Saudi Lifts Driving Ban For Women: Daily Brief

The Saudi-led coalition and Houthi-Saleh forces are blocking vital humanitarian aid from being delivered to civilians inside Yemen. Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East, and is enduring the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. Before even more children suffer and die of preventable causes in Yemen, the warring parties need to allow fuel, food, and medicine to reach the families that need it. President Trump says he wants to treat Dreamers “with heart,” but the White House is signaling it has very different intentions. According to reports, the new plan would put many immigrants and asylum seekers coming to the United States in jeopardy and make a bad immigration system even worse. On September 28, 2009, security forces in Guinea massacred more than 150 peaceful protesters in Conakry stadium. More than 100 women were raped. Eight years later, the victims of those brutal crimes are still awaiting justice. From earlier today: Women activists in Saudi Arabia are celebrating after King Salman issued a decree allowing women in the kingdom to drive for the first time. The move, which has been widely welcomed, follows years of campaigning by brave activists. However, the country's odious male guardianship system is still firmly in place, so women in Saudi remain at the mercy of their male relatives if they wish to travel abroad, marry, work or get health care. While the victory for Saudi women is to be celebrated, the timing of the move has raised eyebrows. This week Saudi Arabia is facing the possibility that the UN Human Rights Council will agree to an international investigation into possible war crimes the Saudi-led coalition is committing in its conflict in Yemen. It's also now emerged that the Saudis threatened countries who might support a war crimes probe with the withdrawal of trade ties. In other news, Cameroon's military has carried out a mass forced return of 100,000 Nigerian asylum seekers in an effort to stem the spread of Boko Haram. The deportations leave would-be refugees facing spiralling violence, displacement and destitution.