World roundup: August 26 2022

Stories from Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Ukraine, and more

Apologies, but we’re going to have to depend on Substack’s text-to-speech function again for this evening’s roundup. I’m trying to avoid this as much as I can, but unfortunately some evenings it’s just not possible for me to record a voiceover.

INTERNATIONAL

In today’s global news:

• Worldometer is tracking COVID-19 cases and fatalities.

• The New York Times is tracking global vaccine distribution.

MIDDLE EAST

SYRIA

The Syrian Democratic Forces militia reportedly arrested 27 individuals during an operation to locate suspected Islamic State members in the SDF’s al-Hol displacement camp. Al-Hol has become somewhat notorious for the presence of large numbers of IS family members and sympathizers, which has led to violence within the camp as well as efforts by IS to recruit camp residents to carry out attacks. The facility is severely overcrowded and the SDF lacks the manpower to monitor it on a regular basis, but with most countries unwilling to repatriate their own citizens who went off to join IS and were later captured there’s not much the SDF can do.