CHINA: In a classified report delivered to the White House last week, U.S. analysts said Chinese officials underreported its total number of COVID-19 cases and deaths.

Schools, sporting events, and businesses around the world are operating under new restrictions as the COVID-19 outbreak expands. South African and Egyptian health officials confirmed their first cases on Thursday. The disease has infected more than 95,000 people globally and more than 3,200 have died, most of them in China. After a suspected infection at a hotel in Bethlehem, West Bank, Palestine’s Health Ministry shut down churches and mosques in the area, including the famous Church of Nativity.

CHINA: As of Sunday officials reported 5,142 people infected with the coronavirus in Wuhan, the locked-down city where the outbreak began. But researchers said the rate of outbreak suggests the virus is spreading much faster than Chinese officials are reporting, and cases in Wuhan may top 75,000.

Someday the postgraduate students will study the protest movements underway in the Middle East the way students a generation ago dissected Africa’s independence movements or South America’s guerrilla warlords. 

The streets in Lebanon and Iraq each marked 100 continuous days of protest in January. Lebanon’s prime minister, Saad Hariri, resigned in mid-October, and on day 97 the government named a new head of state and cabinet. Iraq Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi resigned in November, but he has stayed on as a caretaker head of state.

NIGERIA: Militants executed the kidnapped chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, pastor Lawan Andimi, only weeks after they distributed a proof-of-life video following his Jan. 3 abduction. The Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP) and its Boko Haram affiliates also claimed to have killed another abducted Christian, who they did not identify.

Lebanon’s new Cabinet, led by Prime Minister Hassan Diab, met for the first time on Wednesday after months without a functioning government. Former leader Saad Hariri resigned in October amid anti-government demonstrations in the face of a worsening economic crisis.

IRAQ: The Iraqi Anglican congregation at St. George’s sits next to Baghdad’s Green Zone, where rockets aimed at the U.S. Embassy landed on Sunday, “But with your prayers, we are fine until now,” a church deacon told me. Attendance is down, he said, because authorities have closed three bridges leading to the area since anti-government demonstrations began in September.