Militia violence forces 80,000 to flee home

About 80,000 people have fled fighting between the Democratic Republic of Congo army and a new rebel coalition, the United Nations said on Tuesday, joining the millions already uprooted in Africa’s worst displacement crisis.

The latest fighting broke out in South Kivu province’s Fizi territory, in the eastern part of the country. Government troops clashed with the National Coalition of the People for the Sovereignty of Congo (CNPSC), the U.N. Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a new report. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Belgium’s ban on face veils does not violate the European Convention on Human Rights.

It was a ruling in a case brought by two women who wanted to wear the niqab veil, which covers all but the eyes.

Belgium banned the wearing of partial or total face veils in public in 2011.

The court agreed that the ban sought to guarantee the concept of “living together” and the “protection of the rights and freedoms of others”.

The court came to a similar judgement on Tuesday in the case of a Belgian woman who was contesting a bylaw brought in by three Belgian municipalities in 2008 that also banned face veils.

ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead, says monitor

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead, Syrian Observatory says

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says it has “confirmed information” that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), has been killed.

Rami Abdurrahman, director of the war monitoring group, told news agencies on Tuesday that Baghdadi died in Deir az Zor province in eastern Syria.

“Top-tier commanders from ISIL who are present in Deir az Zor province have confirmed the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, emir of the Islamic State group, to the Observatory,” Abdurrahman told the AFP.

“We learned of it today but we do not know when he died or how.” The report could not be independently verified.