reports
A Pakistan provincial government has ordered an inquiry into child marriages in areas affected by floods in 2022 following an exclusive AFP story on the subject. Pakistan’s high rate of marriages for underage girls had been inching lower in recent years, but after unprecedented floods in 2022 rights workers
reports
Earth’s population will peak in the mid-2080s at around 10.3 billion people, then drop slightly to a level much lower than anticipated a decade ago, the United Nations said. The current population of 8.2 billion people will rise to that maximum over the next 60 years, then
reports
More migrants and refugees are embarking on dangerous journeys across Africa toward the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea where they face growing risk of abuse such as kidnapping and organ theft, a UN-backed report said on Friday. The routes crisscrossing the Sahara northwards from West and East Africa are
reports
Only a quarter of Britons believe the country should be outside the European Union, according to a report published on Wednesday, the lowest proportion since the 2016 vote to leave the bloc. Britain will hold a national election on July 4, its first since the country formally left the EU
reports
Abigail Castillo was about to cross the US border illegally when she heard President Joe Biden was halting asylum. She continued anyway, walking hours through the mountains east of San Diego with her toddler son, hoping it wasn’t too late. “I heard that they were going to do it
Middle East
The United Nations warned on Friday that it had only received 12 percent of the $2.7 billion being sought for war-wracked Sudan, adding that “famine is closing in.” Tens of thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced in Sudan since war broke out in April 2023
reports
Less than a year since the rape and murder of six-year-old Leen Talib in a case that shocked Lebanon, the country has again been rocked by a scandal involving the sexual abuse of children, and this time the social media platform TikTok is caught up in the furore. Lebanese authorities
reports
The United Nations food agency warned Sudan’s warring parties Friday that there is a serious risk of widespread starvation and death in Darfur and elsewhere in Sudan if they don’t allow humanitarian aid into the vast western region. Leni Kinzli, the World Food Programme’s regional spokesperson, said
reports
Syria’s war has killed more than 507,000 people, a war monitor said Thursday ahead of the 13th anniversary of the conflict which has displaced millions at home and abroad. The government’s brutal suppression of an uprising that erupted on March 15, 2011, triggered a full-scale civil war
reports
In the past six months, Syria has experienced the worst surge of violence since 2020, the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic said on Monday. During that time, it added, various forces have targeted civilians and essential infrastructure across several battlefronts, committing acts that
Freedom
Iran is responsible for the “physical violence” that led to the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022 and sparked nationwide protests against the country’s mandatory headscarf, or hijab, laws and its ruling theocracy, a UN fact-finding mission said Friday. The stark pronouncement came in a wide-ranging initial report
reports
Iraq enjoys tremendous oil wealth but many hard-scrabble farmers in the north say crude spills have contaminated their lands, piling on pressure as they already battle drought. Amid the hills of Salaheddin province, puddles of the viscous black liquid pollute the otherwise fertile and green fields, rendering vast swaths of
reports
Arab women between two feminist visions.