Informing, engaging & connecting the people of the world. OCTOBER 21, 2019

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The U.S. is considering keeping some troops near oil fields in northeastern Syria to protect them from being captured by Islamic State militants, Defense chief Mark Esper said Monday.

ON THIS DAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY On October 21, 1967, 100,000 Vietnam War protesters march on the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. Violence broke out when some demonstrators clashed with the U.S. troops and U.S. Marshals and surrounded the U.S. military headquarters for two days. When the siege ended, 683 people had been arrested.

Washington is drowning in red ink again, yet the mounting fiscal problem is prompting collective yawns from the Trump Administration and Democrats alike.

Russia has been busy on the African continent in recent years. Russian officials acknowledged their citizens were on board an Antonov An-72 transport which crashed last week in a remote Congolese forest.

In African slums, boxing clubs are seen as a good way to keep young men off the streets, let them take out their frustrations through sport rather than crime, and provide a way out of poverty. In Uganda, though, one woman has stepped into the ring to not only win medals on the continent, but also empower young women tostay off the streets and defend themselves.

Floating trash speckles the world’s oceans, some of which are running low on fish. Now China, a major source of those problems, indicates it will work with other countries to improve those seas. Many of these countries are involved in maritime sovereignty disputes with China.