July 28, 1997
Havana, Cuba

      Over 700 people from the United States will attend the 14th World Festival of Youth and Students in Havana, despite the fact that they have been denied travel licenses by the U.S. Treasury Department.

July 8, 1997
Cape Town, South Africa

      Four black South Africans guilty of murdering a white U.S. student four years ago apologized to the girl's parents during a public application for amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, set up to investigate human rights violations during apartheid. After attending a meeting of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), the four chased Amy Biehl down after her car was stopped by a crowd of youths, tripped her, stabbed her and pelted her body with rocks. Ironically, Biehl was in South Africa trying to help end Apartheid.

July 7, 1997
Belfast, Northern Ireland

      A gang of Catholic youths forced a 17-year-old Protestant to parade around playing hymns on his accordion while they stoned him. After an army helicopter spotted the incident, the gang decided enough beating had been inflicted on the blasphemous Protestant and stole his car, later to be torched. This was only one of innumerable incidents that took place after a Protestant march was routed down a Catholic street. Reports say over 80 people were injured, over 200 cars hijacked, tons of perfectly good alcohol was molotov cocktailed, and they still don't think God is content.

July 7, 1997
Thika, Kenya

      David Mutugi, 17, was shot in the chest and killed when police and prison guards violently dispersed people gathering for a demonstration by groups demanding constitutional reforms from the government. Four people were killed and at least five others were injured, most by beating, when police broke up a crowd in Moi gardens, which also has a large secondhand clothes market. Mutugi was at the market running a kiosk owned by his family.

July 6, 1997
Sydney, Australia

      A 17-year-old Australian appeared in court on a charge of trying to extort A$505,000 (US$379,000) from Qantas Airways Ltd. with a threat to detonate a bomb on an aircraft flying from Sydney to Hong Kong on July 4. Police found bomb-making information from the Internet at the kid's home when he was arrested. They did not say whether a bomb was actually on the aircraft, which carried 95 passengers plus crew, and a Qantas spokeswoman could not comment.

July 5, 1997
Hebron, Israel

      Palestinian youths and Israeli soldiers exchanged stones and rubber bullets as Israel and the Palestinian Authority traded accusations over the West Bank unrest. "We are Muslim youth and we defend our homeland for our Koran and religion," said Nidal Mohammad Badawi Azhur, 18, lying in a Hebron hospital with a rubber bullet in his chest. Fighting between Palestinians, Israelis, and everyone else in the Middle East has been going on for thousands of years with no end in sight.

June 29, 1997
Tokyo, Japan

      A 14-year-old boy is the main suspect in the brutal decapitation of a schoolboy that shocked Japan. Experts put part of the blame on the strict Japanese education system. In a letter to a local newspaper, the killer wrote, "I am not forgetting revenge for the compulsory education that has produced me as an invisible existence and on the society that has produced this compulsory education." Japanese students must carry school rule books which regulate their lives down to the smallest detail, including length of skirts. This is probably why their students write rambling unintelligible letters to newspapers and decapitate their classmates.

June 29, 1997
Berlin, Germany

      Around 60 youths threw stones at police, vandalized cars and smashed windows in the German city of Halle. Police said 15 officers were injured in the clashes, which began at a right-wing rally on Saturday evening and continued at a nearby rock concert afterwards. Twelve men aged between 17 and 27 were detained temporarily.

June 27, 1997
Enschede, Netherlands

      A teenager using a cell phone in class to run an escort service was expelled for using a phone in class. The phone would ring in class and the 17-year-old, whose name was not released, would answer "Escort Service 501."

June 27, 1997
Durban, South Africa

      Four youths aged eight to fifteen were killed in their home in South Africa's volatile KwaZulu- Natal province. Violence monitors said on Friday they suspected it was another political attack in the bloody Zulu turf war between supporters of Nelson Mandela's African National Congress and members of the Inkatha Freedom Party. Gunmen wielding AK-47 assault rifles attacked the sleeping family Thursday night.

June 24, 1997
Quebec City, Canada

      Police arrested 150 people in Quebec's two main cities when youths rioted on the day of Quebec's patron saint, St. John the Baptist, a date Quebeckers celebrate as their "national"' holiday. One policeman and three teenagers were injured. The youths threw rocks and bottles at 500 police, who used tear gas to disperse the crowd. It took them about five hours to clear the streets. It was the sixth consecutive year that youths have rioted in Quebec City during the annual celebrations.

June 20, 1997
Bucaramanga, Colombia

      A pair of teenage brothers staged a bogus kidnapping in a bid to win a $30,000 ransom from their mother. Police, following the suspicious actions of the 15-year-old brother, followed him to a house across town to find the kidnapped 16-year-old playing dominos with a friend.