Nigeria: Boko Haram Abducts Women, Recruits Children

 (Abuja, November 29, 2013) – Boko Haram has abducted scores of women and girls, used children as young as 12 in hostilities, and killed hundreds of people in recent attacks, Human Rights Watch said today. The Nigerian government, meanwhile, has failed to account for hundreds of men and boys whom security forces have rounded up and forcibly disappeared during Boko Haram’s four-year insurgency.
The rise of an anti-Boko Haram group allied with Nigerian security forces, the so-called Civilian Joint Task Force, has added a worrisome new dimension to the violence. Civilian Joint Task Force members inform security forces about presumed local Boko Haram activity; the Islamist group then retaliates against both the neighborhood vigilante group and the broader community.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/11/29/nigeria-boko-haram-abducts-women-recruits-children

France's new African war

IS FRANCE about to embark on another African military intervention? Things certainly seem to be moving very fast in Paris. Just over ten months after it dispatched soldiers and fighter jets to push back an Islamist incursion in Mali, the French are putting things into place in order to launch another operation, possibly as early as next week, this time in the Central African Republic (CAR).
This is Laurent Fabius, the foreign minister, making the case for intervention in Le Figaro, a newspaper, on November 25th. He described a “collapsed state” in which violence, rape and executions by armed gangs was turning into inter-religious hatred. Intervention always had a cost. But, he wrote: “We don’t want tomorrow to pay the far higher price of inaction”.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2013/11/french-foreign-policy

China fighter jets fly through disputed zone

 Beijing's "defensive measure" raises stakes in standoff with US, South Korea and Japan over the disputed airspace.
China fighter jets fly through disputed zone - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English

U.S. offers to destroy Syria's chemical weapons arsenal at sea

U.S. offers to destroy Syria's chemical weapons arsenal at sea - Middle East Israel News | Haaretz

Putin says Ukraine-EU deal a threat to Russia

Putin says Ukraine-EU deal a threat to Russia - Europe - Al Jazeera English

Hundreds deported to Haiti from Dominican Republic

 At least 350 people have been expelled to Haiti from The Dominican Republic, or have fled of their own accord, after an elderly Dominican couple was slain in an apparent burglary near the border between the two countries.
Hundreds deported to Haiti from DR - Americas - Al Jazeera English

Saudi Arabia welcomes Iran nuclear agreement

Saudi Arabia welcomes Iran nuclear agreement - Middle East - Al Jazeera English