BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Aug 13 2024 (IPS)* – Local informal food markets feed millions of urbanites in bustling African cities, but the consequences of tainted food could be illness and death for unsuspecting consumers.
Exclusive: New immigration laws create ‘hierarchy of victims’ that means many are imprisoned and denied help on release.
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Hundreds of modern slavery victims are in prison | Credit: Pexels/Composition by James Battershill
(OpenDemocracy)* 21 August 2024 — Hundreds of modern slavery victims may be being locked up in prisons across England and Wales, an exclusive investigation by openDemocracy can reveal.
The Sahel, this vast arid region stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, a region that has long been a battleground for various forces, shows no signs of abating.
Instead, it is intensifying, drawing in both regional and global powers in a struggle that is as much about resources as it is about ideology and control.
Raïs Neza Boneza
The events surrounding the recent ambush of Malian forces on 25 Jul 2024, near Tinsawaten, on the Mali-Algeria border, underscore the complexity and the scale of this conflict.
The Tinsawaten Ambush: A Turning Point?
The ambush on Malian forces at Tinsawaten, a strategic locality straddling the Mali-Algeria border, marks a significant escalation in the conflict.
(Bangkok) – Rohingya Muslimsin Myanmar are facing the gravest threats since 2017, when the Myanmar military carried out a sweeping campaign of massacres, rape, and arson in northern Rakhine State, Human Rights Watch on 22 August 2024 said.
War-displaced Gazans on the move yet again, arriving in Khan Younis from the southern city of Rafah. Photo: WFP/Ali Jadallah
Windows shattered by nearby airstrikes. Children crying out from conflict’s psychological blowback. The sense of a hangman’s noose growing ever tighter.
These are some of the stories shared by World Food Programme Gaza employees. Like for hundreds of thousands of fellow Palestinians on the Strip, there is no escaping the 10-month-old war.
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Aug 21 2024 (IPS)* – An observation from George Orwell — “those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future” — is acutely relevant to how President Biden talked about Gaza during his speech at the Democratic convention Monday night.
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A UN team inspects an unexploded 1,000-pound bomb lying on a main road in Khan Younis. Credit: OCHA/Themba Linden
His words fit into a messaging template now in its eleventh month, depicting the U.S. government as tirelessly seeking peace, while supplying the weapons and bombs that have enabled Israel’s continual slaughter of civilians.
15 Aug 2024 – Now the numbers killed in the indiscriminate slaughter in Gaza exceeded 40,000 registered deaths (72% of them women and children). But the number of deaths could be many folds more (at least ten thousand under the rubble, many thousands died for lack of food or medical care etc).
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Gaza under intense, relentless Israeli bombardment Aug 2024. Photo: Mazin Qumsiyeh
But globally the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. How do they do it and how do we stop it.
(UN News)* — A surge in conflict combined with torrential rains and floods is deepening the crisis in Myanmar, leading to a surge in displacement, UN humanitarians have said.
Overflowing rivers have submerged towns and villages, impacting nearly 400,000 people, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported.
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Critical infrastructure has been damaged – including roads and railways – along with wide swaths of cropland, threatening both livelihoods and food security.
(UN News)* — On , UN authorities in Sudan confirmed that truckloads of food and supplies have been approved to cross the border from Chad through the Adre crossing.
Khartoum’s war-destroyed Omdurman market, once a vital economic and social hub. Photo: WFP/Jonathan Dumont
The opening of the vital aid route on Friday was welcomed by officials, as it serves as a vital humanitarian route for delivering urgent aid to millions, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
UN Secretary-General António Guterres is closely following negotiations in Doha focused on trying to end the war in Gaza, where the situation continues to remain catastrophic after more than 10 months of unrelenting war.
The UN chief’s Spokesperson told journalists at the regular press briefing in New York on Monday [] that Mr. Guterres had spoken to the Prime Minister of Qatar yesterday.