Libya agreed to open a corridor for food aid and other UN humanitarian supplies to help about 1.2 million people displaced by the Darfur conflict in western Sudan.
An agreement was signed Thursday between the Libyan government and UN World Food Program (WFP) in the capital, Tripoli, to guarantee the safe passage of food aid from the US and other donors through Libya to Sudan and Chad.
"This is a Libyan initiative to extend help to the Africans and to help achieve peace and security in Africa," Mohammed Sayala, Libya's deputy foreign minister, told a news conference after the signing ceremony.
John Powell, the WFP deputy executive director, said the first shipment of 450 tonnes of wheat flour from Switzerland is expected to arrive in the Libyan port of Benghazi early next month.
Powell expressed hope that relief aid would reach 1 million displaced Sudanese people next month and 1.5 million additional people in November.
Another 200,000 displaced Sudanese people are living in temporary camps along the border in neighboring Chad.
Meanwhile, in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, two top World Health Organization (WHO) officials said that increased funds and supplies were needed to save hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people in Darfur from diseases such as cholera, dysentery and malaria.
"People are dying now because they are living in totally unsatisfactory conditions, but too many more could die in the coming weeks unless we prevent the lack of sanitation, malnutrition, shortage of clean water and the coming rains from combining into a recipe for death," WHO Director-general Lee Jong-wook said.
Lee and Hussein Gezairy, the WHO's regional director for the eastern Mediterranean region, visited camps and hospitals in southern and western Darfur.
In a press release, Lee and Gezairy said that progress has been achieved in providing relief, particularly healthcare, in the last few weeks, but that health risks could be reduced further with an intensified relief program.
The Darfur crisis has killed more than 30,000 and driven over 1 million people from their homes in what the UN has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Foreign governments plus international aid and rights groups accuse the Khartoum government of backing Arab militiamen, known as the Janjaweed, who have carried out looting, destruction and evictions based on ethnicity.
The government has denied the charge.
A ceasefire was signed April 8, but both sides accuse the other of violations.
Sudanese officials and black African rebels fighting the 17-month war were to begin African Union-sponsored talks in Ethiopia on Thursday in a bid to end the conflict.
Young Chinese, many who fear age discrimination in their workplace after turning 35, are increasingly starting “one-person companies” that have artificial intelligence (AI) do most of the work. Smaller start-ups are already in vogue in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, with rapidly advancing AI tools seen as a welcome teammate even as they threaten layoffs at existing firms. More young people in China are subscribing to the model, as cities pledge millions of dollars in funding and rent subsidies for such ventures, in alignment with Beijing’s political goal of “technological self-reliance.” “The one-person company is a product of the AI era,” said Karen Dai
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
RSS