INTERNATIONAL
In today’s global news:
Worldometer is tracking COVID-19 cases and fatalities.
The New York Times is tracking global vaccine distribution.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
Some 300 people demonstrated on Friday in the southern Syrian city of Suwayda for the fifth straight day of anti-government protests in that city. The protesters, most or all of them members of Syria’s Druze community, are angry over a decision by the Syrian government earlier this month to substantially restrict access to subsidy programs covering basic goods like food and fuel. The economic concerns have blended with political calls for a more democratic system of governance. Syria’s Druze community has mostly either stayed out of the country’s civil war or backed—to varying degrees—the government, though Suwayda and other largely Druze parts of southern Syria have been targeted by Islamist militants (Islamic State chiefly).
