French officials unleashed a strict crackdown on many Muslim organizations on October 16 following the brutal murder of school teacher Samuel Paty for showing offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Read MoreOn October 15, the head of the World Health Organization in Europe called for restrictive measures after a major increase of coronavirus cases throughout the continent, reports The Associated Press.
Read MoreRussia and China won seats on the United Nations Human Rights Council on October 13, causing outrage among human rights activists, while Saudi Arabia failed to secure a seat. While Russia and Cuba ran unopposed, Saudi Arabia and China were in a five-way race, with Pakistan receiving 169 votes, Uzbekistan 164, Nepal 150, China 139, and Saudi Arabia just 90 votes.
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International human rights group Amnesty International recently announced that they are halting operations in India and laying off all staff due to the Government of India freezing the organization’s bank accounts and forcing all ongoing campaigns and research work to be paused. In their statement, the organization condemned this action, calling it the latest action in a continued “witch-hunt” of human rights organizations by the Government of India.
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A total of nine people in France were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the brutal beheading of a teacher on Friday, October 16. The victim was 47-year-old Samuel Paty, a geography and history teacher at a school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a suburb of Paris. According to the Washington Post, the assailant was shot dead by French police and later identified as Abdoulakh A., an 18-year-old Moscow-born immigrant of Chechen descent.
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China’s trans-national Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has hit a roadblock as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to flare. Al Jazeera reports that most construction has been halted to stop the spread of the virus, with 20 percent of projects being seriously impacted. Now, many countries fear they may not be able to pay back their loans to China or meet their deadline obligations.
Read MoreOn Monday, October 5, Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuelan government won its appeal in a lawsuit filed against the Bank of England concerning access to more than $1 billion in gold bullion. With this judgement, the England and Wales Court of Appeal has reversed a lower court’s decision to block Maduro’s government from accessing its gold bullion reserves housed at the Bank of England. The BBC reports that while this is an auspicious turn of events for the Maduro government, the verdict will only grant access to the bullion pending another review of the case.
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The World Food Programme recently won the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its contributions in combating global food insecurity, writes Al Jazeera. Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said “In the face of the pandemic, the World Food Programme has demonstrated an impressive ability to intensify its efforts,” according to The New York Times.
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The governments of Azerbaijan and Armenia have approved a new temporary ceasefire agreement beginning on Saturday amid heightened tensions following weeks of shelling and bombing of civilians in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Aljazeera reports.
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Turkish Cypriot Prime Minister Ersin Tatar unveiled his plan to reopen the infamous abandoned Varosha beach, just days before the 2020 Northern Cypriot presidential election, reports Al Jazeera. The plan was criticized by Tatar’s opponents, calling it an interference by Turkey to sustain his nationalist base in the Turkish-occupied zone of Cyprus.
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