GENEVA: The United Nations on Monday condemned the “unacceptable” level of violence becoming commonplace against humanitarian workers, a record 280 of whom were killed worldwide in 2023.
And it warned that the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza is potentially fueling even higher numbers of such deaths this year.
“The normalization of violence against aid workers and the lack of accountability are unacceptable, unconscionable and enormously harmful for aid operations everywhere,” Joyce Msuya, acting director of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said in a statement on World Humanitarian Day.
“With 280 aid workers killed in 33 countries last year, 2023 marked the deadliest year on record for the global humanitarian community,” a 137 percent increase over 2022, when 118 aid workers died, OCHA said in the statement.
It cited the Aid Worker Security Database which has tracked such figures back to 1997.
The UN said more than half of the deaths in 2023, or 163, were aid workers killed in Gaza during the first three months of the war between Israel and Hamas, mainly in air strikes.
South Sudan, wracked by civil strife, and Sudan, where a war between two rival generals has been raging since April 2023, are the next deadliest conflicts for humanitarians, with 34 and 25 deaths respectively.
Also in the top 10 are Israel and Syria, with seven deaths each; Ethiopia and Ukraine, with six deaths each; Somalia at five fatalities; and four deaths both in Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In all the conflicts, most of the deaths are among local staff.
Despite 2023’s “outrageously high number” of aid worker fatalities, OCHA said 2024 “may be on track for an even deadlier outcome.”
As of August 9, 176 aid workers have been killed worldwide, according to the Aid Worker Security Database.
Since October, when Hamas-led militants launched a deadly raid into Israel, triggering the war, more than 280 aid workers have been killed in Gaza, the majority of them employees of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, according to OCHA.
Against this backdrop, the leaders of multiple humanitarian organizations were to send a letter Monday to UN member states calling for the international community “to end attacks on civilians, protect all aid workers, and hold perpetrators to account.”
Each year the United Nations marks World Humanitarian Day on August 19, the anniversary of the 2003 attack on its Baghdad headquarters.
The bombing killed 22 people including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN special representative to Iraq, and injured some 150 local and foreign aid workers.
UN warns of ‘unacceptable’ level of violence against aid workers
https://arab.news/8fu8h
UN warns of ‘unacceptable’ level of violence against aid workers
- Israel-Hamas war in Gaza is potentially fueling even higher numbers of such deaths this year: UN
- More than half of the deaths in 2023, or 163, were aid workers killed in Gaza
Elon Musk blasts Australia’s planned ban on social media for children
Australia’s center-left government on Thursday introduced the bill in parliament. It plans to try an age-verification system to enforce a social media age cut-off, some of the toughest controls imposed by any country to date.
“Seems like a backdoor way to control access to the Internet by all Australians,” Musk, who views himself as a champion of free speech, said in a reply late on Thursday to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s post on X about the bill.
Several countries have already vowed to curb social media use by children through legislation, but Australia’s policy could become one of the most stringent with no exemption for parental consent and pre-existing accounts.
France last year proposed a ban on social media for those under 15 but allowed parental consent, while the US has for decades required technology companies to seek parental consent to access the data of children under 13.
Musk has previously clashed with Australia’s center-left Labor government over its social media policies and had called it “fascists” over its misinformation law.
In April, X went to an Australian court to challenge a cyber regulator’s order for the removal of some posts about the stabbing of a bishop in Sydney, prompting Albanese to call Musk an “arrogant billionaire.” ($1 = 1.5359 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Renju Jose in Sydney; Editing by David Gregorio)
Philippines cleans up after sixth major storm in weeks
- There have been no other reports so far of deaths or injuries
- Power outages across the island province of Catanduanes could last for months
The national weather service had warned of a “potentially catastrophic” impact from Man-yi, which was a super typhoon when it hit over the weekend, but President Ferdinand Marcos said Monday it “wasn’t as bad as we feared.”
Packing maximum sustained wind speeds of 185 kilometers an hour, Man-yi slammed into Catanduanes island late Saturday, and the main island of Luzon on Sunday afternoon.
It uprooted trees, brought down power lines, crushed wooden houses and triggered landslides, but did not cause serious flooding.
“Though Pepito was strong, the impact wasn’t as bad as we feared,” Marcos said, according to an official transcript of his remarks to media, using the local name for Man-yi.
One person was killed in Camarines Norte province, which Marcos said was “one casualty too many.” Police said the victim, a 79-year-old man, died after his motorbike was caught in a power line.
There have been no other reports so far of deaths or injuries.
“We will now carry on with the rescue of those (in) isolated areas and the continuing relief for those who are, who have been displaced and have no means to prepare their own meals and have no water supplies,” Marcos said.
Power outages across the island province of Catanduanes could last for months after Man-yi toppled electricity poles, provincial information officer Camille Gianan told AFP.
“Catanduanes has been heavily damaged by that typhoon — we need food packs, hygiene kits and construction materials,” Gianan said.
“Most houses with light materials were flattened while some houses made of concrete had their roofs, doors and windows destroyed.”
In the coastal town of Baler in Aurora province, clean-up operations were underway to remove felled trees and debris blocking roads and waterways.
“Most of the houses here are made of light materials so even now, before the inspection, we are expecting heavy damage on many houses in town,” disaster officer Neil Rojo told AFP.
“We’ve also received reports of roofs that went flying with the wind last night... it was the fierce wind that got us scared, not exactly the heavy rains.”
Storm weakens
Man-yi weakened significantly as it traversed the mountains of Luzon and was downgraded to a severe tropical storm as it swept over the South China Sea toward Vietnam on Monday.
More than a million people in the Philippines fled their homes ahead of the storm, which followed an unusual streak of violent weather.
Climate change is increasing the intensity of storms, leading to heavier rains, flash floods and stronger gusts.
At least 163 people in the Philippines died in the past month’s storms, which left thousands homeless and wiped out crops and livestock.
About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Southeast Asian nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people, but it is rare for multiple such weather events to take place in a small window.
Man-yi also hit the Philippines late in the typhoon season — most cyclones develop between July and October.
This month, four storms were clustered simultaneously in the Pacific basin, which the Japan Meteorological Agency told AFP was the first time such an occurrence had been observed in November since its records began in 1951.
Texas offers Trump land on US-Mexico border for potential mass deportations
McALLEN, Texas: Texas is offering a parcel of rural ranchland along the US-Mexico border to use as a staging area for potential mass deportations under President-elect Donald Trump.
The property, which Texas originally purchased last month, is located in rural Starr County in the Rio Grande Valley. Republican Dawn Buckingham, the Texas Land Commissioner, sent a letter Nov. 14 to Trump extending the offer.
“We do hear through back channels that they are taking a look at it and considering it. But we just want them to know we’re a good partner. We’re here. We want to be helpful,” Buckingham told The Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday.
The property has no paved roads and sits in a county with one public hospital and limited local resources. But Buckingham stressed its location.
“We feel like this is actually very well-located. The land is very flat there. It’s adjacent to major airports. It’s also adjacent to a bridge over the river,” Buckingham said. “So if it’s helpful, then I would love to partner up with the federal government. And if it’s not, then we’ll continue to look to ways to be helpful to them.”
The land offer is the latest illustration of a sharp divide between states and local governments on whether to support or resist Trump’s plans for mass deportations of migrants living in the US illegally. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council voted to become a “sanctuary” jurisdiction, limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities to carry out deportations.
Texas leaders have long backed aggressive measures on the border to curb crossings, including installing razor-wire barriers and passing a law last year that would allow law enforcement to arrest migrants who cross the border illegally.
“By offering this newly-acquired 1400-acre property to the incoming Trump Administration for the construction of a facility for the processing, detention, and coordination of what will be the largest deportation of violent criminals in our nation’s history, I stand united with President Donald Trump to ensure American families are protected,” Buckingham said in an earlier statement.
Trump has said he plans to begin his deportation efforts on the first day of his presidency. He frequently attacked illegal immigration during his campaign, linking a record spike in unauthorized border crossings to issues ranging from drug trafficking to high housing prices.
There are an estimated 11 million people in the country illegally. Questions remain about how people would be identified and where they would be detained.
The president-elect’s transition team did not say whether they would accept Texas’ offer but sent a statement.
“On day one, President Trump will marshal every lever of power to secure the border, protect their communities, and launch the largest mass deportation operation of illegal immigrant criminals in history,” Karoline Leavitt, the transition spokeswoman for Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance, said Wednesday.
The Texas General Land Office did not disclose the amount paid for the land, but Buckingham stated the previous owner resisted the creation of a border wall.
A 1.5-mile (2.4 kilometer) stretch of border wall was built under Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in 2021 on that land. Buckingham said with the recent purchase, the state has created another easement for more border wall construction.
Haiti blasts Macron’s criticism of transition council as ‘unfriendly and inappropriate’
PORT-AU-PRINCE: Haiti’s foreign minister met with the French ambassador to the nation on Thursday over what the ministry branded as “unfriendly and inappropriate” comments from French President Emmanuel Macron as he left the G20 summit in Brazil.
Macron had on Wednesday called the decision of the Caribbean country’s transitional presidential council to oust the prime minister earlier this month amid an escalation in gang warfare as “completely dumb.”
“Honestly, it is Haitians who killed Haiti by letting in drug trafficking,” Macron was filmed saying in Brazil, before hailing ex-Prime Minister Garry Conille, who was ousted amid divisions with the council, as a great leader.
“They are completely dumb, they should never have fired him,” he said.
His remarks sparked outrage in Haiti, a former French colony. After Haiti freed itself from slavery and declared independence in 1804, it paid France a “debt” for lost property — including slaves — over more than a century that some activists say amounted to over $100 billion.
Activists are seeking French reparations for the debt, which many blame for Haiti’s economic and political turmoil.
Speaking in Chile on Thursday, Macron vowed that “France will never turn its face from a crisis... There will never be a double standard in face of tragedy, be it in Haiti, Venezuela, or at the gates of Europe.”
France has pledged 4 million euros ($4.2 million) to a UN fund financing a deeply under-resourced security mission mandated to help restore security in Haiti, as well as funding for French and Creole classes for its troops.
Haiti’s foreign ministry said that in the meeting French Ambassador Antoine Michon promised France would stay by Haiti’s side to help restore security and carry out elections.
NATO says new Russian missile will not alter course of Ukraine war
BRUSSELS: The experimental hypersonic intermediate-range missile Russia fired at Ukraine will not affect the course of the war nor NATO’s backing for Kyiv, a spokesperson for the US-led defense alliance said on Thursday.
“Deploying this capability will neither change the course of the conflict nor deter NATO Allies from supporting Ukraine,” said spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah, calling the launch “yet another example of Russia’s attacks against Ukrainian cities.”
