New events
North Africa
Chad: a day in the life of a de-miner - Link
Libya: … govt forces retake some Haftar gains - Link … slow-walking into another Yemen - Link … two wars: on battlefield, on Facebook - Link … Libya Telecoms analysis: ‘crippled’ - Link … Analysis: social media+conflict in L - Link
Tunisia: Twin suicide bombings - Link
West Africa
6/16, 24+ killed by Boko Haram attack in N Cameroon - Link
Nigeria sees attacks by two groups - Link … Boko Haram AND the Islamic State of West Africa Province
Mali: 95 Christians killed by Fulani militants - Link
Mauritania cracks down on protestors - Link … “high tension following disputed election”
East Africa/Horn
Ethiopia: Top military leaders killed in suspected coup attempt - Link … “dozens killed” - Link … military deployed. Internet cut, again. … Reuters explainer on ethnic militias - Link
Sudan: How an Internet blackout has affected the ability to protest - Link … and, “Dates and bullets: Sudan in the grip of the RSF militia” - Link
Uganda tightens border with DRC after 2nd Ebola death confirmed - Link
Can Uganda build a livable city out of a refugee camp? Link
Central Asia
Photos of Kyrgyzstan - Link … “the beauty of the south”: there are some gorgeous landscapes here.
Kazakhstan gets a new leader, but… - Link … old system’s grip on power remains. … and: police crack down on protestors as activism keeps rising - Link
The women who came home - Link … Kazakhstan tries to rehabilitate Islamic State returnees
West Asia/Gulf
“Faces of War”: Kurdistan’s armed struggle against the Islamic State - Link … set of amazing photographs and brief stories of the fighters
Lebanon: Anti-Syrian refugee sentiment rising - Link … “authorities have ordered demolition of anything in refugee camps that could be a permanent home” … and, “Forced to demolish their own homes, Syrian refugees in Lebanon seek new shelter” - Link
Turkey:
Istanbul election redo led to stunning, stinging Erdogan defeat - Link … “a political quake in Turkey” - Link
South Asia
Afghanistan: Over 3 million Afghans have returned home since 2012 - Link … over 2.2 million have left the country during the same period
India: Muslim man beaten to death - Link … “Tied to a lamp post, beaten for 12 hours, forced to chant Hindu slogans”
Pakistan “plays down accusations of Christian persecution” - Link … “claims ‘individual incidents’”
East Asia
China:
Hong Kong protestors “go dark” to avoid surveillance - Link … disable location tracking, buy train tickets with cash, purge social media
Chengdu: home to a $300 billion “rainbow” economy - Link … “the capital of Sichuan has become a haven for the LGBT community”
China’s long hot summer of censorship - Link
Shanghai Sacred - Link … a photo essay of Shanghai’s religious revival
Southeast Asia
Thailand: Chiang Mai, “rose of the north”, is wilting - Link … 10 million tourists, 60k retirees
New Data
8 ways urban stats are changing - Link … on the other hand, some nuance due to the way “urban” and “rural” are defined - Link
The Arab world in 7 charts - Link … turning its back on religion? … And, Arab world is losing its religion in response to Islamists - Link
More than half of the Arab world’s young adults want to emigrate - Link
World Drug Report 2019 released - Link … “2/3rds of global drug deaths are from opioids” … and, cocaine hit record production levels in 2017 - Link
The most expensive cities for expats - Link … #1 is Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
Longer reads
Hacking the workout journal - Link … this is an extremely simple and workable approach to journaling exercise patterns. I wonder if it wouldn’t be equally useful to journaling outreach & evangelism patterns?
If you want to do a time journal, here’s a very simple and useful PDF - Link
Politics aside, here’s an interesting survey of China’s investment in African ports. It’s not just Djibouti, which gets a lot of press - Link
Futuristics/Technology
Only 1 person in Sudan has Internet access. … Ethiopia’s Internet was cut again. … Myanmar cut access in Rakhine state … Government imposed blackouts are a “power move” to suppress dissent - Link … The numbing experience living through Africa’s growing Internet shutdowns - Link
Bluetooth beacons used to watch shoppers - Link … but requires store app, so limited surveillance
“The trouble starts if Facebook’s online currency succeeds” - Link
Chinese Space Station slated to be operational in 2022 - Link
Humans can’t watch all the surveillance cameras, so computers are - Link
Quartz on “cash deserts” - Link … “89% of S Korea consumer payments are cashless …” … “ …places where banks have fled and ATMs regularly run dry …” … “paper money is an oddity in Chinese cities …”
The Pentagon has a unique laser that can identify a person from at up to 200 feet by the unique signature of their heartbeat - Link
City ransomware attacks and huge payouts to get data back - Link … three cities have fallen victim, 6-figure ransoms. … “corporations have been quietly fighting the battle for years”