• Listen to this segment with Robert Jensen

Uprising’s guest expert Robert Jensen, an author and a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, analyzes today’s news headlines:

After days of recalcitrance, Turkey has finally decided to allow Kurdish fighters from Iraq to cut through the nation and come to the aid of Syrian Kurds in the border town of Kobani. Turkey’s government, which has a long history of tensions with Kurdish militias like the PKK, has announced its about-face in joining the fight against Islamic State rebels after the US dropped equipment and supplies to Kobani’s Kurds. The US has apparently honed its bombing campaign to better stave off advances by ISIS. And ISIS does seem to have pulled back from Kobani in the face of determined resistance by Kurdish fighters. Click here for a McClatchy article, and here for a Daily Beast article about the story.

UNICEF this morning released a disturbing new report documenting violence against children worldwide. A child between the age of 0 and 19 dies every five minutes around the world. But the report’s main finding is that the vast majority of violence-related child deaths – 75% – occur as a result of interpersonal interactions, rather than in war zones. Of course, those children who do die in war zones are also victims of horrific circumstances, such as the hundreds of Palestinian children killed in Gaza during Israel’s 50 day war this summer. Click here for a Huffington Post article and here for an Associated Press article about the story.

And finally, in the battle against the Ebola virus, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that the World Health Organization has just declared Nigeria to be free from the disease, proving that well-coordinated quick action is what it takes. The bad news is that the tiny handful of cases of Ebola in the US are being used to fuel anti-immigrant backlash here at home. Florida Senator Marco Rubio announced this week that he was proposing a bill to ban travel visas for people from those African nations where Ebola cases have been documented. Click here for a Commondreams article about the story.