News headlines in January 2011, page 29

Hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders have fallen to drones since the first attack that killed Taliban leader Nek Muhammad in South Waziristan. Now many local people welcome drones.

It was a tragic year for Egypt’s minority Coptic Christian community that began with a drive-by shooting at a church in southern Egypt, and ended in deadly clashes near Cairo after authorities halted construction of a church. As 2010 came to a close, Copts ushering in the New Year with a midnight mass in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria wondered if 2011 would be any better.

'I have now hired a house in the adjacent Dera Ismail Khan district where my three daughters are studying in a school,' says Jamil Shah Wazir of the militancy-riddled South Waziristan. Getting girls to school is a real struggle here.

In the face of protests and a nationwide strike called by hardline religious parties against any changes to the blasphemy law, Pakistani Christians have had little to cheer about over the Christmas and New Year season.

A number of recent incidents discriminating against Israel’s Palestinian minority has prompted Israeli Knesset (parliament) members to debate whether Israel is becoming increasingly racist.