Forgotten war in Central African Republic

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Intense fighting in a neglected conflict is devolving into civil war, with the population largely partitioned between Christians and Muslims. Church leaders say the “Anti-Balaka” militias, who are often called “Christian rebels” in Western media, are anything but.

NIGERIA: Cameroon has forced 900 refugees back to Nigeria, violating an agreement between the two countries that shielded them from Boko Haram violence—and likely sentencing them to famine.

GERMANY: Parliament legalized gay marriage today in a snap vote, 393-226. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is up for reelection and surprised voters and her party by opening the way for the vote, voted against it.

SYRIA: The lead monitoring organization for chemical weapons confirmed the use of sarin gas in an attack in the Khan Shaykhun area on April 4. The attack (first-hand account here) killed more than 90 people and injured hundreds more, and has been attributed to the Syrian government by intelligence from six nations. It prompted a widely supported U.S. missile attack on a Syrian base.

There are a number of reports saying the United States is being played—or allowing itself to be played—by Saudi-backed jihadist groups in Syria, who, according to these sources, have carried out chemical weapons attacks in Syria to put pressure on ousting Syria’s Bashar al-Assad government, but this report is the first I’ve seen to outline the evidence for these claims.

UNITED STATES: Reports of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hollowing out his department proliferate. But Tillerson seems to be taking flak from career foreign service and from the White House personnel office. Shaking up the State Department isn’t all a bad thing, if there’s a plan behind it. This from a careerist, for instance, is self-incriminating:

“For most of Foggy Bottom, the politics of Washington might as well have been the politics of Timbuktu—a distant concern, with little relevance to most people’s work.”

I’M READING about a forgotten hero of the American Revolution, Molly Pitcher, captured in one of my favorite childhood biographies and in this essay on the cannon loader who “stood on freedom’s wall in the cause of liberty.”

NOTE: Globe Trot will be taking a break next week, returning Monday, July 10.

To have Globe Trot delivered to your email inbox, email Mindy at mbelz@wng.org.