Globe Trot: 100,000 Syrians homeless after eight days of fighting

SYRIA: The UN says 100,000 Syrians have been displaced in just eight days of fighting, most of it led by U.S.-backed rebel groups.

In U.S. states whose governors have rejected Syrian refugees, churchgoers are finding ways to welcome them.

“I have been here for four months,” a refugee named Anwar living in Marietta, Ga., told The New York Times, “and I have seen nothing except goodness.”

Opposition groups today put forward a new plan for ending the war and transition, calling for six months of negotiations with President Bashar al-Assad, followed by his handing over power to an interim unity government.

GERMANY: Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Social Democrats lost ground against the far right Alternative for Germany in local elections Sunday, essentially staging a revolution in her backyard on one issue: Merkel’s welcome of refugees.

See my report in WORLD Magazine on how German congregations are learning to serve refugees.

NORTH KOREA: The UN Security Council late yesterday condemned North Korea’s latest ballistic missile launch near Japan, which coincided with the G-20 meeting underway in China.

Ever notice how North Korea is just always empty?

IRAQ: This year alone, at least 100 physicians have left Iraq’s Kurdish north, becoming refugees along with about 2 million others, and forcing closure of at least three hospitals in the city of Dohuk.

A new report reveals how ISIS propagandizes its tax on non-Islamic (mostly Christians) living under its rule as a way to excuse (with acquiescence from international human rights groups) genocide:

“The jizya payment was to be made in exchange for both protection of persons and property and for the right to non-Muslim religious worship. … [T]here is no evidence that ISIS has fulfilled the caliphate’s obligations under a jizya agreement. In fact, irrespective of any payment made to it by a Christian, ISIS prevents and punishes Christian worship, attacks the Christian and his family members, and steals the Christian’s property. What ISIS refers to as ‘jizya’ taxes are simply extortion and ransom payments that at most provide temporary protection from ISIS attacks.”

SOUTH SUDAN: Government troops fired on a U.S. convoy carrying high-level American diplomats in a previously unreported incident last July. The attack, which forced a Marine Corps quick-reaction team to deploy from the U.S. Embassy to rescue three of the diplomats (unlike Benghazi), took place during fighting that reflects deepening chaos in a country created out of a U.S.-led peace effort.

YEMEN: U.S. Central Command says it has killed 13 al-Qaeda jihadists in airstrikes carried out over the last week.

HILLARY-GATE: On Friday, just as everyone headed out for a long Labor Day weekend, the FBI dumped its interview with Hillary Clinton, along with related documents. It’s interesting to read Mother Jones’ good page-by-page summary of what’s revealed, which I think shows (again) Clinton’s ineptness along with her deceitfulness, though the reporter believes it exonerates her. And then turn to this also-factual coverage of the FBI documents and the saga of a lost laptop and thumb drive, which can be shelved right up there with the lost contents of Vince Foster’s briefcase.