Thousands in Yemen starve as food aid looted

A Yemeni man carries his child who is suffering from malnutrition into a treatment centre at a hospital in the capital Sanaa on October 6, 2018. (File/AFP)
Updated 31 December 2018
Follow

Thousands in Yemen starve as food aid looted

  • Documents and interviews with officials and aid workers show that thousands of families in Taiz are not getting international food aid intended for them
  • Despite the surge in help, hunger — and, in some pockets of the country, famine-level starvation — have continued to grow

TAIZ: Day after day Nabil Al-Hakimi, a humanitarian official in Taiz, one of Yemen’s largest cities, went to work feeling he had a “mountain” on his shoulders. Billions of dollars in food and other foreign aid was coming into his war-ravaged homeland, but millions of Yemenis were still living a step away from famine.
Reports of organizational disarray and out-and-out thievery streamed in to him this spring and summer from around Taiz — 5,000 sacks of rice doled out without record of where they’d gone . . . 705 food baskets looted from a welfare agency’s warehouses . . . 110 sacks of grain pillaged from trucks trying to make their way through the craggy northern highlands overlooking the city.
Food donations, it was clear, were being snatched from the starving.
Documents reviewed by The Associated Press and interviews with Al-Hakimi and other officials and aid workers show that thousands of families in Taiz are not getting international food aid intended for them — often because it has been seized by armed units loyal to the internationally recognized government.
“The army that should protect the aid is looting the aid,” Al-Hakimi told the AP.
Across Yemen, factions and militias on all sides of the conflict have blocked food aid from going to groups suspected of disloyalty, diverted it to front-line combat units or sold it for profit on the black market, according to public records and confidential documents obtained by the AP and interviews with more than 70 aid workers, government officials and average citizens from six different provinces.
The problem of lost and stolen aid is common in Taiz and other areas controlled by the government. It is even more widespread in territories controlled by the Houthi militias.
AP’s investigation found that large amounts of food are making into the country, but once there, the food often isn’t getting to people who need it most — raising questions about the ability of United Nations agencies and other big aid organizations to operate effectively in Yemen.

“This has nothing to do with nature. There is no drought here in Yemen. All of this is man-made. All of this has to do with poor political leadership which doesn’t put the people’s interest at the core of their actions”  - Geert Cappelaere, Middle East director for UNICEF

The UN’s World Food Program has 5,000 distribution sites across the country targeting 10 million people a month with food baskets but says it can monitor just 20 percent of the deliveries.
This year the UN, the United States, Saudi Arabia and others have poured more than $4 billion in food, shelter, medical and other aid into Yemen. That figure has been growing and is expected to keep climbing in 2019.
Despite the surge in help, hunger — and, in some pockets of the country, famine-level starvation — have continued to grow.
An analysis this month by a coalition of global relief groups found that even with the food aid that is coming in, more than half of the population is not getting enough to eat — 15.9 million of Yemen’s 29 million people. They include 10.8 million who are in an “emergency” phase of food insecurity, roughly 5 million who are in a deeper “crisis” phase and 63,500 who are facing “catastrophe,” a synonym for famine.
Counting the number of people who have starved to death in Yemen is difficult, because of the challenges of getting into areas shaken by violence and because starving people often officially die from diseases that prey on their weakened conditions. The nonprofit group Save the Children estimates that 85,000 children under the age of 5 have died from starvation or disease since the start of the war.

“It’s a disgrace, criminal, it’s wrong, and it needs to end” - David Beasley, executive director of the UN’s food program

In some parts of the country, fighting, roadblocks and bureaucratic obstacles have reduced the amount of aid getting in. In other areas, aid gets in but still doesn’t get to the hungriest families.
In the northern province of Saada, a Houthi stronghold, international aid groups estimate that 445,000 people need food assistance. Some months the UN has sent enough food to feed twice that many people. Yet the latest figures from the UN and other relief organizations show that 65 percent of residents are facing severe food shortages, including at least 7,000 people who are in pockets of outright famine.
Three officials with the government told the AP that they would provide replies to questions about the theft of food aid, but then didn’t provide answers.
Officials at the agency that oversees aid work in Houthi territory — the National Authority for the Management and Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs — did not return repeated phone calls from the AP.
UN officials have generally been cautious in public statements about the Houthis, based in part on worries that the militia might respond by blocking UN agencies from access to starving people. But in interviews with the AP, two top UN relief officials used strong language in reference to both the Houthis and their battlefield adversaries.
“This has nothing to do with nature. There is no drought here in Yemen. All of this is man-made. All of this has to do with poor political leadership which doesn’t put the people’s interest at the core of their actions,” Geert Cappelaere, Middle East director for UNICEF, the UN’s emergency fund for children, said.
David Beasley, executive director of the UN’s food program, said “certain elements of the Houthis” are denying the agency access to some parts of Houthi territory — and appear to be diverting food aid.
“It’s a disgrace, criminal, it’s wrong, and it needs to end,” Beasley said in an interview Sunday with the AP. “Innocent people are suffering.”
The Houthis and the coalition forces have begun peace talks in recent weeks, a process that has led to a reduction in fighting and eased the challenges of getting food aid into and out of Hodeida, the port city that is a gateway to the Houthi-controlled north. But even if donors are able to get more food in, the problem of what happens to food aid once it makes landfall remains.


Pakistani mangoes draw crowds at China-Eurasia Expo as exporters set 125,000-ton target

Updated 7 min 11 sec ago
Follow

Pakistani mangoes draw crowds at China-Eurasia Expo as exporters set 125,000-ton target

  • Pakistan is home to over 100 mango varieties like Sindhri, Chaunsa and Anwar Ratol
  • The fruit’s popularity at Chinese exhibition highlights Pakistan’s potential for growth

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has set a pavilion at the China-Eurasia Expo in Urumqi where mango varities native to the South Asian country have been drawing crowds, the Pakistani embassy said on Sunday, as mango exporters eye 125,000 tons exports this season.

The 2025 China-Eurasia Commodity and Trade Expo, running from June 26 till June 30 in Xinjiang’s Urumqi, has brought together more than 2,800 enterprises and delegates from 50 countries and regions to deepen cooperation across Eurasia, according to the organizers.

Pakistan’s ​Ambassador to China Khalil Hashmi, along with Zhu Lifan, vice chairman of the Xinjiang government, inaugurated the Pakistan Pavilion, displaying a rich array of products, including fruit, jewelry, leather garments, luxury bags and contemporary clothing.

“The pavilion’s showcase of premium Pakistani mangoes drew hundreds of visitors, making it one of the most popular exhibits,” the embassy said in a statement on Sunday. “The fruit’s popularity highlighted Pakistan’s agricultural excellence and potential for growth.”

Pakistan is home to over 100 varieties of mangoes, including Sindhri, Chaunsa and Anwar Ratol.

The South Asian country aims to export 125,000 tons of mangoes this season, a 25,000-ton increase over last year’s export volume, according to the Pakistan Fruit and Vegetable Exporters Association (PFVA). If achieved, the target could generate an estimated $100 million in foreign exchange earnings.

​At the inauguration, Ambassador Hashmi briefed Vice Chairman Zhu about Pakistan’s enhanced focus on increasing trade and investment relations with China, including Xinjiang.

“He [Ambassador Hashmi] gave the Vice Chairman a tour of the Pavilion, elaborating the high-quality of Pakistani products. The Chinese VIP also praised the taste of Pakistani mangoes,” the Pakistani embassy said.

China is a longtime friend and strategic partner of Islamabad, with Beijing making significant investments in infrastructure and energy projects in Pakistan.

The total bilateral trade in goods between China and Pakistan reached $23.1 billion in 2024, an increase of 11.1 percent from the previous year, according to China Customs and the Pakistani embassy. China’s exports to Pakistan surged 17 percent year-on-year to $20.2 billion, while imports fell by 18.2 percent to $2.8 billion.

Islamabad, which is on path to economic recovery under a $7 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) program, is currently making efforts to expand trade with China, Central Asian and Gulf nations to boost the $350 billion South Asian economy.


2 killed, 1 wounded in sniper ambush as US firefighters come under siege from rifle fire

Updated 8 min 56 sec ago
Follow

2 killed, 1 wounded in sniper ambush as US firefighters come under siege from rifle fire

  • Firefighters were responding to a blaze in a northern Idaho mountain community when they came under fire
  • Idaho Gov. Brad Little called the sniper barrage a“heinous” assault and ordered deputies to fire back

BBOISE, Idaho: Two firefighters were killed Sunday and another was wounded when they were ambushed by sniper fire while responding to a blaze in a northern Idaho mountain community, as crews endured a barrage of gunfire over several hours that the governor called a “heinous” assault. No arrests were announced.
The Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office said crews responded to a fire at Canfield Mountain just north of Coeur d’Alene around 1:30 p.m., and gunshots were reported about a half hour later.
Sheriff Bob Norris said officials weren’t immediately sure how many people were shot.
“We don’t know how many suspects are up there, and we don’t know how many casualties there are,” Norris told reporters at a 4:30 p.m. news conference. “We are actively taking sniper fire as we speak.”
People were still coming off the mountain in the late afternoon, the sheriff said, so it “would be safe to assume” that others were still up there.
Three victims were brought to Kootenai Health, said hospital spokesperson Kim Anderson. Two were dead on arrival and the third was being treated for injuries, Anderson said. The wounded firefighter’s condition wasn’t known.
Gov. Brad Little said “multiple” firefighting personnel were attacked.
“This is a heinous direct assault on our brave firefighters,” Little said on X. “I ask all Idahoans to pray for them and their families as we wait to learn more.”
Norris said it appeared the sniper was hiding in the rugged terrain and using a high-powered rifle. He said he instructed deputies to fire back.
“I’m hoping that somebody has a clear shot and is able to neutralize, because they’re not at this point in time showing any evidence of wanting to surrender,” the sheriff said.
An alert by the Kootenai County Emergency Management Office asked people to avoid the area around Canfield Mountain Trailhead and Nettleton Gulch Road, about 4 miles (6.5 km) north of downtown Coeur d’Alene.
The fire was still active, Norris said.
“It’s going to keep burning,” he said. “Can’t put any resources on it right now.”
The FBI has responded to the scene with technical teams and tactical support, Deputy Director Dan Bongino said.
“It remains an active, and very dangerous scene,” he wrote in a post on X.
The Idaho House Republican Leadership said in a statement: “We are horrified by the murder of two firefighters in Coeur d’Alene, and shocked by such a vicious attack on our first responders. We are praying for them, the injured, their families and their colleagues.”
Coeur d’Alene is a city of 55,000 residents near the border with Washington. Canfield Mountain is a popular hiking and biking area on the city’s outskirts, covered with trees and heavy brush and crisscrossed with trails that lead into a national forest.
Fire is always a big concern for the region, said Bruce Deming, whose property abuts the trail system. When he noticed smoke on the ridge Sunday afternoon, he wondered why no firefighting helicopters were responding.
When a friend texted to tell him about the shooting, he realized why he wasn’t seeing aircraft: “Because they’re concerned about being shot at,” he said.
As deputies set up posts nearby, Deming pointed them to a trail that starts near his backdoor and leads directly to the site of the fire.
“I just don’t want to have to wake up in the middle of the night to figure if somebody’s out prowling around my place,” he said.


Canadian Prime Minister Carney says trade talks with US resume after Canada rescinded tech tax

Updated 21 min 31 sec ago
Follow

Canadian Prime Minister Carney says trade talks with US resume after Canada rescinded tech tax

 

TORONTO: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said late Sunday trade talks with US have resumed after Canada rescinded its plan to tax US technology firms.
US President Donald Trump said Friday that he was suspending trade talks with Canada over its plans to continue with its tax on technology firms, which he called “a direct and blatant attack on our country.”
The Canadian government said “in anticipation” of a trade deal “Canada would rescind” the Digital Serves Tax. The tax was set to go into effect Monday.
Carney’s office said Carney and Trump have agreed to resume negotiations.
“Today’s announcement will support a resumption of negotiations toward the July 21, 2025, timeline set out at this month’s G7 Leaders’ Summit in Kananaskis,” Carney said in a statement.
Carney visited Trump in May at the White House, where he was polite but firm. Trump traveled to Canada for the G7 summit in Alberta, where Carney said that Canada and the US had set a 30-day deadline for trade talks.
Trump, in a post on his social media network last Friday, said Canada had informed the US that it was sticking to its plan to impose the digital services tax, which applies to Canadian and foreign businesses that engage with online users in Canada.
The digital services tax was due to hit companies including Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber and Airbnb with a 3 percent levy on revenue from Canadian users. It would have applied retroactively, leaving US companies with a $2 billion US bill due at the end of the month.
“Rescinding the digital services tax will allow the negotiations of a new economic and security relationship with the United States to make vital progress,” Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said in a statement.
Trump’s announcement Friday was the latest swerve in the trade war he’s launched since taking office for a second term in January. Progress with Canada has been a roller coaster, starting with the US president poking at the nation’s northern neighbor and repeatedly suggesting it would be absorbed as a US state.
Canada and the US have been discussing easing a series of steep tariffs Trump imposed on goods from America’s neighbor.
Trump has imposed 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum as well as 25 percent tariffs on autos. He is also charging a 10 percent tax on imports from most countries, though he could raise rates on July 9, after the 90-day negotiating period he set would expire.
Canada and Mexico face separate tariffs of as much as 25 percent that Trump put into place under the auspices of stopping fentanyl smuggling, though some products are still protected under the 2020 US-Mexico-Canada Agreement signed during Trump’s first term.


Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier chosen as captains of WNBA All-Star Game by fan vote

Updated 29 min 45 sec ago
Follow

Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier chosen as captains of WNBA All-Star Game by fan vote

  • Clark received 1,293,526 votes from fans, while Collier had about 100,000 fewer
  • Collier leads the league in scoring at a career-best 24.5 points and is fourth in rebounding at 8.4 per game

 

 

NEW YORK: Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier will captain the WNBA All-Star Game next month, the league announced Sunday.
Clark received 1,293,526 votes from fans, while Collier had about 100,000 fewer.
“It’s cool that fans get to be a part of it and have a little impact on the game,” Clark said. “It’s going to be special to do it here in this city. ... Trying to make it the best All-Star that the WNBA has ever had. It’s certainly a cool honor.”
The Indiana Fever star, who is sidelined with a groin strain, is averaging 18.2 points and a career-high 8.9 assists. She also led the fan voting last season, her rookie year, but the All-Star format was the US Olympic team playing against a select group of WNBA stars so no captains were chosen. She learned she was captain in a phone call from WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert.
Collier leads the league in scoring at a career-best 24.5 points and is fourth in rebounding at 8.4 per game. Her daughter surprised her wearing a shirt saying “Mama you’re a All-Star,” as she scooted into the locker room with former Lynx great Sylvia Fowles right behind her to let Collier know the news.
“It’s really cool,” Collier said to reporters before warming up for a game Sunday night “I went from never being a starter to captain.”
This will be her fifth All-Star appearance.
Before squaring off in Indianapolis on July 19, Clark and the Fever will face Collier and the Lynx on Tuesday in the Commissioner’s Cup final.
The 10 starters were selected from across the WNBA without regard to conference affiliation. Current players and a media panel joined fans in selecting the All-Star starters. Fans voting accounted for 50 percent, while the players vote and the media choices each account for 25 percent.
The pair will draft their fellow starters from a group that will be revealed on Monday. After the starters are announced, the league’s head coaches will choose the 13 reserves by voting for three guards, five frontcourt players and four from either position. Coaches can’t vote for players from their own teams. The 12 reserves will be revealed next Sunday.
“Obviously I’m going to try and get my teammates on my team, that’s the goal,” Clark said. “Once they come out with whoever has made it and whoever hasn’t, I’ll get to pick and choose. I don’t know how it works.”
The two All-Star captains will then draft their respective rosters by selecting first from the remaining eight players in the pool of starters and then from the pool of 12 reserves.
Clark and Collier also led the initial fan voting, with Indiana’s Aliyah Boston in third. Boston finished second last season behind Clark in the fan vote.


Hall of Fame horse trainer D. Wayne Lukas, a winner of 15 Triple Crown races, dies at 89

Updated 56 min 39 sec ago
Follow

Hall of Fame horse trainer D. Wayne Lukas, a winner of 15 Triple Crown races, dies at 89

  • His family said Sunday that Lukas died Saturday night at his Louisville, Kentucky, home
  • Lukas won 15 Triple Crown races, including the Kentucky Derby four times. Only good friend Bob Baffert has more Triple Crown victories, and Lukas owns a record-tying 20 in the Breeders’ Cup World Championships

NEW YORK: D. Wayne Lukas, the Hall of Famer who became one of the most accomplished trainers in the history of horse racing and a face of the sport for decades, has died. He was 89.

His family said Sunday that Lukas died Saturday night at his Louisville, Kentucky, home. Lukas had been hospitalized with a severe MRSA blood infection that caused significant damage to his heart and digestive system and worsened pre-existing chronic conditions.

“Wayne devoted his life not only to horses but to the industry — developing generations of horsemen and horsewomen and growing the game by inviting unsuspecting fans into the winner’s circle,” his family said in a statement. “Whether he was boasting about a maiden 2-year-old as the next Kentucky Derby winner or offering quiet words of advice before a big race, Wayne brought heart, grace, and grit to every corner of the sport. His final days were spent at home in Kentucky, where he chose peace, family, and faith.”

Lukas won 15 Triple Crown races, including the Kentucky Derby four times. Only good friend Bob Baffert has more Triple Crown victories, and Lukas owns a record-tying 20 in the Breeders’ Cup World Championships.

“The whole secret of this game, I think, is being able to read the horse: Read what he needs, what he doesn’t need, what he can’t do, what he can do,” Lukas said in May before his 34th and final Preakness Stakes. “That’s the whole key. Everybody’s got the blacksmith, everybody’s got to the same bed available, the feed man. We all can hire a good jockey. We all can hire a pretty good exercise rider if we’ve got the means, so what the hell is the difference? The horse is the difference and what we do with him in reading him.”

Lukas was affectionately known around the barns and the racetrack as “Coach” because he coached high school basketball before his professional career with horses began. Even with months to go before his 90th birthday, he would get up on his pony in the early morning hours and go out to the track himself, rather than letting his assistants do the day-to-day work.

Born Darnell Wayne Lukas on Sept. 2, 1935, in Wisconsin as the second of three children, he rose to prominence in the sport with quarter horses in races that are effectively sprints. He moved into thoroughbreds in the late 1970s and won his first Preakness with Codex in 1980.

Lukas has 4,967 documented victories in thoroughbred racing, with his horses earning more than $310 million from more than 30,600 starts.

“Today we lost one of the great champions of Churchill Downs and one of the most significant figures in Thoroughbred racing over the last 50 years,” Churchill Downs Inc. CEO Bill Carstanjen said. “We will miss his humor, his wisdom and his unmatched capacity to thrill the fans with the performances of his horses on our sport’s biggest days.”

Achieving something of a career renaissance over the past decade, one he credits to finding the right owners willing to spend money on horses, Lukas won the Preakness last year with Seize the Grey. Asked what motivates him to keep doing his job well into his late 80s, he gave a pep talk fit for a locker room before a big game.

“If you have a passion, you eliminate all the excuses,” Lukas said. “That’s how it works. You get up early. You go without a meal. You drive. You go without sleep — as long as you got the passion. Don’t let that sofa pull you down. It’s a little easy when that alarm goes off to say, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know if I really want to do this today.’ Erase that. The most important decision you’ll ever make in your life is your attitude decision. Make it early, and make the right one.”