Student leaders Lester Shum and Joshua Wong were among 116 people detained late Nov. 26 as police cleared protest sites in Hong Kong's Mong Kok commercial district. Skirmishes between police and protesters broke out when a group refused to leave the site. (China Digital Times) The pepper spray used by Hong Kong police against the protesters (which won the movement its umbrella icon) was likely made by the Sabre company—its headquarters just oustide Ferguson, Mo., now exploding into protest over the failure of a grand jury to indict the police officer who killed Black youth Mike Brown. Sabre (slogan: "Making grown men cry since 1975") is owned by Security Equipment Corp of Fenton. Mo., and claims to be the world's top police supplier of pepper spray. Sabre supplies police forces from Hong Kong to Uruguay, as well as the St. Louis city and county. (Quartz) In appealing to the police to refrain from brutality, Hong Kong protesters have adopted the slogan from the Ferguson protest movement, "Hands up, don't shoot!" (Vox, Sept. 28)

Two teenage female suicide bombers blew themselves up in a busy market in Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri, Borno state, on Nov. 25, killing at least 30 people. Deutsche Welle reports from neighboring Adamawa state (see map) that traditional hunters in rural areas, armed only with bows and arrows, are organizing patrols to protect their villages against Boko Haram. While one vigilante told DW, "our prayers protect us against their weapons," the report was not clear if the force is made up of Muslims, Christians or both. Said Hilary Matfess, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore: "What's interesting about the rise of these vigilante groups is the fact that they typically don't fall along sectarian lines. It's an almost spontaneous response by local communities to the failure of the police and military to maintain order." (DW, CSM, Nov. 25)  

A harrowing report on National Public Radio Nov. 9 points to the possibility that the crackdown on favela gangs in the prelude to this year's contentious Brazil World Cup may have actually been a police extermination campaign of favela youth. On June 11—one day before the World Cup opened—two officers of the Military Police picked up three Black teenagers in Rio de Janeiro's Zona Norte. The three hadn't committed any crime, although they did have a history of petty offenses. The officers drove them up to the wooded hills of the Morro do Sumaré area, above the city. One was shot in the head and killed. One was shot in the back and left for dead. Another escaped. We know what happened because the officers left their patrol car cameras on, and the videos appeared on Brazil's Globo TV. One officer taunts the youths: "We haven't even started beating you yet and you are already crying? Stop crying! You are crying too much! Be a man!" The officers are then heard saying "Gotta kill the three of them." And finally: "Two less. If we do this every week, we can reduce their number. We can reach the goal." The "goal" was apparently a crime-reduction target ahead of the World Cup.

Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights hosted a public event Nov. 19, "Yezidi Woman Reports on Genocide by ISIS," featuring Pari Ibrahim, founder of the Free Yezidi Foundation, with David Sklar, an advisor to Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Ibrahim described the fall of the Yazidi town of Sinjar to ISIS in June, the populace taken unawares and largely unarmed. Many of the town's men were summarily killed, while women and children were taken away to be trafficked as sex slaves for Arab buyers. Ibrahim charged President Obama with responding too slowly, despite pleas from Yazidi leaders. "There was a genocide by ISIS in Sinjar, but the world did not react sooner." 

Protesters in the Philippines this weekend marked the fifth anniversary of the country's worst political massacre—and the world's worst mass killing of journalists. Nobody has been convicted of the massacre of 32 journalists and 26 others in the town of Ampatuan on the southern island of Mindanao. The victims were shot dead and buried in three pits after being ambushed by some 100 gunmen near the town of Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao province. Mary-Grace Morales lost both her husband and her sister on Nove. 23, 2009, when they were part of a convoy to cover the filing of candidacy papers for a local politician. "I want the world to know my husband and my sister died in the massacre and there were many people killed," she told the Radio Australia form the vigil held at the massacre site. "It's been five years and there is no justice. I don't know if there is any justice." Philippine journalist Nonoy Espina said half of the local media workers were "wiped out" in one day.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Nov. 22 that US-led airstrikes in Syria have killed over 900 people since September—including 785 ISIS fighters, 72 Nusra Front militants and 52 civilians. Among the civilians were eight women and five children. Activists say Syria's civil war has now claimed over 200,000 lives. (AP, Nov. 22) In northern Iraq, local Kurdish officials announced that ISIS commander Mustafa Sulaiman Qarabash AKA Abu Husam al-Iraqi, held responsible for selling hundreds of abducted Yazidi girls, was killed in a coalition air-strike in Mosul. A KDP official for the Mosul area said 35 ISIS militants were killed in the strike, and their base destroyed. (Rudaw, Nov. 22)

A study by UK-based Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) finds there were nearly 10,000 terrorist attacks in 2013, 44% more than the year before. The number of terrorism-related deaths climbed 61%—from 11,133 in 2012 to 17,958 in 2013. The Global Terrorism Index reported four groups dominated the attacks: ISIS, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda and the Taliban, collectively responsible for 66% of the fatalities. Iraq was the country most affected by terrorism, with 2,492 attacks that killed more than 6,300. The report found that ISIS was responsible for "most" of the deaths in Iraq. The next top countries were Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria. IEP produces the report from the Global Terrorism Database compiled by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), at the University of Maryland. (Yahoo News, Nov. 18; AP, Nov. 17)

US Secretary of State John Kerry met with Jordan's King Abdullah II in Amman last week to disucss the conflict over the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount) in Jerusalem, and the war on ISIS. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also attended the meeting, where he reportedly urged Jordan to take greater responsibility in preventing violence at the holy site. Jordan, which signed a 1994 peace treaty with Israel, recalled its ambassador Nov. 5, citing the "unprecedented escalation in Jerusalem." In March 2013, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas signed a deal with King Abdullah, entrusting him with the protection of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem. The deal confirmed an informal agreement dating back to 1924 that gave the kingdom's Hashemite rulers custodial rights over the holy sites. Under the terms of the Israel-Jordan peace treaty, the Temple Mount remains under Jordanian custodianship through the Waqf authorities. On Friday Nov. 16, Israel eased restrictions and allowed men of all ages to pray at al-Aqsa mosque for the first time in months. (Times of Israel, Nov. 17; AFP, Nov. 16; BBC News, Nov. 13; Al Arabiya, Nov. 12; JP, Nov. 5)