Watching the World

The Serbian Ministry of Religious Affairs has accepted the application for registration of the legal entity representing Jehovah’s Witnesses. According to government records, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been active in the area since at least 1930.

It is estimated that 95 percent of music downloads worldwide in 2009 were illegal.​—TIME, U.S.A.

Earthquakes​—“The Deadliest Disasters”

“Earthquakes caused the deadliest disasters in the past decade,” says the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, based in Geneva, Switzerland. Of those who died because of disasters in this period, almost 60 percent were killed by earthquakes. This “natural hazard” continues to pose a serious risk, given that 8 of the 10 cities with the largest populations worldwide lie on earthquake-prone fault lines. The last ten years have seen more than 780,000 people killed in 3,852 events classified as disasters.

Dangerous Occupation

“A total of 110 journalists were killed because of their work in 2009, making last year the most lethal in the past decade” for this profession, says the International Press Institute, based in Vienna, Austria. In conflict areas, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Somalia, there has been a “deliberate targeting of journalists” in recent years, says the report. This has led to less press coverage and a “worrying vacuum in the understanding of . . . complex events” in these areas. Iraq was the most dangerous country for journalists over the past decade, followed by the Philippines, Colombia, Mexico, and Russia in that order.

Cheap Imports, Fewer Burglaries

“An influx of cheap electronic goods” might put British burglars out of their jobs, according to a Reuters news report from London, quoting criminology lecturer James Treadwell, of the University of Leicester, England. The low cost of new DVD players, for example, means that those goods have almost zero resale value. They are “simply not worth stealing,” says Treadwell. Price reductions have not put an end to crime, however. On the contrary, thieves are now targeting more expensive and more marketable items, ‘such as mobile phones and iPods, which people carry around with them.’ Former burglars are thus turning to other crimes, such as muggings.