Guiadó showdown in Venezuela

VENEZUELA: Interim President Juan Guiadó vowed to return to Venezuela Monday, and called for nationwide protests in the opposition’s latest high-stakes challenge to the Nicolás Maduro regime.

SUDAN: President Omar al-Bashir on Friday ceded control of his governing National Congress Party to his deputy, Ahmad Harun. Bashir, under international indictment for war crimes in Darfur, has ruled Sudan for 30 years but declared a yearlong national state of emergency in the wake of months of unrelenting street protests.

IRAQ: Emotions ran high as Yazidi children, enslaved more than four years by ISIS, made their way home to relatives in Iraq on Saturday. But few parents were on hand to greet about 18 children, as most of them remain in ISIS custody or have been killed.

SYRIA: ISIS fighters took to suicide vests and car bombs as Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by U.S. airstrikes, closed in on their positions in Baghuz. Free Burma Rangers, the U.S. aid group assisting war victims at the front lines, treated 10 wounded SDF soldiers Monday as forward positions took hits from ISIS mortar and gunfire, reported director Dave Eubank. “Many hard men are coming out and we are among them with the SDF as we treat them and pray for wisdom on how long to stay,” Eubank told me by text message.

ISRAEL: The merger of the U.S. Embassy and Consulate in Jerusalem “does not signal a change of U.S. policy on Jerusalem, the West Bank, or the Gaza Strip,” said the U.S. State Department in a press statement, following reports the United States had downgraded its mission aimed at Palestinians and West Bank residents.

INDIA: Deadly shelling erupted along the disputed Kashmir border between India and Pakistan, making it clear hostilities aren’t yet over after Pakistan captured and then released an Indian fighter pilot last week.

ANTARCTICA: A U.S.-chartered research vessel arrived last week at Thwaites Glacier, a slab of ice the size of Florida that took a month to reach from Chile. The international team mapped previously uncharted portions of the sea floor before commencing study of the colossal glacier itself: “It’s like standing in a cathedral, you feel the hush of reverence,” said Peter Sheehan, an oceanographer with the University of East Anglia.

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