02 October 2017 - NPWJ News Digest on Middle East and North Africa democracy

Articles

Jordan: Syrian Refugees Being Summarily Deported
By Human Rights Watch, 02 Oct 2017

Jordanian authorities have been summarily deporting Syrian refugees – including collective expulsions of large families, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Syrians are not being given a meaningful chance to challenge their removal and Jordan has not assessed their need for international protection.

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Turkey raises oil threat after Iraqi Kurds' referendum
By Al Jazeera, 29 Sep 2017

Turkey has threatened potentially crippling restrictions on oil trading with Iraqi Kurds after they backed independence from Baghdad in a referendum that has alarmed Ankara as it faces a separatist insurgency from its Kurdish minority. Most oil that flows through a pipeline from Iraq to Turkey comes from Kurdish sources, and stopping that would severely damage the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), which relies on sales of crude for almost all its hard currency revenues.
 

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Independent investigation will look into human rights abuses in Yemen
By The Guardian, 29 Sep 2017

The UN has agreed to set up an independent investigation into all alleged abuses of human rights in Yemen by all sides in the three-year civil war.  The decision by the UN human rights council is a setback for Saudi Arabia, although the kingdom – a key participant in the conflict – has fended off a full-scale UN international commission of inquiry that could have led to referrals to the international criminal court.

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Isis posts 'new Baghdadi tape' in response to reports of leader's death
By The Independent, 28 Sep 2017

Isis militants have released an audio recording that purports to be of the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In the 46 minute recording, a voice similar to that of the Isis leader discusses the current rhetoric between the US and North Korea. He also speaks about Isis battles in Mosul in Iraq and in Raqqa and Hama in Syria, and says further bloodshed would not be in vain.Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul in July, and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces fighters have regained most areas of Raqqa from Isis. If the tape is real it will be the first such recording of Baghdadi since November 2016. The Isis leader has not been seen in public since July 2014, when he declared the creation of a “caliphate” after the jihadist group overran Mosul.

 

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