South Africa submits 5,000-page legal claim to world court in which it accuses Israel of genocide

South Africa submits 5,000-page legal claim to world court in which it accuses Israel of genocide

The Hague-based court has so far issued three rounds of emergency measures, ordering Israel to halt a military offensive in Rafah and open more land crossings for aid into Gaza.

Read more
Rebels paradise: As UN troops pull out, Congo and international community can’t provide answers to conflict in Kivu

Rebels paradise: As UN troops pull out, Congo and international community can’t provide answers to conflict in Kivu

Last year, at Congo’s request, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to draw down the peacekeeping force and gradually hand over its security responsibilities to Congo’s government by this December. But the soaring violence means that departure is now delayed.

Read more
Israel bans United Nations humanitarian agency as Palestinians say 100,000 residents trapped

Israel bans United Nations humanitarian agency as Palestinians say 100,000 residents trapped

Israel continued battering Lebanon on Monday, including an early-morning airstrike on a district in the southern port of Tyre that left seven dead, the Lebanese health ministry said. Lebanon’s health authority said Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed at least 2,710 people and injured 12,592 others in the past year.

Read more
Paradox of Rwanda sending troops to eastern DRC to defend Congolese Tutsi who did’t ask for M23 protection

Paradox of Rwanda sending troops to eastern DRC to defend Congolese Tutsi who did’t ask for M23 protection

Many Congolese we spoke to perceive M23’s main aim to be control of power at the local level – undermining the existing authorities. The group has indeed sought to replace customary authorities with M23-appointed ones, at times assassinating Congolese chiefs. Local sources said M23 even burnt chiefdom archives, destroying evidence of claims to customary authority.

Read more
Rapid Support Forces go on rampage in east-central Sudan, kill over 120  – UN and doctors

Rapid Support Forces go on rampage in east-central Sudan, kill over 120 – UN and doctors

The Sudanese Doctors’ Union said in a statement that at least 124 people were killed and 200 others were wounded in the town of Sariha, adding that the group rounded up at least 150 others. It called on the UN Security Council to pressure the RSF to open “safe corridors” to enable aid groups to reach people in impacted villages.

Read more
Taliban morality law: New code stipulates length of men’s facial hair, considers woman’s voice ‘intimate part of the body’

Taliban morality law: New code stipulates length of men’s facial hair, considers woman’s voice ‘intimate part of the body’

Without doubt, the part of the law that has received the most media attention is Article 13, which stipulates that a woman’s voice – when engaged in singing, reciting, and reading in public – is considered awrah, or an intimate part of the body. It goes on to say that a woman should “cover” her voice when out in public.

Read more
Taliban’s new morality law has sparked fears Afghanistan is returning to the repressive and abusive rule of the 1990s

Taliban’s new morality law has sparked fears Afghanistan is returning to the repressive and abusive rule of the 1990s

The 35 amendments to the Law on Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice include prohibitions on everything from men’s haircuts that are deemed to be against shari’a to storing any visual representations of living beings on mobile phones.

Read more
UN official wants world attention switched to ‘forgotten crisis in Sudan’ as hundreds are killed in renewed fighting

UN official wants world attention switched to ‘forgotten crisis in Sudan’ as hundreds are killed in renewed fighting

Global attention has been shifted to the Middle East since the militant group Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel in October last year, triggering a war that has killed about 42,000 people in Gaza. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza does not differentiate between militants and civilians but say more than half of the dead were women and children.

Read more
Britain put at centre of slave trade reparatory justice despite push to relegate it to backburner

Britain put at centre of slave trade reparatory justice despite push to relegate it to backburner

Goods were traded in West Africa for captured slaves who were shipped across the Atlantic to work in British sugar and tobacco plantations in the Caribbean and the Americas. Goods produced in the so-called New World were transported back to England.

Read more
Sex pest: Is ICC prosecutor being blackmailed for charging Israeli PM with war crimes in Gaza?

Sex pest: Is ICC prosecutor being blackmailed for charging Israeli PM with war crimes in Gaza?

ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan also broadened the court’s focus, bringing criminal charges for the first time against individuals outside Africa. He charged Russian President Vladimir Putin for kidnapping children in Ukraine and opened an investigation into Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro for his crackdown on protesters.

Read more