Growing up in this small fishing town on Japan’s north-eastern coast, 16-year-old Minami Sato never took the annual tsunami drills seriously.
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/ 5 November 2008
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s warring rivals traded accusations that Angola, Zimbabwe and
Rwanda are mobilising forces to fight in the DRC.
Imagine living with a 50% chance of being enslaved or threatened with death. In some parts of the DRC, such a life doesn’t take much imagination.
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/ 23 November 2007
Explosions and machine-gun fire echoed through the hills of east Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Friday, as government troops battled rebels for a third day amid a worsening humanitarian crisis that has displaced nearly 200 000 people in the past few months, a United Nations military spokesperson said.
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/ 22 October 2006
The last remaining hippos in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are facing extinction and could be wiped out in many parts of a national park by the end of the year if intense poaching by hungry militiamen continues, conservationists said on Saturday.
A May deal that was supposed to help end the conflict in Darfur has instead sparked months of fighting between rival rebel factions, according to aid groups, the United Nations and beleaguered African Union peacekeepers. Fresh clashes have left countless dead in the last two months and displaced nearly 50 000 people.
The United Nations appealed for millions of dollars in aid on Friday to help combat possible food shortages in the desert nation of Mauritania. The UN World Food Programme said in a statement its relief operation there "is facing a complete break in supplies at the end of July — exactly the time of year when food needs are at their annual peak".
An international media watchdog group on Tuesday welcomed the release of a local correspondent of the British Broadcasting Corporation in Gambia, but lashed out at the tiny country for the continued imprisonment of two other reporters. Lamin Cham had been held since May 30 by Gambian authorities as part of a government crackdown on the Freedom Newspaper website.
The war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is suffering the world’s deadliest humanitarian crisis, with 38 000 people dying each month mostly from easily treatable diseases, according to a study published on Friday in Britain’s leading medical journal. Nearly four million died between 1998 and 2004 alone.
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/ 11 November 2005
Liberia’s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf appeared poised on Friday to become Africa’s first democratically elected female president, claiming victory after results from most of the West African country gave her an apparently unbeatable lead. With almost 91% of ballots counted, the electoral commission said 67-year-old Johnson-Sirleaf held about 59% of Tuesday’s vote.