WORLD - The African Mirror

Mar

17

2026

Schools without pupils: Lebanon’s crisis displaces 667,000 as donor world looks away

WORLD

IN a school in Beirut's Burj Hammoud neighbourhood, the desks have been pushed aside. Mattresses line the floors. Plastic bags stuffed with belongings hang from the pupils' coat hooks. The children who once sat in these rows are now among the displaced - part of a swelling tide of humanity that, in less than two weeks, has transformed Lebanon's education infrastructure into the country's primary humanitarian shelter network. This is Lebanon in March 2026: a country being shelled into displacement for the second time in eighteen months, its schools pressed once more into emergency service, and its humanitarian response system…

Mar

16

2026

By The African Mirror

SA vs Israel divides world at the ICJ

WORLD

THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE became the latest arena for the fracture lines of global power when four countries — the United States, Namibia, Fiji, and Hungary — filed formal declarations of intervention in South Africa's genocide case against Israel, just as Israel submitted its counter-memorial to the world court after months of extensions. The filings, made under Article 63 of the ICJ Statute, bring the total number of states seeking to participate in the landmark proceedings to 22 — an exceptional figure for a case that has drawn more sustained international legal attention than any dispute in the court's…

Mar

14

2026

By JONATHAN ESTE

Iran war: the search for an ‘off ramp’

WORLD

FROM the defiant tone struck by Iran’s newly appointed supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, in his first statement as leader on Thursday, it appears that the ayatollah has no intention of calling an end to Iranian resistance. Instead, Khamenei – who did not appear in public but whose words were read out on state media – said Iran was preparing to open new fronts in the war and would continue to block the Strait of Hormuz. He also vowed to avenge Iran’s “martyrs”, among whom he counts his own father and wife, stressing that “every member of the nation who is…

Mar

14

2026

By EBONY JJ CURRY

For these Black Muslim women, Ramadan is about faith, tradition and sisterhood

WORLD

AROUND 5 a.m., Detroit is still dark, and Zarina El-Amin is already up, moving with purpose. Ramadan, she said, makes motherhood feel quieter on the inside. Home becomes the first masjid of the day — soft footsteps, warm light, a clock watched closely, and a family waking up together because the fast is set to begin as soon as dawn breaks. The mother of three is among 1.8 billion practising Muslims — almost one-quarter of the world’s population — participating in the Islamic holy month that commemorates the revelation of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad. From sunrise to sunset…

Mar

13

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

ONE BILLION DOLLARS A DAY: The price of war while millions starve

WORLD

THE global humanitarian system is buckling under the weight of a war it did not start and cannot stop. Over two days of UN briefings in Geneva, a cascade of agency officials laid bare the full anatomy of collapse: toxic black rain falling on Tehran after strikes on oil depots; nearly 700,000 people displaced across Lebanon; Afghan children screened for malnutrition at twice the rate of a week ago; and Sudan's food pipeline rerouted 9,000 kilometres around the Cape of Good Hope because the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb strait are no longer safe to traverse. On Wednesday,…

Mar

13

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

Western front opens at the Hague: Netherlands and Iceland join genocide case against Israel as intervention coalition swells to 18

WORLD

TWO more Western nations have formally stepped into the most consequential genocide case before the International Court of Justice in a generation. On 11 March 2026, the Netherlands and Iceland each filed declarations of intervention in the proceedings brought by South Africa against Israel — moving the case from a Global South-led initiative into unmistakably broader international terrain and putting Western allies of Israel on record on opposite sides of the same dispute. Both states invoked Article 63 of the ICJ’s Statute, which confers an unconditional right of intervention on any party to the convention under consideration — in this…

Mar

13

2026

By BOB BOWKER

After the Iran war, Persian Gulf nations face tough decisions on the US – a former diplomat explains

WORLD

WHEN the US-Israeli war on Iran finally ends, the Middle East will be even less predictable than it was before it started. The decision by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to go to war – and the Iranian response – may be a watershed moment for the region. It is highly unlikely the Persian Gulf states will be prepared to pay a similar price again for the US to pursue its own interests. When the war began, these countries quickly found that neither their alignment with the US security umbrella nor their recent diplomatic engagement…

Mar

12

2026

By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS

War without exit: inside the twelfth day of the US-Iran-Israel conflict

WORLD

TWELVE days after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iranian territory, the conflict that many governments and analysts assumed would be short, surgical, and containable has become something else entirely: a multi-front, multi-actor war that is metastasising across the region with no visible off-ramp. On Wednesday, the twelfth day of hostilities, the combatants renewed bombardments across Israel, Lebanon and the Gulf states - the second consecutive day of what military observers are describing as some of the heaviest exchanges in the conflict so far. Iran launched fresh missile barrages that drove millions of Israelis into bomb shelters in…

Mar

12

2026

By MICHELLE GRATTAN

5 members of Iranian women’s soccer team defect, Australia deploys RAAF plane and missiles to Gulf

WORLD

THE Albanese government has given humanitarian visas to five members of the Iranian women’s soccer team, including its captain, to enable them to remain in Australia, and is offering protection to any more of the women who want to defect. The elaborate operation to give the women protection culminated late Monday night, with the Australian Federal Police moving the women, who were staying at a Gold Coast hotel, to a safe location. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke met with the women at the Gold Coast location. He told a Brisbane news conference early Monday that the women were happy to…

Mar

12

2026

By SPECIAL CORRESPONDENTS

Nearly 700,000 flee in one week as Israel batters Lebanese cities; UN warns of funding collapse

WORLD

IN seven days of bombardment, Israel has driven nearly 700,000 people from their homes across Lebanon - a displacement wave so swift that government registration numbers jumped by more than 100,000 in a single day, with no end in sight. The crisis has deepened amid the wider Middle East war, with 84 children already dead and more than 667,000 people uprooted, according to two United Nations agencies. The figures represent one of the fastest mass displacement events recorded in the region in recent memory. The escalation was triggered by intensified airstrikes and evacuation warnings issued on 2 March for residents…