WORLD - The African Mirror

Oct

29

2025

From 9/11 to Gaza: How I lost faith in the humanitarian system

WORLD

TWENTY-FOUR years ago, on 11 September 2001, I sat on the veranda of a picturesque seafront restaurant in the Gaza Strip. I had started working for the United Nations just two years earlier and was at a table with some Western diplomats and foreign aid workers. I watched as the young waiter carrying our food froze en route to our table and followed his eyes to a TV screen above our heads. It was showing news footage of a plane slamming into one of the World Trade Centre buildings in New York City. The reaction to those attacks started a…

Oct

29

2025

By RANA MITTER

Xi-Trump summit: Trade, Taiwan and Russia still top agenda for China and US presidents – 6 years after last meeting

WORLD

SIX years have passed since Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump last met, but the substance of discussions remains largely the same. Back in 2019, trade and Taiwan also rode high on the agenda. Ahead of the pair’s expected meeting on Oct. 30, 2025, Trump also indicated he wants to enlist China’s help in bringing Russia to the peace table – adding a third weighty issue for the two men to chat about. But how has the needle moved on these three issues – trade, Taiwan and China-Russia relations – since the last meeting between Trump and Xi? Rana Mitter,…

Oct

28

2025

By AMIN SAIKAL

The leader most capable of governing a future Palestinian state is languishing in an Israeli jail

WORLD

AS the future of Gaza hangs in the balance, the Palestinian Authority (PA) needs renewal if it’s to eventually govern the strip and play a key role in making the two-state solution a reality. The PA has not proved effective under Mahmoud Abbas, the heavily criticised, unpopular 89-year-old leader. Abbas’s time has passed. There’s a massive need for a more dynamic figure to replace him and reform the PA into a more legitimate and instrumental governing body that can unite the various Palestinian factions. Under the circumstances, no one fits the bill better than Marwan Barghouti, who has been languishing…

Oct

28

2025

By SERGEY V. POPOV

Sanctions on Russia have failed to stop the war so far – will Trump’s latest package be any different?

WORLD

DONALD Trump has finally decided to hit Russia with sanctions – the first package he has imposed since he came back to the White House in January. The sanctions target Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two largest oil companies, as retaliation for Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine. The announcement came in the wake of the decision to call off a planned summit between the two leaders in Budapest next month. The US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, said in a statement: “We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions.” In fact, the…

Oct

28

2025

By LEILA AMINEDDOLEH

You’ve just stolen a priceless artifact – what happens next?

WORLD

THE high-profile heist at the Louvre in Paris on Oct 19, 2025, played out like a scene from a Hollywood movie: a gang of thieves steal an assortment of dazzling royal jewels on display at one of the world’s most famous museums. But with the authorities hot in pursuit, the robbers still have more work to do: How can they capitalise on their haul? Most stolen works are never found. In the art crime courses I teach, I often point out that the recovery rate is below 10%. This is particularly disturbing when you consider that between 50,000 and 100,000…

Oct

27

2025

By The African Mirror

Gaza health crisis: Critical gaps persist two weeks into ceasefire

WORLD

TWO weeks into Gaza's fragile ceasefire, the World Health Organisation has delivered a stark assessment: despite modest progress on aid flows, the enclave's shattered health system remains catastrophically inadequate, with 15,000 Palestinians - nearly 4,000 of them children - desperately awaiting medical evacuation. The numbers reveal the scale of the crisis. Gaza's 2.1 million residents now depend on roughly 2,100 hospital beds. More than 170,000 people have been injured across two years of devastating conflict. On Thursday, the WHO conducted its first post-ceasefire medical evacuation—just 41 patients and 145 companions—a figure the agency must increase tenfold to meet minimum humanitarian…

Oct

27

2025

By The African Mirror

Domestic violence nonprofits are winning against the Trump administration in court

WORLD

NONPROFITS working to combat domestic violence and sexual assault have notched a string of legal wins as they push back against efforts by the Trump administration to put restrictions on work that goes against the administration’s views. A series of lawsuits has, at least temporarily, blocked the administration from enforcing restrictions on millions of dollars of funding for upcoming grants and forced it to return grants it took away from some nonprofits working with LGBTQ+ victims. Domestic violence groups and the broader network of gender-based violence nonprofits have been on high alert since the Trump administration issued a series of…

Oct

27

2025

By JAMAIMA AFRIDI

Children under fire as Pakistan drone war escalates

WORLD

SHAHFAHAD KHAN DAWAR was helping three of his seven children and his nephew prepare for school in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in May when one of his sons ran to him, pointing into the sky and exclaiming, “Baba, Baba, there’s a drone.” His wife also tried to warn everyone that something was flying at low altitude towards their home in Hurmuz, a village in the mountainous North Waziristan district. This story was originally published by The New Humanitarian.By Jamaima Afridi Before anyone could react, the strike hit. The four children were all killed. Dawar’s wife and six others were wounded.…

Oct

25

2025

By ADAM SIMPSON

Japan’s economy needs foreign workers, not the nationalist approach pushed by its new leader

WORLD

SANAE TAKAICHI has made history by becoming Japan’s first female prime minister. However, this was hardly a win for feminist or progressive politics. Takaichi is a right-wing ultraconservative whose policy positions derive from traditionalist perspectives on the role of women, Japanese history and society more broadly. She has the same anti-immigrant positions as conservatives and right-wing populists the world over, defending “national identity and traditional values”, while emphasising the importance of strong economic growth. Far from solving Japan’s economic problems, however, policies that restrict immigration tend to cause labour shortages and inflation. Japan is the canary in the coalmine for…

Oct

25

2025

By GWYN MCCLELLAND

As Gaza starts to rebuild, what lessons can be learned from Nagasaki in 1945?

WORLD

AT first, there might not seem to be any immediate similarities between a devastated Nagasaki after the US atomic bombing in 1945 and Gaza today, aside from massive destruction. But in considering Gaza’s recovery from war – should the current ceasefire hold – much may be gleaned from Nagasaki’s experience and how it managed the painful process of starting over and rebuilding from virtually nothing. Damage and destruction The estimates of those killed from the atomic bombings in 1945 range widely from 70,000–140,000 at Hiroshima and 40,000–70,000 at Nagasaki. In Gaza, the Palestinian health authorities say more than 67,000 Palestinians…