Saudi Arabia's Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of Shi'ite Muslim cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who was found guilty of sedition and other charges following his involvement in the 2011 Arab Spring movement. Nimr's brother made the announcement via Twitter on Oct. 24, telling Reuters that his family and lawyers were not given notice of the hearing. King Salman must sign off on the death sentence and could decide to issue a royal pardon. Nimr is one of six Shi'ites that have been sentenced to beheading and public display of their bodies.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for bombings that targeted Shi'ites in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka as they gathered for a procession marking the holy day of Ashura on Oct. 24. A 12-year-old boy was killed and more than 100 injured in the attack, said to be carried out with hurled improvised explosive devices. An Internet statement said "soldiers of the Caliphate in Bangladesh" attakced the "polytheist rituals," apparently marking a new ISIS franchise in the Indian subcontinent. Hours earlier, a suicide bomber killed at least 18 Shi'ites during Ashura celebrations at Jacobabad in Pakistan's Sindh province. That attack was claimed by militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. (BDNews24, Al Jazeera, Riyadh Vision, EuroNews, AFP, Oct. 24)

Missiles and mortar rounds were fired into a crowd of demonstrators in central Benghazi's al-Keesh Square, killing six and injuring at least 35. The pro-secular protest was called to oppose proposals, now being heard in the UN-brokered peace dialogue, for a new unity government that would include leaders of the Islamist factions that now control Tripoli. (BBC News, Libya Herald, Oct. 24) One of the protesters, 32-year-old architect Salwa, told Middle East Eye: "We went out today to tell [head of the UN Support Mission in Libya, Bernadino] Leon that he does not have the right to propose that terrorists and leaders of militias should be part of a government for Libya, and we protested even though we knew there was a threat from ISIS, who claim that they are revolutionaries." She added: "But I did not expect their brutality to reach this level. They bombed areas where there were innocent people—women and children—who just wanted to try and have a say in the fate of their homeland."

Residents of San Juan Jáchal, in Argentina's northwestern province of San Juan, are mobilizing in the wake of last month's cyanide spill at Barrick Gold's Veladero mine, under the slogan of "A Spring without Barrick or Cyanide." In the first protest roadblock the province has seen, demonstrators on Oct. 22 took over an access road leading to the mine, with a banner reading "HELP! BARRICK KILLED THE HOPES OF THE FARMERS!" The blockade was broken up that night by federal police troops at 4 AM, with 23 arrested. The local committee "Jáchal No Se Toca" (Hands Off Jáchal) issued a statement decrying the "violence and brutality" of the army attack. The Sept. 13 spill of a million and a half liters of cyanide-contaminated water affected the local Río Jáchal. (InfoBae, Oct. 23; Radio Lavaca, Buenos Aires, Oct. 22)

Dr. Hashem al-Azzeh, who died on Oct. 21 after suffering excessive tear-gas inhalation in Hebron's Old City, was the latest victim of the Israeli settlement policies he spent most of his life struggling against. The 54-year-old activist and medical doctor was one of a few Palestinians who chose to remain with his family in Tel Rumeida, a neighborhood in central Hebron that over the course of decades has seen most of its Palestinian residents pushed out by aggressive Israeli settlers. After experiencing chest pains in his home, he found himself trapped. His family called an ambulance, but it was unable to reach him due to a series of Israeli army checkpoints along the nearby Shuhada Street, his niece Sundus al-Azzeh told Ma’an News Agency. Hashem began to walk toward the checkpoint at Bab al-Zawiya, where fierce clashes were underway as Palestinians protested the shooting of a Palestinian teen-ager [near Nablus]  the night before. Once there, however, Sundus said that Israeli soldiers stopped him from moving on, and he soon found himself engulfed by tear gas. Unable to breath, he collapsed. He was rushed to Hebron's governmental hospital, but doctors were unable to save him. A doctor told Ma'an that Hashem had a history of cardiovascular disease, but it was tear-gas inhalation that killed him. Sundus said she was at his side when he passed away—it was the first time she had seen someone die.

The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) on Oct. 19 filed a criminal complaint against a high-ranking CIA official for mistreatment of Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen who was detained and allegedly tortured for four months in 2003. El-Masri was on vacation in Macedonia when he was mistaken for Khalid al-Masri, a suspect in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. El-Masri was then transported to Afghanistan where he was detained and questioned for four months under the direction of Alfreda Frances Bikowsky. At the time, Bikowsky was deputy chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Bin Laden Issue Station. ECCHR asserts in the complaint that the US Senate Torture Report ties Bikowsky to el-Masri's detention, and ECCHR requests that the German federal prosecutor investigate.

There was brief media splash last month after Germany's ZDF TV reported that the US is planning to replace 20 nuclear bombs deployed at Büchel airbase. According to the reports, the current B61 bombs are to be replaced this year with B61-12s, a newer version that is said more accurate and less destructive (potentially making their use more "thinkable"). Alarmingly, reports indicated that the new variants can also be fired as missiles, while B61s had to be dropped from aircraft. Moscow of course immediately responded by threatening "countermeasures"—including deployment of Iskander ballistic missiles to Russia's Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad. (The Telegraph, Reuters, Sept. 23; Washington's Blog, Sept. 23)

Cuban street artist Danilo Maldonado AKA "El Sexto," known for his satirical graffiti, was released Oct. 21 after 10 months in prison for "disrespect toward government officials"—which holds a penalty of three years, although he was never formally charged. "We are very happy to learn that in the end he is being freed," said Amnesty International's Robin Guittard. "He's just an artist who tried to do an art show, to use his legitimate right to freedom of expression. That should never lead people to be sent to prison. That's a very cold reminder of what's the situation of freedom of expression today in Cuba." The artist's mother, Maria Victoria Machado, added: "A government that doesn't let itself be criticized starts to lose credibility." Maldonado received the Human Rights Foundation's Vaclav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent this past April. Amnesty in September declared Maldonado Cuba's only "prisoner of conscience," although the group said it was considering other cases.