NEW YORK, Feb 7 2025 (IPS)* –Even after Trump declared that he wanted to take back the Panama Canal, acquire Greenland by force, if necessary, and rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, I could not, like many others, imagine that his madness could reach a new unfathomable height.
Much of Gaza has been destroyed in the current conflict. Credit: UNICEF/Eyad El Baba, February 2025
At his news conference on February 4, with Prime Minister Netanyahu standing beside him, sporting a sinister grin, Trump announced that the US would take over Gaza, ship the Palestinians like sheep to Jordan and Egypt, build such a mesmerizing Riviera along the Mediterranean Sea and, voilà, bring peace and prosperity to the whole region.
( UN News)* — Some 230 million girls in more than 90 countries – predominantly in Africa and Asia – have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM) and can suffer lifelong physical, emotional and psychological scars, an issue that the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency has been tackling with the support of the international community including the United States.
Zeinaba Mahr Aouad, a 24-year-old woman from Djibouti, remembers the day when, as a ten-year-old, an unexpected visitor came to her house: “She had a syringe, a razor blade and bandages.”
The woman was there to carry out a brutal, unnecessary and – since 1995 in the Horn of Africa country – illegal operation known as female genital mutilation, which involves sewing up a girl’s vagina and cutting out her clitoris.
Two weeks after Goma was captured by the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels, many families who lost their loved ones are begging for peace. Some of them have had no news of their loved ones, while others have already identified their relatives, civilians and soldiers, who died during the fighting in the city.
M23 fighters at border between Rwanda and DRC. At least 2,800 people have died in renewed hostilities. Credit: Ajabu Adolphe/IPS
GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo, Feb 6 2025 (IPS)* – Zawadi Delphine is a soldier’s wife and mother of three. She and her family live in Camp Katindo, east of the city of Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 