Even though the Middle East seems to be more conservative in terms of moral values, dress code etc, it is no strange thing to see Gypsy women standing next to the highway in Lebanon (even in daylight) ready to be picked up by men. Also Gypsy women are pressured to bring in the money as Gypsy men quite often don't work and are not ashamed to send  their daughters, or even wives off for prostitution, begging or to dance in nightclubs in other countries. This issue is not limited to Gypsies anymore. Also Syrian women are exposed to prostitution as they suddenly have no means of income. Child brides are becoming more common as parents are forced to 'sacrifice' the one daughter in order for the rest of the family to survive.

When fighters last month took the town of Gwoza murdering inhabitants and raising its jihadist flags, a video was released declaring the area was ‘now part of the Islamic Caliphate and Gwoza has nothing to do with Nigeria.’ Intelligence agencies believe that what were once symbolic links between IS and Boko Haram have developed into a practical relationship with the Islamic State offering advice on strategy and tactics. Emboldened by the success of IS and now equipped with armoured vehicles and artillery Boko Haram is beginning to operate more like a conventional army in Borno Adamawa and Yobe states. Since 2009 terrorists have attacked government buildings, bombed churches and killed; but recently entire towns have been captured and bases to control the territory are being established, a move that parallels IS. Christian leaders report tens of thousands of Christians and Muslims fleeing northern Nigeria where towns are being captured, including Michika earlier this week. See: - and - and also  

Hundreds of thousands of people remain stranded in India and many more have been warned to leave their homes in Pakistan amid some of the worst flooding in the region in decades. The death toll in the two countries has passed 450 with troops deployed to rescue people and provide relief. Officials say 400,000 people are stranded in Indian-administered Kashmir, where 200 people have died. In Pakistan, 254 people have died and thousands have been asked to evacuate. Pakistan's Minister for Water and Power Khwaja Mohammad Asif, was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying that some 700,000 people had been told to leave their homes, which could be inundated in the next four days. Hundreds of people are trying to leave Srinagar, the main city of Kashmir. Although the rains have subsided, many areas of the city are still water-logged, including neighbourhoods around the Dal Lake.

US airstrikes and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters helped rescue thousands of Yazidis stranded on a mountaintop in northern Iraq. But hundreds of Yazidi girls and women were captured by IS during the prolonged ordeal, and are now being sold to IS fighters in Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group aligned with the opposition in Syria. In the last several weeks, IS has sold about 300 Yazidi women and underage girls they abducted in Iraq, according to the group. Assyrian Christian women have also been sold to IS fighters. These young women are considered ‘slaves of the spoils of war with the infidels,’ the monitoring group reported. The terrorists sold the women for about $1,000 each, after a forced conversion to Islam so that they are ‘eligible’ to marry IS fighters. An Iraqi Christian refugee named Rwaa fled the Christian city of Qaraqosh, and reported to the BBC on August 8 that IS is raping and selling Christian women.