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Uprising’s guest expert Courtney Morris, assistant professor of African American and women’s Studies at Penn State University, analyzes today’s news headlines:

Sunni militants in Iraq have released photos of what they say are mass executions of hundreds of captured Shiite Iraqis. The group calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria or ISIS, has taken over a number of Iraqi cities in the north with lightening speed. ISIS claims to have killed 1700 people so far, and has posted grisly images to its Twitter feed, showing men wearing black masks standing next to shallow mass graves. Meanwhile, Iraq’s capital, Baghdad was the site of several bomb blasts on Sunday including a car bomb that killed 10 people. The Associated Press is reporting that the US is now open to negotiations with Iran over the deteriorating situation in Iraq. US Secretary of State John Kerry has also announced that he is considered drone strikes. Click here for a New York Times article about the story

Afghans voted in a runoff Presidential election over the weekend, choosing between the top two winners of the first round of voting: Warlord and former Vice President, Abdullah Abdullah and former World Bank technocrat Ashraf Ghani. Twenty people were killed in sporadic violence throughout the country and a number of attempted suicide bomb attacks were thwarted. Fears of widespread fraud remained high, after hundreds of thousands of ballots were thrown out in the first round. Turnout was on the low side in this second round with official figures estimating that 7 million people voted. Click here for a Guardian newspaper article about the story.

In a weekend heavy on international news, Colombians also voted for President, reelecting incumbent Juan Manual Santos who beat his right wing opponent, Oscar Ivan Zuluaga with a narrow victory of nearly 51% of the vote. President Santos campaigned on his on-going efforts to work through peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC rebel group, which he started in 2012. Santos, who is a center-right political figure, has angered former President Alvaro Uribe, a strong US ally, for his attempt to negotiate with FARC. Click here for a Reuters article about the story.