LONDON (AP) — Britain, the United States and Canada accused Russia on Thursday of trying to steal information from researchers seeking a COVID-19 vaccine.
. . . In recent months, a surge in violence in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger – three Sahelian countries with shared borders and common problems – has left more than 440,000 people displaced and 5,000 dead, as militants – some with links to al-Qaeda and IS – extend their grip across the region.
As they gain ground, the jihadists are stoking conflicts between different ethnic groups that are accused of either supporting or opposing them, putting the region’s entire social fabric into question. Cycles of inter-communal violence are now claiming more lives and uprooting more people than direct jihadist attacks. Nobody seems able to stop it.
What’s happening: The death toll from a wave of bombings across Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday increased to 290 on Monday as authorities arrested 24 people in connection with the attacks.
Who carried out the attacks: No group has yet claimed responsibility and the police investigation is ongoing. A government minister described the coordinated bombings as a "brand new type of terrorism," after a decade of relative calm in Sri Lanka.
Warning over other attacks: Late Sunday, authorities disposed of a six-foot pipe bomb near Bandarayanake International Airport in Colombo. On Monday, Sri Lankan authorities found 87 detonators at a private terminal of the Central Bus Stand-in Colombo. Separately, the US State Department is warning that “terrorist groups continue plotting possible attacks in Sri Lanka.”
Outside the small village of Chicua, in the western highlands, in an area affected by extreme-weather events, Ilda Gonzales looks after her daughter.
newyorker.com - by Jonathan Blitzer - Photography by Mauricio Lima - April 3, 2019
. . . In most of the western highlands, the question is no longer whether someone will emigrate but when. “Extreme poverty may be the primary reason people leave,” Edwin Castellanos, a climate scientist at the Universidad del Valle, told me. “But climate change is intensifying all the existing factors” . . . Farming, Castellanos has said, is “a trial-and-error exercise for the modification of the conditions of sowing and harvesting times in the face of a variable environment.” Climate change is outpacing the ability of growers to adapt.
theguardian.com - by Karen McVeigh - March 26, 2019
Yemen is seeing a sharp spike in the number of suspected cholera cases this year, with 1,000 children a day infected in the last two weeks alone, agencies said.
More than 120,000 cases have been reported, with 234 deaths in the country, which has been at war for four years this month. Almost a third of the 124,493 cases documented between 1 January and 22 March were children under fifteen. Increasing rates of malnutrition among Yemen’s children have left them more prone to contracting and dying from the disease.
A smashed window is seen in one of the stores inside a shopping mall after looting in Maracaibo. Photograph: Isaac Urrutia/Reuters
theguardian.com - by Tom Phillips - March 26, 2019
. . . Maracaibo’s “madness” began on the night of 10 March – three days after a catastrophic blackout plunged almost the entire nation into darkness. But it had been long in the making thanks to years of economic and political neglect.
The 1.6 million residents of Maracaibo – an oil capital once celebrated as Latin America’s answer to Houston – complained of shortages of water, electricity and fuel and a worsening public transport system even before Venezuela’s crisis began to accelerate in 2016, with the onset of hyperinflation.
New Zealand shooting: Manifesto by white Australian man who claimed responsibility for attacks lays out alleged motive - CBS News
cbsnews.com - March 15, 2019
At least 49 people are dead in two separate attacks on mosques in New Zealand – the deadliest mass shooting in the country's history. The mosques were packed with people beginning their Friday prayers when a man stormed in and began firing . . .
. . . A 74-page racist manifesto was posted online the same day by a man who said he was behind the attacks . . . it lays out the alleged motive, citing anti-immigrant sentiment and revenge for past terror attacks in Europe, reports CBS News correspondent Nikki Battiste.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov in Moscow last year. General Gerasimov said Saturday that Russia should bring a blend of political, economic and military power to bear against its adversaries. Credit: Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik
nytimes.com - by Andrew E. Kramer - March 2, 2019
The chief of Russia’s armed forces endorsed on Saturday the kind of tactics used by his country to intervene abroad, repeating a philosophy of so-called hybrid war that has earned him notoriety in the West, especially among American officials who have accused Russia of election meddling in 2016 . . .
. . . General Gerasimov said Russia’s armed forces must maintain both “classical” and “asymmetrical” potential, using jargon for the mix of combat, intelligence and propaganda tools that the Kremlin has deployed in conflicts such as Syria and Ukraine.
And he cited the Syrian civil war an example of successful Russian intervention abroad. The combination of a small expeditionary force with “information” operations had provided lessons that could be expanded to “defend and advance national interests beyond the borders of Russia,” he said.
The Global Risks Report 2019 is published against a backdrop of worrying geopolitical and geo-economic tensions. If unresolved, these tensions will hinder the world’s ability to deal with a growing range of collective challenges, from the mounting evidence of environmental degradation to the increasing disruptions of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The report presents the results of our latest Global Risks Perception Survey, in which nearly 1,000 decision-makers from the public sector, private sector, academia and civil society assess the risks facing the world. Nine out of 10 respondents expect worsening economic and political confrontations between major powers this year. Over a ten-year horizon, extreme weather and climate-change policy failures are seen as the gravest threats.
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