Explainer: How UN food security agency uses deaths and malnutrition to declare famine
In the 21st century, climate-related famines have largely been averted thanks to an innovative tool to track acute hunger, developed during the crisis in Somalia in 2004 by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and now used by humanitarian agencies worldwide. This initiative is called the Integrated Security Phase Classification or IPC.
FGM setback: Gambia considers repealing female cut law, will be first country to reverse the ban
The bill is backed by religious conservatives in the nation of less than three million people. Its text says that “it seeks to uphold religious purity and safeguard cultural norms and values.” The country’s top Islamic body has called the practice “one of the virtues of Islam.”
US officials meet Niger’s junta as Biden weighs options in Africa to steady counterterrorism agenda
On Saturday, following the meeting, the junta’s spokesperson, Col-Maj Amadou Abdramane, said US flights over Niger’s territory in recent weeks were illegal. Meanwhile, Insa Garba Saidou, a local activist who assists Niger’s military rulers with their communications, criticised US efforts to force the junta to pick between strategic partners.
Britain’s Sunak awaits with bated breath legislature’s verdict to relocate assylum seekers to Rwanda
The plan is key to Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats” bringing unauthorized migrants to the U.K. Sunak argues that deporting unauthorized asylum-seekers will deter people from making risky journeys and break the business model of people-smuggling gangs.
West calls Russia’s ‘election was an election without choice’ but China, India back Putin
Arriving in Brussels on Monday, EU foreign ministers roundly dismissed the election result as a sham ahead of agreeing sanctions on individuals linked to the mistreatment and death of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
China’s military and state media rap US following explosive report on SpaceX spy satellite plans
Wang Yanan, chief editor of Aerospace Knowledge, a magazine overseen by the ruling Communist Party, was quoted in an interview as saying the SpaceX satellite project posed “a challenge to global security and stability”.
Gaza in the toss of man-made food crisis, 300,000 at risk of death, says UN-backed monitor
In all, 1.1 million Gazans, around half the population, were experiencing “catastrophic” shortages of food, the worst category, with around 300,000 in the areas now facing the prospect of famine-scale death rates.
Eight SADC peacekeepers wounded by M23 rebels in DR Congo’s war theatre in the east
Neither MONUSCO Head Bintou Keita nor the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General’s spokesman gave details of the wounded soldiers apart from saying they were deployed as part of Operation Springbok to protect civilians in North Kivu.
Counterterrorism: US plans in Sahel region in disarray after Niger ends military cooperation
Niger had been seen as one of the last nations in the restive region that Western nations could partner with to beat back growing jihadi insurgencies. The US and France had more than 2,500 military personnel in the region until recently, and together with other European countries had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance and training.
UNICEF estimates over 13,000 children have been killed in Gaza in Israel offensive
Israel’s military assault on Hamas-governed Gaza has displaced nearly its entire 2.3 million-person population, caused a starvation crisis, flattened most of the enclave, and killed over 31,000 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry. It has also led to accusations of genocide being probed in the World Court.