Vox Sentences: What we know about Burkina Faso's coup

1. Burkina Faso's parliament building was literally set on fire

Deposed Burkina Faso president Blaise Compaoré. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

• The government of Burkina Faso has fallen after widespread protests and a military coup; protesters literally set parliament on fire.

  [NYT / Hervé Taoko and Alan Cowell]

• Never heard of Burkina Faso? The basics: landlocked in West Africa north of Côte d'Ivoire/Ghana/Togo; population of about 18 million; GDP per capita of $1,500, making it among the world's poorest countries; majority Muslim but significant Christian minority; president Blaise Compaoré had been in power for 27 years.

  [CIA World Factbook]

• Freedom House ranks the country under Compaoré as "partly free": "International monitors have judged recent elections in Burkina Faso to be generally free but not entirely fair, due to the ruling [Congress for Democracy and Progress party's] privileged access to state resources and the media."

  [Freedom House]

• The military leaders behind the coup dissolved every government institution and announced they would appoint a new head of state and then restore the constitution in a year. Yeah, sure.

  [Businessweek / Simon Gongo and Pauline Bax]

• But it follows days of intense public protests after Compaoré tried to amend the country's constitution to let himself run for president again.

  [BBC]

• Compaoré is/was an ally of the US: "A US base in [the capital] Ouagadougou, operating since 2007, operates as a hub for a US spying network in the region, with spy planes departing from the base to fly over Mali, Mauritania and the Sahara, tracking fighters from the al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb."

  [Washington Post / Adam Taylor]

• For more extensive background on Compaoré and the country's political situation, this International Crisis Group Report from last year is a great place to start.

  [International Crisis Group]

• "Since 1990, 11 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have had leaders try to rewrite their constitutions to do away with term limits. Seven of these leaders succeeded. Three failed … In one instance – Niger in 2010 – attempts by President Mamadou Tandja to extend term limits resulted in a coup."

  [Washington Post / Ken Opalo]

• It's obviously too soon to tell and foolish to try to predict, but political scientist Marc Lynch raises an intriguing question: will this spark similar protests in neighboring countries, similar to how Tunisia's 2011 uprising led to the Arab Spring?

  [Marc Lynch]

2. Jerusalem on edge

The family of Muataza Hijazi (who was killed by Israeli police) hold a phone with an image as they mourn on October 30, 2014 in Jerusalem, Israel. (Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images)

• The Israeli government briefly closed off Temple Mount — the holiest site in Judaism and third holiest in Islam — today.

  [NYT / Isabel Kershner and Jodi Rudoren]

• The move came after Israeli police shot and killed a suspect in yesterday's assassination attempt against right-wing activist Yehuda Glick; a spokesman said it was intended to avoid "disturbances."

  [WSJ / Joshua Mitnick and Nicholas Casey]

• A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the closure a "declaration of war on the Palestinian people, Palestinian religious sites and a declaration of war on both the Arab and Islamic states."

  [CNN / Holly Yan]

• Arab protests and clashes with police in East Jerusalem have been going on, with varying intensity, at least since Israeli extremists murdered a 16-year-old Palestinian boy in July.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• The protesters are extremely young, and the violence doesn't appear to be organized or tied to a certain political faction.

  [The Times of Israel / Elhanan Miller]

• Some protesters are welcoming descriptions of the clashes as a "third intifada" but it doesn't seem to have grown to that scale yet.

  [BuzzFeed / Sheera Frenkel]

3. Kaci Hickox just wanted a pizza

Members of the media wait outside the house that Kaci Hickox shares with a boyfriend October 30, 2014 in Fort Kent, Maine. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

• Maine governor Paul LePage has announced talks with Ebola quarantine subject Kaci Hickox, who's resisting attempts to limit her movements, have broken down, like Hickox is a foreign government or something.

  [Christian Science Monitor / Warren Richey]

• Hickox defied the quarantine by going for a bike ride.

  [Reuters / Steve Holland]

• She even ordered a pizza, and got it about 20 hours later — because of the quarantine.

  [Vox / Sarah Kliff]

• Meanwhile West Africa, where the Ebola caseload is still growing, is very short on health workers — something mandatory quarantines certainly won't help. The Hickox situation is very dumb, but it could deter health workers from going to West Africa and cause real damage.

  [Vox / Julia Belluz]

• At least in mice, Ebola's severity appears to depend on the genes of the one infected.

  [Washington Post / Rachel Feltman]

4. Misc.

• Apple CEO Tim Cook comes out publicly: "if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is … then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy."

• The singular "they" is a great tool, and grammar pedants should stop fighting it.

  [Bloomberg View / Megan McArdle]

• A good explanation of ISIS's confusing leadership structure.

  [Washington Post / Adam Taylor]

• The case against having sex with robots.

  [The Week / Michael Brendan Dougherty]

• How seemingly harmless actions can accumulate and cause real harm (discussed in connection to #GamerGate and the conversation over street harassment, but applicable far beyond that).

  [Julian Sanchez]

• The economy is supposed to get less productive as it gets more focused on labor-intensive services — but what if it doesn't?

  [Marginal Revolution / Tyler Cowen]

• A rundown of state ballot initiatives to watch out for.

  [NYT / Josh Barro]

• Horses can tell you if they want a blanket or not.

  [The Horse / Christa Lesté-Lasserre]

5. Verbatim

• "If I get to be president, white men in male-only clubs are going to do great in my presidency."

  [Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) via CNN / Peter Hamby]

• "Whenever we spend this time together, she starts moaning doge memes like 'such sex, wow' and it really kills the moment for me."

  [Redditor needtovent446 to The Daily Dot / Miles Klee]

• "If 1989 sells as forecasted, it will become the biggest-selling album released in 2014 after only one week on sale."

  [Billboard / Keith Caulfield]

• "Democrats tend to be afraid of crime, pollution, and man-made disasters. Republicans tend to be afraid of today’s youth, the government, and immigrants."

  [Mother Jones / Kevin Drum]

• "There are men who will kill and maim with a tranquil conscience under the influence of the words and writings of some of those who are certain that they know perfection can be reached."

  [NY Review of Books / Isaiah Berlin]

• "My roommate Mike dates the same three people I am dating, including Alicorn who also lives with us (this is not normal for polyamory, and all three people started dating Mike and then met me and started dating me too, so I guess the moral of the story is to think very hard before accepting me as a roommate)."

  [Slate Star Codex / Scott Alexander]

• "There are millions of Americans who think it’s okay to deny legal citizens their voting rights or force them to go without health insurance. Those people live in a different moral universe than I do."

  [NY Mag / Jon Chait]

• "Here's the secret to living in a log house: You got to love the color brown."

  [NYT / Michael Powell]

• "Also he has a scrapbook of everyone in the family posing with their smoke detectors."

  [Pineapple Fiend]

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