U.S. News | Central American Migrants

At least six families in Texas and five in Georgia have been detained as the Obama administration begins implementing its 2016 plan to deport undocumented families denied asylum in the U.S.
Families were transported to detention centers in south Texas as advocates rushed to provide legal assistance.
An ongoing wave of families fleeing Central America has created a political firestorm as anti-immigration politicians have accused the migrants of flouting the immigration system and pro-immigrant advocates have accused the opposition of downplaying the increase in violence in what is already one of the world’s most violent regions.

(Image Credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images, via the L.A. Times)

Turkey News | Kurds

President Tayyip Erdogan threw his support behind a criminal investigation into the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag.
The call comes after a two-day meeting of Kurdish groups called for greater self-governance in Turkey’s embattled southeast region, where Erdogan’s government has attempted to quash a fresh wave of separatist sentiment led by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Erdogan has called for parliament to lift the political immunity of MPs to facilitate the investigation of politicians suspected of working with militants.

(Image Credit: Christian Hartmann/Reuters)

From Saudi Arabia to India by way of Bahrain, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan, Shiite Muslims protested the Saudi government’s execution of Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr.
Nimr had been convicted of order followers to attack the police, a crime of “banditry” that carries an automatic death sentence.
Before his arrest in 2012, Nimr had publicly called for nonviolent demonstrations to draw attention to the oppression of the minority Shia community in Saudi Arabia.

(Image Credit: AFP, via BBC)