World Without US

Fleeing from war, the experience of Romani people in Germany differs from that of other Ukrainians. They often encounter racism instead of help. More than 1.1 million people have fled to Germany as a result of the war in Ukraine — including an estimated several thousand Romani refugees, members of Europe's largest minority. While members of mainstream Ukrainian society received a warm and unbureaucratic welcome as refugees, most Romani people have experienced a very different Germany: highly bureaucratic, unhelpful, suspicious, derogatory, and racist.

This is the conclusion reached by the Reporting and Information Center on Antiziganism (MIA) in its monitoring report "Antiziganism against Ukrainian Romani refugees in Germany." Antiziganism is a form of racism that is directed against Romani people or against people who are perceived as such.

Romani families fleeing the war in Ukraine are entitled to the same assistance in Germany as other Ukrainians. "But this welcoming culture is simply not there for Romani people," MIA managing director Guillermo Ruiz told DW: "We have seen from day one how Ukrainian Romani people have been discriminated against in all forms." MIA has received around 220 such reports.

Nigeria has rolled out the world's first vaccine against all strains of meningitis. The shot will help ease the burden of disease in Africa's “meningitis belt.” Nigeria has become the first country in Africa's "meningitis belt" to introduce the new Men5CV or 'MenFive' meningitis vaccine. It is the world's first vaccine to provide protection against all five strains of the meningococcal bacteria that cause meningitis. Around half of meningitis cases and deaths occur in children under 5 years old, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

At least 800 people in Indonesia's North Sulawesi province have been evacuated after multiple eruptions of the area's Ruang volcano, which for days has spewed lava and ash clouds into the sky, the country's volcanology agency said on Wednesday.

The volcano, located on Ruang island about 100 km (62 miles) from the provincial capital Manado, has erupted more than three times since Tuesday.

Authorities have raised the alert level to the second highest level following the increased activity, Heruningtyas Desi Purnamasari, an official at Indonesia's Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG), told Reuters.

The eruption of Mt. Ruang were triggered by recent earthquakes on the island, with the mountain emitting dangerous and "explosive hot clouds" as high as 1.8 km (1.1 miles) into the sky, she said.

Somali pirates has released hijacked Bangladeshi cargo vessel MV Abdullah and all 23 crew members after keeping hostage for 32 days, an official of the owner company of this ship said.

KSRM Deputy Managing Director (DMD) Shahriar Jahan Rahat confirmed the media about the latest development, saying the ship and the crews got released after negotiation with the pirates ended successfully.

Mali is among the countries currently suffering extreme heat with some areas hit by a temperature of 48,5°C, has recorded more than 100 deaths, victims of the heat wave. Malian meteorologists say the city Southwestern di Kayes recorded the hottest day in African history on April 4, 2024.

The country, which just recovered from series of sanctions imposed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), has advised citizens to stay in well-ventilated areas and to limit school hours for students.

In a broadcast using the state-owned Office de Radio et Television du Mali (Ortm), the country reminded citizens that the young and elderly are the most vulnerable.

Mali has also reduced school hours for primary school pupils to protect them from the deadly temperatures.

Sources closed to Gabriel Toure hospital in the capital Mali capital, Bamako, said 102 heat-stricken patients died upon arrival.

Via @otter

New mobile malware masquerading as a news app has been spotted targeting human rights activists associated with the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), a partially recognized state in the western part of the Sahara desert.

Researchers at Cisco Talos and the Yahoo Advanced Cyber Threats Team uncovered the malicious Android mobile app, which pretends to be a variant of the Sahara Press Service app, run by a media agency associated with SADR.

In a spying campaign that Talos believes began this January and appears to be in its nascent stages, the custom-built app has been distributed via spearphishing emails sent to human rights activists in Morocco and SADR, also known as the Western Sahara.

Talos assessed that the app and surveillance infrastructure for the campaign were custom-made, suggesting “a heavy focus on stealth and conducting activities under the radar.” The app itself displays legitimate news content from the press service, but also allows the attackers to steal information from the target’s Android device and execute arbitrary code.

The northern municipality of Sara has declared a state of calamity due to severe impacts from the El Niño phenomenon on its agriculture. Vice Mayor Ryan Zerrudo announced the decision on Friday morning, April 12, after a special session of the Sangguniang Bayan (SB).

The declaration followed a recommendation by the Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (MDRRMC), which passed Resolution No. 06 on Thursday, authorizing emergency measures and access to calamity funds.

These funds are vital for mitigating the extensive damage to local agriculture caused by the drought, said Zerrudo.

The Cameroonian Ministry of Commerce announced yesterday a significant reduction in rice prices effective Friday. This price adjustment follows the arrival of a portion of the 190,000 metric tons of rice negotiated with India. The minister, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, detailed that the price for a 50 kg bag of Indian broken rice (with 25% and 5% breakage) will decrease by CFA70 to CFA90 per kilogram in the cities of Yaoundé and Douala. The revised prices set the 25% broken variety at CFA22,250 in Douala (CFA445/kg) and CFA23,000 in Yaoundé (CFA460/kg). The 5% broken rice is now priced at CFA23,500 in Douala (CFA470/kg) and CFA24,000 in Yaoundé (CFA480/kg).

As Pakistan prepares for the upcoming Eid al Fitr, peaceful dissent can be noticed in Balochistan against the regular occurrences of enforced disappearances and other atrocities inflicted by Pakistan on the Baloch community. The Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), an organisation involved in Baloch rights advocacy, recently reported.

In a recent post on 'X' the BYC announced that the fifth phase of the ongoing movement against the Baloch Genocide will be held across Balochistan on Eid.

"In the "fifth phase" of the ongoing movement against the Baloch Genocide by the Baloch Solidarity Committee, protests will be held across Balochistan on the day of Eid. The Baloch nation is currently facing serious crimes such as enforced disappearance, extrajudicial killings, forced evictions, economic sanctions and others," the committee said.

Moreover, they urged everyone to participate in this movement.

"While the entire Baloch society is suffering from forced disappearances. We request each and every member of the Baloch nation to play their full role in this movement against Baloch genocide," the BYC added.

The Chinese fishing fleet is responsible for systemic illegal fishing and human rights abuses in countries bordering the Southwest Indian Ocean (SWIO), undercutting China’s claims of supporting sustainable development and thriving blue economies in the region, according to a new report published today by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF). All of the fishers interviewed by EJF who had worked on China’s tuna fleet in the SWIO reportedly experienced or witnessed some form of human rights abuses and/or illegal fishing.

China’s distant-water fleet (DWF) is by far the largest in the world, with a growing reputation of perpetrating egregious human rights abuses and illegal fishing. EJF has conducted extensive analysis of China’s DWF over years, revealing incontrovertible illegality and abuse.

EJF has been tracking the Chinese fleet since 2020, and has conducted multiple investigations into its illegal and unethical activities, including conducting 318 interviews with former crew who worked on at least one Chinese vessel, 96 of which were in the last 6 months. However, the extent of criminal abuses in the SWIO stands in particularly stark distinction to China’s professed interests in the region, it says. This new investigation exposes four deaths which occurred on Chinese vessels between 2017 and 2023, including one suspected suicide of a crew member said to have thrown himself overboard.

Whales will be recognised as legal persons under a declaration signed by New Zealand’s Maori king and native leaders across the Pacific.

The document seeks to legally protect the rights of whales, including “freedom of movement, cultural expression — which includes language — to a healthy environment, healthy oceans, and indeed the restoration of their populations,” according to Mere Takoko, a Maori conservationist.

Although a moratorium on commercial whaling came into effect in 1985, whales are still hunted in Norway and Iceland. Japan harvests them for what it contends is research.

The declaration, signed last week by the Maori king, Te Arikinui Tuheitia Paki, and 15 paramount chiefs of Tahiti and the Cook Islands, recognises whales as legal persons but will need the backing of governments to be enforceable.

Three Tanzanian peacekeepers deployed to eastern Congo as part of a Southern African Development Community (SADC) mission were killed by rebel mortar fire this week. Three others were wounded in the attack. Their deaths again raise questions about the capacity of the SADC Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, known as SAMIDRC, to neutralize the M23 rebel group in the country's conflict-hit east.

SAMIDRC is made up of forces from South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania. They started deploying in December after DR Congo, one of SADC's 16 members, sought support under the bloc's mutual defense pact.

The deaths of the Tanzanian soldiers are "very worrying," international relations analyst Gilbert Khadiagala told DW, because it shows M23's determination to continue their sweeping attacks across Congo's eastern region.

M23 (March 23 Movement) emerged from dormancy in late 2021 to take up arms again. It has since seized vast swaths of Congo's North Kivu province, including, more recently, several strategic towns on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Goma.

The Ethiopian military summarily executed several dozen civilians and committed other war crimes on January 29, 2024, in the town of Merawi in Ethiopia’s northwestern Amhara region, Human Rights Watch said today. The incident was among the deadliest for civilians during the fighting between Ethiopian federal forces and Fano militia since the outbreak of fighting in Amhara in August 2023.

The United Nations and African Union should consider suspending new deployments of Ethiopian federal forces into international peacekeeping operations until commanders responsible for grave abuses are held accountable.

“The Ethiopian armed forces’ brutal killings of civilians in Amhara undercut government claims that it’s trying to bring law and order to the region,” said Laetitia Bader, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Since fighting began between federal forces and the Fano militia, civilians are once again bearing the brunt of an abusive army operating with impunity.”

A coalition of opposition forces in Myanmar has taken control of the busiest border crossing into Thailand. The military regime which seized power in Myanmar three years ago has suffered another big defeat, this time on the eastern border with Thailand. Troops had suffered weeks of attacks by ethnic Karen insurgents, allied with other anti-coup forces.

Hundreds of troops guarding the vital border town of Myawaddy have now agreed to surrender. Most of Myanmar's overland trade with Thailand passes through Myawaddy.

On Friday, the Karen National Union announced that it had accepted the surrender of a battalion based in the town of Thanganyinaung, about 10km (6.2 miles) west of Myawaddy.

It posted a video of its jubilant fighters showing off a substantial arsenal of weapons they had captured.

Over the weekend, the Karen forces have been negotiating with the last remaining battalion inside Myawaddy, which has apparently agreed to surrender.

This is a serious setback for the military junta, which in recent months has also been driven out of large areas along the Chinese border in Shan State, and in Rakhine State near the border with Bangladesh.

Former Kivalliq Inuit Association and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated president Paul Kaludjak sees the overall cost of living and the cost of transportation as still being two negatives for Nunavut. Kaludjak began with NTI as its vice-president of finance from 2000 until 2004, before becoming president from 2004 until 2010.

Now residing in Iqaluit, Kaludjak said the past 25 years of Nunavut have been a great journey for Inuit.

He said there’s still a lot of issues to be taken care of, but the territory is proceeding in the right direction.

“We have to engage the mining industry full scale, address the housing issues in Nunavut and play catch-up on transportation still,” he said. “As well, the overall cost of living has to be tackled big time.

“I was with the KIA when Nunavut became a territory in 1999 and seeing the process was quite gratifying. It hasn’t all been the success that we expected. Targets such as Inuit employment have never met the levels we wanted to see.

“Our Inuit organizations mandated for there to be 85 per cent Inuit employment within the Government of Nunavut (GN) and that has yet to be reached.”

At least 20 people have died, and more than 30,000 have been infected by a wave of dengue in Central America, where Guatemala and Panama have the highest death toll this year. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) warned last week that Latin America and the Caribbean will experience their “worst dengue season,” accumulating 3.5 million cases and more than 1,000 deaths this year.

The most affected in the Central American region is Guatemala, with nine deaths and about 10,200 cases, including 38 severe cases, according to data from the Ministry of Health. Last year, 118 people died in Guatemala, and 72,000 were infected by this disease transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

New research from CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, and the University of Toronto in Canada, estimates up to 11 million metric tons of plastic pollution is sitting on the ocean floor. The article, "Plastics in the deep sea—A global estimate of the ocean floor reservoir," was published in Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers.

Scientific data was used to build two predictive models to estimate the amount and distribution of plastic on the ocean floor—one based on data from remote operated vehicles (ROVs) and the other from bottom trawls. Using ROV data, 3 to 11 million metric tons of plastic pollution is estimated to reside on the ocean floor.

Kyrgyzstan recently finished repatriating women and children who were detained in Syria and Iraq for having been connected with men who fought with al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS). This has been hailed as the end to Central Asia’s struggle with large-scale jihadism, but the Taliban’s seizure of Afghanistan and the ongoing Israel–Hamas war have the potential to generate another wave of militancy.

The returning Kyrgyz nationals are currently undergoing a long and complex rehabilitation and reintegration process, though one that has been broadly successful across the region.

The Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) has declared its solidarity with civil society groups and student protesters demonstrating against the torture of a Papuan man, Defianus Kogoya, by Indonesian troops in West Papua last February.

The torture was revealed in a video that went viral across the world last month.

PANG said in a statement that peaceful demonstrations came after the video was circulated showing Defianus Kogoya bound in a water-filled barrel, being beaten and cut with knives by Indonesian soldiers.

The French Senate on Tuesday endorsed a Constitutional review project bearing significant modifications to the local electoral rules for New Caledonia, but with amendments. The text passed with 233 votes in favour and 99 against.

It aims at modifying the conditions for French citizens to access a special list of voters for the elections in New Caledonia's three provinces and the Congress.

Since 2007 the electoral for those local elections was described as "frozen" to only allow persons residing in New Caledonia before 1998.

However, the French government and its Home Affairs and Overseas minister Gérald Darmanin introduced earlier this year a new text for a "sliding" electoral roll allowing citizens who had been residing in New Caledonia for an uninterrupted ten years to access the local roll.

Sato will become the only option by 2531, suggests modelling as part of campaign to overturn outdated law requiring spouses to have same surname

Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced $6 million in humanitarian assistance to those affected by conflict in Gaza and Sudan during his ongoing visit to Egypt. “There are huge and urgent humanitarian needs in both Gaza and Sudan, and it is important that New Zealand continues to make its contribution to international efforts to meet them,” Mr Peters says.

On a visit to Cairo, during which he has met Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Minister Peters announced New Zealand would commit: $2 million to the United Nations 2720 Mechanism for Gaza, which prioritises, accelerates and maximises the impact of aid flows into Gaza to help meet urgent needs; and $4 million to support lifesaving humanitarian protection and assistance for conflict-affected Sudanese communities in Sudan and its neighbouring countries, including Egypt.

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s planning minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka was Monday appointed as the African nation’s first woman prime minister, state television announced. An economist, she takes over as prime minister from Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde, following President Felix Tshisekedi’s sweeping re-election on December 20.

Tshisekedi officially triumphed with 73.47 percent and the vote passed largely peacefully in a country long torn by violence and instability.

Fifty-nine disabled Haitian orphans and 13 of their caregivers arrived in Portland Jamaica by boat after 36 hours on the water, on Thursday March 21st, fleeing from the quickly collapsing gang-run Haiti.

The Haitian refugees are from the HaitiChildren Charity in Haiti, which has fallen victim to gangs. While they are in Jamaica, they will be housed at Mustard Seed Communities, an internationally renowned Catholic charity in Kingston.

An Easter egg hunt in a cemetery has been cancelled after a social media backlash. The event was due to take place next Wednesday at Wrexham cemetery.

Friends of Wrexham Cemetery said it was a "wonderful idea to get young people interested in local genealogy".

According to its website, the group's aim is "to promote the preservation, care and improvement of Wrexham cemetery as a place of historical value and interest and as a community green space for the public benefit".