WORLD - The African Mirror

Mar

28

2026

One million displaced and counting: Israel’s war tears Lebanon apart

WORLD

NEARLY a month into a rapidly escalating military campaign, Israel's war on Lebanon has crossed a threshold that no ceasefire communique or diplomatic platitude can paper over. More than one million people — one in every five residents of this fractured, resilient republic — have been forced from their homes since 2 March, when a wave of intense Israeli strikes triggered mass evacuation orders across the south, the Bekaa Valley, Beirut and beyond. The numbers are still rising. This is not a humanitarian footnote to a military operation. It is the operation's most visible consequence — and Lebanon, a country…

Mar

28

2026

By ALEX HINTON

I went to CPAC and found Trump supporters unhappy about Iran, Epstein files and the economy, even while the fans at the MAGA conference celebrate his immigration policies

WORLD

THERE is a pall over the Make America Great Again, or MAGA, movement. Donald Trump overpromised. His public support has fallen. Some “America First” die-hards now openly criticise him. Amid war, economic challenges, democratic backsliding, the Epstein files and Americans shot dead in the street by government agents, Trump’s support is softening, and his vow to bring a “golden age of America” is looking more like a political winter for Trump and his MAGA movement. This is my big takeaway from this year’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. The event, organised by the American Conservative Union, launched with…

Mar

27

2026

By VIDYA MANI

Soaring gas prices and disrupted supply chains will ripple out to increase costs in every store and sector of the economy

WORLD

THE disruptions from the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran spread quickly to commercial aircraft, shipping lanes and the world’s energy supply. Those repercussions have already hit fuel costs, including for motorists, truckers and fishermen, and are set to spread even more widely, to packaging, household goods, appliances, medicines and electronics. I study global supply chains and how they interconnect and depend on each other around the world. There are several ways in which U.S. consumers will begin to feel the pinch of the war. Some of those effects have to do with domestic commerce, and some are a result…

Mar

27

2026

By The African Mirror

Trapped in the dark: Bangladesh’s Padma River disaster lays bare a nation’s broken roads

WORLD

WHEN Noor Jahan Begum, 35, witnessed a passenger bus tumble over the edge of the Daulatdia ferry terminal and vanish into the murky waters of the Padma River on Wednesday afternoon, she was not watching a freak accident. She was watching Bangladesh's deadliest daily reality unfold in a single, terrible moment. "Some passengers got out of the bus, but their family members died, trapped inside," she told AFP, her words bearing the particular anguish of someone who watched helplessly as screams faded beneath a brown river. At least 24 people are now confirmed dead. Among them: five children. Eleven women.…

Mar

27

2026

By FLORENCE MARTIN

The Voice of Hind Rajab: Tunisian director’s devastating film about Palestine

WORLD

THE Voice of Hind Rajab made an immediate impact when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2025, receiving a 23-minute standing ovation and seven awards. More were to follow as it played at festivals around the world. It’s a mixture of documentary and drama that tells the story of a Palestinian girl trapped in a car during the conflict with Israel. Its writer and director, Kaouther Ben Hania, is from Tunisia. So, what makes The Voice of Hind Rajab so powerful? We asked a leading scholar of North African film and film-makers, Florence Martin, to tell us about…

Mar

26

2026

By The African Mirror

Death as deterrence: China sentences ex-aerospace chief to suspended execution in sweeping military-industrial purge

WORLD

IN the corridors of China's vast military-industrial complex, Tan Ruisong once commanded nearly absolute authority. As chairman and Communist Party secretary of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) — the country's dominant state-owned aerospace and defence conglomerate — he presided over an empire spanning fighter jets, military transport aircraft, drones, and strategic aviation systems at the very heart of the People's Liberation Army's modernisation agenda. On Wednesday, a Chinese court delivered its verdict on how he used that power: a death sentence with a two-year reprieve, effectively a suspended execution that carries the full weight of Beijing's no-nonsense approach…

Mar

26

2026

By GRACE PANETTA

She followed a civil rights hero to Alabama. It shaped her path to power

WORLD

MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA — More than 30 years apart, two women separately set forth on long drives south to Alabama. Their backgrounds were different, their mission the same: to join an existential fight for the soul of American democracy. This story was originally reported by Grace Panetta of The 19th. Meet Grace and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy. Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a White 39-year-old married mother of five from Detroit, went first. In 1965, she was appalled by images from Bloody Sunday, when state troopers tear-gassed and brutalised voting rights activists who were attempting to cross…

Mar

25

2026

By JUAN ZAHIR NARANJO CÁCERES

Cuba has been in Washington’s crosshairs for decades. The Iran war is raising the stakes

WORLD

ON March 16, Cuba’s national electricity grid collapsed for the third time in four months, plunging 10 million people into more than 29 hours of darkness. Hospitals struggled to keep generators running, water pumps shut down and refuse piled up on streets where collection trucks have sat empty for weeks. The immediate cause is a fuel shortage building since January, when the United States cut off Cuba’s oil supply following the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. https://www.youtube.com/embed/o6oa0NEij40 Mexico, which had become Cuba’s largest oil supplier, accounting for an estimated 44% of the island’s crude imports in 2025, halted…

Mar

25

2026

By The African Mirror

Diplomacy in ashes: how a war without end is fracturing the global economy

WORLD

ON Tuesday morning, as air raid sirens wailed across Tel Aviv and a wall of Iranian ballistic missiles tore through apartment buildings in the city's centre, the last credible pretence that this war would end through diplomacy appeared to crumble. Again. Less than 24 hours earlier, U.S. President Donald Trump had posted on Truth Social that talks with Iran had been "very good and productive" - a statement that briefly sent oil prices tumbling below $100 a barrel and coaxed global equity markets into a relief rally. By Tuesday, Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf had dismissed Trump's framing as…

Mar

25

2026

By RILEY SPARKS

Aid group scrubs content after TNH exposes donations to Israeli soldiers and settlers

WORLD

LAST month, The New Humanitarian published an investigation into Israel-approved aid groups scaling up in the Gaza Strip while Israeli authorities attempt to push out established actors. Among the investigation’s findings was that a cluster of related NGOs had donated equipment and goods to the Israeli military (IDF) – including one that donated to units accused of war crimes – and to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The same organisations were also among several working in parts of southwestern Syria occupied by Israeli forces since late 2024. Since our investigation was published on 11 February, one of…