The Washington Post

  HARGEISA, Somalia -- Safia Ibrahim’s business was in trouble. COVID-19 had taken hold in Somaliland, in the Horn of Africa. The 50-year-old widow with 10 children to support set out door to door on the capital’s outskirts, a razor at hand, taking advantage of the lockdown to seek work with a question: Have your daughters been cut? Her business is female circumcision, learned at the age of 15, performed hundreds of times and now being passed along to her daughters. She congratulates young girls upon completing the procedure: “Pray for me, I’ve made you a woman now.” She believes her work keeps girls pure for marriage, even though she now knows there’s no medical or even religious reason for the removal of external genitalia, which can cause excessive bleeding, problems with childbirth, infections and even death. But it remains legal in Somaliland, so Ibrahim will continue until authorities tell her to stop. Her story echoes through Muslim and other communities in a broad strip acr...

  BRISBANE, Australia -- Parts of Australia’s third-most populous city Brisbane were under water Monday after heavy rain brought record flooding to some east coast areas and killed eight people. The flooding in Brisbane and its surrounds is the worst since 2011 when the city of 2.6 million people was inundated by what was described as a once-in-a-century event. The latest fatality was a man in his 50s who drowned on Monday after driving his car into floodwater before dawn at Gold Coast city, south of Brisbane, Queensland state police said. The bodies of the man and his dog were retrieved hours later from a submerged car which had been washed from the road, a police statement said. Queensland emergency services warned life-threatening flash flooding was occurring in parts of Gold Coast. Emergency crews made more than 130 swift-water rescues in 24 hours, officials said. All eight flood deaths have been in Queensland state, of which Brisbane is the capital. A search continues for a so...

  CAIRO -- Security forces killed a protester Monday as thousands of Sudanese once again took to the streets of Khartoum to denounce an October military   coup   that plunged the country into turmoil, a medical group said. The protester was shot in the head as security forces fired live animation and tear gas at protesters marching in Omdurman, the twin city of the capital Khartoum, said the Sudan Doctors Committee. Security forces also broke up protesters marching toward the presidential palace in Khartoum, injuring dozens, the committee said. There was no immediate comment from authorities. Monday’s marches were the latest in near-daily street protests since the military took over on Oct. 25, removing the civilian-led transitional government. Since then, at least 83 people have been killed and over 2,600 injured in a bloody crackdown on protests, according to the doctors group. The takeover has upended Sudan’s short-lived transition to democratic rule after three decade...