Arbitrary detentions and impunity widespread in Libya, warns UN’s Türk
“Trafficking, torture, forced labour, extortion, starvation in intolerable conditions of detention” are “perpetrated at scale…with impunity”, the High Commissioner for Human Rights told Member States. “Mass expulsions, the sale of human beings, including children” are widespread in Libya, Mr. Türk…
Park benches and grandmothers: Zimbabwe’s novel mental health therapy spreads overseas
Harare, Zimbabwe — After her son, the family’s shining light and only breadwinner, was arrested last year, Tambudzai Tembo went into meltdown. In Zimbabwe, where clinical mental health services are scarce, her chances of getting professional help were next to…
UN envoy highlights alarming violence and neglected humanitarian crisis in DR Congo
Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Bintou Keita, informed the Security Council of an attack on the residence of a Congolese politician, during which two police officers were killed. M23’s rapid expansion Ms. Keita, who also heads the UN peacekeeping mission…
Oldest inhabited termite mounds have been active for 34,000 years
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Scientists in South Africa have been stunned to discover that termite mounds that are still inhabited in an arid region of the country are more than 30,000 years old, meaning they are the oldest known…
Kenyan president bows to pressure, makes major concessions
Nairobi, Kenya — Kenyan President William Ruto on Friday ordered significant cuts in the federal budget along with other government reforms to pay off a crushing debt burden in a move seen as a concession to popular disapproval of a…
Tens of thousands displaced as fighting intensifies in southeast Sudan
“People are facing multiple protection risks and have reported widespread looting of homes and personal possessions,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a flash update issued late on Thursday. Humanitarian partners receiving displaced people…
Refugees, migrants face violence, abuse and death on routes across Africa, new data shows
Data from a new report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC) highlights the often under-reported perils facing vulnerable people on the move on dangerous land routes….
Sudan’s cocktail of war and flooding leaves people trapped, unable to flee
To provide lifesaving aid to those forced out of Sudan, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), revised its original $1.4 billion appeal to $1.5 billion. Ewan Watson, Head of Global Communications at the UN agency, said…
Tens of thousands displaced in fresh violence in DR Congo
The situation is particularly concerning in the restive province of North Kivu, home to 2.8 million displaced people. In the last one week, more than 150,000 were displaced due to continued fighting in the town of Lubero and the strategically…
Alliance sets sights on minerals needed for global shift to green energy
The U.S. government’s representative to the Minerals Security Partnership, an alliance of mostly Western countries that aims to speed the development of energy mineral supply chains, said last month that a Chinese company was using “predatory” tactics to hold down…