Acute food insecurity could persist until January 2025 in areas affected by the El Niño phenomenon and armed conflicts in Mozambique, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS network).
Acute Food Insecurity “crisis (IPC Phase 3) outcomes are expected to persist from October 2024 to January 2025 in areas affected by El Niño-induced drought during the 2023/2024 agricultural season and areas impacted by conflict in the north,” reads the latest report from the FEWS network, consulted on Monday by Lusa.
The network, which brings together North American organisations, places the central and southern regions and the province of Cabo Delgado, which has been facing an armed rebellion since October 2017, in the “crisis phase, level three” of food risk, on a scale of one to five, from minimum risk to the most serious, the last pointing to a lack of food.
“This is due to a combination of factors, including the onset of the lean season in October, below-average harvests in 2024, limited income-earning opportunities due to increased competition, and above-average staple food prices,” the report states.
According to the FEWS network, these conditions will make it difficult for poor and very poor households with below-average purchasing power to access food.
The co-leader of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Alice Weidel, has said that she will oppose any arms supplies to Ukraine if she succeeds Olaf Scholz as the country’s chancellor.
The AfD nominated Weidel as its candidate for the post on Saturday, in the party’s first bid for the chancellery in its 11-year history. It has steadily risen in popularity since its founding in 2013, and is currently Germany’s second-strongest political party.
Speaking to reporters after the nomination, Weidel promised to introduce drastic immigration restrictions, to roll back Scholz’s climate policies, and to cut off military aid to Ukraine.
Jihadists and other anti-government militias entered Damascus on Saturday, taking control over the Syrian capital. They have declared the city “free” from President Bashar Assad’s government and claim that he has fled the capital.
According to Reuters, Assad, who ruled the Middle Eastern country for almost a quarter of a century, flew out of Damascus on Saturday evening “for an unknown destination,” citing two senior army officers. Hours earlier, the jihadists announced that they had gained full control over the key city of Homs after only a day of fighting.
The last two years have been the most hopeful; stacking sats, nostr and seedphrase backups.
@Vitor Pamplona I know you handle Amethyst but Primal needs to be able to log in or connect with nsec.app every time I try to sign in, it asks for my nsec.
UPDATE on SEEDPHRASE backup project.
Purchased a rotary tool to engrave stainless steel, it allows me to design, polish, personalize and customize my seedphrase keys, long-term at home, with privacy, without intermediaries, digital footprints or hazardous processes - remember to use a magnifying glass, clamp, goggles and mask - upgrading your keys is a fun, creative and intelligent process, you can even find creative ways to spray paint or anodize. Stainless steel can whitstand fire, corrosion, earthquakes, floods and ice.
Keep your keys SAFU!
"Over-engineering: India has a new employment problem
India needs to create 115 million jobs by 2030 as more people enter the workforce. It also needs to boost services and manufacturing to keep the economy expanding. However, the country faces another crisis, as unemployment among engineering graduates is on the rise. India produces 1.5 million engineering graduates annually, but only about 60% are employable and only about 45% meet industry standards. Only 10% of the engineers expected to graduate this fiscal year are anticipated to get jobs, according to a report by TeamLease, which claims to be India’s largest degree apprenticeship service provider. The rapid rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has also posed significant challenges to the sector. A report by Great Learning published in October showed that 67.5% of engineers feel that their jobs have been negatively impacted by AI."
"Alternative for Germany (AfD) – the third largest opposition party in the country’s parliament – intends to take the country out of the EU if it wins the upcoming election, several media outlets reported on Friday, citing the party’s newly drafted election manifesto. AfD, presently polling in second place behind the center-right CDU ahead of next year’s elections, has confirmed that the document is ready but has not released it to the public. The party also wants Germany to ditch the euro, and return to a “stable national currency,” media outlets including Die Zeit and Der Spiegel have claimed. “We believe that Germany’s exit from the European Union and the establishment of a new European community are necessary,” the 85-page manifesto reportedly says."
"British Secret Intelligence Service agents have been involved in covert operations against Russia on behalf of Ukraine, SIS head Sir Richard Moore has said. The SIS was created by the WWII-era Special Operations Executive and is also known as MI6. Moore made the admission in a speech at the British Embassy in Paris on Friday at the reception for his French counterpart, Nicolas Lerner of the DGSE. “We cherish our heritage of covert action which we keep alive today in helping Ukraine resist the Russian invasion,” Moore said at one point. His admission came just a day after former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson openly declared that Ukraine is a proxy of NATO in a war against Russia. “Let’s face it: We’re waging a proxy war but not giving our proxies the ability to do the job,” Johnson told the Daily Telegraph, arguing that “the problem has not been escalation; the problem has been the failure to escalate fast enough.”
"At least 23 people have been killed by the Israeli military across the Gaza Strip since dawn, including 17 in Gaza City, one in Jabalia and five, including three World Central Kitchen aid workers, in Khan Younis, according to our team on the ground.
Hunger and suffering among Palestinians in Gaza have reached “catastrophic” levels, the besieged territory’s Government Media Office says."
Dr. Robert Redfield, the virologist who served as CDC director during President Donald Trump’s first term, said on a recent podcast that the Covid virus was “intentionally engineered as part of a biodefense program,” and that “the US role was substantial,” citing research funded by the “National Institutes of Health, the State Department, USAID, and the Defense Department.”
He specifically attributed the probable creation of “some of the original viral lines” to a researcher at the University of North Carolina, although conceded that he couldn’t actually prove it. "Yeah, well, that’s what hearings with the power to compel evidence and testimony under threat of imprisonment are for – not a podcast. How about getting that researcher on the stand?"
Meanwhile, African nations are particularly aggrieved. Despite being among the hardest hit by climate change (caused mainly by the highly developed Global North), the continent receives just 3% of global climate finance. The inequity is glaring. Mozambique, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo for instance, have endured multiple cyclones and exceptional weather catastrophes in recent years, displacing thousands and wreaking economic havoc. Yet, funds to help these nations adapt and recover are scarce, leaving them trapped in a vicious circle of destruction and poverty.
Indian conglomerate Adani Group has announced a loss of almost $55 billion in market value since US prosecutors unveiled charges against its top executives, including chairman Gautam Adani, one of the world’s richest people.
The indictment issued on November 20 in New York accused Gautam Adani and several top managers of group companies of intentionally misleading international investors in relation to a $265 million bribery scheme. It alleged they “devised a scheme to offer, authorize, make, and promise to make bribe payments to Indian government officials.” Adani Group has denied the allegations, calling them “baseless.”
A group of British lawmakers and public figures, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, MP Diane Abbott, and legendary musician Brian Eno, has called on the US and UK to de-escalate the Ukraine conflict. The appeal comes after Washington and London allowed Kiev to launch long-range missile attacks deep into Russian territory.
In an open letter published by The Guardian on Tuesday, the group expressed deep concern over the growing risk of a much larger conflict. “This rapid escalation seriously threatens an all-out military confrontation with Russia and NATO,” they wrote.
The report by Rutgers University’s Social Perception Lab and Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) published on Monday, found that certain DEI practices have led some participants to become irrationally confrontational.
“Across all groupings, instead of reducing bias, [DEI trainings] engendered a hostile attribution bias, amplifying perceptions of prejudicial hostility where none was present, and punitive responses to the imaginary prejudice,” the report states.
According to researchers, this would manifest itself by participants demonizing those who oppose DEI initiatives as “oppressive, racist, or fascist” simply because they disagree.
