World

Terrorist attacks have riveted attention in the United States and Europe, but those regions accounted for only a tiny percentage of fatalities from such attacks last year, a new report has found.

The report issued on August 23 from the University of Maryland and based on its Global Terrorism Database found that Western Europe and North America accounted for less than 1 percent of the 34,676 people killed in terror attacks in 2016, while they accounted for less than 2 percent of all attacks.

Countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen suffered the most frequent and deadly attacks, which were concentrated by region in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, the study found.

Attacks by the Islamic State extremist group and its affiliates, while much feared in the West, were heavily concentrated in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and other Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African countries, the report found.

Iraq alone suffered nine of the 11 deadliest attacks in 2016, each carried out by IS, including the single deadliest attack, where a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden truck outside a Baghdad shopping center, killing at least 382 people.

South Asia accounted for 27 percent of all attacks and 22 percent of those killed in 2016.

With reporting by AFP

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says the global economic recovery is on "firmer footing" with improving growth in Europe and China even as it reduced predicted growth for the United States and Britain.

The IMF's World Economic Outlook released on July 24 said it expected the global economy will grow by 3.5 percent in 2017 and 3.6 percent in 2018.

IMF chief economist Maurice Obstfeld, who presented the quarterly update, said "there is now no question mark over the world economy's gain in momentum."

The IMF, however, warned that sluggish wage growth and growing antiglobal sentiment could leave economies worse off.

The IMF forecast improvement in the eurozone, where growth is projected at 1.9 percent this year and 1.7 percent in 2018.

The Russian economy is projected to "recover gradually" in 2017 and 2018, and inflation there has declined.

Growth in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is projected to slow considerably in 2017 due to a decrease in activity in oil exporters, before recovering in 2018.