Amal & George Clooney Are Pregnant With Twins! | Meet Amal's Client Nadia Murad

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Human rights lawyer Amal and actor George Clooney have twin babies in their future. The well-dressed duo prefers to champion causes they care deeply about, not their glam lifestyle. Most notably, writes Vogue, Amal Clooney appeared at the UN in New York with client Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman enslaved by ISIS. In an act of feminist poetic justice, Murad is now suing her former captives. 

Last week, it was twins for Beyonce and Jay Z. What is going on here!!!

Related: Nadia Murad Is Taking On ISIS With the Help of Amal Clooney Vogue

Motherless, displaced, traumatized, grief-stricken, and the ongoing recipient of ISIS death threats, Murad counts herself among the lucky: Of the 6,000 Yazidi women and children taken during ISIS raids, she estimated that more than 3,200 are still being held in captivity. The activist highlighted one person in particular: Lemya, a neighbor and the little sister of close friends, who was only 14 when she was taken and held in the Iraqi city of Mosul by a 34-year-old man, who both raped her and told her, confusingly, that she remained a virgin. “That always sticks in my mind,” Murad explained. “That this happened to her, and she never knew what had happened to her.”

Lemya, like so many other Yazidis, remains missing. And it’s largely for their sake that Murad has sought the help of London-based human rights lawyer Amal Clooney. Together they’re attempting to remind the world that the organized killing and enslavement of Yazidis constitutes genocide. Their goal is to wrangle the assistance of the U.N. in hopes of holding ISIS accountable in international court.

“It is a genocide, and it needs to be recognized,” Murad told me through her interpreter, Murad Ismael, executive director of the Yazidi-supporting nonprofit Yazda. “That must be acknowledged, not just for Yazidis, but for any community that suffers through this. When genocide is committed, it must be seen. People must look at it with open eyes, not minimize its impact.”

'Eclipsed' Tony-Nominated Danai Gurira Joins The Edit's The New Hollywood Lineup

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'Eclipsed' Tony-Nominated Danai Gurira Joins The Edit's The New Hollywood Lineup

Gucci Creative Director Alessandro Michele joins stylist Tracy Taylor for The Edit's May 12 issue with its focus on 'The New Hollywood'. Photographer Bjorn Iooss flashes six creatives including Gillian Jacobs, Sonoya Mizuno, Elizabeth Debicki, Meera Menon, Ellie Bamber, and Danai Gurira in the all-Gucci feature.

Of special interest to AOC readers is Danai Gurira, a Zimbabwean actress and playright, who has mounted Broadway's first-ever all-female, women of color production called 'Eclipsed'. Our beloved muse Lupita Nyong'o is quoted by The Edit, describing Danai:

“In Eclipsed, Danai exposed the true pain of war. Performing it has been one of the most emotionally exhausting and rewarding experiences of my life. I thank the brilliant Danai for writing such an essential, powerful, funny and moving story, which forces me to dig down to my core every night.”

U2's Bono joined 'The Walking Dead' actor and 'Eclipsed' playwright, who also serves as an ambassador of the ONE Campaign, an organization he co-founded. The human rights activist was introduced by Lupita Nyong'o:

"We’ve asked (Bono) to join us today to launch our effort to bring direct attention to the challenges faced by millions of girls all over the world living under the tyranny of war, in poverty and being denied their human rights simply because they are female," Nyong'o told Saturday's audience. "From here on out, each performance will be dedicated to specific girls from around the world who have been kidnapped and are still missing."

Hillary Clinton's Plan To Take On ISIS | Watch Nov. 19 Council of Foreign Relations Speech

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Hillary Clinton's Plan To Take On ISIS | Watch Nov. 19 Council of Foreign Relations Speech

For friends trying to understand fundamentally what's going on with ISIS, VOX shares an overview of the history of ISIS: a 15-20 minute read that is highly informative.  AOC calls out three key paragraphs that are relevant to our understanding of the world and content strategy.

9 Questions about ISIS You Were Too Embarrassed To Ask VOX

The Apocalypse

ISIS's first obsession, though, is not the caliphate but the apocalypse. The group's leaders, by every indication, earnestly believe that their role is to help usher in the final days and the end of the world. McCants explained, in his interview with Williams, how this belief developed into ISIS's focus on building a state:

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Rape of Women

ISIS also promotes what the New York Times's Rukmini Callimachi called a "theology of rape": a vast infrastructure of sexual violence and slavery, with ISIS encouraging rape as not just a tool of war but a matter of daily life in the caliphate. Yes, this is its own awful recruiting tool, but it's even more than that: It's a way for both the group and its individual members to demonstrate power by associating sexual violence with victory.

Original Caliphates Centered on Religious Expression

For jihadists, the caliphates are the height of Islam's glory, the banner of a sort of Islamic nationalism. Framing your jihadist movement as the rebirth or continuation of the caliphate is a way of asserting the idea that all Muslims should be joined in one state, that they should be ruled by Islam (or more specifically, the jihadists' version of Islam), and that all other Islamic authorities and states are apostates.
The jihadists also promote the idea that because the caliphates existed a long time ago and were politically organized around Islam, they must have therefore been ultra-conservative theocracies. But that is quite simply false: At their height, the caliphates were centers of artistic expression and scientific development.


Congo's Dr Denis Mukwege Calls For 100% New Recruits In Army & With No History of Sexual Violence

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Congo’s Dr Denis Mukwege Calls For 100% New Recruits In Army & With No History of Sexual Violence

Last week Dr Mukwege described the Congolese army as being mired in a culture of violence and as being ‘completely sick’, so sick that it should be disarmed and replaced with new recruits who have never committed sexual violence or fought for a violent militia, reports The Guardian.

The UN estimates that one-third of the rapes that occur in the eastern part of the country are committed by members of the army. Dr Mukwege’s questioning the wisdom of the international community spending large sums of money to support an army that is the greatest perpetrator of violence against women and sometimes men, too, is timely.

Angelina Jolie's Rousing Feminist Speech For Women In South Africa

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Angelina Jolie’s Rousing Feminist Speech For Women In South Africa

On June 11, Angelina Jolie spoke in her role as special envoy to UNHCR at the biannual African Union Summit in Johannesburg. The theme of this year’s summit was the ‘Year of Women’s Empowerment and Development’. Read on.

Perhaps Angelina Jolie Is Just Too Caught Up In Life To Eat

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Perhaps Angelina Jolie Is Just Too Caught Up In Life To Eat

Once again people are talking about Angelina Jolie’s ‘alarmingly thin’ body, revealed in her arrival in London for a very special day in Jolie’s life. Angelina joined former British Foreign Secretary and now Leader of the House of Commons William Hague at the London School of Economics to announce the opening of the London Center For Women, Peace & Security.

No one doubts Angelina Jolie’s pursuit of perfection in all that she does, and near-perfection seems to come naturally for her. Stories abound that the actor/director forgets to eat. This February 2014 Tom Brokaw interview of Angelina and ‘Unbroken’ subject Louie Zamperini feels beautifull natural and unscripted.

Also, this brief 3 minutes with National Geographic also gives us major insights into Angelina Jolie’s personality and capacity for empathy AND ACTION!!  Read on.

Eye | Dr Denis Mukwege Assasination Attempt in Congo

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Noted Women’s Rights Activist in Congo Eludes Group of Gunmen NY Times

On Thursday evening, a group of unidentified gunmen entered the home of the activist, Dr. Denis Mukwege, forcing his two daughters and their friend onto the floor and threatening to shoot them if they made any noise, according to a statement from Physicians for Human Rights, a humanitarian organization based in the United States. Dr. Mukwege, a past Nobel Peace Prize nominee and ferocious advocate for women, is devoted to treating women rape victims with an emphasis on repairing fistulas. 

The gunmen forced their way into his car, and one stepped out and trained his gun on the doctor. Then one of his security guards appeared out of nowhere. The gunman menacing Dr. Mukwege whirled around and opened fire on the guard instead, Dr. Mukwege said, then fired at him. “They were shooting bullets in my direction,” he said. He scrambled to get away, and the assailants ran out of ammunition without hitting him. “And then they just jumped again in the car.”

Dr. Mukwege’s family was unharmed but his security guard — Papa Djef, as he was known to the family — was killed. “He was like my child,” Dr. Mukwege said. “He was really a brave man. He just paid his life to save mine.”

AOC has long tracked the atrocities against women of the Congo, with a special focus on Smart Sensuality woman Eve Ensler and a top supporter and advocate for women in East Africa, Charlize Theron.

APROSAF Midwives in Congo Fuel Lifesaving Rescues with Briquettes

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APROSAF midwives in Congo demonstrate unbelievable courage in trying to save women’s lives.Huffington Post has published a followup to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Congo.

Secretary Clinton wrote about the Mugunga Internally Displaced Persons Camp in Goma. The American press had little interest in covering the horrors Mrs. Clinton saw on her trip, preferring to focus on the infamous question directed to her in the equally-infamous Congo press conference.

Georgianne Nienaber shares details about a project between Virunga National Park and Association pour la Promotion de la Sage Femme, a group of 118 midwives who also act as community leaders.

The respect they garner results from selfless dedication as they transport pregnant women and rape victims, sometimes by carrying them on their backs, to get help. They do this without pay and subject themselves to rape and shootings along the way.

These unbelievably courageous women will receive $20 a month to establish a brisquette business, converting refuse into fuel and then selling it for $.50 a sack. If the women repackage refuse, the trees won’t be cut down in Virunga Park, home to the last remaining mountain gorillas, but also a source of fuel.