News Watch

At least 91 people in China died of the H7N9 strain of bird flu between Jan. 1 and March 3, 2017. The total number of cases reported, countrywide, during that period was 269, but the actual total is believed to have been much higher. In response, China temporarily shut down bird markets in areas where bird flu was present.

The symptoms of bird flu initially match the symptoms of the common flu: fever, sore throat, coughing and aches. However, the virus progresses into a more severe...

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In February, following a number of killings by suspected Islamist militants in Egypt’s North Sinai Governorate, including seven murders in the city of El-Arish, dozens of Coptic Christian families fled the province. About 250 family members ended up taking refuge in a church in Ismailiya in the northeast.

On Feb. 26, militants distributed a video warning of more attacks on Egypt’s Coptic Christians, a group comprising 10% of the country’s population. 

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The US Department of State is warning travelers to avoid Lebanon because of threats of terrorism plus the possibility of armed clashes, kidnapping and outbreaks of violence, especially near Lebanon’s borders with Syria and Israel.  

Violent extremist groups operate in Lebanon, including the US-government-designated terrorist organizations Hizballah, Daesh (ISIL), Al-Nusrah Front (ANF), Hamas and the Abdullah Azzam Brigades (AAB). Daesh and the ANF have claimed...

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In Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, bus drivers and truckers began protesting in late February after a court passed a life sentence on a bus driver responsible for an accident in 2011 that left five people dead, including a filmmaker and a journalist.

On Feb. 28, hundreds of drivers held a strike at the country’s largest bus station and brought traffic to a halt. The next day, protests turned violent, vehicles were torched, and police fired riot guns and tear gas at the crowd....

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Police officers in the Brazilian city of Vitória, in the state of Espírito Santo, just north or Rio de Janeiro, went on strike on Feb. 4, asking for higher wages and hazard pay. As a result, crime in the city increased dramatically, with at least 140 murders reported by Feb. 13, as opposed to four reports in the entire month of January. Widespread vandalism and looting was also reported. 

Federal officers were dispatched to the city on Feb. 7.

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Protests against police brutality in the southwestern-Paris suburb of Les Ulis turned violent on Feb. 13 when rioters attacked a police station with rocks and firebombs. Police responded with tear gas and arrested dozens of people during the riots. 

Protests began after a black youth was allegedly assaulted and sodomized by a truncheon while being called racial epithets during his arrest on Feb. 2. The victim’s injuries required a lengthy hospital stay. One of the arresting...

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Anti-immigrant protesters marched into South Africa’s administrative capital, Pretoria, on Feb. 24, and police responded with rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons after violence erupted. Protesters claimed that migrants are stealing jobs and are contributing to the country’s high crime rate, accusations denied by immigrant communities.

President Jacob Zuma condemned this latest wave of anti-foreigner violence, stating that many foreign citizens living in South Africa...

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The number of reported kidnappings in Colombia in 2016, 188, constituted a 92% reduction compared to the total in the year 2000, when more than 3,400 people were kidnapped. Colombian officials attribute the drop in kidnappings to the nation’s work toward peace with the rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). 

The Colombian government and FARC agreed to a peace accord that was ratified by the Colombian senate on Nov. 24. It was their second attempt at a...

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