Image credit: Patty via Flickr
Hello Readers!
It has been more than three months since my last post. This means it is time for another installment of A Wild World Upside, where I briefly look back before going forward and acknowledge noteworthy news that happened while I was away. This installment will cover news from August 13 to November 22. The format of this post is slightly different than the first installment because of the overwhelming number of events that transpired in such a relatively short period. Here’s what you need to know.
- News and events are organized by the primary month in which they occurred and by the chronological order of the photos that appear in the slideshow for that month.
- With few exceptions, the dates on the left indicate the date the photo was taken. It is the same date you will see if you scroll your mouse across a photo. Some events are represented by multiple photos that may have been taken on different dates.
- If the date a photo was taken differs from the actual date of the event, the latter will be provided in the summary.
- Each entry begins with the correlating photo’s caption and is followed by a summary, if needed.
- Click on an image to enlarge it, read the caption or see the photo credit.
- This post is best read directly from this site because the email version alters the original formatting.
Keep in mind that these are just some of the many important stories that have cross my desk since August. It is by no means an exhaustive list. Lastly, a couple of entries deserve more attention and may appear as individual post directly above this one in the coming days. It’s a long read. So let’s get to it.
In August
August 13 – Cara McClure, right, of Birmingham, Alabama cries in a friend’s arms during a solidarity rally on August 13, 2017, for the victims of a white supremacist rally that turned violent in Charlottesville, Virginia. Protesters decrying hatred and racism converged around the country the day after the rally in Charlottesville.
August 14 – Susan Bro, the mother of Heather Heyer, holds a photo of Bro’s mother and her daughter on August 14, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Heyer was killed on Saturday, August 12, 2017, when police say a man plowed his car into a group of demonstrators protesting the white nationalist rally. Bro said that she is going to bare her soul to fight for the cause that her daughter died for.
August 16 – Members of the Charlottesville community hold a vigil for Heather Heyer following a protest organized by white nationalists that turned deadly at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S. on August 16, 2017.
August 19 – Local Bario 18 gang leader “El Mortal”, 18, poses for a photo on August 19, 2017 in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. He said he has been a gang member since he was age 10. In Honduras, rival gangs including Barrio 18 and MS-13 tightly control territory, earning money from extortion and drug trafficking. San Pedro Sula has one of the highest rates in the world for violence and homicide rates, most of it gang-related, for a populace not at war. Poverty and violence have driven immigration to the United States, although the number of U.S.-bound immigrants has dropped during the first months of the Trump Presidency.
August 19 – The lifeless body of a man lies on a street in Mandaluyong, Philippines on August 19, 2017. A recent spike in the killings related to the government’s anti-drug operation sparked outrage among citizens as police confirmed deaths as high as 35 bodies in one day. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte lauded the killing of the 35 people and had asked for the killing of more people involved in drugs. This led to more nationwide protests denouncing his tactics.
August 23 – A Yemeni woman sits near her cholera-infected child receiving treatment amid an acute cholera outbreak at a hospital in Sana’a, Yemen. After two and a half years of war, little is functioning in Yemen. Repeated bombings have crippled bridges, hospitals and factories. Many doctors and civil servants have gone unpaid for more than a year. Malnutrition and poor sanitation have made the Middle Eastern country vulnerable to diseases that most of the world has confined to the history books. The World Health Organization announced on 14 August that the number of suspected cases of cholera in Yemen had reached 500,000, with almost 2,000 deaths related to the disease recorded since late April. It is one of the world’s largest outbreaks in the past 50 years, prompting The New York Times labeled it the “The World’s Worst Humanitarian Crisis” on August 23, 2017.
August 26 – Protesters and supporters carry banners and placards as they march with the hearse of slain Kian Loyd Delos Santos, a 17-year-old student, during his funeral on August 26, 2017, in suburban Caloocan city north of Manila, Philippines. The killing of Kian sparked an outcry against President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug crackdown. Witnesses to the Santos incident claim that they saw police hand the boy a gun and asked him to run before shooting him to death. On October 18, Duterte reluctantly transferred the anti-drug operation from the PNP to the PDEA. On November 13, Donald Trump met with Duterte at an economic summit during his twelve-day visit to Asia. After the meeting, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that “human rights briefly came up in the context of the Philippines’ fight against illegal drugs.” Journalists covering the meeting noted that Duterte called the press “spies” and joked about assassinating them. Trump reportedly chuckled at the comments.
August 27 – Nursing home patients at La Vita Bella in Dickinson, Texas going about their day despite rising flooding waters from Hurricane Harvey on August 27 at 9:56 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. CBS later posted a photo to Instagram of the women after they had been rescued. Hurricane Harvey was the costliest tropical cyclone on record, inflicting nearly $200 billion in damage, primarily from widespread flooding in the Houston metropolitan area, breaking the previous record set by Hurricane Katrina. It was the first major hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Wilma in 2005, ending a record 12-year span in which no hurricanes made landfall at such an intensity in the country. Harvey was the wettest tropical cyclone on record in the United States. Over a six-day period, Harvey dropped 27 trillion gallons over Texas and Louisiana. At least 46 were killed, around 30,000-40,000 homes were destroyed, and 35,000 people relocated to emergency shelters. Full recovery from the storm is expected to take years to complete.
August 29 – Waves were seen lapping over Interstate-10 near Winnie, Texas, on August 29 as floodwater produced by Hurricane Harvey continued to rise.
August 30 – The U.S. flag weathering the Hurricane Harvey on August 30, 2017.
In September
September 6 – Storm damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma in Sint Maarten on September 6, 2017. Hurricane Irma was an extremely powerful Cape Verde hurricane, the strongest observed in the Atlantic since Wilma in 2005. It sustained winds of 185 mph (295 km/h) for 37 hours, becoming the only tropical cyclone worldwide to have had winds that speed for that long, breaking the previous record of 24 hours set by Typhoon Haiyan of 2013. It was the first Category 5 hurricane to strike the Leeward Islands on record, followed by Hurricane Maria two weeks later, and the costliest Caribbean hurricane. It was also the most intense Atlantic hurricane to strike the United States since Katrina in 2005, and the first major hurricane to make landfall in Florida since Wilma in 2005.
September 9 – An altar to the Virgin of Guadalupe is covered with fallen debris inside the earth-damaged home where Larissa Garcia, 24, lived with her family in Juchitan, Oaxaca state, Mexico on September 9, 2017. The 2017 Chiapas earthquake struck at 23:49 CDT on September 7 (local time; 04:49 on the 8th UTC) in the Gulf of Tehuantepec off the southern coast of Mexico, near state of Chiapas, with a Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). The magnitude was estimated to be Mw 8.2. The earthquake caused some buildings in Mexico City to tremble, prompting people to evacuate. It also generated a tsunami with waves of 1.75 meters (5 ft 9 in) above tide level; and tsunami alerts were issued for surrounding areas. Mexico’s president Enrique Peña Nieto called it the strongest earthquake recorded in the country, in a century. It was also the second strongest recorded in the country’s history, behind the magnitude 8.6 earthquake in 1787, and the most intense recorded globally, so far in 2017.
September 10 – Josué Tolentino Gómez, 11, stands beside his family’s home on September 10, where he was trapped under the rubble for an hour before being rescued when part of the structure collapsed during the 8.1 magnitude Chiapas earthquake that struck on September 7 in Juchitán, Oaxaca state, Mexico.
September 10 – ANTIFA (short for anti-fascism) members hold a sign denouncing Nazis along a road at a waterfront park in downtown Portland, Oregon on September 10, 2017. The exact origins of Antifa are unknown, but the group can be traced to Nazi Germany and Anti-Fascist Action, a militant group founded in the 1980s in the United Kingdom. In America, the term is used to define a broad group of people whose political beliefs lean toward the left – often the far left – but do not conform with the Democratic Party platform. The Antifa garnered attention from mainstream media after some of its members showed up in Charlottesville, Virginia as counter-protesters to condemn hate and racism. Members have been spotted at high-profile, right-wing events across the country, including Milo Yiannopoulos‘ appearance at the University of California, Berkeley in February. They also protested Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.
September 15 – A Black Lives Matter protester stands in front of St. Louis Police Department officers equipped with riot gear in St. Louis on September 15, 2017. Protest erupted in the city after Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson acquitted former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley of first-degree murder in the 2011 shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, a 24 year old African-American man. Some of the protests turned violent and some police officers were pelted with water bottles and rocks after declaring the protest an “unlawful assembly.” The St. Louis Police Department response to protests was criticized as unconstitutional and excessive force by the American Civil Liberties Union following a video release of law enforcement officers chanting “Whose streets? Our streets” while making mass arrests.
September 16 – Demonstrators confront police while protesting the acquittal of former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley, in St. Louis, Missouri, on September 16, 2017. Dozens of business windows were smashed and at least two police cars were damaged during a second day of protests following the acquittal of Stockley, who was charged with first-degree murder last year following the 2011 on-duty shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith.
September 16 – Bill Monroe poses as he protests the not-guilty verdict in the murder trial of Jason Stockley, a former St. Louis police officer charged with the 2011 shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, in St. Louis, Missouri on September 16, 2017.
September 16 – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches the launch of a Hwasong-12 missile in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on September 16, 2017. North Korea has fired 22 missiles during 15 tests since February 2017, further perfecting its technology with each launch. It launched missiles over Japan on August 29 and September 15 – two scuds missiles (solid-fueled short or medium-range ballistic missiles) and two Hwasong-12 (liquid-filled intermediate-range ballistic missile). Meanwhile, Trump and Jong Un have continued to trade insults publicly, with the latest juvenile interaction suggesting that a mutually acceptable solution to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is still some way off.
September 18 – A view of the devastation caused by a forest fire in an area of Brasilia’s National Forest in Brazil on September 18, 2017. The National Institute of Space Research (INPE) detected 106,000 fires destroying natural vegetation in September – the highest number in a single month since records began in 1998, said Alberto Setzer, coordinator of INPE’s fire monitoring satellite program. Experts and environmentalists say that the blazes are almost exclusively due to human activity, and they attribute the uptick to the expansion of agriculture and a reduction of oversight and surveillance. Lower than average rainfall in this year’s dry season is also an exacerbating factor.
September 19 – People remove debris from a collapsed building, looking for possible victims after another earthquake rattled Mexico City on September 19, 2017. The 2017 Central Mexico earthquake struck at 13:14 CDT (18:14 UTC) with an estimated magnitude of Mw 7.1 and strong shaking for about 20 seconds. Its epicenter was about 55 km (34 mi) south of the city of Puebla. The earthquake caused damage in the Mexican states of Puebla and Morelos and in the Greater Mexico City area, including the collapse of more than 40 buildings. More than 370 people were killed by the earthquake and related building collapses, including 228 in Mexico City, and more than 6,000 were injured. The quake coincidentally occurred on the 32nd anniversary of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, which killed around 10,000 people. The 1985 quake was commemorated, and a national earthquake drill was held, at 11 a.m. local time, just two hours before the 2017 earthquake. Twelve days earlier, the even larger 2017 Chiapas earthquake struck 650 km (400 mi) away, off the coast of the state of Chiapas.
September 19 – The body of woman hangs crushed by a collapsed building in the neighborhood of Roma Norte in Mexico City on September 19, 2017. Throughout Mexico City, rescue workers and residents dug through the rubble of collapsed buildings seeking survivors following a 7.1 magnitude quake.
September 19 -Shaheda, 40, a Rohingya refugee woman who said her body was burnt when the Myanmar army set fire to her house, receives treatment at the Cox’s Bazar District Sadar Hospital in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh on September 19, 2017. Almost 600,000 Rohingya refugees have crossed into Bangladesh, fleeing the violence in Burma’s Rakhine state, since August 25. Many of the refugees tell distressing stories of their villages being attacked or burned by Burmese soldiers, or of their neighbors or family members being injured or killed. The United Nations has accused Burmese troops of waging an ethnic cleansing campaign. The new arrivals in Bangladesh join an already-existing large population of Rohingya refugees, which has prompted the government to announce plans to build one of the world’s largest refugee camps to house more than 800,000 stateless Rohingya, replacing hundreds of makeshift camps that are popping up near the border. Local medical teams, supported by UNICEF and WHO, have started a massive immunization drive in the camps, racing to prevent outbreaks of infectious diseases. The UN Refugee Agency has called the current crisis the fastest-growing refugee emergency in the world today.
September 24 – Members of the New England Patriots kneel during the national anthem before a game against the Houston Texans at Gillette Stadium on September 24, 2017, in Foxboro, Massachusetts. The new wave of #TakeAKnee protests came one day after Donald Trump launched a sensational attack on NFL players during a campaign-style speech in Alabama on September 23, challenging the league’s owners to release any player who engages in the movement started last year by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!”, Trump said to a small, frenzied crowd of ardent supporters. Current and former players decried the president’s remarks. Minnesota Vikings running back Bishop Sankey tweeted: “It’s a shame and disgrace when you have the president of the US calling citizens of the country sons of a bitches.” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell criticized Trump’s “divisive comments”. On November 13, GQ named Colin Kaepernick Citizen of the Year.
September 25 – A giant sign in the front yard of a St. Croix homeowner asks Donald Trump for “TREMENDOUS! HUGE! BEST EVER!” relief for the U.S. Virgin Islands after the island was devastated by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, as seen from a Navy helicopter passing over St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, on September 25, 2017. After Hurricane Irma pummeled St. John and St. Thomas, St. Croix was mercifully left with about 90% power. But two weeks later, Hurricane Maria arrived to change that, decimating the island. Many of the more than 100,000 residents who live in the islands were left without a place to stay after the storms destroyed their homes. Many residents were also left without the means to communicate. Recovery will be slow but there has been some progress since Hurricane Maria. Electrical power has been restored to 20% of customers in St. John, 20% of customers in St. Thomas and 10% of customers in St. Croix, according to FEMA. On St. Croix and St. Thomas, about 90% of power has returned to critical facilities such as hospitals, airports and shelters. About 95% of roadways are passable and no major roadways are closed. Approximately 43% of cell service has been restored. Julio Rhymer, executive director for the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority (WAPA), recognizes that Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, are still struggling from being hit by the hurricanes, but he wants “to make sure the Virgin Islands doesn’t get forgotten in the restoration process.”
September 25 – After the passage of Hurricane Maria, a man rides his bicycle through a storm-damaged road in Toa Alta, west of San Juan, Puerto Rico on September 25, 2017. Maria crashed across the entire U.S. territory of Puerto Rico on September 20, making landfall with winds approaching 150 mph (240 kph). Widespread destruction from the worst storm to hit in nearly a century left almost the entire island without power, and many without running water or cell phone service. Maria also brought heavy rains and flooding. The death toll remains unclear. The task of recovery and rebuilding homes and infrastructure on the island — home to 3.4 million people — has been daunting. On September 29, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz begged the federal government to step up its recovery efforts to get the island back on track: “I am asking the President of the United States to make sure somebody is in charge that is up to the task of saving lives,” she added, warning that “if we don’t get the food and water into peoples’ hands what we are going to see is something close to a genocide”. Her passionate pleas for help were met with criticism and anger by Donald Trump, who did not visit the island until two weeks after the storm. On October 13, Trump threatened to pull federal emergency management workers from the storm-ravaged island in yet another Twitter tirade. November 20 marked two months since Maria made landfall and Puerto Rico is still in crisis mode. The electrical system has been partially resuscitated, helped by mega-generators imported by the Army Corps of Engineers, but still less than half — 46.6 percent — of Puerto Rico has power. Telecommunications is still operating at about 75 percent capacity; cellphone service at 65 percent; and 1-in-10 Puerto Ricans still lack potable water.
September 26 – Saudi women activist Manal al-Sharif flashes the victory sign from behind the wheel. On September 26, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced that women would be allowed to drive starting in June 2018. The decision highlights the damage that the ban on women driving has done to the kingdom’s international reputation and its hopes for a public relations benefit from the reform. Saudi leaders also hope the new policy will help the economy by increasing women’s participation in the workplace. Many working Saudi women spend much of their salaries on drivers or must be driven to work by male relatives.
September 27 – Naval Aircrewman (Helicopter) 2nd Class Brandon Larnard, assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron, carries an evacuee off an MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter following the landfall of Hurricane Maria on the island of Dominica on September 27, 2017. Dominica was Hurricane Maria’s first victim, and it was clear from a flight over the island nation that the storm showed no mercy. At least 15 people were killed and there was widespread destruction in the capital of Roseau. Many buildings were damaged, cars and boats were overturned, bridges were clogged with huge tree trucks and many roads were impassable. According to Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, 100% of the agriculture sector and 95% of the tourism sector was destroyed. The Caribbean island of 73,000 residents was a place of lush greenery, punctuated by waterfalls and rain forests. The rain forests appear to have vanished. The remaining residents on the island still have no clean, running water and no power.
September 28 – Tomasa Mozo, 69, a housewife, looks up at the roof as she poses for a portrait inside the ruins of her house after an earthquake in San Jose Platanar, Mexico, near the epicenter, on September 28, 2017. The house was badly damaged during a powerful 6.1 earthquake on September 23, but with the help of her family Mozo rescued some furniture. She lives in another room of her house and hopes to repair the damage as soon as possible.This was the third major earthquake to strike Mexico in the month of September.
September 29 – Hurricane Maria – U.S. Army veteran Luis Cabrera Sanchez holds his machete as he pauses for a portrait while clearing debris from his damaged home, with family and neighbors, in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, on September 29, 2017. Sanchez, who served in the military from 1966 to 1969, said his greatest needs are water, food, and energy.
In October
October 1 – A pair of cowboy boots lies in the street outside the concert venue after a mass shooting at a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip on October 1, 2017. Stephen Paddock fired automatic weapons into a gathering of 22,000 country music fans killing 58 people (excluding Paddock) and wounding 546 more. The incident was the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in United States history, with 58 fatalities. Paddock’s motive for the shooting is unknown. He died in his hotel room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
October 2 – A woman makes a sign at a vigil on the Las Vegas strip following a mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Country Music Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. on October 2, 2017.
October 2 – Independence supporters march during a demonstration downtown Barcelona, Spain on October 2, 2017. Increasing rancor between Madrid and Catalonia culminated in a constitutionally illegal referendum on October 1st in which some 43% of the population (approx. 2.3 million voters) turned out to vote with 90% of ballots cast for independence. In some areas, this quickly descended into violent clashes and street violence. Spanish troops attempted to put down pro-independence demonstrations, injuring some 900 people. Catalan leaders accused Spanish police of brutality and repression while the Spanish government praised the security forces for behaving firmly and proportionately. Videos and photographs of the police actions were on the front page of news media outlets around the world.
October 4 – Air Force One departs Las Vegas past the broken windows on the Mandalay Bay hotel on October 4, 2017, where shooter Stephen Paddock breached the windows to conduct his mass shooting along the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.
October 5 – Veronica Hartfield, widow of slain Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Officer Charleston Hartfield, and their son Ayzayah Hartfield, 15, attend a vigil for Charleston Hartfield at Police Memorial Park on October 5, 2017, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Charleston Hartfield, who was off duty at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival on October 1, was killed when Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd killing at least 58 (excluding) people and injuring more than 450.
October 6 – A toy car is placed in the coffin of Juan Miguel Soares Silva, 4, one of the victims of the recent municipal daycare center attack, during his burial at Saint Luke’s cemetery in Janauba, Minas Gerais state, Brazil on October 6, 2017. A Brazilian nursery school guard sprayed children with alcohol and set them on fire, killing six small children and a teacher in an attack which horrified the nation.
October 9 – About 8,000 people lived in Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park and a neighboring subdivision before the a northern California fire turned it into ash on October 9. The October 2017 Northern California wildfires were a series of wildfires that started burning across the state of California, United States. Twenty-one of the wildfires became major fires that burned at least 245,000 acres (99,148 ha). The wildfires broke out throughout Napa, Lake, Sonoma, Mendocino, Butte, and Solano counties. Seventeen separate wildfires were reported in October. Owing to the extreme conditions, shortly after the fires ignited on October 8 and 9, they rapidly grew to become extensive, full-scale incidents spanning from 1,000 acres (400 hectares) to well over 20,000 acres (8,100 ha), each within a single day. By October 14, the fires had burned more than 210,000 acres (85,000 ha), forcing 90,000 people to evacuate from their homes. The Northern California fires have killed at least 43 people and hospitalized at least 185, making the week of October 8, 2017, the deadliest week of wildfires in California history. Collectively, this event constitutes the largest loss of life due to wildfires in the United States since the Cloquet Fire in 1918. In total, an estimated 8,900 structures were destroyed.
October 9 – Signorello Estate winery, located on Silverado Trail, before flames climbed the ivy-covered walls of the winery headquarters and it eventually collapsed.
October 9 – The remains of the fire damaged Signarello Estate winery after an out of control wildfire moved through the area on October 9, 2017 in Napa, California.
October 10 – Photographer Ian Frank just took this photo of DeAndre Harris, 22, that he titled “Die Nigger” as heard today with his very own ears at the pro-Trump white supremacy rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. On October 10, the Charlottesville police department announced that it had issued an arrest warrant for Harris. He is accused of attacking one of the men who beat him.
October 14 – Emergency crews work to pull bodies from the buildings demolished by the twin bomb blasts in the capital Mogadishu, Somalia on October 14, 2017. The blasts killed at least 327 people and injured nearly 400 police. It was the deadliest attack in Somalia’s history, and has shaken and angered thousands across the country. The attack came as the United States under Trump has made a renewed push to defeat the Al-Shabab, Somali-based militants who have terrorized the country and East Africa for years, killing civilians across borders, worsening famine and destabilizing a broad stretch of the region. The blast occurred two days after the head of the United States Africa Command was in Mogadishu to meet with Somalia’s president, and after the country’s defense minister and army chief resigned for undisclosed reasons. While no one had yet claimed responsibility for the bombings, suspicion immediately fell on the group, which frequently targets the capital, Mogadishu. Previous attacks on the capital this year have killed or wounded at least 771 people, according to data compiled by the Long War Journal. The operations included remotely detonated vehicles, suicide car bombings and suicide assaults. At least 11 of these attacks have been assassination attempts against Somali military, intelligence, and government personnel, as well as Somali journalists.
October 14 – Somalis remove the body of a man killed in a blast in the capital Mogadishu, Somalia Saturday, October 14, 2017. Huge explosions from a pair of truck bombs killed at least 327 people and injured nearly 400 police.
October 16 – A forensics expert walks in a field after a powerful bomb blew up a car (Rear) killing investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in Bidnija, Malta, October 16, 2017. Galizia spent much of her work in recent years reporting on the Panama Papers, the cache of records from a law firm in Panama that detailed offshoring activities of powerful officials and companies around the world. Her reporting on allegations about the wife of Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and a shell company in Panama had caused concern when Malta had assumed the rotating, six-month presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Guardian reported. No suspects have been identified in the bombing, but Galizia’s son Matthew said that his mother was dead because of the incompetence and negligence of the Maltese government and police. “My mother was assassinated because she stood between the rule of law and those who sought to violate it, like many strong journalists,” he said in a post on Facebook. “But she was also targeted because she was the only person doing so. This is what happens when the institutions of the state are incapacitated: the last person left standing is often a journalist.” Nine journalists have been killed for their work this year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. If it is confirmed that Galizia was targeted, she would be the 10th, and the first in Europe, the CPJ said.
October 20 – A woman cries as she looks at her house in Raqqa on October 20, 2017, after a Kurdish-led force expelled the Islamic State group from the northern Syrian city. For three years, Raqqa saw some of ISIS’s worst abuses and grew into one of its main governance hubs, a center for both its potent propaganda machine and its unprecedented experiment in jihadist statehood. Although there has been an overall reduction of civilian casualties in areas where de-escalation zone agreements have been put in place, the humanitarian situation has nonetheless escalated significantly in the face of military operations in Raqqa City and Deir-ez-Zor. UNICEF remains extremely concerned about the safety and well-being of children who are caught in the crossfire and face constant aerial bombardments. Conditions in these areas continue to deteriorate due to severe food, water, electricity and medical shortages. In Raqqa, the population has resorted to collecting unsafe water from the Euphrates River, increasing the risk of waterborne disease outbreaks.
October 21 – Myeshia Johnson kisses the casket of her husband, U.S. Army Sgt. La David Johnson, during his burial service at the Memorial Gardens East cemetery on October 21, 2017, in Hollywood, Florida. Sgt. Johnson along with Army Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, and Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright were part of a 12-man U.S. special forces team that was ambushed October 4, 2017, by militants believed to be linked to the Islamic State. Five Nigerien soldiers were also killed in the shooting, which broke out as the soldiers left a meeting with local officials near Tongo Tongo. The Trump administration waited nearly two weeks to acknowledge the attack, and details about it remain hazy while an investigation is ongoing. Initial media reports said Johnson’s remains had been discovered by Nigerien troops 48 hours after the ambush. But later reports suggested children found Johnson’s body, with his hands bound and a large gash on his head. The soldiers were initially believed to have been attacked by roughly 50 militants, but that estimate rose to approximately 200 in recent days. Additional remains of Johnson were reportedly found in the African nation in early November – after his funeral had already been held, with his widow questioning whether he was even in the casket. The U.S. military’s inconsistent account of the ambush and the soldiers’ service in Niger has raised drawn scrutiny from Congress and the public to America’s evolving role in African missions. President Donald Trump raised even more controversy when Johnson’s widow accused him of making an insensitive condolence call in which he said her fallen husband “knew what he signed up for.” Trump denied this and accused the widow of lying.
October 27 – A relative of Maseno University student Titus Okul, who was shot during a protest the day before, touches his hand at the morgue in Kisumu on October 27, 2017. According to his parents, he was expecting to graduate on December 15. One person was shot dead as fresh protests hit western Kenya on October 27, a day after a deeply divisive election rerun which was marred by low voter turnout and violence, taking the death toll to six
October 27 – People celebrate after Catalonia’s parliament voted to declare independence from Spain in Barcelona on October 27, 2017. Catalonia’s parliament voted to declare independence and proclaim a republic, just as Madrid was poised to impose direct rule on the region to stop it in its tracks. The motion declaring independence was approved with 70 votes in favor, 10 against and two abstentions, throwing Spain into the biggest constitutional crisis in its 40-year democratic history. Catalan opposition MPs walked out of the 135-seat chamber before the vote in protest at a declaration unlikely to be given official recognition. Under Spanish national law, the vote has made secessionist parliamentarians vulnerable to arrest for sedition. Immediately following the vote, the Spanish parliament in Madrid voted to strip the Catalan regional government of its powers, invoking a never-before-used article of the constitution — Article 155 — which allows Madrid to dissolve the autonomy of a region if the unity of Spain is deemed at risk. All of that means we have reached the moment the Iberian Peninsula has both anticipated and dreaded since a controversial referendum on Catalan independence was held on October 1: brinksmanship and deep uncertainty about the future.
October 29 – Samantha Hanahentzen, 17, poses for a #MeToo portrait in Detroit, Michigan, on October 29, 2017. Hanahentzen said: “When I saw the #MeToo hashtag I was just coming to terms with my sexual assault. It happened when I was in middle school by one of my teachers. It took me a while to come forward with what had happened to me and then when I went to the administration I was told I didn’t have enough evidence to prove anything and I should just keep quiet about it because I and the school could be sued for slander if I went public with my experience. It was really silencing because when I was being assaulted it was that stereotypical line of ‘let’s keep this between me and you.’ And then when I found the courage to come out with out I was told again ‘let’s keep this quiet.’ So for me too, it was a way to have a voice and it was a way for me to see that I’m not the only one that has gone through this and that women all around the world have all experienced the same thing. It was really unifying.”
October 31 – Flowers are placed near the scene of the mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip. A driver plowed a pickup truck down a crowded bike path along the Hudson River in Manhattan on October 31, killing eight people and injuring 11 before being shot by a police officer in what officials are calling the deadliest terrorist attack on New York City since Sept. 11, 2001. The rampage ended when the motorist — whom the police identified as Uzbek immigrant Sayfullo Saipov, 29 — smashed into a school bus, jumped out of his truck and ran up and down the highway waving a pellet gun and paintball gun and shouting “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” before he was shot in the abdomen by the officer. Saipov was indicted on 22 charges, ranging from terrorism to both murder and attempted murder in aid of racketeering. The associated image was taken on November 2, 2017.
In November
November 2 – Myanmar’s de-facto leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi visited the country’s conflict-ridden Rakhine State on November 2 for the first time since an outbreak of violence in August forced more than 600,000 people to flee from the ongoing ethnic cleansing. Aung San Suu Kyi, a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who once embodied her country’s fight for democracy, has come under increased pressure from the international community to denounce the military’s actions. Yet Aung San Suu Kyi has remained conspicuously silent on the Rohingya issue, and when pressed by reporters, she has toed the military’s official line, which contends that the Rohingya are illegally squatting inside Myanmar. “No, it’s not ethnic cleansing,” she said in a rare interview on the subject in 2013.
November 4 – Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, one of the world’s richest men, along with 10 other princes, was arrested in Saudi Arabia on November 4, 2017. A midnight blitz of arrests ordered by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia over the weekend of November 4 has ensnared dozens of its most influential figures, including 11 of his royal cousins, in what appears to be the most sweeping transformation in the kingdom’s governance for more than eight decades. The arrests, ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman without formal charges or any legal process, were presented as a crackdown on corruption. Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, a favored son of the late King Abdullah, was also removed from his post as chief of a major security service just hours before the announcement of arrests. All members of the royal family were barred from leaving the country. With the new detentions, Crown Prince Mohammed, King Salman’s favored son and key adviser, now appears to have established control over all three Saudi security services — the military, internal security services and national guard. For decades they had been distributed among branches of the House of Saud clan to preserve a balance of power in Saudi Arabia, the Middle East’s biggest oil producer.
November 4 – Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who had previously shown no signs of planning to quit, unexpectedly flew to Saudi Arabia and announced his resignation from there, to the shock of his own close advisers. Hours after Mr. Hariri’s announcement — televised Saturday on a Saudi-controlled channel — Saudi Arabia’s assertive new crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, presided over the roundup of some 500 people, including 11 princes, on corruption charges. Hariri’s unexpected trip and resignation unsettled the Middle East, setting off a political crisis in Lebanon and even raising fears of war. But during his resignation speech, Hariri blamed interference in Lebanon by Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah for his decision, adding that he feared an assassination attempt. On November 18, Hariri flew from Saudi Arabia to Paris and met with French President Emmanuel Macron. He told reporters there that he would clarify his political position upon returning to Lebanon for Independence Day celebrations. Hariri returned to Lebanon on November 21, 2017. The next day, Hariri announced he is suspending his resignation, at the request of President Michel Aoun.
November 6 – A migrant arrives at a naval base after he was rescued by Libyan coastal guards in Tripoli, Libya, on November 6, 2017. Many thousands of others have risked their lives this year, fleeing conflict and instability in Africa and the Middle East, in small, often decrepit vessels in an attempt to reach European territories. Migrants crossing in the central Mediterranean – from Libya and Tunisia – have until recently come mostly from Eritrea and Somalia, although increasing numbers of Syrians fleeing the country’s civil war are also making the journey. Libya has become a popular starting point for many journeys, with people traffickers exploiting the country’s power vacuum and increasing lawlessness. The relatively short distance to Lampedusa encourages more people to risk the journey. But the number of fatalities has risen dramatically in a matter of months. More than 2,200 lives have been lost since June, the UN refugee agency UNHCR believes. Migration charities believe that as many as 20,000 people may have died at sea trying to reach Europe in the last two decades.
November 6 – People mourn the 26 victims killed by Devin Patrick Kelley at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs during a prayer service on November 6, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
November 11 – An estimated 60,000 people marched alongside ultranationalists and Nazis to mark the 99th anniversary of Polish independence. Some of the protesters carried banners and flags, including the red falange flag of 1930s fascism, and held up signs that had a clear far-right extremist message, including “Clean Blood,” and “White Europe.”
November 13 – A woman mourns as she holds the body of her daughter, who died in an earthquake in Sarpol-e-Zahab, western Iran, on November 13, 2017. The Iran-Iraq earthquake struck November 12, 2017, at 18:18 UTC (21:48 Iran Standard Time, 21:18 Arabia Standard Time). The 7.3 magnitude earthquake occurred on the Iran–Iraq border, just inside Iran, in Kermanshah Province, with an epicenter approximately 30 kilometers (19 mi) south of the city of Halabja, Iraqi Kurdistan. The earthquake was felt as far away as Israel and the United Arab Emirates. With at least 540 people killed (530 in Iran and 10 in Iraq) and more than 8,100 injured, as well as many more unaccounted for, it is currently the deadliest earthquake of 2017.
November 13 – A damaged building is seen on November 13, following an earthquake in Sarpol-e Zahab county in Kermanshah, Iran. A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck along the Iran-Iraq border on September 12, killing at least 500 people and injuring at least 8,000.
September 14 – Protesters block Highway 1806 in Mandan during a protest against plans to pass the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, North Dakota. The Keystone pipeline was temporarily shut down on November 16, after 210,000 gallons of oil gushed into Marshall County, South Dakota, blackening a grassy field in the remote northeast part of the state and sending cleanup crews and emergency workers scrambling to the site. TransCanada, the company which operates the pipeline, said it noticed a loss of pressure in Keystone at about 5:45 a.m. According to a company statement, workers had “completely isolated” the section and “activated emergency procedures” within 15 minutes.
TransCanada estimates that the pipeline leaked about 5,000 barrels of oil at the site. A barrel holds 42 U.S. gallons of crude oil. The Keystone pipeline system is nearly 3,000 miles long and links oil fields in Alberta, Canada, to the large crude-trading hubs in Patoka, Illinois, and Cushing, Oklahoma. The pipeline’s better-known sister project—the Keystone XL pipeline—was proposed in 2008 as a shortcut and enlargement of the Keystone pipeline. It was completed in 2011. The entirety of its northern span—which travels through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Illinois—would stay closed until the leak was fixed, the company said.
In 2011, climate activists seized upon the Keystone XL pipeline, warning that its completion would allow the exploitation of much of Alberta’s tar sands and lock in too much future carbon pollution. James Hansen, then the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, warned in The New York Times that exporting oil from the Albertan tar sands would mean “game over for the climate.” In 2015, President Barack Obama blocked the pipeline as part of his administration’s preparation for the UN climate-change talks in Paris. But less than a week after his inauguration, President Donald Trump ordered that decision reversed.
November 14 – Protesters gather for a rally in support for marriage equality in Sydney on November 14, 2017. Australians voiced their opinion on same-sex marriage — and they are overwhelmingly in favor of it. According to the results of a historic national postal survey announced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on November 14, 61.6 percent of Australian voters said yes, same-sex marriage should be legalized. A majority in every single state and territory voted in favor of marriage equality, with a turnout of 79.5 percent of eligible voters nationwide. The results now go to the government, which opted to survey the population before the parliament took up its own vote on the issue. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who voted yes, has already pledged to follow through with the vote’s results. “We must respect the voice of the people. We asked them for their opinion and they have given it to us. It is unequivocal. It is overwhelming,” he said at a press conference. Turnbull said a vote will come before Christmas. Australia will become the 25th country to legalize same-sex marriage in at least some jurisdictions.
November 17 – A woman places flowers on coffins during the funeral service for 26 Nigerian women, at the Salerno cemetery, southern Italy, Friday November 17, 2017. The women died around November 6 while crossing the Mediterranean sea in an attempt to reach Italy.
November 18 – Protesters in Harare on November 18, demanding that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe step down after the military seized control of the capital, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Company and other central locations on November 14. The next day, they issued a statement saying that it was not a coup d’état and that President Robert Mugabe was safe, although the situation would only return to normal after they had dealt with the “criminals” around Mugabe responsible for the socio-economic problems of Zimbabwe. The coup took place amid tensions in the ruling ZANU–PF party between former Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa (who was backed by the army) and First Lady Grace Mugabe (who was backed by the younger G40 faction) over who would succeed the 93-year-old President Mugabe. A week after Mnangagwa was fired and forced to flee the country, and a day before troops moved into Harare, army chief Constantino Chiwenga issued a statement that purges of senior ZANU–PF officials like Mnangagwa had to stop.
November 21 – Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980 and once proclaimed that “only God will remove me!”, resigned as president on September 21 shortly after lawmakers began impeachment proceedings against him, according to the speaker of Parliament. Cheers broke out at a special session of parliament as speaker Jacob Mudenda read out Mugabe’s resignation letter: “I Robert Gabriel Mugabe in terms of section 96 of the constitution of Zimbabwe hereby formally tender my resignation … with immediate effect.”
November 22 – Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladić flashes a thumbs up as he enters the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands on November 22, 2017, to hear the verdict in his genocide trial. Ratko Mladić, the 74-year-old dubbed the “Butcher of Bosnia“, was convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of one count of genocide, five counts of crimes against humanity, and four violations of the laws or customs of war committed by his forces during the war in Bosnia from 1992 and 1995. Mladić was found not guilty on one count of genocide. He was sentenced to life in prison on November 22, 2017.
One of the two genocide counts included ordering the siege of Sarajevo, in which his troops surrounded the city for 46 months and carried out a campaign of sniping and shelling at the civilian population “aimed to spread terror amongst them”. With an average of 330 shells pummeling the city daily, more than 10,000 people were killed in what is known as the longest siege of a capital city in recent history. The second count of genocide was for killing more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the town of Srebrenica, a UN-declared “safe haven” at the time. It was the worst genocide to occur on European soil since the Holocaust. Prosecutors successfully argued that Mladić, along with former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić, were among the key players that formed the “joint criminal enterprise” to create a Greater Serbia. He was found guilty of removing Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat inhabitants from Bosnia to establish a Greater Serbia and of taking UN peacekeepers hostage. An estimated 100,000 to 200,000 people were killed during the war in Bosnia, while as many as 50,000 women were raped. In pronouncing the life sentence, the presiding judge, Alphons Orie, said that Mladić’s crimes “rank among the most heinous known to humankind.” Mladić’s lawyers said they would appeal.
Mladić was arrested in May 2011 in a village in northern Serbia, after 16 years in hiding. His health had already deteriorated at the time, with one of his arms paralyzed due to a series of strokes. The verdict was disrupted for more than half an hour when he asked the judges for a bathroom break. After he returned, defense lawyers requested that proceedings be halted or shortened because of his high blood pressure. The judges denied the request. Mladić then stood up shouting “this is all lies” and “I’ll fuck your mother”. He was forcibly removed from the courtroom. The verdicts were read in his absence. The trial in The Hague, which took 530 days across more than four years, is arguably the most significant war crimes case in Europe since the Nuremberg trials, in part because of the scale of the atrocities involved. Almost 600 people gave evidence for the prosecution and defense, including survivors of the conflict, and nearly 10,000 exhibits were admitted in evidence.
November 22 – Nura Mustafic, one of the Mothers of Srebrenica and other Bosnian organizations, wipes away tears as she reacts to the verdict which the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal, ICTY, handed down in the genocide trial against former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladić, in The Hague, Netherlands on November 22, 2017. A U.N. court convicted former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladić of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced him to life in prison for atrocities perpetrated during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war.
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Silent All These Years 