A severe drought in Ethiopia threatens up to six million children, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) warned on Tuesday. "Up to six million children under five years of age are living in impoverished, drought-prone districts and require continuation of urgent preventative health and nutrition interventions," Unicef said in a statement.
Top Indian and Pakistani Foreign Ministry officials met on Tuesday to review their four-year-old peace process that has stalled since domestic political turmoil erupted in Pakistan last year. It is the first contact India has had with leaders of a new Pakistani civilian government.
Nigeria has become the world piracy ”hot spot”, with its prized oil industry a particular target, and the raiders have exposed flaws in the country’s security. Despite the massive revenues earned from oil, officials concede Nigeria is ill-equipped to combat pirates who ply the seas with speed boats, modern machine guns and radios.
Fighting resumed on Tuesday in Abyei, the flashpoint oil-rich border area between north and south Sudan whose status remains contested three years after the end of civil war, aid workers said. ”It began early this morning and now it seems like the fighting has stopped,” Kouider Zerrouk, the deputy spokesperson for the United Nations mission in Sudan, said.
Burma’s neighbours appeared to have reached a compromise with the regime on Monday that would finally allow significant amounts of international aid to reach the survivors of the deadly cyclone, more than two weeks after it struck. An Asian-led task force will be formed to help funnel relief into the isolated country.
A leading human rights group accused the international community on Monday of not doing enough to deter Sudan from new attacks in Darfur, where it cited a return to ”scorched-earth” policies. Human Rights Watch said the United Nations Security Council should impose sanctions on Sudanese officials behind attacks on civilians in Darfur in February.
The United Nations food agency warned on Monday that war-torn Somalia could plunge into an acute humanitarian crisis if the unrest, drought, soaring prices and weak currency escalate. ”The humanitarian situation in Somalia is deteriorating quickly due to soaring food prices, a significantly devalued Somali shilling and worsening drought,” the agency said.
Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army rebels have abducted at least 100 children from neighbouring countries to use as sex slaves and porters, an international human rights group said on Monday. Peace talks between Uganda and the rebels appeared to stall last month when LRA leader Joseph Kony failed to appear at a signing ceremony.
Opposition parties on Monday lambasted the government for its handling of xenophobic violence in parts of the country, and even called for the army to be deployed. Mobs roaming through poor townships around Johannesburg have killed and beaten up immigrants over the past week, with Zimbabweans and others reporting purges by armed locals.
Aid was trickling in on Sunday to an estimated 2,5-million people left destitute by Cyclone Nargis in Burma’s Irrawaddy delta as more foreign envoys tried to get the junta to admit large-scale international relief. The junta’s official toll from the disaster stands at 77 738 dead and 55 917 missing.
Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai will not return to Zimbabwe on Saturday, fearing an assassination attempt, an MDC spokesperson said. Tsvangirai had been expected to return home on Saturday ahead of a run-off election scheduled for June 27.
Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was to return home on Saturday bidding to deliver a knockout blow to weakened President Robert Mugabe in a run-off election scheduled for June 27. Mugabe acknowledged on Friday that he had suffered an electoral disaster in losing a first-round poll against Tsvangirai on March 29.
Burma’s ruling military junta took diplomats on a tour of the storm-ravaged Irrawaddy delta on Saturday as its toll of dead and missing soared above 133 000 people, making Cyclone Nargis one of the most devastating ever to hit Asia. An estimated 2,5-million people are clinging to survival in the delta.
Burma said on Friday that more than 133 000 people were dead or missing in the cyclone disaster, nearly doubling the toll from the worst disaster in the country’s history, which hit two weeks ago. State television said 77 738 were dead and 55 917 missing — with 19 359 people injured — according to the latest figures.
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai vowed on Friday to lift his country out of the ”darkness” under President Robert Mugabe and voiced confidence he will win a run-off presidential poll. The comments came shortly after his party said Tsvangirai would go home on Saturday after more than a month away following disputed elections.
The Somali government and the main political opposition issued a rare joint statement on Friday calling on all sides to allow humanitarian access to the country’s war-torn population. The declaration was distributed by the office of United Nations envoy to Somalia Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, who is mediating talks between the rivals.
The lesson was coming to an end, the last for this class of 15-year-olds before their annual exams in a few days’ time. The girls are keen students and answered correctly nearly all of the questions put to them by their teacher, Nahida al-Katib, even though the subject this time was the intricate grammar of classical, Qu’ranic Arabic
Torrential tropical downpours lashed Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta on Friday, deepening the misery of an estimated 2,5-million destitute survivors of Cyclone Nargis and further hampering aid efforts. Burma state television raised its official death toll on Thursday to 43 328. Independent experts say the figures are probably far higher.
The United Nations’s Department of Social and Economic Affairs predicts that world economic growth will fall steeply to 1,8% this year and 2,1% next year, down from 3,8% in 2007, according to a report entitled <i>World Economic Situation and Prospects 2008</i>.
Food prices should stay high for the next two to three seasons but should eventually ease as stocks are replenished, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Thursday. Senior officials from the United Nations agency said corn prices would be supported this year by lower US plantings and by increased demand for ethanol.
Thousands of civilians fled clashes between Sudan’s former north-south civil war foes in the oil-rich central town of Abyei on Thursday. The clashes, sparked by a local dispute, highlight the tension in an area claimed by both Khartoum and South Sudan. More than three years after a 2005 peace deal, they have not agreed on borders or a local government for the region.
Zimbabwe’s opposition reacted furiously on Thursday to the prospect of a run-off poll being delayed until the end of July, accusing authorities of flouting the law to help President Robert Mugabe cling to power. The Movement for Democratic Change feared the delay would be used to intensify a campaign of violence and intimidation.
Burma is forcing homeless cyclone survivors out of the nation’s monasteries, monks from the disaster zone said on Thursday, as the junta rebuffed international pressure to allow in foreign aid workers. The reports from the monasteries came as the regime announced overwhelming public support in its recent national vote.
Chad’s foreign minister risked alienating his country even further from Sudan on Wednesday by urging the international community to arm-twist Khartoum into resolving the Darfur crisis. Sudan severed diplomatic ties with Chad on Sunday, accusing Ndjamena of backing a rebel assault on the Sudanese capital at the weekend.
Zimbabwe’s government is to invite the opposition to form cross-party teams to probe acts of political violence in the aftermath of the country’s March elections, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said on Wednesday. It is the first time such an idea has been floated by the ruling party, which has been accused of orchestrating a campaign of terror.
China ramped up its massive military rescue effort in the quake-hit south-west on Thursday, where more than 40 000 people lay dead or buried under rubble and rescue teams fought to save the living. Premier Wen Jiabao ordered another 30 000 troops and 90 helicopters to the disaster zone to reinforce the rescue operation.
Western powers kept up the pressure on Burma’s generals on Thursday to allow a massive aid effort as relief workers struggled to help an estimated 2,5-million people left destitute by Cyclone Nargis. The European Union’s top aid official has warned that the military government’s restrictions on foreign aid workers were increasing the risk of starvation.
Burma tightened access to its cyclone disaster zone on Wednesday, turning back foreigners and ignoring pleas to accept outside experts who could save countless lives before time runs out. A top European Union humanitarian official said there was now a risk of famine, after the storm destroyed rice stocks in a main farming region.
The United Nations is investigating allegations that its peacekeepers sexually abused children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), its mission in the war-scarred country said on Wednesday. The mission ”is deeply concerned by allegations that surfaced recently of sexual exploitation and abuse”, spokesperson Kemal Saiki said.
Charles Taylor’s deputy testified in the war-crimes trial of the former Liberian president on Wednesday, describing how a Sierra Leonean rebel leader answered to his boss. Moses Blah was Taylor’s vice-president from 2000 until he took over as interim president for three months in 2003 after Taylor stepped down.
A pro-government rights outfit in Zimbabwe has urged President Robert Mugabe to consider declaring a state of emergency to stem a tide of post-election political violence, state media said on Wednesday. Levels of violence in Zimbabwe are escalating and could reach crisis proportions, the United Nations has warned.
Her bed is on the third floor of Gaza’s Shifa hospital, where shafts of warm afternoon sunshine reach in from the window. The ward is crowded, and the bed on which Asma’a Abu Me’tiq lay is curtained off from the rest and surrounded by the blankets her sister-in-law uses when she sleeps on the floor next to her at night.