Latest news with #foodInsecurity
Arab News
a day ago
- Health
- Arab News
Anti-aircraft missiles fire as drones fly over Port Sudan: witnesses
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Anti-aircraft missiles fired over Sudan's wartime capital Port Sudan on Saturday, eyewitnesses reported, as drones flew over the once-safe haven city. Since April 2023, war has raged between Sudan's regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Port Sudan, seat of the army-backed government, came under attack by drones blamed on the RSF for the first time early this month. The campaign of drone strikes attacked infrastructure including the country's last functioning civilian international airport, power stations and major fuel depots. The near-daily strikes had stopped for over a week until Saturday, when residents in the city heard 'the sound of anti-aircraft missiles north and west of the city and drones flying in the sky,' one witness told AFP. Since Sudanese authorities fled the capital Khartoum early in the war, Port Sudan has hosted government ministries, the United Nations and hundreds of thousands of people. Nearly all aid into the country — home to nearly 25 million people suffering dire food insecurity — transits through Port Sudan. The war has killed tens of thousands, uprooted 13 million and created what the UN describes as the world's largest hunger and displacement crises. It has also effectively split Sudan in two, with the army holding the center, east and north, while the paramilitaries and their allies control nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south. Since losing Khartoum in March, the RSF has adopted a two-pronged strategy: long-range drone strikes on army-held cities accompanied by counteroffensives to reclaim territory in the country's south. The drone strikes have impacted infrastructure across Sudan's army-held northeast, with attacks on power stations causing blackouts for millions of people. A blackout in Khartoum also cut off access to clean water, according to health authorities, causing a cholera outbreak that has killed close to 300 people this month.
The Herald
3 days ago
- Business
- The Herald
Forty graduates turn conservation training into economic opportunity
Forty youths and women received certificates on Thursday in Bloemfontein for completing a community-based training programme hosted by Meals on Wheels in partnership with SANParks as part of a growing initiative to tackle youth unemployment, food insecurity and economic inequality in South Africa. The training focused on agriculture, food preservation, leather and beauty product manufacturing, supported by the government and private sector partners. It aims to equip vulnerable community members with hands-on skills to start their own businesses and build self-sufficiency. Seiso Mohai, deputy minister of agriculture, land reform and rural development, applauded the graduates for embracing an opportunity that links conservation with job creation. 'We must begin to see agriculture and biodiversity not only as tools for survival but as platforms for innovation and growth. What we are witnessing today is not just a graduation but a shift in how we build resilience in our rural communities,' said Mohai. Skumsa Nthanga, SANParks head of socioeconomic transformation and Vision 2040 project lead, told TimesLIVE that the programme's purpose is to empower communities, especially those near biodiversity-rich landscapes, to reclaim their heritage through sustainable economic activity. 'We want to see beneficiaries establish and run their own enterprises. Our national parks are in remote areas with limited job opportunities. This programme is about closing that gap,' she added. One of the graduates, Thulisa Mnqabisa from Nomathamsanqa, said she closed her beauty salon to join the training. 'I wanted to learn how to develop my own beauty products and eventually use them in my salon,' she said. Mnqabisa told TimesLIVE that she now plans to manufacture and distribute her beauty products to BnB houses and hotels. 'The knowledge I got here will help me employ others in my community. That's the dream.'
Irish Times
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
I showed my friends in Israel this photo of a starving baby in Gaza and asked them if they knew
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is now reaching new and ever-more shocking depths, with an estimated two million Palestinians facing imminent and catastrophic food insecurity because of a two-month Israeli blockade of relief entering the strip. The recent distressing images of emaciated children, including one particularly upsetting photograph of six-month-old Siwar Ashour, have appalled the world. The UN says hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza are at immediate risk of famine. Millions of words have been written describing the unfolding horror. But one question that is rarely answered is how ordinary Israelis feel about this. How much do they know about the imminent Israeli-induced famine on their doorstep? As an Irish person living in Tel Aviv, I have written here before that the war you see in the media is not the war we see ; that Israeli media – in particular the three mainstream news channels – simply do not show the most harrowing images that the rest of the world has been seeing for nearly 18 months of war. As an Irish-born journalist and an Israeli citizen, I have become increasingly exasperated and exhausted watching the main evening news in Israel. [ I am Irish and live in Israel. The war we see on TV is not the one you see Opens in new window ] Understandably, a nation at war will generate and endeavour to sustain its self-serving narrative of what has happened since October 7th, 2023. Facts may be facts – but explanations, interpretations, perspectives and testimonies can radically differ, especially at a time of war. Although it is increasingly grotesque to describe recent Israeli military actions in Gaza as the acts of a nation 'at war'. In recent months, the gap between how the mainstream media inside and outside Israel report on what is happening in Gaza has widened. READ MORE But what once could be described as understandable differences of polarised political opinion has now evolved into a chasm of counterfactual storytelling, infected at times with pernicious language. The use of phrases such as 'baby killers' or 'murderers of children', which is now commonly used in the mainstream Irish media, raises eyebrows in Israel. For many here this language is a not-so-subtle allusion to the classic and centuries-long anti-Semitic trope of blood libel. Israelis themselves, however, are increasingly trapped inside a misinformation bubble that risks, if not the very existence of the state, certainly its status as a country previously regarded as having a free and open democratic press. With the notable exception of the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper, the media in both Hebrew and English are failing ordinary Israelis. [ The Irish Times view on the war in Gaza: the world is still standing by Opens in new window ] I recently returned from a brief trip to Ireland, my first since the October 7th Hamas terror attack on Israel. The one question I was repeatedly asked was: what do Israelis see – or not see as is the case – about the war on Gaza? With this in mind, I took what I knew to be the risky step of showing an image of six-month-old Siwar Ashour to close friends in Tel Aviv, and asked them two simple questions. First, had they seen the images of Siwar, or any similar images of starving children in Gaza before? Secondly, how do they feel that this has been done in their name? Five-month-old Siwar Ashour, one of hundreds of children diagnosed with malnutrition in Khan Yunis, Gaza on May 1st, 2025. Photo by Doaa Albaz/Anadolu via Getty Images I do not often bring up the horror of Gaza with my Israeli friends and certainly not my Israeli in-laws. Who wants to invite a brother-in-law over to Shabbat dinner or birthday celebrations if they persist in talking about plausible genocide or ethnic cleansing? But with hindsight, in shying away from these difficult conversations, I perhaps missed the opportunity to learn and reveal something unknown about this war. The friends I asked are, like me, all parents of young children. No one I asked said they had seen the specific image of baby Siwar. And while they all acknowledge the horror of the war in Gaza and accept the gravity of the food shortages, not one of them could recall seeing any images of emaciated children on Israeli television news. Here, I have changed their names. Tal (48) says he does not support the war. 'There is the Israeli government, Netanyahu, and there is the Israeli people. This government should be arrested,' he told me. He said he feels helpless, and understands the 'disgust' abroad at some images he has seen on CNN. Yoav (42) says Israelis are 'exhausted; we are still running to bomb shelters'. But he doesn't reject accusations of an Israel-manufactured famine. He puts it bluntly: 'Famine, it's starvation, they are being starved.' He then adds: 'This government's argument is we shouldn't be feeding those who are trying to kill you ... and people buy that'. [ Bernie Sanders: Senator has 'no apologies' for his position on Israel's attack on Gaza Opens in new window ] Maya (47) is also keen to separate herself and her family, friends and acquaintances from the Netanyahu government. 'I did not vote for this government. I despise this government. It has done so much damage to the Israeli people. I would do anything I could do to replace, remove or bring it down.' She did, however, add that the priorities of those around her may be different. 'The average Israeli wants the war to end, the hostages to be released and soldiers to return home.' But then she says, with some hesitation, that '[the average Israeli] doesn't care much about the Palestinians after October 7th'. My friends' attitudes are perhaps typical of Tel Aviv, not all of Israel. A recent poll on Channel 13 news revealed that while 53 per cent of the Israeli public believe the war has been sustained because of the political self-interest of the government – with 35 per cent of the opinion that the war was dragging on for operational needs – just 46 per cent of overall respondents were against the continuation of the war. Still, there are some hopeful signs in Israel. Just last month 'advertisements' appeared on bus stop shelters across Tel Aviv, with the faces of dozens of children killed in Gaza. The caption read: 'Refuse to go to War. 18,000 children dead'. The sponsor of these subversive images that challenge the silence of the mainstream news channels is an Israeli-Palestinian organisation called Standing Together . I have little doubt that history will not be kind to how Israeli news channels met their responsibilities to show the truth of what the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is doing and has done in Gaza in the name of all Israelis. I also do not doubt that Israeli children will be asking their parents in the years ahead some variation of the question I asked: what did they know or not know about the Israeli-induced starvation in Gaza. Paul Kearns is an Irish-born freelance journalist based in Tel Aviv
CTV News
17-05-2025
- Business
- CTV News
An affordable and simple meal to make on the BBQ during grilling season
Home economist Jodi Kachkar has tips for affordable and easy meals at a time when food insecurity is at an all-time high.
Arab News
17-05-2025
- Arab News
They once lived the 'gangster life.' Now they tackle food insecurity in Kenya's slums
MATHARE: Joseph Kariaga and his friends once lived the 'gangster life' in Nairobi's Mathare slum, snatching phones, mugging people and battling police. But when Kariaga's brother was shot dead by police, the young men took stock. 'We said, 'We cannot live like this. We are going to lose our lives.' Many of our friends had died,' said Kariaga, now 27. 'I reflected on my life. I had to change.' Now the men are farmers with a social mission. Nearly a dozen of them founded Vision Bearerz in 2017 to steer youth away from crime and address food insecurity in one of Kenya's poorest communities. Despite challenges, Vision Bearerz makes a modest but meaningful community impact, including feeding over 150 children at lunches each week. Some residents praise the group and call the men role models. Amid cuts to foreign funding by the United States and others, experts say local organizations like this may be the future of aid. Vision Bearerz works on an urban farm tucked away in the muddy streets and corrugated-metal homes that make up Mathare, one of Africa's most populous slums. Estimates say about a half-million people live in this neighborhood of less than two square kilometers. Some 2 million people, or 60% of Nairobi's population, live in informal settlements, according to CFK Africa, a non-governmental organization that runs health and poverty reduction programs in such neighborhoods and is familiar with Vision Bearerz' work. Lack of infrastructure is a key challenge in these communities, which are growing amid sub-Saharan Africa's rapid urbanization and booming youth population, said Jeffrey Okoro, the group's executive director. Poverty pushes youth into crime, Okoro added. 'Most folks in slums such as Mathare are not able to earn enough to buy a decent meal, and kids who are under 5 are twice as likely to be malnourished,' he said. 'One of the other major challenges affecting young people is gangs, and the promise of making a quick buck.' The farmers of Vision Bearerz know this well. 'When you are born from this land, there is not much you have inherited, so you have to make it yourself,' said Ben Njoki, 28, whose face tattoos are reminders of a gang-affiliated past. 'You have to use violence.' In 2017, not long after Kariaga's brother was killed, Njoki and other young men made a plan to change. More than a dozen people they grew up with had been killed, and they realized they would follow if they did not find an alternative to crime, said Moses Nyoike, 32, the chair of Vision Bearerz. To keep busy, the group began collecting garbage and would split profits from trading vegetables, buying produce in another county and reselling it locally. They noticed a gap in the supply of vegetables to Mathare, and with permission from authorities they cleaned up a garbage dump and began planting. Polluted soil, and water rationing, made it a tough start. Then, inspired by a TikTok account that showcased farming in a Colombian slum, Vision Bearerz tried their hand at hydroponics. With the help of an NGO that supports community enterprises, Growth4Change, they were able to get materials and training in urban farming methods. Today, Vision Bearerz grows vegetables, raises pigs and farms tilapia in a small pond. They sell a portion of what they produce, with revenue also coming from running a car wash and public toilet. With the earnings, the group buys maize flour to make ugali, a dough-like staple food, and beans, which supplement produce from their farm in weekly lunches for children. Vision Bearerz also runs outreach programs to warn against drug use and crime, and has sessions where women teach girls about feminine health. 'The life I was living was a lie. It didn't add up to anything. We just lost people. Now, we are winning people in the community,' Njoki said. Davis Gichere, 28, another founding member, called the work therapeutic. Challenges remain. Joining Vision Bearerz requires a pledge to leave crime behind, and there have been instances of recidivism, with at least one member arrested. Lingering criminal reputations have led to police harassment in the past, and finding money to buy food for Saturday feedings is a weekly struggle. Funding cuts across the development space, including the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development, make the prospect of new financing dim. At least one other group in Nairobi's Kibera slum, Human Needs Project, does similar work of urging youth away from crime and addressing food insecurity through urban farming. It's a model that can be scaled up or copied elsewhere, said Okoro of CFK Africa. 'The future of development is locally led organizations," he said, noting they are best suited to understanding the needs of their communities. Kariaga still feels the pain of his brother's death, but is proud of his new job. 'Farming can change the world,' he said, a silver-capped tooth glinting in the sun. ___
