Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari expressed joy Sunday night at meeting with the 82 Chibok schoolgirls newly freed from Boko Haram extremists in exchange for five Boko Haram commanders. “We’ve always made it clear that we will do everything in our power to ensure the freedom & safe return of our daughters” and all captives of Boko Haram, Buhari said on his Twitter account. The young women have been handed over to government officials who will supervise their re-entry into society, Adesina said. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which helped negotiate the girls’ release along with the Swiss government, said they would be reunited with their families soon. (AP http://wapo.st/2qSOtoU)
Nationalism rejected…France on Sunday shrugged off the siren call of right-wing populism that enchanted voters in the United States and United Kingdom, rejecting anti-E.U. firebrand Marine Le Pen and choosing as its next president Emmanuel Macron, a centrist political neophyte who has pledged to revive both his struggling country and the flailing continent. The result brought to a close a tumultuous and polarized campaign that defied prediction at nearly every turn, though not at the end. Pre-election polls had forecast a sizable Macron victory, and he appeared to have delivered, with projections issued after polls closed showing him with around 65 percent of the vote. In a statement to the AFP news service, Macron said the country had “turned a new page in our long history. I want it to be a page of hope and renewed trust. (WaPo http://wapo.st/2pkswND)
Top Stories
A Frenchman who was kidnapped in Chad in March and taken to the restive Darfur area of Sudan has been rescued in a raid organized by France, Chad and Sudan and was handed over to French authorities on Sunday, Sudanese officials said. (VOA http://bit.ly/2pQITEU)
An agreement has been reached to evacuate fighters from the hardline group formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra from Yarmouk, in the southern suburbs of Damascus, to rebel-held Idlib province. (Al Jazeera http://bit.ly/2pki6gR)
Women banged on pans and some stripped off their white shirts Saturday as they protested Venezuela’s socialist government in an event the opposition billed as a “women’s march against repression.” (LAT http://lat.ms/2pkoPYb)
Pakistan said its forces killed at least 50 Afghan troops and destroyed five checkpoints in clashes along the disputed border two days earlier, while Afghanistan dismissed the account, saying only two border police and a civilian were killed. (AP http://apne.ws/2poESVH)
Famine is at risk of spreading to a third county in South Sudan in the absence of food aid, a new report from a U.S.-backed monitoring group says, with the United Nations warning on Sunday that hundreds of thousands of children could die without assistance. (AP http://apne.ws/2pQXiRv)
North Korea claimed it detained another U.S. citizen on Sunday, stoking further discord as the two countries face their biggest tensions in years. (LAT http://lat.ms/2pknU9W)
The United Nations Mission in South Sudan has urgently deployed peacekeeping troops to Aburoc in the Upper Nile region to help enable the delivery of much-needed humanitarian assistance to the 50,000 people displaced from home, the Mission said today. (UN News Center http://bit.ly/2pkhMyF)
Women’s movement in Morocco: The Sulaliyyates, as the women are known, began their protests 10 years ago and have since assembled a powerful grass-roots organization fighting not only for the tribal lands but for equal ownership rights in a country where women, by law, inherit less than men. (NY Times http://nyti.ms/2poAqGD)
Opinion/Blogs
How to fix climate change: put cities, not countries, in charge (Guardian http://bit.ly/2qPDn45)
Then they came for Al Jazeera: South Sudan press freedoms further deteriorate (African Arguments http://bit.ly/2qPtpj3)
Why migrants, en route to the United States, are pausing in Mexico (CSM http://bit.ly/2qPx5Bx)
Here’s How We’re Building a Better Mosul (Foreign Policy http://atfp.co/2qPxggb)
How Trump’s latest budget impacts women and girls, from classrooms to cops (PRI http://bit.ly/2pQMVgz)
Female Genital Mutilation: What It Does To A Woman (NPR Goats and Soda http://n.pr/2qPu6ZH)
How to Counter Violent Extremism, Youth Radicalisation (IPS http://bit.ly/2pQNiHZ)
Can a deal in Astana wind down the six-year Syrian war? (IRIN http://bit.ly/2porjph)
Lebanon needs more international support to care for Syrian refugees (ODI http://bit.ly/2paKiYj)
