UN World Food Programme

India Makes New Commitment to Supply 20,000 MT of Wheat to Afghanistan

Along with a decision to continue to provide humanitarian assistance, the representatives of India and Central Asia also re-emphasised “the respect for sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity and non-interference in its internal affairs” of Afghanistan.

New Delhi: India announced a new additional supply of 20,000 metric tonnes (MT) of wheat to Afghanistan at the first meeting of the India-Central Asia working group on the war-torn country.

The meeting of the Indian Central Asia Joint Working Group was held in New Delhi on Tuesday. It coincided with another multilateral meeting on Afghanistan held in Tashkent on the same day, but between three Central Asian nations, China, Pakistan, Russia and Iran.

The joint statement of the day-long meeting in New Delhi stated that it was attended by special envoys or senior officials from India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

The UN World Food Programme’s representative in Afghanistan briefed the participants on the current humanitarian situation and the aid requirement for the year ahead.

“India announced supply of 20,000 MTs of wheat assistance to Afghanistan in partnership with UNWFP through Chabahar Port,” said the joint statement.

After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, UN agencies had forecast an economic collapse of Afghanistan.

India had proposed in October 2021 that it was ready to send 50,000 MT of wheat by road via Pakistan. After formal negotiations, Pakistan gave the green light in November 2021 and the first Afghan trucks carrying Indian wheat travelled on Pakistani roads in February 2022.

However, India was able to send only 40,000 MT of wheat in the stipulated period permitted by Pakistan. Despite a request, Pakistan did not extend the time frame, said sources.

India has previously used Iran’s Chabahar port to send supplies to Afghanistan.

According to WFP, over 19 million Afghans face acute food insecurity. It projected a funding need of $1.46 billion for the next six months.

The participants also underlined the importance of a “truly inclusive and representative” political structure that “ensures equal rights of women, girls and members of minority groups, including access to education”.

They also reiterated that the “territory of Afghanistan should not be used for sheltering, training, planning or financing any terrorist acts and reaffirmed that no terrorist organizations including those designated by the UNSC resolution 1267 should be provided sanctuary or allowed to use the territory of Afghanistan”.

India also agreed to hold training courses for the UN Drug Control agency and the central Asian republic in the field of countering illegal drug trafficking, said the joint statement.

In Tashkent, the seven-nation club also reiterated similar statements on “inclusive” government and the supply of humanitarian aid.

Besides, the group also urged Western nations to lift the freeze on the Afghan central bank’s assets, according to Reuters.

Tanzanian President John Magufuli Passes Away at 61

According to Tanzania’s constitution, vice-president Samia Suluhu Hassan should become president for the remainder of Magufuli’s term, which would make her the country’s first female president.

Nairobi: Tanzania’s President John Magufuli, one of Africa’s most prominent coronavirus sceptics, has died aged 61, vice-president Samia Suluhu Hassan said on Wednesday after a more than two-week absence from public life that led to speculation about his health.

She said he died from the heart disease that had plagued him for a decade. She said burial arrangements were underway and announced 14 days of mourning and the flying of flags at half-staff. State television broadcast mournful and religious songs.

Magufuli had not been seen in public since February 27, 2021, sparking rumours that he had contracted COVID-19. Officials denied on March 12, 2021 that he had fallen ill, and on Monday the vice-president urged Tanzanians not to listen to rumours from outside the country and said it was normal for a human being to be checked for the flu or fever.

“Dear Tanzanians, it is sad to announce that today, 17 March, 2021, around 6 pm we lost our brave leader, President John Magufuli who died from heart disease at Mzena hospital in Dar es Salaam, where he was getting treatment,” the vice president said on state broadcaster TBC. He was Tanzania’s first president to die while in office.

Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said on Friday that he had spoken to Magufuli and blamed the narrative of the president’s ailment on some “hateful” Tanzanians living abroad.

Tundu Lissu, Magufuli’s main rival in the October election, when the president won a second five-year term, had suggested Tanzania’s leader had been flown to Kenya for treatment for COVID-19 and then moved to India in a coma.

After the death was announced, opposition leader Zitto Kabwe said he had spoken to vice-president Hassan to offer condolences for Magufuli’s death. “The nation will remember him for his contribution to the development of our country,” Kabwe said in a statement published on Twitter.

Hassan would be first female president

According to Tanzania’s constitution, vice-president Hassan, 61, should assume the presidency for the remainder of the five-year term that Magufuli began serving last year after winning a second term. She would be the East African nation’s first female president.

Tanzania’s vice-president Samia Suluhu Hassan, at the Ingoma stadium in Gitega, Burundi June 18, 2020. REUTERS/Evrard Ngendakumana

Born in the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar, Hassan studied economics in Britain, worked for the UN’s World Food Programme and then held various government posts prior to becoming Tanzania’s first female vice president in 2015.

Hassan said Magufuli was admitted on March 6, 2021 to Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute for heart problems and discharged the next day. A week later he felt bad and was rushed to Mzena hospital, where he was getting treatment under supervision of doctors from the cardiac institute, she said.

In Dar es Salaam, the country’s commercial capital with more than two million residents, the streets were empty when news of Magufuli’s death was announced just before midnight. “I remember him since his days when he was minister of works and then he became president, a president who worked [so] hard that even if you didn’t agree with him it got to a point that you agreed with him. I appreciated him, he did a really good job,” one man, Patrice Tarimo, said in Dar es Salaam after hearing the news.

Also read: Modi Only World Leader To Use COVID Vaccination Certificate To Push Cult of Personality

‘The Bulldozer’

Nicknamed “The Bulldozer” because of his reputation for pushing through policies despite opposition, Magufuli frustrated the World Health Organization (WHO) during the pandemic by playing down the threat from COVID-19, saying god and remedies such as steam inhalation would protect Tanzanians.

The former chemistry teacher had mocked coronavirus tests, denounced vaccines as part of a Western conspiracy to take Africa’s wealth, and opposed mask-wearing and social distancing.

Tanzania stopped reporting coronavirus data in May last year, when it had reported 509 cases and 21 deaths, according to the WHO, which has urged the government to be more transparent.

Magufuli was re-elected for a second term in 2020, winning 84% of the vote in an election the opposition said was marred by irregularities and whose results it rejected.

North Korea Delegation Enjoys Fruits of Singapore’s Capitalism

From McDonald’s to stationery and a stay in Singapore’s lavish St. Regis hotel, such treats are unheard of for most North Koreans, even for government officials.

Singapore: Shortly after a group of suited North Korean diplomats set out from their Singapore hotel on Monday for talks with U.S. officials on the eve of a historic summit, a bigger group of North Koreans headed out in summery shirts for some shopping.

US President Donald Trump will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on a small resort island off Singapore’s port on Tuesday for an unprecedented summit aimed at getting the North to give up its nuclear weapons.

For the leader of isolated North Korea and his delegation of dozens of officials, state media workers and security staff, the rare foreign trip is an opportunity to build diplomatic bridges and to explore the capitalist successes in Singapore, one of the world’s wealthiest city-states.

The North Korean delegation is staying at the five-star St. Regis hotel where the lobby has a cream-coloured marble floor, chandeliers and large art works on the walls.

The hotel’s lavish 47 Singapore dollar ($35) per person buffet breakfast costs about the same as what most North Koreans earn in a month.

Among the three dozen or so North Koreans seen at breakfast on Monday were some of the regime’s most powerful men, usually only spotted by North Korea watchers in photographs published in state media as they line up at official events.

Four-star general and vice chairman of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, Kim Yong Chol, party vice chairman and director of its International Affairs Department Ri Su Yong and foreign minister Ri Yong Ho, were among them.

Hotel staff discouraged other guests from interacting with the North Koreans, or taking their photographs.

North Korean media staff sampled Chinese dimsum, pastries and fried eggs and took souvenir photographs of each other in the grand dining hall.

Such treats are unheard of for most North Koreans, even for government officials, who have seen their chances of overseas travel wither in recent years as their country’s isolation has increased under sanctions imposed over its nuclear and missile programmes.

Totalitarian North Korea’s governing ideology of “Juche”, which champions self-sufficiency, has brought little but decades of economic stagnation, widespread poverty and, at times, starvation.

Most ordinary North Koreans rely on a monotonous diet of rice, corn, kimchi and bean paste, and they lack essential fats and protein, according to testimonies from defectors and from UN officials allowed to visit.

The UN World Food Programme says a quarter of North Korean children under five, who attend nurseries that it supports, suffer from chronic malnutrition.

McDonald’s and stationery

On Sunday night, hours after Kim and his delegation arrived in Singapore, Reuters reporters saw North Korean officials, some wearing pin badges of their leaders, ordering $100-plus-per-person dinners at the hotel’s high-end Chinese restaurant.

Others appeared to go for Western fast food.

A group of North Korean security staff were seen coming back into the hotel with cardboard boxes, one with McDonald’s takeaway. North Korea is one of the world’s few countries without a McDonald’s.

Two North Korean officials, whose identity could not be confirmed, were seen returning from the shopping trip with bags from the NBC Stationery and Gifts shop.

The North Koreans are staying on the top three floors of the St. Regis, a Reuters reporter discovered.

The upper floors have suites at more than S$5,000 a night and the Presidential Suite, at about S$9,000 a night, according to the hotel’s web site.

The Presidential Suite has a dining room, living room, study, bedroom and terrace, workout room, steam room, a butler service and kitchen.

The St. Regis declined to comment on who was staying on the top floors, or how many rooms the North Koreans were occupying.

Reuters could not confirm if leader Kim was staying in the Presidential Suite.

Singapore, doing its bit to promote peace, has said it expects to spend about S$20 million ($15 million) on hosting the summit, including the North Koreans’ hotel bill, Singapore’s foreign minister told the BBC.

(Reuters)

South Sudan Nears Famine, Facing ‘Toughest Year’: Aid Groups

Almost two-thirds of the population will need food aid this year to stave off starvation and malnutrition.

A woman waits to be registered prior to a food distribution carried out by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Thonyor, Leer state in South Sudan on February 26. Credit: Reuters/Siegfried Modola/File Photo

Juba: South Sudan is close to another famine, aid officials said on Monday, after more than four years of civil war and failed ceasefires in the world’s youngest nation.

Almost two-thirds of the population will need food aid this year to stave off starvation and malnutrition as aid groups prepare for the “toughest year on record”, members of a working group including South Sudanese and UN officials said.

“The situation is extremely fragile, and we are close to seeing another famine. The projections are stark. If we ignore them, we’ll be faced with a growing tragedy,” said Serge Tissot, from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in South Sudan.

A total of 5.3 million people, 48% of the population, are already in “crisis” or “emergency” – stages three and four on a five point scale, according to a survey published by the working group.

The oil-rich east African nation has been torn apart by an ethnically charged civil war since late 2013, when troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and then-Vice President Riek Machar clashed.

Since then, more than 4 million people have been forced to flee their homes, creating Africa’s largest refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The UN declared a famine in two districts in February, but said that crisis had started to ease in June last year.

“We are expecting to face the toughest year on record,” UN humanitarian coordinator Alain Noudehou told a press conference in the South Sudanese capital Juba. Records for South Sudan began when it declared independence from Sudan in July, 2011.

(Reuters)

Medical Supplies, UN Aid Workers Reach Yemen After Blockade Eased

Aid groups have welcomed the decision to let aid in but said flights are not enough to avert a humanitarian crisis.

Workers unload aid shipment from a plane at the Sanaa airport, Yemen November 25, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Stringer

Geneva/Sanaa: Humanitarian aid workers and medical supplies began arriving in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on Saturday, UN officials said, after the easing of a nearly three-week military blockade that sparked an international outcry.

Aid groups have welcomed the decision to let aid in but said flights are not enough to avert a humanitarian crisis. About 7 million people face famine in Yemen and their survival depends on international assistance.

“First plane landed in Sanaa this morning with humanitarian aid workers,” the World Food Programme’s regional spokeswoman Abeer Etefa told Reuters in an email, while officials at Sanaa airport said two other UN flights had arrived on Saturday.

The UN children’s fund UNICEF said one flight carried “over 15 tonnes” of vaccines that will cover some 600,000 children against diphtheria, tetanus and other diseases.

“The needs are huge and there is much more to do for #YemenChildren,” the world body said on Twitter.

Airport director Khaled al-Shayef said that apart from the vaccinations shipment, a flight carrying eight employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross had also landed.

“Sanaa airport was closed from November 6 until today, more than 18 days and this closure caused an obstruction to the presence of aid workers,” he told Reuters in Sanaa.

“There are more than 500 employees trapped either inside or outside being denied travel as well as 40 flights that were denied arrival at Sanaa airport.”

Colonel Turki al-Maliki, spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition that closed the ports, said three more aid flights had been approved for Sunday.

The coalition, which is fighting the armed Houthi movement in Yemen with backing from the United States, said on Wednesday it would allow aid in through the Red Sea ports of Hodeidah and Salif, as well as UN flights to Sanaa.

The coalition closed air, land and sea access in a move it said was to stop the flow of Iranian arms to the Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen.

The action came after Saudi Arabia intercepted a missile fired toward Riyadh. Iran denied again on Saturday supplying weapons to the Houthis.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said that Tehran would welcome the lifting of the blockade and “any initiative that alleviates the pain of Yemeni people.”

Ship clearance

Maliki said on Friday that 82 permits had been issued for international aid missions since November 4, both for Sanaa airport and Hodeidah, the country’s main port where some 80% of food supplies enter.

“That includes issuing clearance for a ship today (Rena), carrying 5,500 metric tonnes of food supplies, to the port of Hodeidah,” he said.

He told Reuters on Saturday that the commercial vessel had been checked and cleared by coalition navy forces and was approaching Hodeidah, but port officials said no ships had arrived yet and they were not expecting any to dock soon.

Maliki said new procedures aimed at blocking weapons transfers stipulate that aid and commercial shipments cannot be mixed on the same vessel, that requests require 72 hours notice instead of 48, and that only humanitarian workers can travel on aid flights.

The blockade has drawn wide international concern, including from the United States and the UN secretary-general.

Sources in Washington said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had asked Saudi Arabia to ease its blockade of Yemen before the kingdom decided to do so.

The heads of three UN agencies had earlier urged the coalition to lift the blockade, warning that “untold thousands” would die if it stayed in place.

The coalition has asked the United Nations to send a team to discuss ways of bolstering its verification and inspection mechanism programme which was agreed in 2015 to allow commercial ships to enter Hodeidah.

The coalition joined the Yemen war in 2015 after the Houthis forced President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his government to flee their temporary headquarters in the southern port city of Aden into exile in Saudi Arabia.

The conflict has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced over 2 million, triggered a cholera epidemic, and driven Yemen to the verge of famine.

Besieged Syrians Eating Trash, Fainting From Hunger: UN

Since September, approximately 174,500 people in the town of Douma in the besieged zone have been forced to adopt emergency “coping strategies”.

A pot containing food is seen in the Hazzeh area in the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta, Syria, October 25, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Bassam Khabieh

Geneva: Syrians in the besieged enclave of Eastern Ghouta are so short of food that they are eating trash, fainting from hunger and forcing their children to eat on alternate days, the UN World Food Programme said in a report on Wednesday.

Since September, approximately 174,500 people in the town of Douma in the besieged zone have been forced to adopt emergency “coping strategies”, the WFP report said.

“This includes consuming expired food, animal fodder and refuse, spending days without eating, begging and engaging in high risk activities to get food. Moreover, many hunger-induced fainting episodes have been reported among school children and teachers.”

At least four people have died from hunger, including a child in Douma who took his own life due to hunger, said the report, which was based on a mobile phone survey and information from contacts on the ground.

Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have besieged rebel-held Eastern Ghouta since 2012 and Douma has not had a food aid convoy since receiving wheat flour rations in August.

Although the area is traditionally agricultural, arable land on the outskirts of Eastern Ghouta is either on the frontline of the conflict or targeted by snipers, the report said.

Last week fighting destroyed recently distributed rations in a storehouse, exacerbating shortages. Although Damascus is only 15 km (10 miles) away, 700-grams (25 ounces) of bread is 85 times more expensive in Eastern Ghouta, the report said.

“The situation is anticipated to deteriorate further in the coming weeks when food stock is expected to be totally depleted and household coping strategies will be highly eroded as a result.”

Government restrictions meant WFP could only provide a fraction of the food needed. Family food baskets were being shared among six families and were reportedly the only source of food for many female-headed and destitute households, it said.

“Some households are even resorting to rotation strategies whereby the children who ate yesterday would not eat today and vice-versa.”

The report quoted a female head of household in Douma as saying she was forced to rotate rations between her 13-year-old daughter and her two- and three-year-old orphaned grandchildren.

“My daughter cries every time I lock her door cause she knows today is not her turn and will sleep with an empty stomach,” she said.

(Reuters)

Myanmar Gives Green Light to Resume Food Aid to Rakhine

UN humanitarian agencies have not been able to access northern Rakhine to deliver aid since the attacks on police stations in August triggered an army crackdown.

Aerial view of a burned Rohingya village near Maungdaw, north of Rakhine state, Myanmar, September 27, 2017. Credit: Reuters

Geneva: Myanmar authorities have agreed to allow the UN to resume distribution of food in northern Rakhine state which was suspended for two months, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday.

The WFP was previously distributing food rations to 110,000 people in northern Rakhine state – to both Buddhist and Rohingya communities.

Rohingya insurgent attacks on police stations triggered an army crackdown, that the UN has called “ethnic cleansing”, and UN humanitarian agencies have not been able to access northern Rakhine to deliver aid since then.

“WFP has been given the green light to resume food assistance operations in northern part of Rakhine. We are working with the government to coordinate the details,” WFP spokeswoman Bettina Luescher told journalists in Geneva.

She had no timeline or details on the proposed distribution of rations to members of the Muslim Rohingya minority still living in northern Rakhine, and said it was still being discussed with the authorities in Myanmar.

“We just have to see what the situation on the ground is. It’s very hard to say these things if you can’t get in,” Luescher said.

(Reuters)

World Food Programme Seeks $75 Million for Rohingya Crisis

“The bottom line? This is a deplorable situation. This is as bad as it gets. We need 75 million for the next six months.”

A Rohingya refugee boy looks on as he stands in a queue to receive relief supplies given by local people in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh September 16, 2017. Credit: Reuters

Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh: The World Food Programme (WFP) appealed on Sunday for $75 million in emergency aid over the next six months to help alleviate the suffering of Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in Myanmar.

Since August 25, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled their homes in majority Buddhist Myanmar, overwhelming aid agencies in neighbouring Bangladesh.

“The bottom line? This is a deplorable situation. This is as bad as it gets. We need 75 million for the next six months,” David Beasley, WFP executive director, told reporters after visiting refugee camps in Bangladesh near the Myanmar border.

“I say we can end world hunger with a few billion dollars. I tell donors, if you can’t give us the money, stop the wars,” added Beasley, whose UN agency is the main humanitarian organisation battling hunger worldwide.

The UN is currently seeking $200 million from donors to help tackle the crisis among the Rohingya Muslims.

(Reuters)

With Food Rations Halved in Kenya, Concerns for Refugees’ Health Arise

Kenya hosts 434,000 refugees from 21 countries but food rations to more than 400,000 refugees in Kenya have been halved due to severe funding shortages.

A newly arrived refugee child drinks inside their tent in Baley settlement near the Ifo extension refugee camp in Dadaab, near the Kenya-Somalia border, in Garissa County, Kenya July 27, 2011. Credit:Reuters/Thomas Mukoya/File Photo

Nairobi: Food rations to more than 400,000 refugees in Kenya have been halved due to severe funding shortages, and existing supplies will run out completely at the end of February, the UN said on Tuesday.

Kenya hosts 434,000 refugees from 21 countries, mainly from war-torn neighbouring South Sudan and Somalia, in two overcrowded camps on its northern borders.

“We are very worried about the impact of this on the refugees,” Challiss McDonough, a spokeswoman for the World Food Programme (WFP), told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“There is a chance, particularly if (the food ration cuts) go on for a long time, of health consequences, of deterioration in people’s nutritional status.”

People may also start skipping meals and go into debt by borrowing money to eat, she said.

Many of the refugees are women and children, including children living alone who fled without family members, she said.

Refugees in Kenya are supposed to receive two-thirds of the 2,100 calories they need each day in monthly rations of cereals, pulses, oil and flour and one-third in cash.

Mobile money transfers of $2 to $5 per person per month allow them to buy fresh food from nearby markets, while also supporting the local economy in Kenya‘s impoverished, arid north.

Monthly food rations were halved at the start of December to eke out supplies and cash transfers will run out at the end of January, WFP said.

“It really is just the bare necessities that we are trying to provide and we haven’t been able to do that for some time,” said McDonough.

In Dadaab camp, 85% of refugees have been receiving 70% of their food rations since June 2015. Now a deeper cut has been introduced and extended to all refugees in Kenya.

Kenya is planning to shut down Dadaab, on its border with Somalia, which it sees as a security risk.

Rights groups have said the government is forcibly sending Somali refugees back into a war zone, charges it denies.

“The UN Food Programme’s decision to further reduce refugee food rations could not have come at a worse time,” Human Rights Watch researcher Gerry Simpson said in an email.

“Somali refugees in Kenya are being squeezed from all sides.”

The US is shipping $22 million of food aid to Kenya but it will not be available for distribution until May, WFP said.

(Reuters)

Death Toll in Yemen Air Strike Rises to 26, Say Sources

Warplanes of the Saudi-led alliance launched missiles on Wednesday at a residential neighbourhood in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah where Houthi leaders were staying.

People gather at the site of a Saudi-led air strike in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Yemen September 22, 2016. Credit: Reuters/ Abduljabbar Zeyad

Sanaa: The death toll from an Arab coalition air strike which hit a house in a residential area in western Yemen has risen to 26 people, medics and residents in the Houthi-held area said on Thursday and the alliance said it was looking into the report.

Warplanes of the Saudi-led alliance launched missiles on Wednesday at a residential neighbourhood in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah where Houthi leaders were staying, a resident and medical workers in the Houthi-controlled area told Reuters.

The raid hit a house in a neighbourhood populated by workers, according to medical services and local officials. Apart from those killed, 60 others were wounded, they said.

The coalition, which began operations in Yemen in March last year to try to reverse the rise to power of the Iran-allied Houthi group, has repeatedly said it does not target civilians.

In a statement, the coalition said it was aware of reports alleging civilian casualties in Hodeidah city.

“As with any allegation we receive, the information about the incident will be reviewed and once it is found supporting the allegation based on credible evidence we will then move to a next step of investigations,” the statement said.

The deputy governor of Hodeidah province, Hashim Azazi, had earlier put the death toll at 19 civilians, but said rescue workers were still pulling victims out of the rubble.

A Houthi leader, Ali al-Amad, said in a tweet he had survived a raid on the presidential palace.

UN-sponsored talks to try to end the fighting that has killed more than 10,000 people collapsed in failure last month and the Houthi movement and allied forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh resumed shelling into neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

Hundreds have been killed in strikes that have hit schools, hospitals, markets and private homes. Nearly half of Yemen‘s 22 provinces are on the verge of famine, according to the UN World Food Programme, as a result of the war that has drawn in regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia.