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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hunter is hunted: After charging Netanyahu with war crimes, ICC prosecutor is accused of sexual misconduct
Two co-workers in whom the woman confided at the ICC’s headquarters at The Hague reported the alleged misconduct in early May to the court’s independent watchdog, which says it interviewed the woman and ended its inquiry after five days when she opted against filing a formal complaint. Khan himself was never questioned.
UN helicopter midair as violence surges in Haiti, US appeals for reinforcement of Kenyan police in Haiti
While the majority were killed by police, a group of gunmen drowned on Wednesday after their boat hit the reef as they ferried ammunition to gangs attacking the town of Arcahaie, said Wilner Réné from Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency.
Ukraine war: US doubts Russia’s military capacity in wake of North Korea’s 3,000-troop donation
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday there was evidence that North Korean troops were in Russia, although it remained to be seen what they would be doing there. Austin, speaking in Rome, said the alleged North Korean deployment could be further evidence that the Russian military was having problems over manpower in its war against Ukraine.
