WORLD - The African Mirror

May

08

2026

Themes of peace and human dignity have been central to Pope Leo as he marks his first year in office

WORLD

WHEN he was elected pope on May 8, 2025, Robert Prevost, who took the name Leo XIV, greeted the crowd with Christ’s words to his disciples: “Peace be with you.” Peace has become a central theme of the pontificate of the first American pope. In recent months, opposing the war in the Middle East, Leo has said that the “world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants.” He led a “Prayer Vigil for Peace” on April 11, 2026, in which he criticized how the name of God has been used to justify war and death. He has also said…

May

07

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

380 dead, millions displaced: Lebanon’s ceasefire is a lie in practice, says UN

WORLD

CEASEFIRE that was supposed to silence the guns in Lebanon has done little to stop the killing. Since the truce between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah came into force on 17 April, at least 380 people have been killed, more than a million and a half displaced civilians cannot return to their homes, and humanitarian workers are being shot while responding to emergency calls. That is the verdict of the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), who briefed reporters in Geneva on Tuesday in terms that left little…

May

07

2026

By AMIN SAIKAL and AMITAV ACHARYA

‘No fear of roaring lions’: Iran has a long history of standing firm against outside aggressors

WORLD

US President Donald Trump’s threats against Iran since the war began have targeted not just the country’s military capabilities, but its entire civilisation. In recent days, he has threatened that Iran would be “blown off the face of the earth” if it attacks US ships trying to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. He’s previously pledged to send Iran back to the “Stone Age”, and warned that “a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again”. These statements show not only extreme belligerence, but Trump’s complete lack of understanding of Iran’s long, resilient culture and civilisation and the…

May

07

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

Cambodia’s appeals court entrenches crackdown on dissent, UN warns of judicial overreach

WORLD

PHNON Penh's appeals court has upheld a draconian 27-year prison sentence against Kem Sokha, Cambodia's former opposition leader, alongside convictions for 33 activists, human rights defenders, and social media users - signaling a deepening authoritarian grip that the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) brands as a blatant violation of international law. The rulings, announced this week, stem from politically charged cases. Sokha, head of the dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), was convicted of treason, espionage, and conspiracy over a 2013 speech in Australia— delivered a full decade before his 2017 arrest. In a parallel first-instance verdict, the Phnom Penh…

May

06

2026

By FEDERICO DONELLI; CHIARA BOLDRINI and RICCARDO GASCO

India’s Horn of Africa strategy has shifted: what it’s trying to do and how it could work

WORLD

INDIA’S engagement in the Horn of Africa and Red Sea basin was, until recently, largely limited to UN peacekeeping operations and anti-piracy patrols. Since the second half of the 1990s, India has participated in nearly all peacekeeping operations in Africa. Anti-piracy efforts emerged between 2008 and 2014 as piracy off Somalia and the Gulf of Aden spread across a vast maritime space. This spanned east Africa and the wider Indian Ocean, bringing threats close to India’s shores. Indian trade routes were exposed to new security risks, so a more sustained maritime posture was needed. From the mid-2010s, therefore, India expanded…

May

06

2026

By JARON PORCIELLO

80% of Africa’s fertiliser is imported: how food systems can adapt to the Iran shock

WORLD

CONFLICT in the Persian Gulf is disrupting fertiliser supplies, and Africa’s food systems stand to lose. Agrifood systems (the activities that connect the people, investments, and decisions involved in producing and delivering food and agricultural goods) rely on a steady flow of inputs like fertiliser, along with markets, infrastructure, and policy and trade decisions. These food systems can absorb shocks and find new ways to keep supplies flowing under pressure. But they are also sensitive. A disruption in one part of the system has an impact on others, as the conflict in Iran that erupted in late February 2026 shows…

May

06

2026

By GREG TOPPO, THE 74

The United States is turning 250 years old. For history teachers, it’s a complicated lesson

WORLD

AMONG longtime history teacher Karalee Wong Nakatsuka’s most prized possessions are two nearly identical T-shirts with very different meanings. One comes from Philadelphia’s Museum of the American Revolution, celebrating our Founding Fathers’ signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and their fight for freedom from the British Crown. This article was co-published with The 74, a nonprofit news organization covering education in America. Sign up for its newsletters here. The second is from Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., where an assassin killed President Abraham Lincoln 89 years after the Declaration’s signing. The Civil War, fought to free the nation’s nearly four million enslaved…

May

05

2026

By JASMINE FARRIER

Why the 60‑day War Powers Resolution deadline doesn’t actually constrain presidents

WORLD

MAY 1, 2026, marks the 60th day of Operation Epic Fury in Iran – a symbolically significant date that designates when a president who has mounted unilateral military operations must either receive Congressional approval or wind it down. However, the complex history of the War Powers Resolution clock demonstrates it is a toothless milestone. The Trump administration signaled on April 30, 2026, that it would ignore that deadline, set by the War Powers Resolution. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that “we are in a cease-fire right now, which, my understanding is, that the…

May

05

2026

By The African Mirror

$334 million and a city built on conquest: Israel formalises its war crime in the Golan

WORLD

THE Israeli cabinet’s approval of a 334-million-dollar development plan for the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is not, by itself, the beginning of a new policy. It is the financial and institutional crystallisation of a dispossession that has been under construction since 1967. What is new - and what demands the world’s attention - is the scale of the ambition, the timing of the announcement, and the near-total silence of the powers best positioned to stop it. The plan, adopted by the Israeli government, earmarks funding to expand the settlement of Katzrin - founded in 1977 on Syrian land occupied in…

May

05

2026

By MARTIN KEAR

Dignity and resolve: Francesca Albanese’s When the World Sleeps humanises Palestinian lives

WORLD

Francesca Albanese, an Italian lawyer and scholar, is the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, comprising the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. Her job is to report to the UN on the human rights situation in these territories. Since its inception in 1993, the role of rapporteur has been controversial and at times adversarial. Previous appointees were regularly castigated by Israeli governments and pro-Israel lobby groups for their perceived biases against Israel. The same is true for Albanese. Since she assumed her position in May 2022, she has been an outspoken and persistent critic of…