U.S. policy seen as factor in Somalia famine deaths
U.S. counter-terrorism measures and Islamist militants contributed to the nearly 260,000 deaths in Somalia's 2010-12 food crisis, analysts say.
By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — It was the catastrophe everyone knew was coming yet no one seemed able to stop.
According to analysts, a violent Islamist militia was partly to blame for thousands of deaths in Somalia's food crisis from 2010 to 2012, but so was U.S. anti-terrorism policy.
The effect of nations' collective failure to grapple with the complex problems of getting aid into famine-stricken southern Somalia has only now been established: Nearly 260,000 people died, half of them children younger than 5, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S.-based Famine Early Warning System Network, or FEWS NET, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The death toll, first reported early this week by the Associated Press, was double the worst estimates at the time.
The findings follow the first definitive scientific study on the effects of the food crisis, which found that 10% of children and 4.6% of the overall population in southern Somalia perished.
Big gains for UKIP as Labour retains by-election seat
Result underlines the threat that UKIP could renew pressure on Cameron’s leadership
Britain’s Labour party has won the South Shields parliamentary by-election, retaining a seat it has held since 1935. The anti-European Union UK Independence Party (UKIP) came second, pushing prime minister David Cameron’s Conservatives into third place.
The result underlines the threat that UKIP, which wants Britain to leave the EU and an end to "open-door immigration", poses to the Conservatives and other parties ahead of a national election in 2015 and could renew pressure on Mr Cameron's leadership.
Attracting 5,988 votes, UKIP won 24 per cent of the vote, more than double the Conservatives, notching up its second best result in a parliamentary by-election.
PRESS FREEDOM
Impunity Index lists nations where journalist murders go unsolved
Iraq has emerged as the country where the murders of journalists who ruffle feathers are least likely to be properly investigated. The annual index was published on World Press Freedom Day.
The Impunity Index, compiled by the international Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) group, includes those countries were the slayings of five or more journalists have gone unresolved.
Published on World Press Freedom Day 2013, this year's list includes 12 nations that fit the criteria.
Iraq ranked worst with 93 journalists killed in the last decade, but with no convictions at all for their murders.
Prisoner's death reignites India-Pakistan hostility
May 3, 2013 - 10:17AM
Ben Doherty
South Asia correspondent for Fairfax Media
India's relationship with Pakistan, forever fractious and this year tested by a spate of fatal border skirmishes, has been further strained by the bashing death of an Indian prisoner in a Pakistani jail.
Sarabjit Singh was a death row prisoner in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat jail, when he was beaten by two fellow inmates last Sunday.
He died of a cardiac arrest on Thursday morning, but, in an extraordinary move, his body has been flown back to India by airforce jet for a state funeral on Friday.
Somali pirates seek jobs, have good sea and negotiation skills
For a fearsome pirate, even one in self-declared retirement, there is a notable lack of what literature has led one to expect: cutlass, eye-patch, hook or even a parrot.
Instead, Mohamed Abdi Hassan, one of Somalia's - if not the world's - most notorious pirate chiefs, appears far more businessman than sea bandit, as he explains why he now wants to end the murderous hijacking of ships.
Hassan, better known as "Afweyne" or "Big Mouth", whose men once terrorised vast stretches of the Indian Ocean - generating millions of dollars in ransoms from seized ships -- now claims to have renounced piracy.
"The young men need to be trained, to get skills and get integrated into society," Afweyne said, pulling out of his briefcase an official letter apparently nominating him as an "anti-piracy officer".
Mexico's got theater in unusual spaces
With stages set up in street cars, Mexico City is celebrating its first Festival of Theater in Unusual Spaces and giving a new outlet for the city's emerging artists.
Some 25 people were trapped in a small street car in Mexico City last week; backs pushed up against the walls, watching uncomfortably as a man grabbed a stranger by the hair and yanked her to the ground.
The police weren’t called, and the incident couldn’t be found in any crime blotters the day after. But this wasn’t an example of Mexico’s troubled security situation. In fact, the aggression taking place had been rehearsed many times before, as a part of Mexico City’s first annual Festival of Theater in Unusual Spaces.
Two 1970s-era Japanese street cars situated near parks in trendy Mexico City neighborhoods serve as the staging ground for the festival, now entering its third and final week.
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