Globe Trot: Boko Haram behind two bombings in northern Nigeria

NIGERIA: Twin bomb blasts have killed at least 17 in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state and headquarters of Boko Haram. Another blast is reported this hour in Yola, killing 14. Nigeria’s police chief is warning residents not to pick up abandoned iPads or laptops—items Boko Haram terrorists are using to conceal explosives.

PAKISTAN: More than 9,000 Muslim clerics have been labeled “hate preachers” and arrested for stirring violence. “We are serious about getting rid of all elements breeding extremism in our society,” said Religious Affairs Minister Sardar Muhammad Yousuf. The crackdown comes several weeks after Pakistan’s high court ruled criticizing the country’s stringent blasphemy laws is not a capital crime.

INDONESIA is preparing six navy vessels and state-run ferries to evacuate mostly children from a toxic haze producing unusually hazardous levels of smoke. The annual phenomenon, created by farmers burning palm oil fields, this year has blanketed Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia and is now reaching the Philippines.

WEEKEND LONG READ: A daughter of Maronite Christians born in Cairo is now the barracuda defense lawyer for the celebrity son of Iranian immigrants awaiting trial on sexual assault charges in the melting pot that is Toronto.

CORRECTION: Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock share the Temple Mount site in Jerusalem (from the Oct. 16 Globe Trot).