The US military conducted airstrikes against ISIS fighters in Libya on Friday, the first time it has struck targets in the North African country since Donald Trump became President.

It gives me a profound pleasure to register to Your Excellency that you have made my day with your presentation at US Peace Institute on September 13, 2017. The document entitled, Partnership with Africa: Advancing the Common Interest is timely, diplomatically strong and extremely encouraging. Among other critical issues, my take home delicacy was the official pronouncement that the US partnership with Africa is now mandatorily geared toward working with “strong institutions, and not with dictators or strong men in the continent”.

The last couple of weeks have seen the Line of Control (LoC) and International Border (IB) between India and Pakistan light up with more than usual frequency. Starting around September 10, incidents of firing were reported almost every night. On the night of September 14, a few hours after security forces killed two top Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists, Abu Ismail and Chhota Qasim on the outskirts of Srinagar, a BSF constable was killed along the IB in Jammu.

U.S. relations with and future support for Ukraine was the focus of two important gatherings in the nation’s capital held in recent days. The first, a massive reception held September 12 in the very spacious hall of the U.S. Institute of Peace, was hosted by the Embassy of Ukraine to mark the 26th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence and the upcoming 26th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with the United States.

Healthcare and humanitarian workers are increasingly in the crosshairs as hospitals and aid centers have become part of the battlefield in today’s wars. So far, there has been little to stop the profound surge of violence seen across several open-ended conflicts which has claimed thousands of lives, destroyed health systems, triggered mass displacement and state collapse, and exposed the crisis facing the norms of international humanitarian law contained in the Geneva Conventions.

On Monday, I sat in One U.N. Plaza, the high-rise hotel across the street from the United Nations, and watched a parade of European diplomats head into meetings with Iran’s President, Hassan Rouhani. Boris Johnson, the blond-mopped British foreign minister, sauntered through the lobby in deep conversation with his delegation. The new French President, Emmanuel Macron, led by a military officer wearing the distinctive stovepipe kepi, and accompanied by a dozen aides and several photographers, scurried by next. One by one, the Europeans came to confer with the leader of a country that has been ostracized by the outside world, for decades, as a pariah. No longer.

On a scorching day in August, 2006, Wajeha al-Huwaider threw off her abaya, the enveloping black cover worn by Saudi women, and donned a calf-length pink shirt, pink trousers, and a matching pink scarf. She then took a taxi, from Bahrain, to a signpost on the bridge marking the border with Saudi Arabia. She got out and, with a large poster declaring, “Give Women Their Rights,” marched toward her homeland. Within twenty minutes, she was picked up by Saudi security forces, interrogated for a day, and officially warned. An intelligence officer, she recounted to me later, had pointed at her mouth and said, “Control this, and we won’t have a problem.”

Gender

Remarks by Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia, on the Occasion of a joint program sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), with the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), hosted by Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) with the participation of Representative Ed Royce (R-CA) Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.