Freezing and Fighting for Aid: Syrian Refugees in Lebanon

As Syria’s civil war has raged over the past four years, more than a million refugees have fled into neighboring Lebanon. The Bekaa Valley, which serves as the main passageway between Damascus and Beirut, is now home to the largest concentration of Lebanon’s Syrian refugees.

Currently in Lebanon there is one Syrian for every four Lebanese citizens — a population growth that has created a strain on the small villages and towns that bear the responsibility of hosting the refugees. Al Marj, a small city of about 15,000 in the southern end of the Bekaa Valley, is home to a refugee camp where approximately 400 families are living.

VICE News traveled to the Bekaa Valley to see how the refugee population is faring as winter fully sets in, and found that the freezing temperatures are only one of their problems.

Watch "The War Next Door (Full Length)” - http://bit.ly/1we4sbb

The Billion Dollar Cockfighting Industry: VICE INTL (Australia)

In the Philippines, the 6,000 year-old sport of cockfighting has been transformed into a fully-legal, billion dollar industry. Known locally as sabong, it takes place in 2,500 dedicated stadiums across the country and kills an estimated 30 million roosters each year.

New Music: Gucci Mane's New EP 'Views From Zone 6'

Just when you thought he was done feeding the streets from jail, Gucci Mane has orchestrated his most audacious stunt yet, releasing yet another ridiculously quality project from his archives. Below is Gucci's new EP, entitled Views from Zone 6, and Noisey is beyond excited to premiere it below.

Yes, Views from Zone 6 is a play on Drake's upcoming album Views from the 6. Yes, that's Lil B who's trading bars with Gucci over an insane Mike Will beat. Yes, it actually features Chief Keef and Andy Milonakis on the same damn track. Yes, that is indeed Young Thug at his weirdest and Lil Reese and Fredo Santana at their meanest. In short, yes, Views from Zone 6 is an absolutely monstrous EP that you need to listen to right now.

Read more from Noisey here

VICE: Prohibition in Northern Canada: VICE INTL (Canada)

Officially founded in 1999, Nunavut is the youngest territory in Canada. It's only been two generations since Canada's stewardship of the land forced the Inuit people out of their semi-nomadic way of life and into a modern sedentary one. But while the introduction of contemporary conveniences seem to have made life more comfortable, the history of Canada in the arctic is mired in tragedy, and the traumatic effects of residential schools and forced relocations are still being felt.

Today, Nunavut is in a state of social crisis: Crime rates are four times the national average and the rates of suicide are more than ten times higher than the rest of Canada.

If you ask people here what the driving force of the problem is, a lot of them will say: alcohol. Even though alcohol is completely illegal in some parts of the territory, it's been reported that 95 percent of police calls are alcohol-related.

VICE NEWS: Yemen: A Failed State

Since 2011, when Yemeni youths took to the streets and sparked the eventual demise of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime, the country has fallen to pieces. The new embattled government is now struggling to cope with a bevy of issues, including sectarian rivalries, CIA drone strikes, and one of al Qaeda's most sophisticated branches. It now risks presiding over the failure of one of the world's most fragile countries.

In "Yemen: A Failed State," VICE News visits some of Yemen's most dangerous and hard-to-reach places and groups, including the national Army in the country's lawless East, the Houthis in Sana'a, and the Popular Committee in the South, to find out how both the government and the West's policy toward Yemen have gone wrong.

Check out "Al-Qaeda Hospital Massacre in Yemen" - http://bit.ly/1lWbsLA

VICE NEWS: Ghosts of Aleppo (Full Length)

Aleppo is Syria's largest metropolitan area and a millennia-old commercial capital. Today, however, it is a relative ghost town, threatened by regime bombing from the air and a militant offensive on the ground. For two weeks over the summer, VICE News embedded with the Islamic Front, a coalition of Islamist rebels fighting the forces of President Bashar al-Assad on one hand, and Islamic State militants on the other. From their secret tunnels beneath the ancient city to their threatened frontline outposts in Aleppo's ruined medieval centre, VICE NEWS followed the Islamic Front as, against overwhelming odds, they battled to retain control of the capital of the Syrian revolution.

VICE NEWS: The Islamic State (Full Length) ISIS

The Islamic State, a hardline Sunni jihadist group that formerly had ties to al Qaeda, has conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group has announced its intention to reestablish the caliphate and has declared its leader, the shadowy Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the caliph.

The lightning advances the Islamic State made across Syria and Iraq in June shocked the world. But it's not just the group's military victories that have garnered attention — it's also the pace with which its members have begun to carve out a viable state.

Flush with cash and US weapons seized during its advances in Iraq, the Islamic State's expansion shows no sign of slowing down. In the first week of August alone, Islamic State fighters have taken over new areas in northern Iraq, encroaching on Kurdish territory and sending Christians and other minorities fleeing as reports of massacres emerged.

VICE News reporter Medyan Dairieh spent three weeks embedded with the Islamic State, gaining unprecedented access to the group in Iraq and Syria as the first and only journalist to document its inner workings. 

Reversing Female Circumcision: The Cut That Heals

On the International Day for Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, VICE News reports on a little-known surgery that restores sexual function to the clitoris for women who had their genitals mutilated as children. We meet and follow a 32-year-old prospective patient who was mutilated at the age of six in Somalia, and who now lives and works as a nurse in the United States.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a cultural tradition that affects millions of women worldwide. Sometimes referred to as female circumcision or female genital cutting, the practice varies in severity depending on where it is performed. The procedure can range from minor nicks to the clitoris to the total removal of the clitoris and labia. In its severest form, the two sides of the vulva are sewn together, leaving only a small hole for menstruation and urination.

While the practice has been outlawed in many of the 29 countries where FGM is concentrated, it persists in some rural areas as a centuries-old cultural tradition, where it is usually performed by women elders as a part of a coming-of-age ritual. The tradition is sometimes believed to "purify" a woman and performed to preserve virginity before marriage.

The World Health Organization estimates that some 6,000 girls undergo FGM around the world every day. The procedure is often performed in unsafe and unsanitary conditions on girls between the ages of four and 12. FGM can be fatal, and can lead to immediate complications such as infections and urine retention, as well as long-term complications such as severe pain and tearing during intercourse and major complications during childbirth.

VICE News saw the result of the severest form of FGM first-hand in Dr. Marci Bowers' operating room in San Mateo, California, and watched as she performed a defibulation procedure — the re-opening of genitalia that had been sewn shut — and clitoroplasty, the reconstruction and restoration of sexual function to the clitoris. 

Read "After Genital Cutting in Somalia, a Woman Chooses Reconstructive Surgery in America" - http://bit.ly/1D5WUOJ