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.
Nigeria’s northeast risks mass hunger as UN funding dwindles
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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
French left, Macron race to prevent far-right takeover
- Analysts say that the most likely outcome of the snap election is a hung parliament that could lead to months of political paralysis and chaos
PARIS: Emmanuel Macron's centrist camp and a left-wing alliance were on Monday battling to prevent the far right from taking an absolute majority and control of government in a historic first after the French president's gamble on early parliamentary elections backfired.
The far-right National Rally (RN) party of Marine Le Pen won a resounding victory in the first round of the polls on Sunday, with Macron's centrists trailing in third place behind the left-wing New Popular Front coalition.
Le Pen has asked voters to give her party an absolute majority during a second round of voting on July 7 so 28-year-old RN chief Jordan Bardella can become prime minister.
But most projections show the RN falling short of an absolute majority, even though the final outcome remains far from certain.
"The extreme right at the threshold of power," read Monday's headline in daily Le Monde.
Ahead of the second round, Macron's camp has begun cooperating with the left-wing alliance in the hopes that tactical voting will prevent the RN winning the 289 seats needed for an absolute majority, which Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said would be "catastrophic".
Third-place candidates who qualified for the second round have been urged to drop out to present a united front against the far-right.
Macron in a written statement on Sunday night urged a "broad" democratic coalition against the far right, which Bardella branded "a dishonourable alliance".
On Monday he convened a government meeting to decide a further course of action.
"Let's not be mistaken. It's the far right that's on its way to the highest office, no one else," he said at the meeting, according to one participant.
"Not a single vote must go to the far right."
He did not give any firm instructions to candidates over standing down, sources said.
The emotion was palpable at the meeting, with three ministers dropping out of the race.
The deadline to decide whether to stand down is Tuesday evening. According to a provisional count by AFP, more than 150 left-wing or centrist candidates have dropped out already.
Analysts say that the most likely outcome of the snap election is a hung parliament that could lead to months of political paralysis and chaos.
The political crisis comes as Paris is preparing to host the Olympic Games this summer.
The RN garnered 33 percent of the vote on Sunday, compared to 28 percent for the left-wing New Popular Front alliance, and more than 20 percent for Macron's centrist camp.
With a total of 76 candidates elected in the first round, the final composition of the 577-seat National Assembly will only be clear after the second phase.
The second round will see a three-way or two-way run-off in the remainder of the seats to be decided -- although a tiny number of four-way run-offs are also possible.
The French stock market, which had been under considerable pressure in June amid the political uncertainty, rallied in early trading on hopes the RN would not win an absolute majority.
"The French election results have led to a sigh of relief from financial markets," noted Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB trading group.
The arrival of the anti-immigration RN in government would be a turning point in French modern history -- the first time a far-right force has taken power in the country since World War II, when it was occupied by Nazi Germany.
If the RN takes an absolute majority and Bardella, who has no governing experience, becomes prime minister, this would create a tense period of "cohabitation" with Macron, who has vowed to serve out his term until 2027.
The election results fuelled fresh criticism of Macron's decision to call the poll in the first place, a move he took with only a tight circle of advisers in the hours after his party was trounced by the RN in European elections last month.
The right-wing Le Figaro in its editorial said the country faced a "tragedy" with only "bad solutions" on offer.
The chaos risks damaging the international credibility of Macron, who is et to attend the NATO summit in Washington immediately after the second round.
State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said the United States expected "to continue our close cooperation with the French government" regardless of the election results.
Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the far-right success was a cause for concern, describing the RN as "a party that sees Europe as the problem and not the solution".
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the results represented a "very dangerous" turn for France and Europe.
Russia, which the French government has repeatedly accused of seeking to interfere in domestic politics, is following the election results in France "very closely", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
With elections looming on Thursday in the United Kingdom, where the left-wing Labour party is expected to end 14 years of right-wing Conservative rule, Labour leader Keir Starmer said the French polls were a lesson that "we need to address the everyday concerns of so many people".
But far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hailed the results, saying attempts to "demonise" far-right voters were losing impact.
Trump treads carefully as calls swirl for Biden to exit
WASHINGTON: As the Democratic Party fights over whether Joe Biden should step aside before November’s presidential election, rival Donald Trump has declined to join the pile-on.
Biden’s halting debate last week against Trump fueled concerns among voters around the president’s age and ability to govern — fears that Republicans have often been eager to highlight.
Yet the Trump campaign has now pushed back against the idea of Biden, 81, stepping down.
Democrats dumping their own candidate would tip them into uncertainty just months before the election — but it also carries risks for Trump, experts told AFP.
Former Republican candidate Nikki Haley warned over the weekend that a Biden replacement would be more “vibrant,” urging Republicans “to prepare and get ready for what’s to come.”
Trump’s campaign — like top Democratic officials — has insisted that Biden is not going anywhere.
“The only way Joe Biden is dumped off the ticket is if he voluntarily decides he’s not going to do it, and he’s not going to make that decision,” Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita told NBC.
Republican campaign adviser Brian Hughes said walking away from Biden would amount to Democratic “dishonesty,” while Senator JD Vance — a possible Trump vice president — said doing so would be “an incredible insult” to Democratic voters.
“Trump absolutely wants Joe Biden to be his opponent — it’s just like the Biden campaign always wanted Trump to be the opponent,” Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University told AFP.
“They see real advantages in the weakness of the other.”
Some of the names being floated as Biden replacements are “younger, vigorous, popular people in Midwest swing states,” Schiller added — whom the Trump campaign couldn’t blame for “inflation and the border.”
By staying out of calls for Biden to step aside, Trump — who faces a slew of legal woes dogging his own campaign — is also letting bitter Democratic divisions take up the media spotlight.
“Why would the Trump campaign want to take the shovel away from Democrats who are digging their own holes right now?” Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist, told AFP.
“Every day that the spotlight is on Biden’s mental sharpness is another campaign day that Trump has won.”
Trump himself has even appeared to do damage control for his Democratic rival.
“Many people are saying that after last night’s performance, Joe Biden is leaving the race,” Trump told a rally the day after their Thursday debate.
“The fact is, I don’t really believe that,” he added. “He does better in the polls than any of the Democrats they’re talking about.”
That was a marked turn from a few weeks ago, when Trump said in a radio interview that “if you look at (Biden), he doesn’t know where he is.”
“I doubt he will even be running frankly, I just can’t even imagine it.”
On wanting to keep Biden as head of the Democratic ticket, both the president and his challenger seem to be on the same page.
Over the weekend, Biden met with his family at the presidential retreat at Camp David, where US media reported they discussed the 2024 race and supported Biden’s plans to stay in.
Brazil’s Amazon saw worst 6 months of wildfires in 20 yrs: official
RIO DE JANEIRO: The Brazilian Amazon recorded 13,489 wildfires in the first half of the year, the worst figure in 20 years, satellite data revealed Monday.
The total was up 61 percent compared to the 8,344 fires detected in the same period last year — an increase that experts say is the result of a historic drought that struck the world’s largest tropical rainforest last year.
Since Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research began compiling records in 1998, only two other years experienced more wildfires from January through June: 2003 (17,143) and 2004 (17,340).
The data makes for difficult news for the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, with the number of fires increasing even as deforestation in the Amazon is on the wane.
Wildfires also set January-June records in two other biodiverse ecosystems south of the Amazon: the Pantanal, one of the world’s largest tropical wetlands, and the Cerrado savanna, which lies mainly in Brazil.
In the Pantanal, home to millions of caimans, parrots, giant otters and the world’s highest density of jaguars, 3,538 wildfires were recorded in the first six months of 2024 — an increase of more than 2,000 percent as compared with last year.
The Cerrado experienced almost as many fires as the Amazon from January to June — 13,229.
Appeals court allows part of Biden student loan repayment plan to go forward
- The ruling on Sunday means the department can move ahead with the reduced payments already calculated while it pursues an appeal
WASHINGTON: A federal appeals court has allowed the US Education Department to move ahead with a plan to lower monthly payments for millions of student loan borrowers, putting on hold a ruling last week by a lower court.
The ruling from the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals puts back on track a central part of President Joe Biden’s efforts to address student debt — a rule that lowers from 10 percent of discretionary income to 5 percent the amount that some borrowers qualifying for a repayment plan need to pay.
The reduced payment threshold was set to take effect July 1, but federal judges in Kansas and Missouri last week blocked much of the administration’s student loan repayment plan in two separate rulings. The ruling on Sunday means the department can move ahead with the reduced payments already calculated while it pursues an appeal.
The rulings have created a difficult environment for borrowers to navigate, said Persis Yu, deputy executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, which advocates for eliminating student debt. The stay granted by the 10th Circuit is temporary, Yu said, leaving many borrowers in the dark about future financial obligations.
“Borrowers are having to make decisions right now about their financial lives, and they don’t know the very basic information that they need in order to make informed decisions,” Yu said.
The Biden administration created the SAVE plan last year to replace other existing income-based repayment plans offered by the federal government. It allowed many to qualify for lower payments, and forgiveness was granted to borrowers who had made payments for at least 10 years and originally borrowed $12,000 or less.
US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the Biden administrations remains committed “to our work to fix a broken student loan system and make college more affordable for more Americans.”
The appeals court ruling does not impact the injunction issued by a federal judge in Missouri, which prevents the Education Department from forgiving loan balances going forward.
The injunctions are the result of lawsuits from Republican-led states seeking to invalidate the Biden administration’s entire loan forgiveness program, which was first available to borrowers in the summer of 2023, and at least 150,000 have had their loans canceled. The suing states argued that the administration’s plan was a workaround after the Supreme Court struck down the original plan for student loan forgiveness earlier that year.
Former Pakistan PM Khan arbitrarily detained: UN panel
- “The appropriate remedy would be to release Mr. Khan immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law,” they added
GENEVA: A panel of UN experts have determined that the detention of former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan was arbitrary and in violation of international law, calling for him to be released “immediately.”
In an opinion published Monday, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention raised serious concerns around multiple cases brought against Khan since he was ousted in April 2022.
It found that his deprevation of liberty violated a string of international laws and norms, and was “arbitrary.”
Khan’s “detention had no legal basis and appears to have been intended to disqualify him from running for political office,” the working group concluded.
“Thus, from the outset, that prosecution was not grounded in law and was reportedly instrumentalized for a political purpose,” it said in the opinion, which was dated on March 25 but only made public on Monday.
The working group, made up of five independent experts, whose opinions are not binding but carry reputational weight, called on Pakistan’s government to “take the steps necessary to remedy the situation of Mr. Khan without delay and bring it into conformity with the relevant international norms.”
“The appropriate remedy would be to release Mr. Khan immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law,” they added.
Khan, who served as prime minister from 2018 to 2022, has been entangled in more than 200 legal cases since he was ousted, in what he says is a campaign to keep him from power.
He has been detained since August last year and barred from standing for office.
However, the former international cricket star and his wife had their 14-year prison sentences for graft suspended by a Pakistan high court in April.
Khan then had a 10-year sentence for treason overturned this month but remains in Adiala jail, south of the capital Islamabad, over an illegal marriage conviction.
He had been cleared for release before that trio of sentences in the days running up to Pakistan’s February 8 general elections.
Neither Pakistan’s interior nor information ministry immediately responded to a request for comment.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party meanwhile hailed the ruling as “a huge victory.”
“It has shown without any one percent of doubt that Imran Khan is innocent and has been thrown into prison illegally,” PTI spokesman Syad Zulfiqar Bukhari said in a statement.
