Globe Trot: Turkey, Europe reach agreement return, resettle migrants

TURKEY: Thousands of Middle East migrants will be sent back to Turkey from Europe as a result of an EU accord reached today.

IRAQ: Secretary of State John Kerry, in a move that surprised even the State Department, issued yesterday a U.S. determination that Islamic State is committing genocide against Christians and other religious minorities. “Daesh is genocidal by self-acclimation, by ideology, and by practice,” he said, using the Arabic word for ISIS.

I’ll be highlighting over coming weeks portions of the lengthy Knights of Columbus report documenting the ISIS atrocities. A broadsheet from Islamic State (pg. 203 of the report) documents the price for enslaving Yazidi and Christian women and girls (a key source of ISIS revenue). Girls ages 1-9 are worth the most: 200,000 dinars, about $180 each.

BRAZIL: Public hospitals starved for funding and overworked doctors trying to care for stricken babies are hurdles facing Brazil as it combats the Zika virus.

MALAYSIA: Christian workers are taking up the dangerous work of reaching ethnic Malays, a largely unreached people group in their own land (a WORLD exclusive report).

CUBA: Next week, the Rolling Stones will perform in Havana, and President Barack Obama will make a historic visit there in a bid to end the last vestige of the Cold War in the Western Hemisphere.

I’M READING All the Light We Cannot See and finished Laurus, two fictional works (a rarity for me) I highly recommend.