Nigeria’s election delay gets testy

NIGERIA: With a last-minute delay of presidential elections, the leading challenger to incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari accused Buhari’s party of using the postponement to create “the space to perfect their rigging plans.” Young voters are pushing for change, though the main contenders are well-known public figures in their 70s.

HONDURAS: In San Pedro Sula, the 2013 murder capital of the world, it’s easy to see why residents pack their bags and walk to the U.S. border—and the challenges for faith-based and other community support.

GERMANY: The Iran nuclear deal is “fundamental and crucial for our security,” said European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, as she and German Chancellor Angela Merkel led the way in rejecting demands by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence to quit the Iran nuclear deal, as the United States has done. European leaders doubled down on their intention to remain in the 2015 pact, following Pence’s speech at the Munich Security Conference. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif took center stage Sunday with a frontal assault on U.S. policy, delivered in English: “The demonization of my country has been a convenient cross for seven consecutive American presidents to bear.”

POLAND: Leading Mideast experts say last week’s Warsaw summit was stunning for the support Arab leaders are giving Israel. Former Ambassador Dennis Ross chided the Palestinian Authority for boycotting the event. And former Obama adviser Aaron David Miller said:

“What is so stunning, so preternaturally amazing, is that at a time when there is no peace process and no prospect of one, and there is one of the most right-wing governments in Israeli history, and the [Trump] administration is waging a political and economic war against the Palestinians, Israel’s stock in the region and in the international community is higher now than at any point since the state was created.”

BRITAIN: Shamima Begum, the British teenager who left London to join ISIS in 2015, will be stripped of her citizenship, the U.K.’s home secretary informed her family. The decision came after an unrepentant Begum left fighting in Syria and said she wanted to return home.

Seven Labor Party members of Parliament have resigned, citing anti-Semitism and handling of Brexit by their party as reasons.

UNITED STATES: ABC News gave softball treatment to the cause of American women who joined ISIS, with one saying she regrets it. I’ve seen no profiles of Yazidi women and others captured and enslaved by ISIS—some who have been apprehended and are held in the same camp in Syria. President Trump has said European countries should repatriate and try ISIS members, but it’s not clear where U.S. policy will land.

NORTH KOREA: The U.S. envoy for North Korea traveled to Vietnam Tuesday in preparation for President Trump’s second summit with Kim Jong Un next week. So far, the United States has insisted that North Korea give up all nuclear weapons before it will consider lifting sanctions, while North Korea demands the United States provide relief from sanctions.

TANZANIA: Prominent Chinese businesswoman Yang Feng Glan was sentenced to 15 years in prison for smuggling ivory. Yang is known as the “ivory queen” and has lived in Tanzania for decades. Wildlife activists welcomed the sentence but said it was too lenient a punishment for poaching elephants. Between 2009 and 2015, Tanzania’s elephant population dropped from 110,000 to about 43,000.

ITALY: The 2019 Venice Carnival is underway. Wow.

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