British aid to double as 19m people face acute hunger, but summit unlikely to end conflict amid Saudi-UAE tensions The British foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, will urge Sudan’s warring parties to “cease bloodshed” during a major conference on Wednesday, which analysts believe is unlikely to deliver a significant step towards peace.The talks in Berlin – held on the third anniversary of the start of Sudan’s ruinous war – are expected to help address a catastrophic funding shortfall that is compounding the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Continue reading......
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A devastating ‘war of atrocities’ will continue as long as the United Arab Emirates and others back the belligerents“Bloody unacceptable.” The UN’s top official in Sudan, Denise Brown, abandoned the language of diplomacy in addressing the failure to tackle a devastating three-year conflict which has been overshadowed by Ukraine, then Gaza, and now Iran. The humanitarian crisis has dominated discussions of Sudan, she argued: “How about focusing on finding a solution to end the war?”The international conference convened in Berlin on Wednesday is intended to inject a sense of urgency, as the conflict enters its fourth year. Since Sudan’s generals...
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Devastating attack killed up to 200 people, many of them civilians, with military saying it was a ‘precision airstrike’Survivors and observers have questioned the Nigerian military’s rationale for a devastating airstrike on a busy market that killed as many as 200 people, many of them civilians.The hit on Jilli market on the border of the north-eastern Borno and Yobe states on Saturday is the latest in a string of attacks by the country’s air force over the past decade with a high civilian death toll. Continue reading......
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A top UN official has criticised lack of global urgency as reports confirm the world’s largest humanitarian crisis is worseningEfforts to end Sudan’s catastrophic war have been criticised as “unacceptable” by the country’s top UN official as a series of new reports confirm that the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis is worsening.Speaking to the Guardian on the eve of the third anniversary of the war, Denise Brown expressed her concern over the apparent lack of political urgency to end a conflict that has forced 14 million Sudanese to flee their homes. Tens of thousands of people are missing. Continue reading......
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For three years, ceasefires have been ignored and we have descended back into chaos. Now there is a credible plan for peace on the tableFreedom, peace and justice. Three words that united the Sudanese people and became the banner under which 30 years of dictatorship was brought to an end. An era of corruption, religious extremism, repression and conflict was over.I did not think that seven years on from the glorious December revolution, our nation would be on the edge of irreversible collapse. Three years of senseless violence have pushed Sudan to the brink. The country is engulfed in the...
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Amid growing evidence of fungi’s key role in ecosystems and storing carbon, mycologists seek greater recognition of the need to preserve ‘funga’ as much as flora and faunaMadagascar has long been celebrated for its remarkable wildlife, with the vast majority of its species – from ring-tailed lemurs to certain species of baobab trees – found nowhere else on the planet. But when discussing the island nation’s endemic treasures, fungi are often left out of the conversation.Yet “fungi are some of the most important things in the world”, says Anna Ralaiveloarisoa, a Malagasy scientist. “They feed 90% of terrestrial plants. Without...
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