Retaking Mosul; Hospital & Funeral Bombers in Syria and Yemen: HRW Daily Brief

As a military operation to retake the city of Mosul from Islamic State begins, there are fears of the potential toll on civilians. The international forces and the Iraqi government should prevent abusive forces from entering Mosul to stop violations that occurred during recent battles to retake Fallujah and Tikrit. While Syrian and Russian forces continue to bomb Aleppo, the United States and the United Kingdom are considering new economic sanctions against the regime in Syria and its backers. On Saturday negotiations between the United States, Russia and countries backing opposing sides in the war broke up without an agreement to end the bombing. While the attacks on Aleppo continue, France should exclude Russian arms dealer Rosoboronexport from an arms show in Paris, as the company continues to supply arms to the Assad-regime. The Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen blamed the recent bombing of a funeral hall in Sanaa, in which at least 140 people were killed, on "bad information" it received... A prosecutor in North Dakota, has sought to charge journalist Amy Goodman with participating in a "riot" for filming an attack on Native American-led protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Goodman, the host of Democracy Now!, will turn herself in to the local authorities on Monday. The European Union is ready to impose sanctions on officials in DR Congo unless the government organizes new elections early next year. China was set to release Miao Deshun the last-known prisoner held in relation to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests over the weekend. According to a rights group the 51-year-old is severely ill after spending more than 25 years behind bars. In Israel, the debate on Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank intensified after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the government would bar people from volunteering with rights group B'Tselem. In week 4 of our #FreeThem campaign, we ask the authorities in Uzbekistan to release Muhammad Bekjanov, a journalist unjustly jailed since 1999. Bekjanov is one of the world’s longest-imprisoned reporters.