WORLD - The African Mirror

Nov

27

2024

Her spouse was undocumented when she entered Congress. Trump’s mass deportation plans are personal

WORLD

REP. Delia Ramirez spent the lead-up to the presidential election absorbing Republicans’ pledge to mass-deport unauthorized immigrants and processing many Democrats’ rightward shift on the issue. She was also fearing for the fate of her husband and other undocumented loved ones. For years, Ramirez and her husband, Boris Hernandez, navigated life as one of the millions of mixed-status households in the United States. When the 118th Congress convened after the 2022 midterms, Ramirez, a Democrat, was sworn in as the first Latina ever elected to Congress from Illinois — and the only member openly residing with an undocumented immigrant. Ramirez…

Nov

26

2024

By ANDREW WEAVER

COP29: Only by returning carbon to the ground is net zero truly possible

WORLD

NEGOTIATIONS at the 29th Conference of Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are entering their second week after things got off to a rocky start.

Nov

25

2024

By The African Mirror

Abuse, conscription, drug addiction: Myanmar refugees speak of life in Shan State

WORLD

This story was originally published by The New Humanitarian.By Antonio Graceffo, PhD HUNDREDS of thousands of people have fled Myanmar for Thailand since the military takeover in February 2021, bringing accounts of rights abuses and forced conscription by both the junta and opposition armed groups, but also of drug addiction. Speaking in a refugee camp in Wiang Haeng district in northern Thailand through an interpreter, 48-year-old Sai Zam Aung told The New Humanitarian that life in his village of Kesi in southern Shan State had until recently been good. Due to economic hardship, he and his sisters had to leave…

Nov

24

2024

By IRWIN LOY

Staff accuse IRC management of Gaza bias and censorship

WORLD

This story was originally published by The New Humanitarian.By Irwin Loy IN July, staff at the International Rescue Committee started noticing unusual changes to Gaza-related content on the aid group’s website. An article about aid blockades had disappeared. Another, on the collapse of Gaza’s health system, was missing. And a popular explainer page was significantly altered in ways that seemed to reframe the narrative around Israel’s destruction of Gaza. Why was the aid access page removed, a staff member asked on an internal messaging site. Why have there been no public statements on Gaza in weeks, another staff member wondered.…

Nov

24

2024

By The African Mirror

UNHCR: Lebanon-Syria humanitarian and displacement crisis continues to deepen

WORLD

Lebanon This is a summary of what was said by Ivo Freijsen, UNHCR Representative in Lebanon – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at today’s press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. BEIRUT – The past few weeks have been the deadliest and most devastating for Lebanon and its people in decades, with Israel dramatically intensifying its airstrikes and ground incursions, deepening the humanitarian catastrophe for civilians. Two months since the escalation of hostilities in Lebanon, more than 3,500 people have been killed, 15,000 wounded, and an estimated 1.3 million directly impacted and uprooted from their…

Nov

24

2024

By CANDICE NORWOOD

Who is Pam Bondi? Trump picks longtime ally for attorney general

WORLD

PRESIDENT-ELECT Donald Trump named Pam Bondi as his next nominee for attorney general on Thursday night — hours after former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration amid sexual misconduct allegations. “For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans – Not anymore,” Trump wrote in a statement on his social media platform, Truth Social. “Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again.” The switch to Bondi, 59, came as Gaetz faced growing scrutiny around a House Ethics Committee investigation into whether he…

Nov

23

2024

By The African Mirror

Lebanon crisis: Intensifying violence is deadliest in decades, warn aid agencies

WORLD

THE past two months of intensifying Israeli bombardment in Lebanon have been the “deadliest and most devastating” in decades as communities uprooted from the front line continue to flee across the border to Syria, UN humanitarians said on Friday. Highlighting the deepening of the humanitarian catastrophe for civilians on Lebanon’s Independence Day, the UN refugee agency, UNCHR, warned of a prevailing sense of uncertainty and fear as the war grinds on. “In recent weeks, Israel dramatically intensified its airstrikes and ground incursions and this has deepened the humanitarian catastrophe that has affected civilians,” said Ivo Freijsen, UNHCR Representative in Lebanon.…

Nov

23

2024

By SHEFALI LUTHRA

They shared their abortion stories on the campaign trail. They’re not done fighting

WORLD

LAUREN Miller already had a bad feeling about how things would turn out. She couldn’t stop the nervous tears, whether she was watching Instagram videos with her toddler, or sitting in on work calls. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop imagining what might happen later that evening — that, for all her efforts to spotlight abortion, for all the times she’d shared her own story, it still somehow wouldn’t be enough — that Election Day would end in heartbreak. Miller, who lives in the Dallas area, had thrown herself into showing why the presidential election was tied to…

Nov

22

2024

By The African Mirror

ICC’s warrants of arrest for Israeli and Hammas leaders: The decision that echoes hollow

WORLD

THE decision by the judges at the International Criminal Court has put the global justice system on trial. These arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defence minister Yoav Gallant and Ibrahim Al-Masri, a Hamas leader, glitter with moral righteousness but are, in reality, nothing more than phantoms - paper tigers with no teeth. The ICC stands exposed: a judicial body without muscles, without a police force, without real authority. Its pronouncements are mere whispers in the wind of international politics, powerless to compel action. While 124 member states are technically obliged to arrest these individuals, the…

Nov

22

2024

By BENJAMIN JENSEN

What Ukraine can now do with longer-range US missiles − and how that could affect the course of the war

WORLD

THE outgoing Biden administration has authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied longer-range missiles to strike deeper into Russian territory, according to reports citing White House officials. The move comes amid concern in the West that Moscow – aided by the influx of thousands of North Korean fighters – might be preparing a major counteroffensive to regain lost territory in the Kursk region of Russia. But how big a deal is the Biden decision? And could it change the trajectory of the conflict in Eastern Europe? The Conversation U.S. turned to Benjamin Jensen, a professor at American University and the Marine Corps…