Subject: Morning Brief: Taliban Launches Major Assault on Afghan Provincial Capital
From: "Foreign Policy" <[email-masked]>
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Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2018 07:40:11 -0500 (CDT)

Morning Brief: Taliban Launches Major Assault on Afghan Provincial Capital

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MORNING BRIEF

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08/10/2018

08/10/2018

TOP NEWS

Morning Brief: Taliban Launches Major Assault on Afghan Provincial Capital

Top News: The Taliban launched a major nighttime attack on the strategic Afghan city of Ghazni.

The assault is the fourth time in recent years that the Taliban have attempted to enter a provincial city.

The group claim to have much of the provincial capital under their control which, if confirmed, would be their most significant strategic gain in years. Afghan officials dispute this and say the militants have now been pushed back to the outskirts of the city.

Thirty Taliban fighters and one member of the Afghan security forces are reported to have been killed. Several civilians are also believed to have been injured.

Kazakhstan: After more than two decades of negotiations, leaders of the five countries that surround the Caspian Sea are expected to sign a convention on the status of the resource-rich sea, which contains trillions of dollars of hydrocarbons, at an upcoming summit in the Kazakh port city of Aqtau on Sunday.

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Asia

•  Hui Muslims in Weizhou in China’s Ningxia region are engaged in a rare open standoff with the authorities to prevent their mosque from being demolished.

•  North Korea has hit out at U.S. officials for not lifting sanctions against the country.

•  A leading scholar from China’s Uighur ethnic minority has been missing since December as a crackdown sends hundreds of thousands of Uighur to internment camps, the New York Times reports.

Middle East

•  The U.N. Secretary General has called for an investigation into a Saudi-led coalition airstrike on a school bus in Yemen which killed dozens of children.

•  Protests are expected in Gaza today after three people in the strip were killed in Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday.

•  Quartz reports that terror attacks in the Middle East and North Africa fell by almost 40 percent last year.

Europe

•  The upper house of the Italian Parliament has approved a law which would suspend compulsory vaccination for school children.

•  Some 1,600 people have been evacuated in the wake of flash floods in southern France. A German man is understood to be missing.

•  The Russian Prime Minister said it would be an act of “economic war,” if the U.S. were to impose sanctions on Russian banks or the use of particular currencies.

Americas

•  White nationalists have been granted a permit to hold a rally in Washington D.C. on Aug 12, the one-year anniversary of the deadly “Unite the Right” march in Charlottesville, Virginia.

•  The Supreme Court in Costa Rica has ruled that the country’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and discriminatory.

•  The AP reports that arbitrary arrests and abuse are becoming the new normal in Nicaragua.

Africa

•  A video appearing to show a Tanzanian journalist being beaten by police officers has been shared widely on social media.

•  The Ugandan President hopes that some one million South Sudanese refugees on its territory can return home in the wake of this week’s peace deal which it’s hoped will end the country’s civil war.

•  The leader of Zimbabwe’s opposition coalition MDC Alliance is today expected to mount a legal challenge against the results of last month’s presidential election. The court could then order a recount or nullify the election results.

- By Amy Mackinnon

Zakeria Hashimi/AFP/Getty Images

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