Globe Trot: The boy from Aleppo

SYRIA: In Aleppo, haunting video footage (see above) from the week, for which there are no words.

Five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, whose images inside an ambulance have gone viral, was “not unconscious, but traumatized—lost,” said nurse Mahmound Abu Rajab at “M10” hospital where Daqneesh and his family were treated. An hour later, the building where they resided completely collapsed after a government airstrike killed eight people, including five children.

Latest stats show 4.8 million Syrians are registered refugees living outside their country (population: 22 million)—most in Turkey, where the government has stopped allowing UN Refugee Agency registration and does not permit journalists or the Red Cross to enter official camps.

CHINA: An international transplant convention in Hong Kong has sparked debate over China’s practice of organ harvesting from political prisoners.

SOUTH AFRICA: The African National Congress suffered its worst defeat in local elections since coming to power at the end of apartheid—including in Nelson Mandela Bay, considered the home base of the party he founded.

RUSSIA: Conservative columnist Rich Lowry said Paul Manafort’s role in the Russia-friendly Donald Trump campaign was playing out “like a Christopher Buckley novel gone completely off the rails”—and that was before the Trump campaign manager resigned today following serious Trump missteps and revelations that Manafort may have received more than $12 million in the pro-Russian campaign of Ukrainian strongman Viktor Yanukovych.

Here’s our background story on the role Yanukovych played in cracking down on street demonstrations with violence, preceding Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Ukrainian journalists are having a field day, no surprise, but here’s a pretty good audio roundup of Trump’s conflicting statements on Vladimir Putin, Russia, and Ukraine.

NEPAL: Eight Christians are awaiting the outcome of a trial over distributing Christian material while giving aid to victims of the devastating earthquake last year.

REFUGEES: My report from Greece in the latest issue of WORLD Magazine on Europe’s refugee influx covers how churches and Christian organizations are making the most of the new arrivals.

My take also on how the U.S. presidential campaign rhetoric is distorting the American tradition of welcoming refugees.