Latest news with #MartinGriffiths
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Two new 'one-stop shop' family hubs open
Two new council-run family hubs have been opened, offering services including parenting advice, child development clinics and youth support. North Northamptonshire Council held events to open the hubs at Glapthorn Road, Oundle and Newton Road, Rushden. They act as "one-stop shops" for families, with the aim of giving children the best start in life and supporting parents and carers, the Reform UK-run council said. Council leader Martin Griffiths said: "The last few years have been a tough time for young people and families and we have to do whatever we can to support them." He added: "I'm very proud of our expanding family hubs network and I'm delighted to see the great work that is happening right at the heart of our communities." The council opened its first family hub in Towcester and plans to open a fourth by the end of the year. Elizabeth Wright, executive member for children, families, education and skills, said they are "friendly and safe spaces for babies, children, young people and their parents or carers to go when they need help and support". Family hubs date to the early 2000s, when New Labour introduced Sure Start centres - focused on supporting young families with early education, childcare and health advice. Many closed after 2010 when funding was cut by the Tories, but in 2024 the Conservative government under Rishi Sunak rolled out 400 new "family hubs" across 75 local authorities. The Labour government recently announced plans to expand the network to up to 1,000 by the end of 2028. Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. More on this story Food voucher scheme 'paused' due to high demand Family hubs to open in every council in England Councils commit £1.5m to domestic abuse service Related internet links North Northamptonshire Council
BBC News
a day ago
- Politics
- BBC News
'One-stop shop' family hubs open in Rushden and Oundle
Two new council-run family hubs have been opened, offering services including parenting advice, child development clinics and youth Northamptonshire Council held events to open the hubs at Glapthorn Road, Oundle and Newton Road, Rushden. They act as "one-stop shops" for families, with the aim of giving children the best start in life and supporting parents and carers, the Reform UK-run council leader Martin Griffiths said: "The last few years have been a tough time for young people and families and we have to do whatever we can to support them." He added: "I'm very proud of our expanding family hubs network and I'm delighted to see the great work that is happening right at the heart of our communities." The council opened its first family hub in Towcester and plans to open a fourth by the end of the Wright, executive member for children, families, education and skills, said they are "friendly and safe spaces for babies, children, young people and their parents or carers to go when they need help and support".Family hubs date to the early 2000s, when New Labour introduced Sure Start centres - focused on supporting young families with early education, childcare and health closed after 2010 when funding was cut by the Tories, but in 2024 the Conservative government under Rishi Sunak rolled out 400 new "family hubs" across 75 local Labour government recently announced plans to expand the network to up to 1,000 by the end of 2028. Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Middle East Eye
4 days ago
- General
- Middle East Eye
Gaza famine: To be killed by an air strike is easier than watching your children starve
Each morning that dawns over the Gaza Strip brings nothing but more hunger, more collapse and a deepening sense of despair. For more than three months, over two million people have endured an unprecedented catastrophe - a true famine in every sense of the word - amid a merciless war, an unrelenting siege and an unforgivable international silence. Famine in Gaza has become a daily reality. It is no longer merely a sensation of deprivation; it manifests in the sight of people collapsing in the streets from sheer exhaustion. Children, women, the elderly - no one is spared. We have witnessed, with our own eyes, bodies slumping on the pavement and lives lost outside the ruins of bakeries or at aid distribution points that never deliver. The price of a kilogram of flour has surpassed $30, while a kilogram of sugar now costs over $130. Most foods are either entirely unavailable or so scarce as to seem imaginary. The tragedy is not just in the prices, but in the absence of essential goods. People are not simply refusing to buy; there is nothing left to buy. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters There is no oil, no rice, no bread - not even a can of tuna. What appears occasionally might be a handful of red peppers or a bottle of dish detergent - a grim irony in the face of starvation. Famine in Gaza manifests in the sight of people collapsing in the streets from sheer exhaustion Areas deemed "safe", such as northern Rafah or the Qataneh district, have turned into death zones. Starving civilians who head to these locations in search of aid are being targeted. According to the United Nations, Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians since late May while they were attempting to access food aid. Dozens continue to be killed each day. As former UN aid chief Martin Griffiths warned, this deliberate famine represents "the worst crime of the 21st century". Perhaps the most heart-wrenching image of all was that of the infant Yahya al-Najjar, just a few months old, who died of severe malnutrition. His tiny body was reduced to bones draped in translucent skin - a devastating sight, unfolding in full view of the world, in the heart of Palestine. Unbearable hunger We no longer speak of hunger in the abstract. Hunger is killing us in Gaza, but it is world leaders who should be dying of shame Read More » Children now cry out daily: "We want bread!" "We want to eat!" But no one feeds them. My young cousins, only five years old, wake at dawn begging their father to bring them a loaf of bread, but he cannot afford one. A single loaf has become a luxury. Some fathers have begun to flee their tents, unable to bear the look of disappointment in their children's eyes. I saw a mother praying for her children to die, simply because she could no longer feed them. Some mothers sit at the entrances of their tents, tears falling, whispering broken prayers: "Oh God, please take them... relieve them of this suffering." In the streets, people can no longer walk. They drag their bodies. So extreme is the weakness that their legs can no longer support them. Faces are hollow, stripped of life. The children are skeletal. The men, pale and gaunt, haul their bones in heavy silence. I saw with my own eyes an elderly man, over 70 years old, ask a young man who was eating a piece of bread to share it with him. Has hunger brought us to the point where our elders must beg for a bite? Those of us who are married can no longer provide food for our wives. For months now, I have stopped entertaining the thought of having a child, not out of choice, but because this genocide has made it impossible to imagine a future for them. Follow Middle East Eye's live coverage of Israel's war on Gaza Each morning, my wife asks: "What do we have to eat?" And I answer, swallowing the shame of being unable to protect the person I love: "I'm fasting today." We fast out of despair, not piety. We drink water - when there is any - and deceive ourselves with hope, if only to survive the day. Invented meals Our daily meals are invented out of nothing: lentils mixed with pasta, rice cooked over a wood fire or soup made from nothing but boiled water. We eat, then feel hungry again an hour later. We sleep to escape the hunger, but it wakes up with us. During the day, we grow dizzy. We fall silent. We comfort one another with words. We nap, hoping the pain might ease. I have lost 14kg, and I am still fighting. But what of those with no job? No money? No one to lean on? In the street, under the blazing July sun, a child stares longingly at a vendor selling iced water. A cup costs half a dollar, but no one can afford it. There is no electricity, no fan, no shade - just thirst thick in the air. Someone walks by eating a sandwich, and five or 10 children, perhaps even elderly men, gather around, asking for a bite. It is not greed that drives them, but sheer desperation - because they are human, and hunger has taken everything else. The markets, where they still exist, are empty. Nasser Hospital, the last remaining lifeline in southern Gaza, has become a gathering point for those struggling to survive. There is no medicine or food - nothing but the screams of mothers, the tears of patients and those on the brink of starvation or death. Silent massacre Death no longer frightens anyone in Gaza. For many, it has become a dream. To be killed by shrapnel or an air strike is easier than dying while watching your children writhe in agony from hunger or your wife unable even to stand. Death is no longer the end; it is a release. The world sees and hears, but does nothing, as if our lives are not worthy of living What is happening in Gaza today is not a natural disaster. It is a deliberate famine - a massacre carried out in silence, as people waste away unseen. The population is being starved - slowly, cruelly, by design. At the same time, infrastructure is being destroyed. Hospitals are being bombed. Civilians are being killed as they crowd around aid lorries filled with flour, and the world watches from behind its screens, unmoved by any sense of humanity. This is Gaza now: a city untouched by light, inhabited by people waiting for the end. They do not ask for miracles, just some bread, some medicine and some dignity. The world sees and hears, but does nothing, as if our lives are not worthy of living. We do not write to weep, but to report the truth as it is: Gaza is choking from hunger, drowning in darkness and being annihilated in full view of the world. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
BBC News
5 days ago
- Automotive
- BBC News
North Northamptonshire to spend £5m on transport upgrades
More than £5m will be spent on resurfacing roads in the north of the county as part of a wider £7.7m package to improve local funding, from the Local Transport Grant, will support multiple projects focused on road maintenance, traffic safety and bridge repairs in North Northamptonshire. The largest share of the investment - £5.095m - has been allocated to resurfacing works across the Northamptonshire Reform UK councillor Chris McGiffen, said: "This funding is significantly more than the council has received for general transport improvements to date and gives an opportunity to deliver schemes that have previously been unaffordable." Other major investments include £1.2m for replacing a weak bridge deck on Station Road in Earls Barton and £500,000 for waterproofing at Irthlingborough viaduct. A further £350,000 has been earmarked for a new pedestrian crossing on the A509 at projects include bus gate enforcement cameras in Kettering and Corby, £270,000 for new vehicle-activated signs, and £40,000 to close a road to tackle of the local authority, Martin Griffiths, said the works would support long-term improvements to local roads. "This funding, alongside the wider plans for highways, should mean residents start to see a difference," he added.A sum of £7.7m from the local transport grant for 2025-26 - rising to £54m by 2029-30 - can be used for road maintenance, safety upgrades and traffic signal projects are expected to be completed by summer 2026. Follow Northamptonshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Middle East Eye
23-07-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Former UN aid chief: Israel committing ‘worst crime of the 21st century' in Gaza
Former United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths has accused Israel of committing a genocide in Gaza as more children starve to death in the enclave due to the continued siege. In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with Middle East Eye's Expert Witness Podcast, Griffiths said the deliberate starvation in Gaza is the worst he has seen in his many decades of work as a humanitarian. 'There can frankly be very little doubt that we are seeing starvation and hunger as an instrument of the war,' he told MEE. 'There is no prior experience in my five decades of humanitarian experience that can come close to comparison to the horror we are all seeing in Gaza,' he said. 'The UN announcement, based on serious hospital data, that people are fainting in the street from hunger and malnutrition, tells us all we need to know. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters 'It is a historic fact that children die first in these circumstances. Our humanity cannot believe our eyes.' Israel's siege on Gaza since 2 March has blocked the entry of humanitarian supplies by the UN and its partner organisations to the enclave, bringing the 2.1 million population to the brink of famine. At least 101 Palestinians, including 80 children, have died of starvation since March, including 15 who died of malnutrition on Monday, according to the Palestinian health ministry. The UN's agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), the largest humanitarian provider in Gaza, has had 6,000 trucks loaded with food and medical supplies in Egypt and Jordan for four and a half months, but Israel has yet to let them in. Prior to the current siege, aid groups were able to bring in around 600 trucks per day - the minimum amount of aid humanitarian organisations say is needed for Gaza's population, Unrwa head Philippe Lazzarini told MEE in May. Unrwa's communications director, Julitte Touma, told MEE on Tuesday that the agency has been receiving 'S.O.S messages' from Palestinians, including its own staff, pleading for any food for them and their children. Some staff members have fainted on duty because of hunger, Touma said. 'It's a genocide' Griffiths has over 50 years of professional experience as a humanitarian and conflict mediator with the United Nations and other global institutions. He has served as the UN's under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, the top humanitarian aid position at the UN. In this capacity, he served for three years between July 2021 and July 2024, under the leadership of Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Members of the UN Security Council listen as Martin Griffiths speaks during a meeting on the war in Gaza, in New York on 13 May 2024 (AFP) He presided over the UN's humanitarian aid efforts in the first nine months of Israel's devastating onslaught on Gaza, which he now labels a genocide. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN's principal judicial organ, issued binding orders to Israel in July, March and May last year to allow and ensure the unimpeded entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza amid warnings of an impending famine. Israel has failed to abide by the orders. 'I am absolutely convinced that what's going on in Gaza is a genocide, because the thing speaks for itself' - Martin Griffiths The provisional measures orders are part of the case brought by South Africa against Israel at the ICJ, accusing it of breaching the Genocide Convention of 1948, including by imposing conditions of life intended to destroy Palestinians as a group. 'I am absolutely convinced that what's going on in Gaza is a genocide, because the thing speaks for itself,' said Griffiths. He added that what's unique about Gaza is the impunity for the well-documented atrocities over the past 21 months. 'Gaza is a place for massive impunity,' he said. He also warned that the continued international failure to hold Israel accountable creates a precedent for other actors in different conflicts to follow suit without fear of consequences, because 'Israel is getting away with terrible crimes'. 'What happens in Gaza doesn't stay in Gaza.' GHF 'a lure for displacement' Griffiths denounced the US-backed aid distribution scheme in Gaza, led by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), as a 'lure for displacement'. The GHF was launched in May with the aim of replacing the UN's humanitarian work in Gaza and stopping aid reaching Hamas. But since then, the UN says that more than 1,000 starving Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army while seeking aid at the militarised GHF's distribution centres in the south of Gaza. Griffiths says the GHF undermines humanitarian action around the world. 'This is an attempt to use humanitarian delivery as a way of claiming some credit, because we're keeping the people alive. And the argument goes, as you know, that at least we're doing something the UN isn't,' he said, insisting that the UN is capable of delivering aid at scale in Gaza. Israel's US-backed Gaza aid plan may lead to second Nakba, UN agency chief warns Read More » He also rejected the Israeli claim that the UN's aid gets looted by Hamas. 'This was never tested by evidence or an accountable process,' he said. Griffiths said the GHF contravenes the established principle in humanitarian work that aid should not be distributed or controlled by one side of the conflict. 'I know personally in humanitarian operations across history, whether it's in Cambodia, Somalia, Ukraine or elsewhere, that you do not provide humanitarian aid under the auspices of one warring party, and you do not do it within a military environment.' 'This ain't humanitarian,' he said. Griffiths added that the GHF is a means of displacing Palestinians to the south and eventually out of the country. 'It's a lure for displacement,' he said. Additionally, Griffiths took aim at the GHF for failing to carry out any monitoring of where the aid goes. 'No humanitarian agency in the public domain, and I know directly, would ever get away with providing aid by shoving it off the back of a truck,' he told MEE. 'You need to continue the monitoring, third-party monitoring, to make sure that it goes to the people who you decided are the priority.' The GHF is not equipped to monitor the destination of the aid because it does not have access across Gaza. 'This is a dereliction of humanitarian duty and responsibility, never mind principles.' Griffiths added that the GHF should not be accepted as an aid distribution mechanism after any possible ceasefire. Otherwise, it would set a precedent for other conflicts, he said, including by the Russians in the occupied areas of Ukraine. 'This is a precedent which would be directly insisted on elsewhere.' 'I did a lot of work on Ukraine. The [Russians] keep pushing back on aid from the international system to come through to the people under their administration.'
