WORLD - The African Mirror

Sep

11

2021

The grief born on 9/11 forever changed the lives of these widows

WORLD

ROSELLE CHEN CINDY McGinty's grief was born on the morning of September 11, 2001, when two hijacked planes slammed into New York City's World Trade Center, killing her husband Mike McGinty. Mike was on the 99th floor of the North Tower when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into floors 93-99. "People often say to me, 'Well, it's been 20 years.' But it never leaves you, it never leaves you," she said from her home in Bloomfield, Connecticut. Cindy, now 64, recounts how she had to be strong for their children David and Daniel, who were 7 and 8 at the…

Sep

11

2021

By The African Mirror

Young Afghan women defiant as Taliban bring back moral police

WORLD

ANNIE BANERJI AS the Taliban reintroduce a moral policing ministry in Afghanistan that once controlled women's lives, female activists and students say a young generation of educated and working women will not accept oppression by the Islamist militant group. Three weeks after storming to power, the Taliban announced an all-male interim government on Tuesday that included the Ministry of Guidance and Call, formerly known as the Ministry of Promotion of Virtue and Punishment of Vice or the moral police. During the Taliban's prior 1996-2001 rule, girls could not attend school and women were banned from working or studying. Women had…

Sep

11

2021

By The African Mirror

‘We have no choice’: migrants undeterred by UK threat to send boats back to France

WORLD

RICHARD LOUGH and FORREST CRELLIN MUSTAFA Suleiman, 21, is resolute in his determination to reach Britain and won't be deterred from London's threats to intercept boats illegally carrying migrants in the Channel and send them back to France. Suleiman, who fled Sudan's Darfur region in 2019, has tried to make the perilous journey through some of the world's busiest shipping lanes twice in the past year. Both times, he was thwarted by French police before making it off the beach. "We will try and try until the last day of our life," Suleiman told Reuters in a camp on wasteland…

Jan

26

2021

By The African Mirror

China’s Xi calls for greater role for G20 in economic governance

WORLD

CHINA’S President Xi Jinping has called on the world to strengthen macro-economic policy coordination and bolster the role of the G20 in global economic governance as he pointed to a "rather shaky" recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. Speaking at a virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum - a gathering usually held in a Swiss ski resort - Xi said the global economic outlook remained uncertain and public health emergencies "may very well recur" in future. Xi, making his first appearance at the forum since his vigorous defence of free trade and globalisation in an address in Davos in 2017,…

Jan

26

2021

By The African Mirror

Trump’s coming impeachment trial aggravates rift among Republicans

WORLD

SUSAN CORNWELL THE coming second impeachment trial of former U.S. President Donald Trump on a charge of inciting the deadly storming of the Capitol has aggravated a rift among his fellow Republicans that was on full display on Sunday. At least one Republican, Senator Mitt Romney, said he believed the trial, which could lead to a vote banning Trump from future office, was a necessary response to the former president's inflammatory call to his supporters to "fight" his election defeat before the Jan. 6 attack. Ten Republicans joined the House of Representatives in voting to impeach Trump on a charge…

Jan

26

2021

By The African Mirror

Anger and grief as United Kingdom’s COVID-19 death toll nears 100,000

WORLD

ANDREW MacASKILL and PAUL SANDLE AS the United Kingdom's COVID-19 death toll approaches 100,000, grief-stricken relatives of the dead expressed anger at Prime Minister Boris Johnson's handling of the worst public health crisis in a century. When the novel coronavirus, which first emerged in China in 2019, slid silently across the United Kingdom in March, Johnson initially said he was confident it could be sent packing in weeks. But 97,939 deaths later, the United Kingdom has the world's fifth worst official death toll - more than its civilian toll in World War Two and twice the number killed in the…

Sep

10

2021

By The African Mirror

Paris attacks trial disrupted after main defendant defies judge

WORLD

TANGI SALAUN and LUCIEN LIBERT THE main suspect in the 2015 Islamist attack that killed 130 people in Paris disrupted the trial for a second consecutive day on Thursday to make political statements from the dock, prompting the judge to briefly suspend the hearing. Salah Abdeslam, 31, is believed by prosecutors to be the only surviving member of the Islamic State cell that carried out the gun-and-bomb attacks on bars, restaurants, the Bataclan concert hall and the Stade de France stadium on November 13, 2015. Salah Abdeslam The presiding judge granted him the right to speak in a discussion about…

Sep

10

2021

By The African Mirror

How 9/11 fallout proved a boon for surveillance, bane for human rights

WORLD

RINA CHANDRAN THE attacks on September 11, 2001, in the United States triggered new security laws domestically, and an extended campaign to root out terrorism worldwide which has had far-reaching consequences from the rise of surveillance technologies to refugee crises. About 20 years of post-9/11 wars have cost the United States more than $8 trillion and caused about 900,000 deaths, according to estimates by the Costs of War project at Brown University, which said it did not factor in the "high societal costs". The September 11 attacks ushered in an era of increased surveillance, human rights violations and mass displacements…

Sep

10

2021

By The African Mirror

‘Feeling free’: women criminalized by Mexico’s abortion bans celebrate ruling

WORLD

LAURA GOTTESDIENER WHEN a nurse arrived at Martha Mendez's bedside in a Mexican hospital carrying a fetus and told the teenager to ask it for forgiveness, Mendez resigned herself to the prison sentence she assumed would inevitably follow. It was March 2015, and hours earlier Mendez had arrived at the public hospital in the southern state of Veracruz suffering from pain and stomach cramps. She said she was unaware she was pregnant and that the medication she'd been prescribed months earlier, after being misdiagnosed with gastritis, could harm her pregnancy. After she suffered a miscarriage in the hospital, first the…

Jan

25

2021

By The African Mirror

Trump had no vaccine distribution plan

WORLD

THERE was no distribution plan for the coronavirus vaccine set up by the Trump administration as the virus raged in its last months in office, new President Joe Biden's chief of staff, Ron Klain, said yesterday. "The process to distribute the vaccine, particularly outside of nursing homes and hospitals out into the community as a whole, did not really exist when we came into the White House," Klain said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Biden, a Democrat who took over from Republican President Donald Trump on Wednesday, has promised a fierce fight against the pandemic that killed 400,000 people in…