News Watch

Air quality in Singapore was rated “unhealthy” by the country’s National Environment Agency on Aug. 26, with pollution briefly peaking to “very unhealthy” levels.

The poor air quality was due to incoming smoke from forest fires illegally set to clear land for farming and cattle grazing in neighboring Indonesia. These fires are an annual occurrence during the dry season and, in addition to affecting Singapore, often cause air-quality issues in the...

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In Yamalo-Nenets, northern Siberia, Russia, at least 90 people have been hospitalized and one child has died in an outbreak of anthrax. Russian authorities blamed the outbreak on a heat wave in the region that thawed the corpses of reindeer that had perished of the disease the previous winter.

Anthrax is a bacterial disease that produces toxins in the body that can be fatal. It is spread when a human or animal comes into contact with, ingests or breathes in dormant spores. The spores...

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Members of the Turkish armed forces made a coup attempt against the democratically elected ruling government on July 15, briefly holding parts of Istanbul, including two bridges over the Bosphorus Strait and Atatürk International Airport, as well as some government buildings in the capital, Ankara. By the next morning, most of the soldiers involved had surrendered. During the coup, at least 246 people were killed and more than 1,400 were injured.

After the coup attempt, more than 16,...

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In Nice, France, on July 14, a man drove a large freight-delivery truck more than a mile on the Promenade des Anglais, zigzagging to target clusters of people gathered to celebrate Bastille Day. Eighty-four were killed, including three Americans, and 303 others were injured before the driver was shot and killed by police. The promenade had been closed to vehicular traffic for the holiday.

The militant Islamist group Daesh (ISIL) claimed the driver as “one of our soldiers,...

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In Baghdad, Iraq, on July 5, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb in a crowded marketplace in the central Karrada district, killing at least 281 people and injuring more than 200. It was the deadliest single bombing in Iraq since 2003. The attack took place on the night of Eid al-Fitr, the first day after the holy month of Ramadan (June 6-July 5 in 2016), celebrated by Muslims.

The militant Islamist group Daesh (ISIL) took credit for the attack. Shortly before the bombing, Iraqi...

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Daesh claimed responsibility for at least 80 people being killed and more than 200 being injured by a suicide bomber during a protest in Kabul, Afghanistan, on July 23.

In that attack, at least one bomb was detonated among a gathering of Hazara, a minority group in Afghanistan that follows Shia Islam. According to an Afghani spokesperson, the bomb of a second suicide bomber failed to detonate, while a third suicide bomber was killed by security forces before he could activate his bomb...

Seven gunmen reportedly allied with Daesh killed 20 foreigners after taking more than 20 hostages at a café in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on July 1. During a shootout with police, six of the gunmen were killed as was one police officer, and 30 police officers were injured. Hostages killed included Italians, Japanese, an Indian and a Bangladeshi-American.

On July 7 in the Kishoreganj District near Dhaka, militants with guns and homemade bombs attacked police guarding a gathering of people...

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In South Sudan in July, armed conflict between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and those loyal to Vice President Riek Machar left at least 272 people dead and threatened to plunge the country into civil war again. 

The clashes began in the capital, Juba, on July 7 when soldiers loyal to Machar opened fire on a checkpoint manned by soldiers loyal to Kiir, killing five. A cease-fire was agreed to by Kiir and Machar on July 11 before Machar left the capital with a contingent of...

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