Zimbabwe Simmers →

This week, the International Crisis Group issued a new briefing on Zimbabwe that portrays a country on simmer. “Zimbabwe is an insolvent and failing state,” writes ICG Africa Program director Comfort Ero, “its politics zero sum, its institutions hollowing out, and its once vibrant economy moribund.” Without significant changes of course in economic policy and elite behavior, the report warns, the risk of a sharper crisis and deeper collapse will continue to grow.

5,500 Iraqis Killed Since Islamic State Began Its Military Drive, U.N. Says →

More than 5,500 people have been killed in Iraq since an offensive by the Islamic State militant group began in June, the United Nations reported on Thursday, including hundreds of minority Yazidis slaughtered en masse. The report takes particular note of the extremists’ campaign of physical and sexual violence against women and children, with accounts of women being captured and sold as sex slaves to Islamic State recruits, and children being used as soldiers.

Those deaths represent more than half of the 9,343 civilians killed in Iraq from January through September, the United Nations said in a report by its Iraq mission and its Geneva human rights office, emphasizing that its figures were “absolute minimums.” The total casualty count for the year so far, including wounded, is at least 26,000.

Continuing Education →

 

And I feel that while my country may need to lie to itself, it can no longer effectively lie to me. That is a kind of liberation. And still I feel other kinds calling out to me.

BATTERED, BEREAVED, AND BEHIND BARS →

Arlena Lindley’s boyfriend Alonzo Turner beat her for months and murdered her child — so why was she sent to prison for 45 years? A BuzzFeed News Investigation.

This is sick and evil, but simply built on ignorance of human psychology. The effect is to criminalize psychological trauma.

Officials: ‘About 100′ people may have had contact with the Texas Ebola patient →

Let's hope noone else was infected, and ignore the scary headline. It is rather hard to become infected with ebola, typically requiring exchange of fluids with someone who's exhibiting symptoms.

"We are working from a list of about 100 potential or possible contacts and will soon have an official contact tracing number that will be lower," Texas Department of State Health Services spokeswoman Carrie Williams said in a statement. "Out of an abundance of caution, we're starting with this very wide net, including people who have had even brief encounters with the patient or the patient's home. The number will drop as we focus in on those whose contact may represent a potential risk of infection."

Accused of Stealing a Backpack, High School Student Jailed for Nearly Three Years Without Trial →

We look at the incredible story of how a 16-year-old high school sophomore from the Bronx ended up spending nearly three years locked up at the Rikers jail in New York City after he says he was falsely accused of stealing a backpack. Kalief Browder never pleaded guilty and was never convicted. Browder maintained his innocence and requested a trial, but was only offered plea deals while the trial was repeatedly delayed. Near the end of his time in jail, the judge offered to sentence him to time served if he entered a guilty plea, and warned him he could face 15 years in prison if he was convicted. But Browder still refused to accept the deal, and was only released when the case was dismissed. During this time, Browder spent nearly 800 days in solitary confinement, a juvenile imprisonment practice that the New York Department of Corrections has now banned.

Thank goodness for that last part at least. And pray tell how is the rest of that due process?

And stories coming out of Riker's Island are horrific:

JENNIFER GONNERMAN: You know, this report came out in the course of me reporting this story. It came out in August. And back in April, when I was first interviewing Kalief—I think maybe the very first time I met him—he told me this incredible story that had happened early in his time at Rikers, a few days in, of, late at night, there had been some sort of fight in the dorm. The officers weren’t sure who—

AMY GOODMAN: There were 50 kids in the dorm.

JENNIFER GONNERMAN: Right, 50 kids in the dorm.

AMY GOODMAN: In one room.

JENNIFER GONNERMAN: Officers weren’t sure who was responsible, so they grabbed whoever they could find, threw them in the hall and, you know, their faces to the wall, and just started kind of trying to figure out who did it and yelling at them and smacking them in the face each time, and really beating some of the kids up. And so, Kalief tells me this incredible story of, you know, leaky noses and sort of swollen eyes. And at the end, the officers say, "OK, you know, we can either take you to the clinic, which means—and if you tell the folks who work at the clinic, the civilian medical staff, what happened, you’re going to end up in solitary. Or you can just go back to bed and pretend nothing happened." So, Kalief and the other guys say, "OK, we’ll go back to bed."

He tells me this incredible story in April. I think, that is—I didn’t doubt him, but I just thought, "Is that like a one-time thing? What is going on on Rikers Island?" I mean, I knew the conditions were very bad in the adolescent jail, but that was a level of brutality that was pretty, you know, hard to wrap your mind around. Then, come August, this report comes out, and I would encourage anybody who’s interested to read this report, because even though government reports are sometimes a little dry, this one is incredible in the level of graphic detail and the way it’s written. It just—

PAUL PRESTIA: And it’s specific to the years 2011 and 2013—

JENNIFER GONNERMAN: Right.

PAUL PRESTIA: —coincidentally, when Kalief was incarcerated and was in solitary confinement.

JENNIFER GONNERMAN: And this story I just described, you know, is told again and again in this report. It certainly wasn’t a one-time occurrence.

Even With Sanctions, Putin Is Still Getting Exactly What He Wants In Ukraine →

In Ukraine, the west has given up without much of a fight. Yes, there are the sanctions, which are taking a bite — but they actually show just how little leverage the West has over Putin. The West is unwilling to really defend Ukraine where it counts, even as NATO blusters about the Russian threat and shores up its Baltic members.

And when Poroshenko pleaded to Obama that he can’t win a war with blankets? He went home with more blankets.

As for the sanctions, they aren’t going to alter Putin’s course in the short term. They depend too much on the oligarchs who are enslaved to Putin getting together and pressuring him to change course. That’s highly unlikely.