Mexican authorities announced Monday that an estimated 61,637 Mexicans have disappeared amid the country’s drug war. A previous analysis in April of 2018 put the figure at just 40,000. The figure was calculated based on analysis of data from state prosecutors. While the cases which were analyzed date back as early as the 1960s, more [...]

Iran’s Parliament approved a bill on Tuesday labeling the US military and Pentagon terrorist organizations following the death of Gen. Qassem Soleimani. According to Iranian state media, the triple-urgency bill designates the US army and Pentagon as a terrorist entity and further requires the government to allocate €200 million to the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps [...]

In a special session on Sunday the Iraqi Parliament approved a resolution that calls for the Iraqi government to end the presence of foreign forces in the country. The vote comes in response to a US drone strike that killed Iranian General Qassim Suleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Despite the potential difficulties [...]

Iran on Sunday announced its intention to no longer abide by the 2015 nuclear deal. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is a deal signed between Iran, China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the US in 2015, whereby Iran pledged to limit its nuclear activities, particularly its uranium enrichment activities, in exchange for [...]

In response to Thursday night’s drone strike that killed Iranian General Qassim Soleimani, UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-judicial Executions Agnes Callamard said that the assassination likely violated international human rights laws. Late Thursday evening the White House revealed that President Donald Trump had authorized a drone strike against Soleimani while the general visited Baghdad. Soleimani [...]

The Grand National Assembly of Turkey passed a bill on Thursday authorizing the government to deploy troops into Libya. The Turkish Parliament held a special session this week to decide whether to authorize President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to deploy military forces into Libya to support the Government of National Accord (GNA), the United Nations-recognized government [...]

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo canceled an upcoming trip to Ukraine and four other countries on Wednesday in order to address the current security concerns in Iraq. In a press statement, the State Department indicated that Pompeo would reschedule the trip to begin on Friday order to “ensure the safety and security of Americans [...]

The Hanoi People’s Court on Saturday handed out sentences to 14 people who participated in the MobiFone corruption scandal. This sentencing concluded Vietnam’s largest corruption investigation since the government began its anti-graft campaign. The case stemmed from a deal in which state telecommunications firm MobiFone overpaid for a 95% stake in the television provider Audio [...]

The Shenzhen Nanshan District People’s Court on Monday convicted and sentenced researcher He Jiankui and two collaborators, Zhang Renli and Qin Jinzhou, for carrying out human embryo gene-editing and reproductive medical activities. In a closed court session, the trio were criticized for illegal medical practices and violations of regulations and ethical standards related to their [...]

Pastor Wang Yi of an unregistered house church in Chengdu, China was convicted of subversion on Monday and sentenced to nine years in prison. This sentence followed a secret trial at the Chengdu Intermediate Court on December 26. In December 2018, around 100 students and seminary leaders from Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu were [...]