WORLD - The African Mirror

Mar

24

2026

Fire, threats and a world on the brink: the war that could bankrupt the planet

WORLD

THE world woke on Monday, 23 March 2026, to the grimly familiar spectacle of air raid sirens shrieking across Tel Aviv and the occupied West Bank, streaks of light cutting across the Israeli night sky as incoming Iranian missiles were intercepted — and the sober realisation that humanity may have stumbled into the most consequential military conflagration since the Second World War. Twenty-five days after the United States and Israel launched their joint assault on the Islamic Republic of Iran on 28 February, the war shows no sign of relenting. More than 2,000 people have been killed. Iran's missile capabilities…

Mar

24

2026

By COSTANZA MUSU

War in Iran: Why destroying cultural heritage is such a foolish strategic move in any conflict

WORLD

SINCE the start of the ongoing United States–Israeli military campaign against Iran, the human toll of the conflict has mounted relentlessly. Civilian casualties have been reported across the country, and the bombing campaign has caused widespread destruction to infrastructure. Alongside military targets, thousands of civilian buildings have been damaged or destroyed in the first weeks of the war. Amid this destruction, another dimension of the conflict is increasingly drawing international concern: the damage inflicted on Iran’s cultural heritage. Several historically significant sites, including UNESCO landmarks, have been affected. Blasts in Tehran have damaged the Golestan Palace, while strikes in Isfahan…

Mar

24

2026

By JABARI GIBBS, THE CURRENT

Woman charged with attempted murder under Georgia abortion law

WORLD

A 31-year-old U.S. Army veteran from Kingsland, Georgia, has been charged with attempted murder, the first time that a mother has been charged under Georgia’s restrictive abortion law. The arrest comes two months after Alexia Moore was rushed to the emergency room in Camden County, pregnant and in extreme pain. Doctors at the Southeast Georgia Health System hospital delivered a severely premature baby girl who lived for approximately two hours, according to police. On March 4, Kingsland Police charged Moore with attempted murder and possession of a controlled substance and dangerous drug for what they allege was an attempted illegal abortion.…

Mar

23

2026

By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

The long arm of Athens: how Greece is weaponising EU law to silence a human rights defender

WORLD

IN the morning of 16 March 2026, Norwegian police arrived at the Tromsø home of Tommy Olsen and placed him under arrest. The charge sheet bore a Greek stamp. The legal instrument was a European Arrest Warrant — a mechanism designed to facilitate the seamless transfer of dangerous criminals across EU borders. But Olsen is not a criminal. He is the founder of Aegean Boat Report, a nongovernmental organisation that has spent years doing what neither the Greek state nor the European Union has consistently been willing to do: bear witness to the drowning, the pushbacks, and the slow erasure…

Mar

23

2026

By The African Mirror

On the edge of catastrophe: Trump’s ultimatum and the war that could shatter global markets

WORLD

THE war the United States and Israel launched against Iran on 28 February has never been merely a Middle Eastern affair. From the first missile strike, its implications for global energy security, African economies, and the architecture of the postwar international order were obvious to anyone paying attention. Now, four weeks on, those implications have sharpened to a knife's edge. On Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump issued what may be the most consequential ultimatum of the conflict to date, threatening to destroy Iran's power plants - beginning with its largest - unless Tehran fully reopened the Strait of Hormuz within…

Mar

21

2026

By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Eid in the streets of Jerusalem: the calculated erasure of a sacred right

WORLD

THE sound reached them before anything else. Rising from behind the Herod's Gate and echoing off the stone walls of the Old City, the takbir — Allahu Akbar, God is the greatest — swelled into the pre-dawn air over occupied East Jerusalem. Hundreds of Palestinian worshippers had gathered at the closest points they were permitted to reach: Damascus Gate, Herod's Gate, the streets and pavements outside a compound whose gates had been locked to them for three uninterrupted weeks. They came for Eid al-Fitr. They came, as generations before them had, to mark the end of Ramadan with communal prayer…

Mar

21

2026

By TINA SOLIMAN HUNTER

Why Middle East gas field attacks could send energy prices soaring

WORLD

ISRAEL’S bombing of Iran’s South Pars gas field has sent shockwaves through global energy markets. The South Pars gas field is part of the world’s largest gas field, known as North Dome, shared by Iran and Qatar. Until now, nations on both sides of the conflict have confined their attacks to civilian infrastructure, where the damage is unlikely to affect critical services. But Israel’s attack on South Pars and Iran’s retaliatory strike on Qatari gas infrastructure represent a major escalation in the Middle East conflict. So why is energy infrastructure being targeted? And how might this affect global energy prices?…

Mar

21

2026

By The African Mirror

Death tried Chuck Norris once

WORLD

YOU will not find a death certificate for Chuck Norris. You will find a very politely worded request from the Grim Reaper asking him to consider resting - and Chuck Norris, for the first time in 86 years of roundhouse kicks, running gun battles, and impossible push-ups, graciously agreed. The world woke on the morning of 20 March 2026 to news that would have seemed, to several generations of devoted fans, like the punchline to a joke too cruel to be funny. Carlos Ray "Chuck" Norris - martial arts grandmaster, action star, Texas Ranger (honorary and otherwise), internet demigod, and…

Mar

22

2026

By ALI M. LATIFI

Pakistan bombed a Kabul rehab centre. Where’s the outrage?

WORLD

I began the morning of 18 March with a visit to a drug rehabilitation centre that had come under Pakistani military attack less than 48 hours prior. It was a cold and wet morning. The overcast clouds were a particularly drab shade of grey that reflected the anger, sadness, and pain of a country once again gripped by tragedy. Distraught families were making their way along the rain-soaked, muddy road to see if their sons, brothers, and nephews were among the 400 men the Afghan authorities said were killed while trying to kick addictions to everything from heroin to crystal meth to the ecstasy-like party pills that have…

Mar

20

2026

By The African Mirror

Ethnic cleansing by other means: UN indicts Israel over mass displacement and accelerating land seizure

WORLD

THE Israeli government has pursued what the United Nations Human Rights office now describes as a concerted policy of mass forcible transfer throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory - a finding that carries legal weight sufficient, in the UN's own estimation, to constitute ethnic cleansing and potentially crimes against humanity. The assessment is contained in a comprehensive report covering the twelve months to 31 October 2025, released this week in Geneva. Its release comes as conditions on the ground have continued to deteriorate sharply, with UN officials noting that the pace of land seizure and population displacement has only accelerated since…