Plus: Kosovo politician assassinated; media freedom under attack in the Philippines; Rohingya to return to Burma; democracy in crisis; hate speech in Germany; executions in Egypt; no accountability in France for peacekeepers acting as predators; how Florida could save lives.

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Shortly after he became president of France last year, Emmanuel Macron had a hopeful vision for humanely addressing the country’s asylum crisis. As Macron visits Calais today, a year after the official closure of the “Jungle” camp, more than 600 asylum seekers and migrants still live in increasingly desperate conditions and abuses continue.
Oliver Ivanović, a leading Serb politician in northern Kosovo, has been shot dead in front of the offices of his Citizens’ Initiative party this morning. The 64-year-old was one of the key politicians in northern Kosovo. A Kosovo court had convicted Ivanović of war crimes during the 1998-99 war. That verdict was overturned and a retrial had been under way.
In a blatant attack on media freedom, the Philippine government has revoked the operating licenses of Rappler.com, a media platform that has published numerous investigative stories, including many pieces critical of the Duterte administration. The move could have a chilling effect on Philippine media at a time when the watchdog role of a free press is more urgently needed than ever.
Bangladesh today agreed with Burma on a repatriation plan for hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who had fled a brutal crackdown by Burma’s security forces last year. The plan was greeted with some skepticism from NGOs, who said it did not adequately address questions of safety, livelihoods and permanent resettlement.
Democracy faced its most serious crisis in decades in 2017, says Freedom House in its Freedom in the World 2018 report. For the 12th consecutive year countries that suffered democratic setbacks outnumbered those that registered gains. Particularly the right to choose leaders in free and fair elections, freedom of the press, and the rule of law are under assault and in retreat globally, the report finds.
Online hate speech has real-world consequences, at least in Germany, a new study finds. Anti-refugee rhetoric on Facebook, the authors show, is strongly correlated with physical attacks against refugees.
Tuesday has become execution day in Egypt. According to the state news media, courts handed down 186 death sentences in 2017; 16 people were executed. In just the first nine days of 2018, the country has already executed almost half that number. All were tried by military tribunals, and all were hanged on a Tuesday.
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