MOZAMBIQUE: At least 570,000 people have fled northern Mozambique following attacks by insurgents with ties to the Islamic State. The UN refugee agency warns that if neighboring countries do not help tackle the insurgency crisis spreading from Cabo Delgado, it could reach beyond the borders of Mozambique.

In my first magazine column of 2020, I wrote about “new life born from sorrow and suffering” and asked: “Are we ready to embrace the suffering to come in the new year? And are we able to look beyond the bad-news headlines to find opportunities for helping neighbors and to glimpse more of the good news to come?”

Allow me to be the first to answer: I was not ready.

CHINA: Chinese tech giant Huawei has tested facial recognition software that could send automated “Uighur alarms” to government authorities when its camera systems identify members of the oppressed minority group.

BRITAIN: Keira Bell is the young woman at the heart of a landmark judgment issued by the U.K. High Court on Tuesday requiring doctors to seek a court order before administering puberty-blocking drugs to under-age youth.

Days of tumult in the United States coincided with formidable days for Europeans. On Election Day, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a Nov. 2 terror attack in the heart of Vienna that killed four people and wounded more than 20. Austrian investigators have identified more than 21 suspected accomplices in what could have become a far deadlier attack. 

Understanding the World
Book of the Year

Jessica Goudeau in her debut book, After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America, has done what few journalists and fewer policymakers have been able to accomplish: bring the extraordinary tales of two war survivors—one from Southeast Asia and one from Syria—into the everyday normality of life in the United States. 

IRAQ: Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein announced in Baghdad an agreement reached with the United States for the withdrawal of 500 U.S. soldiers. The move leaves approximately 2,500 noncombat military personnel (presumably advisers and support) on the ground 16 years after the United States went to war to oust Saddam Hussein over his support for terrorism.