WASHINGTON: Palestinian Islamist group Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed about 1,400 people aimed to disrupt a potential normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, US President Joe Biden said at a campaign fundraiser on Friday.
“One of the reasons Hamas moved on Israel … they knew that I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” Biden said.
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Biden says Hamas attack aimed to disrupt Saudi-Israel normalization of ties
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Biden says Hamas attack aimed to disrupt Saudi-Israel normalization of ties
Nigeria’s northeast risks mass hunger as UN funding dwindles
- UN's OCHA says 2.8 million people in 3 Nigerian regions ravaged by Islamist insurgency face hunger during during the lean season
- OCHA launched a $306 million appeal, warning of “catastrophic” consequences of food insecurity without immediate intervention
ABUJA The United Nations humanitarian agency is struggling to secure funding to combat severe food insecurity in Nigeria’s insurgency-hit northeast, raising fears of mass hunger and deaths, its resident coordinator warned.
In April, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) launched a $306 million appeal alongside Nigeria on behalf of 2.8 million people in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, regions ravaged by a 15-year Islamist insurgency, during the lean season, a period of peak food scarcity.
OCHA chief Mohamed Malick Fall told Reuters that, despite an initial $11 million commitment from Nigeria and another $11 million from the UN’s central pool, the target remained far off due to reluctance among international donors.
“We are far from where we want to be. That is something we are confronted by even beyond the lean season which is that we have noticed that humanitarian assistance to Nigeria is shrinking,” Fall said in an interview on Thursday.
Fall anticipates receiving only $300 million in the best-case scenario, a significant drop from the $500 million secured last year. He attributed the decline to the economic impact of COVID-19 on major donors.
Competition from new global crises has also diverted attention and resources.
“Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan have all emerged in the past two years which makes it difficult to maintain the same pace of funding,” Fall said.
The situation is further exacerbated by Nigeria’s worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, with inflation exceeding 33 percent and food prices soaring above 40 percent.
OCHA warns of “catastrophic” consequences of food insecurity in Nigeria’s northeast without immediate intervention.
UNICEF data from April already shows more than 120,000 children admitted for treatment of severe acute malnutrition in the region, exceeding the entire year’s target of around 90,000.
“The cost of inaction has many folds with the most pressing being an excess mortality among children,” Fall said.
Ivory Coast receives first life-saving malaria vaccines
- The mosquito-borne disease kills four people a day in the country, mostly small children, according to health officials
- The R21/Matrix-M vaccine has been authorized by Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic
ABIDJAN: Ivory Coast this week received its first vaccines against malaria, a disease that kills four people a day in the country, mostly small children, the government said Saturday.
A total of 656,600 doses have been received, which will “initially vaccinate 250,000 children aged between 0 and 23 months” in 16 regions, the government said.
Although the number of malaria-related deaths has fallen from 3,222 in 2017 to 1,316 in 2020 in Ivory Coast, the disease “remains the leading cause of medical consultations,” according to the Ministry of Health.
The R21/Matrix-M vaccine has been authorized by Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic.
The Ivorian government is also distributing mosquito nets and is spraying insecticide in endemic areas.
Malaria causes fever, headaches and chills, and can become serious or even fatal if left untreated.
In 2022, it caused more than 600,000 deaths worldwide, 95 percent of them in Africa, and 80 percent of them in children under the age of 5, according to the WHO.
The vaccine is the second malaria vaccine that the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended for children and is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII).
18 killed, 42 injured in multiple Nigeria suicide attacks: emergency services
- Attackers separately targetted a wedding, a funeral and hospital in Borno state, says emergency official Barkindo Saidu
- 19 of the injuries were deemed serious and among the victims were children and pregnant women
KANO, Nigeria: At least 18 people were killed and 19 seriously wounded in a string of suicide attacks in northeastern Nigeria on Saturday, emergency services said.
In one of three blasts in the town of Gwoza, a female attacker with a baby strapped to her back detonated explosives in the middle of a wedding ceremony, according to a police spokesman.
The other attacks in the border town across from Cameroon targeted a hospital and a funeral for victims of the earlier wedding blast, authorities said.
At least 18 people were killed and 42 others injured in the attacks, according to the Borno State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA).
“So far, 18 deaths comprising children, men, females and pregnant women” have been reported, said Barkindo Saidu, the head of the agency, in a report seen by AFP.
Nineteen “seriously injured” people were taken to the regional capital Maiduguri, while 23 others were awaiting evacuation, Saidu said in the report.
A member of a militia assisting the military in Gwoza said two of his comrades and a soldier were also killed in another attack on a security post, though authorities did not immediately confirm this toll.
Boko Haram militants seized Gwoza in 2014 when the group took over swathes of territory in northern Borno.
The town was taken back by the Nigerian military with help from Chadian forces in 2015 but the group has since continued to launch attacks from mountains near the town.
Boko Haram has carried out raids, killing men and kidnapping women who venture outside the town in search of firewood and acacia fruits.
The violence has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced around two million in Nigeria’s northeast.
The conflict has spread to neighboring Niger, Cameroon and Chad, prompting the formation of a regional military coalition to fight the militants.
UK Reform leader Farage speech interrupted by banner mocking Putin views
- Farage is seeking election as a lawmaker, or member of parliament (MP), in Clacton-on-Sea, which is nine miles from Walton on the Naze
LONDON: A speech being delivered by Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party, was interrupted late Saturday when a banner of Russian President Vladimir Putin descended from the ceiling at an election rally.
Campaign group Led by Donkeys, which opposes Farage’s views, said it was responsible for the stunt at the Columbine Center, at Walton on the Naze in southeast England, and posted a video of the unveiling on X.
That showed the banner slowly unfurling behind a speaking Farage, revealing a smiling Putin giving a thumbs-up sign, along with the words “I (heart emoji) Putin.”
Led By Donkeys said on X: “Nigel Farage says Putin is the world leader he ‘admires the most’ and blames the West for Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.”
That was a reference to comments Farage made earlier this month when he said the eastward expansion of the European Union and NATO had provoked Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The remarks, made in an interview with the BBC, drew strong criticism across the British political spectrum ahead of a July 4 national election in which Farage’s party is predicted to win millions of votes.
On seeing the banner, Farage said: “Who put that up there,” adding: “Someone at the Columbine Center needs to get the sack.”
The audience then started chanting: “Rip it down.”
Reuters has sought comment from Reform UK.
Farage is seeking election as a lawmaker, or member of parliament (MP), in Clacton-on-Sea, which is nine miles from Walton on the Naze.
On Friday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was hurt and angry that a supporter of Reform UK had been recorded making a racial slur about him, saying it was too important for him not to speak out.
Putin calls for resuming production of intermediate missiles after scrapping of treaty with US
- The US withdrew from the treaty in 2019, citing Russian violations
- The last remaining arms-control pact between the US and Russia is the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday called for resuming production of intermediate-range missiles that were banned under a now-scrapped treaty with the United States.
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, or INF, which banned ground-based nuclear and conventional missiles with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers (310-3,410 miles), was regarded as an arms control landmark when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan signed it in 1988.
The US withdrew from the treaty in 2019, citing Russian violations.
“We need to start production of these strike systems and then, based on the actual situation, make decisions about where — if necessary to ensure our safety — to place them,” Putin said at a meeting of Russia’s national security council.
Putin said Russia hadn’t produced such missiles since the 2019 treaty scrapping, but that “today it is known that the United States not only produces these missile systems, but has already brought them to Europe for exercises, to Denmark. Quite recently it was announced that they are in the Philippines.”
Since withdrawing from the treaty, the US Army has moved forward with developing a conventional, ground-launched, midrange missile capability called the Typhon that would have been banned under the INF. The Typhon fires two Navy missiles, the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile and Standard Missile-6.
The US Army ran the system through tests during an exercise in the Philippines this spring.
The end of the INF was a milestone in the deterioration of relations between the US and Russia.
The last remaining arms-control pact between Washington and Moscow is the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. It’s set to expire in 2026, and the lack of dialogue on anchoring a successor deal has worried arms control advocates.
Putin’s statement comes amid rising tensions between Russia and the West over the conflict in Ukraine and concern about possible nuclear attacks.
In June, Putin spoke to executives from international news organizations about Moscow’s use of nuclear weapons.
“We have a nuclear doctrine, look what it says,” he said. “If someone’s actions threaten our sovereignty and territorial integrity, we consider it possible for us to use all means at our disposal. This should not be taken lightly, superficially.”
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