A grimly telling story in the news this week. The Aleppo-based International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), with an extensive collection of indigenous seed stock from Syria and the Fertile Crescent, took refuge in Beiirut in 2012. ICARDA director Dr. Mahmoud Solh told Radio Australia that rebel forces allowed his team to depart with some 140,000 seed packets from freezer storage as Aleppo descended into war. "The center was occupied unfortunately by armed forces... but some of them are farmers and they had received seeds from us," he said. "They understood the value of the center and they know we are apolitical and have nothing to do with the government." But not all of ICARDA's seed samples made it out, and now Dr. Solh is requesting a withdrawl from a remote Arctic "doomsday" seed bank with samples from around the world to be safeguarded in the event of global catastrophe. Reuters reports that ICARDA wants some 130 boxes out of 325 it had deposited with the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, containing a total of 116,000 samples.

We've noted that the proximity of Western and Russian military forces in Syria holds the potential for escalation to World War 5, even if both sides are ostensibly part of the global convergence against ISIS. Now comes a further sign that the centripetal tendency will prevail—the common interest in figting jihadism propeling the situation back into World War 4. At the UN General Assembly session in New York, British Prime Minister David Cameron told reporters that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad can be part of a transitional government, although adding that Assad has "butchered his own people" and that "Assad cannot be part of Syria's future in the long run." This comes across as weak lip service in light of his capitulation. (Al Arabiya News, The Guardian, The Telegraph)

Ecuador's Communications Secretariat (Secom) on Sept. 25 officially halted proceedings to shut down the free-speech advocacy organization Fundamedios. Secretary Fernando Alvarado said he was complying with a recommendation from Ecudaor's official rights ombudsman, the Defensoría del Pueblo, whose chief Ramiro Rivadeneira had four days earlier called on the government to drop the proceedings. But the move follows revelations that Ecuador's National Intelliegnce Secretariat (SENAIN) spent $47 million in public funds to contract the firm Emerging MC to purge YouTube and other social media of material critical of President Rafael Correa. (AP, The Verge, Sept. 25; BuzzFeed, ElSalvador.com, Sept. 24;  EFE, Sept. 21)

Residents in of Simón Bolívar, in Peru's Pasco region, clashed with National Police in a highway confrontation Sept. 23, as they were returning from a cross-country march to La Oroya ​metal-smelting complex in neighboring Junín region. One protester was injured with a blow to the head in the fracas, which apparently began when an officer made a death threat to the passing demonstrators. The marchers intend to continue to Lima, and an officer reportedly told them that if they attempted to advance towards the capital they would "die like dogs." The protesters are demanding health and environmental remediation measures to address contamination of the area's waters with heavy metals from the Oroya complex. (RPP)

A Bolivian legislative committee approved a bill on Sept. 22 to amend the constitution to extend presidential terms, allowing current President Evo Morales and his vice president to run for a fourth consecutive term in office. The president's party, Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), has a two-thirds majority in the Legislative Assembly, where the bill will be sent next for approval. If the bill passes the Legislative Assembly, then it will face a national referendum in February. Critics call the bill a move by the party to undermine democracy, but supporters say it will free the people to decide the issue.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled (PDF) 14-2 Sept. 24 that it has jurisdiction to hear the case between Bolivia and Chile regarding land-locked Bolivia's access to the Pacific Ocean. Bolivia argued to the ICJ that Chile failed in its obligation to negotiate in good faith to grant Bolivia "fully sovereign access" to the Pacific, but Chile filed a preliminary objection that the ICJ had no authority to judge the dispute. The court reached its decision by relying on the Pact of Bogotá, in which Bolivia and Chile both agreed that the ICJ will have jurisdiction over matters regarding breach of an international obligation between American states. The court disagreed with Chile's argument that the dispute was one of territorial sovereignty and held that the subject matter of the dispute was a question of Chile's obligation to negotiate in good faith regarding access to the Pacific, granting the court the possibility of jurisdiction. Since the issue was not already decided by prior arrangement by the parties or by treaty in force at the time of the Pact of Bogotá, the ICJ ruled that it ultimately can hear the case.

Ahmad al-Mahdi al-Faqi AKA Abu Tourab, a former member of militant group Ansar Dine, was turned over to the International Criminal Court at The Hague by authorities in Niger Sept. 26, accused of war crimes allegedly committed in Timbuktu, Mali, including destruction of religious and historical monuments. He is charged in the destruction of nine mausoleums and a mosque in the historic city in 2012, when an alliance of jihadist militias including Ansar Dine was in control of northern Mali. The entire city of Timbuktu, known as the "City of 333 Saints," is a UNESCO-listed world heritage site. El-Boukhari Ben Essayouti, head of the Timbuktu Cultural Mission, said that al-Mahdi was but one militant who took part in the destruction, and called for his accomplices to be similarly brought to justice. (AFP, BBC News, AP, ICC press release, Sept. 26)

Members of Iraq's Yazidi minority on Sept. 24 submitted a report to the International Criminal Court  detailing the crimes committed against their community by militants of the Islamic State (IS) and urged the court to open an investigation. The Yazidi group met with chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in The Hague and said the actions taken by IS since August 2014 in Northern Iraq constituted religious genocide against their people. The report includes statements made by human rights organizations which have concluded that IS targets Yazidi people on religious grounds and the UN statement  that IS attacks on the Yazidi group may amount to genocide. Former ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said the court should open preliminary examinations. Although Iraq is not a party to the ICC Rome Statute (PDF), the court could prosecute IS members who are nationals of signatory states.