Iraq News | Refugees & Displaced Peoples

The battle between the Islamic State and a coalition of Western, Arab-Iraqi, and Kurdish-Iraqi forces over one of Iraq’s largest cities has further fueled the migration crisis in the Middle East, with more than half of the displaced from Mosul children.
While Syria has borne the brunt of media myopia regarding migration coverage, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees have poured into the migration flows between the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe.
Regardless of the outcome, analysts anticipate the fight for Mosul will create a migration surge that European countries will have to prepare for, either in accepting disaffected IS-affiliated citizens or refugees escaping the turmoil of the violence.

Read more:
“UN Reports Steady Increase in Mosul Displaced” (Voice of America)
“The Latest: UN says over 68,000 displaced by Mosul operation” (The Washington Post)
“How Mosul’s Liberation Could Send Shockwaves Across Europe” (TIME)

Global News | LGBT

African, Middle Eastern, and Eurasian nations spurred an effort to retroactively block the establishment of the first U.N. Independent Expert on the Protection against Violence and Discrimination based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI).
The position was established in June 2016 to investigate human rights violations against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex individuals and communities around the world.
An effort by a number of Latin American and Caribbean nations blocked the attempt to undermine the newly created position, paving the way for the newly appointed SOGI investigator (Vitit Muntarbhorn) to proceed without interference.

Read more:
“African states fail to block United Nations’ LGBT rights protector” (The Guardian)
“UN Creates LGBT Expert Post Despite Objections” (Voice of America)
“Gay Rights Supporters Win UN Victory to Keep UN LGBT Expert” (AP via ABC News)