Saudi Arabia sentenced a women's rights activist to 34 years in prison Monday over her Twitter activity, the Washington Post reports.
Why it matters: The case against Salma al-Shehab marks the country's longest sentence against an activist, renewing fears among government critics, the Post writes.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that the humanitarian crisis caused by the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region is the "worst disaster on Earth" and yet global leaders have not responded with urgency — perhaps due to "the color of the skin of the people in Tigray."
The big picture: Six million people in Tigray have been cut off from the world as the war between Tigray People's Liberation Front and Ethiopian forces and their Eritrean allies has escalated, said Tedros, who is himself ethnically Tigrayan. Drought, displacement, dwindling food support and the resulting malnutrition crisis have threatened the lives of 20 million people, according to the UN.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sparked a diplomatic scandal in Berlin on Tuesday when he said Israel had committed "50 Holocausts" against the Palestinians during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Driving the news: Scholz said Wednesday that he had been "disgusted" by Abbas' remarks. Berlin summoned the Palestinian ambassador to demand clarification, and U.S. and Israeli officials also objected.
The Biden administration wants Israel to review its “rules of engagement” during military operations in the occupied West Bank after the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, three Israeli and U.S. sources briefed on the call told Axios.
Between the lines: U.S. pressure for Israel to review the guidelines is unusual, but comes as the Biden administration faces pressure to do more to ensure accountability in Abu Akleh's death.
One of China's top diplomatswarned Israel last week not to allow U.S. pressure to damage its relations with Beijing, according to senior Israeli Foreign Ministry officials with direct knowledge of the issue.
Why it matters: The message from Liu Jianchao, who heads the Chinese Communist Party's international affairs department, to Israeli Ambassador to Beijing Irit Ben-Abba was the most unequivocal and direct message Israel has received from Beijing about the U.S.-Israel-China triangle.
U.S. and Chinese officials traded barbs on Twitter this week as China questioned whether the U.S. could make good on its new landmark climate bill and the U.S. called on China to resume the countries' bilateral climate talks.
Driving the news: Signed by President Biden on Tuesday, the bill includes huge investments in clean energy technologies and is set to dramatically reduce carbon dioxide and methane emissions.
Syria on Wednesday officially denied it was holding American journalist and Marine Corps veteran Austin Tice, who was abducted in Syria 10 years ago.
Why it matters: President Biden said last week that the U.S. knows with certainty that Tice, one of the longest-held and most high-profile American hostages, has been held by the Syrian government.
Tens of thousands of Afghans who helped the U.S. military, as interpreters or in other roles, remain desperate for a new home a year after the U.S. left their country.
The big picture: Thousands haven't been able to leave Afghanistan. Thousands more are stuck on military bases in Qatar or the United Arab Emirates. Others are newly arrived to American neighborhoods — but still struggling to adjust to life in the U.S.
An Australian court ruled that Google is a search engine and not a publisher of a defamatory article, siding with the tech giant in a lawsuit on Wednesday morning local time.
The big picture: It's a win for Google in a years-long defamation suit in which the company argued that article hyperlinks "only communicate that something exists ... and it is the operator of the webpage who communicates the content to the user."
The Biden administration is developing a portal to facilitate and simplify the reunification of Afghans with family members left behind in their Taliban-controlled country, three people familiar with the matter tell Axios.
Why it matters: The portal would centralize what has been a piecemeal, case-by-case effort to reunify the thousands of Afghan families separated during the chaos that ensued after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan a year ago.
