted displacement since the ISIS takeover of 2014. Alessandra Bajec reports from Iraqi Kurdistan.
A new research paper charts a path for re-wilding Europe with large mammals, or those weighing more than 10 kg (22 pounds), both for conserving biodiversity and restoring ecosystems. Researchers argue it is both a legal obligation and a moral obligation for Europe, reports Rishika Pardikar.
Last week, two U.S. citizens who had traveled to Ukraine to fight for the Ukrainian International Legion were widely reported as having been captured by military forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the breakaway republic in eastern Ukraine that is allied with Russia in the ongoing conflict in the region. The two Alabama residents were apparently captured amid fighting in the outskirts of the Ukrainian oblast of Kharkov and, to this point, had not had any contact with U.S. press. That is, until regular TF contributor Fergie Chambers got a phone call.
Although the South Caucasus region has traditionally been in the Kremlin’s geopolitical orbit, it is the European Union that seems to be playing the major role in peace talks, border delimitation and the reopening of transportation links. During the past six months, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev met three times through the mediation of European Council President Charles Michel, reports Nikola Mikovic.
Demonstrations—regularly met with violence from soldiers and Israeli settlers—have occurred almost weekly since Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a petition in May against the expulsion of more than 1,000 Palestinians from the rural West Bank enclave of Masafer Yatta. Jessica Buxbaum reports.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019