Globe Trot: French journalist jailed over war crimes book

THE HAGUE: A French journalist is being held like a war criminal, in solitary confinement with lights on 24 hours a day, over her 2007 book revealing a war crimes tribunal withheld documents on the Srebrenica massacre. The tribunal last week found Serbian military leader Radovan Karadžić guilty of genocide in the 1995 massacre and sentenced him to 40 years in prison.

More than 8,000 mostly Muslim men and boys were killed by Serbs at Srebrenica as UN peacekeepers stood by. In March 1996, I visited a refugee camp of 20,000.

“Among the most tragic refugees are those who fled the Serb massacre at Srebrenica last July and now have no homes to which to return. … Dika Halilovic, one refugee mother, complained that the government-run pharmacy has no medicine for her two young children, and she is told to buy even aspirin from a private pharmacy. ‘I came with nothing,’ says Mrs. Halilovic, ‘and I have nowhere to go.’”

EGYPT: Former rugby player and “wild man” Ben Innes had his photo snapped with EgyptAir hijacker Seif Elden Mustafa before he eventually surrendered. Mustafa had the plane diverted to Cyprus yesterday—the seventh hijacking so far this century— and held more than 80 passengers for five hours. Egypt’s foreign ministry spokesman had the last word: “He’s not a terrorist, he’s an idiot.”

Innes defended what many are calling a dangerous stunt: “I figured if his bomb was real I’d nothing to lose anyway.”

PAKISTAN: Authorities say they have detained more than 200 people and questioned 5,000 others following Sunday’s bomb blast that killed at least 72 people in Lahore. The dead included at least 45 Christians and 25 Muslims, mostly women and children.

“What kind of people target innocent people and little children in a park?” said Christian Amanat Masih, who lost two sons and a nephew in the attack.

SYRIA: After freeing Palmyra, Syrian forces are bombarding the nearby town of Qaryatain, where ISIS militants abducted 230 Christians and bulldozed the 1,500-year-old monastery in August. Some of those hostages have been released, and we are looking for word on the rest.

Reports suggest Russia and the United States are moving toward a joint operation to retake Raqqa, the Syrian headquarters for ISIS in the heart of the country’s oil region.

UK: In an effort to encourage would-be authors, J. K. Rowling published on Twitter rejection letters she received. Those publishers weren’t so happy about it.