Voters flipped Hong Kong’s district councils (SCMP) from a pro-Beijing majority to an overwhelming pro-democracy one, in local elections on Sunday that saw record numbers of Hong Kongers head to the polls.
 
Seventeen of Hong Kong’s eighteen district councils will now have pro-democracy majorities. Pro-Beijing politicians won a projected sixty seats, down from three hundred. Chief Executive Carrie Lam said she will “seriously reflect” on the results of the election, which came amid a monthslong protest movement in the semiautonomous territory. The councils name around one-tenth (NYT) of the committee that will choose Hong Kong’s next leader in 2022. Turnout was roughly double (Straits Times) what it was in Hong Kong’s previous election.

Authorities at internment camps for Uighur Muslims and other minorities in China’s Xinjiang region were instructed to prevent the escape of detainees and use video surveillance, patrols, and alarms typical of prisons, according to a new report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Beijing denied the report, and said that freedom of movement is guaranteed inside the camps, which Chinese officials call “vocational training institutions.”
 
This CFR Backgrounder looks at China’s repression of Uighurs.

Unofficial discussions between the United States and the militant group are underway in Doha, Qatar, according to a report from the Afghan news agency TOLO. U.S. President Donald J. Trump said in a Fox News interview that the United States is “working on an agreement now.”
 
Kyrgyzstan: Hundreds of people protested (Reuters) at the Kyrgyz government headquarters today to call for action against former senior officials accused in a recent report (OCCRP) of laundering as much as $700 million in 2011–16.

The Cairo office of the independent news outlet Mada Masr was raided (Al Jazeera) and three editors briefly were detained a day after top editor Shady Zalat was arrested at his home. The outlet recently reported that President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s son was transferred to a diplomatic posting in Moscow after receiving criticism from the president’s inner circle.
 
Iraq: At least six people were killed in clashes (Al Jazeera) over the weekend between anti-government protesters and security forces, according to Iraq’s human rights commission.
 
In Foreign Affairs, Renad Mansour discusses how Iraq’s protests provoked an authoritarian turn.

Members of the Sidama ethnic group voted overwhelmingly (Reuters) to form a self-governing region in the country’s southwest, according to Ethiopia’s election board. The region will be able to set its own regulations on taxes, education, and security.
 
This CFR Backgrounder looks at the challenges facing East Africa’s emerging giant.
 
Guinea-Bissau: Votes are being tallied (VOA) for yesterday’s presidential election, which a chief observer from the Community of Portuguese-Language Countries called “peaceful, calm, and orderly.” The country has suffered recurrent political instability since its 1974 independence.

President Klaus Iohannis, a pro-Europe centrist, was reelected (France 24) in a Sunday runoff, winning roughly two-thirds of votes.
 
France: The government announced a plan (AP) to reduce deadly domestic violence in the country that includes seizing guns from abusive spouses, improving police training, and expanding shelters for survivors of domestic violence.

Luis Lacalle Pou, of Uruguay’s conservative opposition, was narrowly leading (Reuters) in yesterday’s presidential runoff, with more than 99 percent of votes counted. Final results are expected later this week.
 
Bolivia: The national congress passed legislation to annul the country’s recent elections and allow for a new presidential vote (Reuters) in which former President Evo Morales will be unable to run. In a deal with protest leaders, interim President Jeanine Anez agreed to withdraw most security forces from protest areas.
 
In Foreign Affairs, Santiago Anria and Kenneth M. Roberts look at what lies in store for Bolivia after Morales’s departure.

Richard V. Spencer was terminated over his handling of the case (WaPo) of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who was accused of war crimes in 2017 in Iraq, the Pentagon said. Spencer reportedly disagreed with President Trump about the consequences Gallagher should face.