Short 2017 news stories from around the world that maybe you didn't see

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Short stories from 2017- stories and photos from around the world that maybe you didn’t see in 2017 - put together by Kelsi Farrington

South Asia

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INDIA Farmers from Tamil Nadu shaved half their heads. It was a protest to ask the Indian government to do more about the drought. Farmers in Tamil Nadu recently had one of the worst droughts in more than 140 years, so 150 of them protested in March for a month. In April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, agreed to help the 21.5 million farmers with their debt. But some economists do not agree with this. (Photo: Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)

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SRI LANKA A schoolgirl dancing at an event for World Children’s Day on 1 October in Colombo, Sri Lanka. On the same day, UNICEF released three short films. The films showed real ‘shocking experiences in Sri Lanka’ that happen often. UNICEF wants everyone to protect children and young people from all violence. In 2016, there were more than 9,000 reports of violence against children, most by people the children knew. 12 countries, including Sri Lanka, have agreed that they must end all violence against children by 2030. (Photo: Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters)

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BANGLADESH Selling health products in a shop in Palong Khali refugee camp near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Between August and December more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims had to leave their country Myanmar and escape to Bangladesh, because the Burmese army and Rakhine Buddhist groups had killed and raped thousands of people and burnt the villages. The Muslim Rohingya people have lived in the area for centuries, but the Myanmar government does not allow them to be citizens. Myannar is mostly Buddhist. As refugees in the camps in Bangladesh, they work for Bangladeshi traders who do not pay much money. (Photo: Hannah McKay/Reuters)

Middle east

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PALESTINE A Palestinian boy shows his parkour (free-running) skills at the seaport of Gaza City. The parkour team, say that young people come to look at the sea so they don’t have to think about the ‘difficult situation’ in the occupied territory. ‘They want to go out, they want to see the world.’ But that is only a dream. Youth unemployment is over 40 per cent. Young people will have to stay in Gaza until something is done to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict. (Photo: Mohammed Salem/ Reuters)

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YEMEN Haifa Subay is a street artist and activist. Here she is painting on a wall: the suffering of the women and children during war. The ‘Silent Victims’ campaign gets artists, mostly women, to use street art to show the effects on them of war. In November, a survey showed that revealed that thousands of Yemenis could die every day if the countries led by Saudi Arabia does not allow food into the ports. About 2.5 million people in Yemen’s crowded cities have no clean water, so there is a big risk of cholera. (Photo: Mohamed al-Sayaghi/Reuters)

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ISRAEL Thousands of Great White Pelicans can now stop again in Israel on their migration. Farmers and environmentalists told the government they must continue to provide money for the project to feed pelicans that fly over the country. And in October, the government agreed. If they feed the pelicans at a reservoir, they don’t take fish from the farmers. The nature reserves authority in Israel said this is a good decision, to help both the farmers and the pelicans. (Photo: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters)

Europe and central Asia

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SPAIN A child in a helmet climbs up a human tower. He will help the last, younger child to climb to the very top. This is part of the Saint Ursula festival, on 22 October, in Valls, Catalonia. The two teams get challenges when the towers collapse, and celebrations when the towers are complete. Since the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, many people have been interested in Catalan culture, and independence from Spain. In September, Spanish police violently attacked people voting in an independence referendum. (Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty)

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GREECE A man carries a dog and a cat he rescued from a tree after terrible sudden floods in Mandra, Greece, in November. The worst damage from floods ever was in industrial towns west of Athens. At least 20 people died and Greece had a day of national mourning. So much rain is unusual in Greece and so the buildings and roads are not prepared. People suffer from the climate chaos. (Photo: Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters)

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UKRAINE 900 stray dogs live in and around Chernobyl nuclear power plant. People think they are puppies of pets that families had to leave after the 1986 nuclear disaster. Vets and radiation experts are volunteering for the project ‘The Dogs of Chernobyl’ to look after the dogs. They test them for radiation and vaccinate them against parasites and diseases, including rabies. The dogs get tags and then go back into the area (where people are still not allowed to go). Some get special collars with sensors and GPS receivers so the experts can map radiation levels across the zone. (Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty)

East Asia and Pacific

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AUSTRALIA An Australian green tree frog, named Godzilla, sits on the hand of someone from the Frog and Toad Study Group to start a new phone app ‘FrogID’ by the Australian Museum to count frogs in Sydney. The Museum (with IBM) say they have developed the world’s first smartphone app that can get people to easily record and report the noises that frogs make. Frog populations are falling around the world especially in Australia. Australia’s Department of Environment and Energy says this is because of climate change, pollution, new species and urban development. (Photo: David Gray/Reuters)

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NORTH KOREA/CHINA Choi Sang Kyun, head of Gallery Pyongyang, in Dandong, China, holds a North Korean propaganda poster which says: ‘For the new world without nuclear weapons!’. The North Korean state runs the Mansudae Art Studio and sells North Korean art to China. All the money from the art goes to the North Korean government, so the UN says North Korea uses these art sales to spend money on military installations. (Photo: Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

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CHINA About 1,000 primary school students are at a very big Chinese calligraphy class in Shenyang, Liaoning Province. People say children’s writing style is getting worse because of computers and texting, so they tell schools to give more classes in calligraphy. There is not so much time in the digital age for the traditional skill of drawing a Chinese character carefully by hand and thinking about the meaning. (Photo: VCG/Getty)

Americas

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BRAZIL Waiapi children watch a video of traditional dance on a mobile phone in Manilha, a village in indigenous territory in the Amazonian state of Amapá. There are about 1,200 Waiapi people. The Brazilian government want to let international mining companies come and work in part of the pure rainforest (‘Reserva Nacional de Cobre e Associados’ - National Copper Reserve). The Waiapi are one of the most traditional communities in Brazil’s Amazon, but modern life is coming nearer and people who live in the forest use technology to help them live between two worlds. (Photo: Apu Gomes/AFP/Getty)

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UNITED STATES Halima Aden was a refugee and now she is a fashion model. She is the first model to wear a hijab on magazine covers. A few weeks after he became president, Trump banned visas and entry for anyone, including US nationals, born in Muslim-majority countries such as Iran, Iraq and Somalia (where Aden was born). There was more islamophobia in November then Trump retweeted several anti-Muslim videos from a British far-right group – and many people across the world were very angry. (Photo: Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

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CHILE Riot police arrested people from a feminist organization at a rally against sexual harassment and gender violence in Santiago on 24 October. Before the December elections, there were many big protests in Chile about many problems. Chile has a good economy, but there is a lot of domestic violence: in 2017, 61 women were killed and 36 women committed suicide. On 25 November, the Chilean Network against Violence towards Women organised 5,000 people to march for 2 hours. They want an end to gender-based violence around the world. (Photo: Carlos Vera/Reuters)

Africa

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SOUTH SUDAN For four years, South Sudan has been divided by conflict and unrest. But ‘artivists’ like Manasseh Mathiang (in the photo) want to use art to teach people to tolerate, not hate. The artivists helped to get the people in South Sudan to vote in the 2011 referendum. Manasseh, 33, helped to start the group ‘Ana Taban’ (Arabic for ‘I’m tired’), a group of musicians, fashion designers and poets who use regular open-air performances to demand peace and educate others about how to solve conflict without violence. (Photo: Andreea Campeanu/Reuters)

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NIGERIA Workers clear up the dead mangroves and oil with hoses and shovels after the two terrible oil spills in 2008 on Bodo Creek, Rivers State, Nigeria. This clean-up will probably take three years, and local communities and scientists are supporting it. There were ten years of legal battles and international pressure to get locals, the government and oil companies to agree what to do. The Bodo clean-up area is only 10 square kilometres, but there is a lot more to clean. Environmentalists think it will take 21,000 years to get rid of the effects of the oil from the whole Delta. (Photo: Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)

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BENIN Fresh Cayenne pineapples in a field in Soyo, Benin – Benin was the fourth largest exporter of pineapples. In December 2016, Benin’s government banned all pineapple exports after the EU said Benin pineapples had ‘unsafe’ levels of ethephon. Farmers often use this pesticide to make the pineapples look ripe more quickly. Now, after eight months of training and testing, farmers in Benin can now export pineapples again, but other countries are slow to buy them. (Photo: Yanick Folly/AFP/Getty)

Now read the original: https://newint.org/features/2018/01/01/unreported-year-2017