Globe Trot: Purge in Turkey continues

TURKEY remains in the grip of an unprecedented purge that poses risks to the NATO alliance. On Tuesday, Turkish lawyers filed a criminal complaint against top Pentagon officers, after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed them for siding with last month’s coup plotters. The scale of Erdogan’s crackdown, as tens of thousands have been dismissed from posts and hundreds murdered, is an “affront to democracy,” said Human Rights Watch in its latest report.

GAZA: Israeli prosecutors charge World Vision’s director in Gaza with funneling millions in aid funds to the militant terrorist organization Hamas, which controls Gaza. World Vision said it’s “shocked” to hear the charges against Mohammad El Halabi but at this time has no reason to believe any of them are true.

On Facebook, World Vision director of advocacy and outreach for the Middle East Mae Cannon responded to comments, saying, “Let’s get the facts before we judge. And I hope all of us will call for a transparent investigation.”

BRAZIL: Today is the opening day for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, with 271 Russian athletes cleared to participate at the last moment after doping experts had called for the entire Russian team to be banned over illegal substance use.

Since ancient Greece, the Olympics and bribery have gone hand in hand.

SYRIA: Save us in Aleppo, comes a doctor’s compelling plea.

AFGHANISTAN: U.S. forces in Afghanistan are proving ineffective against rising insurgencies from ISIS loyalists in the north and Taliban fighters in the south.

Afghans make up the second largest group of refugees flooding to Europe, after Syrians.

FRANCE: The grisly attack and beheading of Catholic priest Jacques Hamel in a church in northern France last week highlights an under-reported number of targeted attacks against Christians and Jews.

Was Jacques Hamel a martyr to the faith or to his own allusions about Islam? It’s a question worth asking after Pope Francis spoke last week: “Religions don’t want war.”

WEEKEND LONG READ: This week marks the second anniversary for Christians and Yazidis of their long flight from ISIS after militants planted its flags over the towns of Nineveh Plains. The story is told in this excerpt of my book They Say We Are Infidels.