Globe Trot: Iraq’s Kurdish forces continue to rout ISIS

IRAQ: Yesterday, Kurdish peshmerga forces and the Iraq army’s 9th Division retook Qaraqosh, the largest city in Nineveh Plains, which was captured by ISIS in August 2014. “There was no real ISIS resistance and no real fight took place. ISIS withdrew except [for] a few snipers,” Assyrian sources report.

Operations so far, which include retaking key historically Christian villages, are moving toward a complete retaking of the city of Mosul. Still to be determined: which authorities will control these areas and who will be allowed to return once they are stabilized.

An excerpt from my book describes the routing from Nineveh Plains and the Christians’ feared “final fall” in 2014.

NIGERIA: Authorities say they will negotiate the release of an additional 83 schoolgirls held by Boko Haram, but community leaders say many of the girls are reluctant to return home due to shame.

HONG KONG: As Hong Kong residents continue to press for democracy and autonomy, many now worry how much longer their society, with its different political, legal, and economic system, can coexist with the Communist power.