GENEVA — Conflicts and violence have pushed the number of internally displaced people around the world to a record-breaking high of 75.9 million, with nearly half living in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center. The report finds conflicts in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Palestinian territories accounted for nearly two-thirds of new displacements due to violence, which in total spanned 66 countries in 2023. “Over the past two years, we have seen alarming new levels of people having to flee their homes due to conflict and violence, even in regions where the trend had been improving,” Alexandra Bilak, IDMC director said. In a statement to coincide with the publication of the report Tuesday, she said that the millions of people forced to flee in 2023 were just “the tip of the iceberg.” “Conflict, and the devastation it leaves behind, is keeping millions from rebuilding their lives, often for years on end,” she said. WATCH: Wars in Sudan, Gaza, DRC drive internally displaced to record 76 million The report notes the number of internal displacements, that is the number of times people have been forced to move throughout the year to escape conflict within their country, has increased in the last couple of years. “While we hear a lot about refugees or asylum-seekers who cross the border, the majority of the displaced people actually stay within their country and they are internally displaced,” Christelle Cazabat, head of programs at IDMC, told journalists in Geneva Monday, in advance of the launch of the report. In its 2023 report on forcibly displaced populations, the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, reported that 62.5 million people had been internally displaced people at the end of 2022 compared to 36.4 million refugees who had fled conflict, violence and persecution that same year. According to the IDMC, new internal displacements last year were mostly due to the conflict in Ukraine, which started in 2022, as well as to the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the eruption of war in mid-April 2023 in Sudan. The war in Sudan resulted in 6 million internal displacements last year, which was “more than its previous 14 years combined” and the second most ever recorded in one country during a single year after Ukraine’s 16.9 million in 2022, according to the report. “As you know, it is more than a year that this new wave of conflict erupted (in Sudan) and as of the end of last year, the figure was 9.1 million” displaced in total by the conflict, said Vicente Anzellini, IDMCs global and regional analysis manager and lead author of the report. “This figure is the highest that we have ever reported for any country, this 9.1 million internally displaced people.” In the Gaza Strip, IDMC calculated 3.4 million displacements in the last three months of 2023, many of whom had been displaced multiple times during this period. It says this number represented 17% of total conflict displacements worldwide during the year, noting that a total of 1.7 million Palestinians were internally displaced in Gaza by the end of the year. The last quarter of 2023 is the period following the Hamas terrorists’ brutal attack on Israel on Oct. 7, eliciting a military response from Israel on the Palestinian enclave. “There are many other crises that are actually displacing even more people, but we hear a little bit less of them,” said Cazabat, noting that little is heard about the “acute humanitarian crisis in Sudan” though it has the highest number of people “living in internal displacement because of the conflict at the end of last year.” In the past five years, the report finds the number of people living in internal displacement because of conflict and violence has increased by 22.6 million. Sudan topped last year’s list of 66 countries with 9.1 million people displaced internally because of conflict, followed by Syria with more than 7 million, the DRC, Colombia and Yemen. Besides the total of 68.3 million people who were displaced globally by conflict and violence in 2023, the report says 7.7 million were displaced by natural disasters, including floods, storms, earthquakes and wildfires. As in previous years, the report notes that floods and storms caused the most disaster displacement, including in southeastern Africa, where cyclone Freddy triggered 1.4 million movements across six countries and territories. The earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria triggered 4.7 million displacements, one of the largest disaster displacement events since records began in 2008. Anzellini observed many countries that have experienced conflict displacement also have experienced disaster displacement. “In many situations, they are overlapping. This is the case in Sudan, in South Sudan, but also in Somalia, in the DRC, and other places,” he said. “So, you can imagine fleeing from violence to save your life and then having to escape to higher ground with whatever you can carry as the storm or a flood threatens to wash away your temporary shelter.” He said that no country is immune to disaster displacement. “Last year, we recorded disaster displacements in 148 countries and territories, and these include high-income countries such as Canada and New Zealand, which recorded their highest figures ever. “Climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent and more intense and that can lead to more displacement, but it does not have to,” he said, noting that climate change is one of many factors that contribute to displacement. “There are other economic, social and political factors that governments can address to actually minimize the impacts of displacement even in the face of climate change,” he said, including early warning systems and the evacuation of populations before a natural disaster is forecast to strike.

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa's four main political parties began the final weekend of campaigning Saturday before a possibly pivotal election that could bring the country's most important change in three decades. Supporters of the long-governing African National Congress, which has been in the government ever since the end of white minority rule in 1994, gathered at a soccer stadium in Johannesburg to hear party leader and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa speak. The ANC is under unprecedented pressure to keep hold of its parliamentary majority in Africa's most advanced country. Having seen its popularity steadily decline over the last two decades, Wednesday's vote could be a landmark moment when the party once led by Nelson Mandela drops below 50% of the vote for the first time. Several polls have the ANC's support at less than 50%, raising the possibility that it will have to form a national coalition. That would also be a first for South Africa's young democracy, which was only established 30 years ago with the first all-race vote that officially ended the apartheid system of racial segregation. As thousands of supporters in the ANC's black, green and gold colors attended its last major rally before the election, Ramaphosa recognized some of the grievances that have contributed to his party losing support, which include high levels of poverty and unemployment that mainly affect the country's Black majority. “We have a plan to get more South Africans to work," Ramaphosa said. “Throughout this campaign, in the homes of our people, in the workplaces, in the streets of our townships and villages, so many of our people told us of their struggles to find work and provide for their families.” The main opposition Democratic Alliance party had a rally in Cape Town, South Africa's second-biggest city and its stronghold. Party leader John Steenhuisen made a speech while supporters in the DA's blue colors held up blue umbrellas. “Democrats, friends, are you ready for change?” Steenhuisen said. The crowd shouted back “Yes!” "Are you ready to rescue South Africa?" Steenhuisen added. While the ANC's support has shrunk in three successive national elections and appears set to continue dropping, no party has emerged to overtake it — or even challenge it — and it is still widely expected to be the largest party by some way in this election. But losing its majority would be the clearest rejection yet of the famous party that led the anti-apartheid movement and is credited with leading South Africans to freedom. Some ANC supporters at the rally in Johannesburg also expressed their frustration with progress, as South Africa battles poverty, desperately high unemployment, some of the worst levels of inequality in the world, and other problems with corruption, violent crime and the failure of basic government services in some places. “We want to see job opportunities coming and basically general change in every aspect,” ANC supporter Ntombizonke Biyela said. “Since 1994 we have been waiting for ANC, it has been long. We have been voting and voting but we see very little progress as the people, only a special few seem to benefit.” While conceding to some failures, the ANC has maintained that South Africa is a better place than it was during apartheid, when a set of race-based laws oppressed the country's Black majority in favor of a small white minority. The ANC was also widely credited with success in expanding social support and housing and other services for millions of poor South Africans in the decade after apartheid, even if critics say it has lost its way recently. "There are many problems in South Africa, but nobody can deny the changes that have happened since 1994, and that was because of the ANC,” said 42-year-old Eric Phoolo, another supporter of the ruling party. “These other parties don’t have a track record of bringing change to the country." As some voters have turned away from the ANC, it has led to a slow fracturing of South African politics. They have changed allegiances to an array of different opposition parties, some of them new. South Africa has dozens of parties registered to contest next week's election. South Africans vote for parties and not directly for their president in national elections. Parties then get seats in Parliament according to their share of the vote and the lawmakers elect the president — which is why the ANC losing its majority would be so critical to the 71-year-old Ramaphosa's hope of being reelected for a second and final five-year term. If the ANC goes below 50, it would likely need a coalition or agreement with other parties to have the votes in Parliament to keep Ramaphosa, once a protege of Mandela, as president. The far-left Economic Freedom Fighters had their last big pre-election gathering in the northern city of Polokwane, the hometown of fiery leader Julius Malema. The new MK Party of former South African President and former ANC leader Jacob Zuma was also campaigning in a township just outside the east coast city of Durban, although Zuma didn't attend the event. The 82-year-old Zuma rocked South African politics when he announced late last year he was turning his back on the ANC and joining MK, while fiercely criticizing the ANC under Ramaphosa. Zuma has been disqualified from standing as a candidate for Parliament in the election because of a previous criminal conviction.

LIVE: The 2024 General Assembly is now underway in Washington, DC, bringing together Jewish communities nationwide to confront unprecedented challenges. 

[Radio Dalsan] The Somali Council of Ministers has reappointed General Odowa Yusuf Raage as Commander of the Somali Armed Forces, replacing General Ibrahim Muhyiddin, during an emergency meeting held in Mogadishu on Sunday night.

Donald Trump has said he wouldn’t be a dictator — “except for Day 1.” According to his own statements, he’s got a lot to do on that first day in the White House.

Beijing is pushing Pakistan to allow its own security staff to provide protection to thousands of Chinese citizens working in Pakistan during talks, after a car bombing near Karachi’s airport that was seen as a major security breach, sources said.

Last month’s airport bombing that killed two Chinese engineers returning to work on a project after a holiday in Thailand was the latest in a string of attacks on Beijing’s interests in Pakistan.

The attacks have angered China, which has pushed Pakistan to begin formal negotiations for a joint security management system.

Reuters spoke to five Pakistani security and government sources with direct knowledge of the previously unreported negotiations and demands on condition of anonymity, as the talks are sensitive, and reviewed a written proposal sent by Beijing to Islamabad.

“They (Chinese) want to bring in their own security,” said one official, who sat in on a recent meeting, adding that Pakistan had not so far agreed to such a step.

According to the official, a written proposal sent to Islamabad by Beijing, and forwarded to Pakistani agencies for review, mentioned a clause allowing the dispatching of security agencies and military forces into each others’ territory to assist in counter-terrorism missions and conduct joint strikes.

The dispatching would be done after discussions, but Pakistan was averse to the proposal, one official said.

Neither Beijing nor Islamabad confirmed the talks officially.

Dawn.com has also reached out to the Foreign Office for a comment.

The source, and two other officials, said there was a consensus on setting up a joint security management system, and that Pakistan was amenable to Chinese officials sitting in on security meetings and co-ordination.

But there was no agreement on their participating in security arrangements on the ground.

The first official said Pakistan had asked China for help in improving its intelligence and surveillance capabilities instead of direct involvement.

A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry told Reuters it was not familiar with talks on a joint security scheme, but added, “China will continue to strengthen co-operation with Pakistan and make joint efforts to do its utmost to maintain the security of Chinese personnel, projects and institutions.”

Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing, declined to comment to Reuters while the interior and planning ministries did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

In a statement last week, Pakistan’s interior ministry said both sides agreed to develop a joint strategy to prevent similar incidents in the future.

‘Grave security breach’

The nature of the Karachi bombing has angered Beijing, which is now pushing harder to achieve a long-standing demand to control security arrangements for its citizens.

A pick-up truck rigged with nearly 100 kilogrammes of explosives waited unchecked for about 40 minutes near the outermost security cordon of the heavily guarded airport before its driver rammed it into a vehicle carrying Chinese engineers, officials said.

“It was a grave security breach,” admitted one of the officials investigating the bombing, which came just a week before Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s visit to Islamabad, the first such trip in a decade.

The official said investigators believe the attackers had “inside help” in securing details of the itinerary and route of the engineers, who had returned from a month off in Thailand.

They were to be escorted back to a power plant set up as part of plans for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Longtime Pakistan ally China has thousands of nationals working on projects grouped under the CPEC, a $65-billion investment in President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, which seeks to expand China’s global reach by road, rail and sea.

‘Chinese frustrations’

Publicly, China has mostly backed Pakistan’s arrangements, even as it calls for enhanced security.

Privately, Beijing has expressed frustration. At one recent meeting, the Chinese side provided evidence that Pakistan had failed to follow security protocols agreed on twice in recent months, three officials said. Such protocols usually feature high standards for the deployment and movement of Chinese officials.

However, earlier this month, China’s Ambassador to Pakistan, Jiang Zaidong, while speaking at an event, had expressed frustration over the attacks, stating it was “unacceptable” and urging Islamabad to strengthen security measures for Chinese nationals and crack down on anti-China elements.

In response, Foreign Office Spokes­person Mumtaz Zahra Baloch had called the statement “perplexing” and a stark departure from the longstanding diplomatic norms between the two nations.

Chinese nationals have been in the crosshairs of banned outfits who accuse Beijing and Pakistan of exploiting minerals in Balochistan, where China has a strategic port and mining interests.

Thousands of Pakistani security officers from the army, police and a dedicated force called the Special Protection Unit are posted to guard Chinese nationals.

Only China’s embassy in Islamabad and its consulates are allowed Chinese official security personnel, the Pakistani officials said.

For decades, the oceans have absorbed much of the excess heat caused by greenhouse gases. The latest observations suggest they are reaching their limits, so how worried should we be?

An annual accounting of CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels and land use change finds no sign emissions will peak this year

Billionaire Bill Ackman spent days after the ABC presidential debate promoting false claims that a network “whistleblower” had allegedly uncovered collusion between ABC and Kamala Harris’ campaign. Now, a month and multiple denials later, he sees the claims differently.

“It seems pretty clear that the alleged @abc whistleblower debate story claiming that @KamalaHarris was given questions in advance and other advantages was a fake,” Ackman posted on X alongside a blog post by Megyn Kelly discussing the dubious claims.

What Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, did not acknowledge, however, is that he was one of falsehood’s early boosters. After an X account named “Black Insurrectionist” claimed it had been in touch with a whistleblower who alleged the Harris campaign had been given debate topics ahead of the showdown with Donald Trump and had demanded Trump—and Trump alone—be fact-checked.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Ars speaks with users and partners unhappy with Broadcom's changes.

Directed by Sukumar and produced by Mythri Movie Makers, the sequel features Allu Arjun, Rashmika Mandanna, and Fahadh Faasil, and is scheduled for a grand release worldwide on December 5, 2024

Directed by Sukumar and produced by Mythri Movie Makers, the sequel features Allu Arjun, Rashmika Mandanna, and Fahadh Faasil, and is scheduled for a grand release worldwide on December 5, 2024

ISLAMABAD — Beijing is pushing Pakistan to allow its own security staff to provide protection to thousands of Chinese citizens working in the South Asian nation, during talks after a car bombing in Karachi that was seen as a major security breach, sources said. Last month's airport bombing in the southern port city that killed two Chinese engineers returning to work on a project after a holiday in Thailand was the latest in a string of attacks on Beijing's interests in Pakistan. The attacks, and Islamabad's failure to deter them, have angered China, which has pushed Pakistan to begin formal negotiations for a joint security management system. Reuters spoke to five Pakistani security and government sources with direct knowledge of the previously unreported negotiations and demands on condition of anonymity, as the talks are sensitive, and reviewed a written proposal sent by Beijing to Islamabad. "They (Chinese) want to bring in their own security," said one official, who sat in on a recent meeting, adding that Pakistan had not so far agreed to such a step.

Jun 3, 2024

Is there a norm against using nuclear weapons? Many policymakers believe that allied countries would severely condemn a state’s nuclear use. But survey research in the United States and India finds high absolute support for nuclear use, and that the public supports nuclear attacks by allies and strategic partners as much as those by the public’s own government. 

Retailers Push for Greater Payment Security at Checkout to Combat Fraud and Cyber Theft

President-elect Donald Trump reportedly plans to appoint his former senior adviser Stephen Miller as his deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller will play a key role along with Trump’s border czar Tom Homan and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who will reportedly be the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Miller is the architect of Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, an avowed white nationalist and a man who is spurred by his “animus to the notion of the United States as a multicultural and multiethnic democracy,” says author Jean Guerrero, author of Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda. Guerrero says the Trump administration’s “obsessive deportation” attempt to “radically reengineer the racial demographics of the United States” will “backfire” on the U.S. economy and destroy “the United States’ global reputation as a safe haven for the persecuted.”

An annual accounting of CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels and land use change finds no sign emissions will peak this year

New law would allow councils to charge tourists to stay overnight in Welsh hotels.

Shrikant Shinde, son of Shiv Sena MP and Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, advocated for upgrading primary health centres into smart health centres

The Education and Health Ministry has urged states to enforce medlinktobacco/medlink-free guidelines in schools to address medlinktobacco use/medlink among youth.

The AIDS Society of India (ASI) has urged the government to swiftly include HIV self-testing and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in its healthcare policies and programs (!--ref1--).

Deepinder Goyal, the CEO of food e-commerce platform, recently graced the latest episode of the streaming sketch comedy show 'The Great Indian Kapil Show' along with his wife Gia Goyal, businessman Narayana Murthy, and his wife Sudha Murthy, who is the Rajya Sabha member.

Peoples Conference leader Sajad Lone said that the NC-led coalition regime moved a "weak" resolution in the J&K Assembly and alleged that Wednesday's episode was a fixed match between the ruling party and the opposition.

As India is poised to see a surge in energy demand than any other country over the next decade owing to its sheer size and scale of rising demand from all sectors, the country's power transmission sector is set for significant growth due to ambitious renewable energy targets.

Ashton Kutcher’s VC firm, Sound Ventures, co-led by general partners Guy Oseary and Effie Epstein, is betting on AI — including with an investment in Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs, the investors confirmed onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 on Tuesday. The startup, founded by Li, the Stanford professor dubbed the “Godmother of AI,” has already raised […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Lithium prices are rising as demand for the key ingredient in electric car batteries grows, amid a broader push to move away from oil and gas. But extraction of the metal is time consuming and potentially harmful to the environment, and plans to produce more have prompted protests. Photo: STR/Getty Images, Oliver Bunic/AFP/Getty Images

The U.S. wants to counter China’s influence around the world by providing everything from infrastructure to vaccines and green energy. WSJ’s Stu Woo explains how the plan, dubbed Build Back Better World, aims to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Photo composite: Daniel Orton

Pushpa 2 New Poster Out: ''പുഷ്പ 2 ദി റൂൾ ട്രെയിലർ നവംബർ 17ന് വൈകുന്നേരം 06.03ന് പട്നയിൽ'' പുതിയ പോസ്റ്റർ പങ്കുവച്ചുകൊണ്ട് അല്ലു അർജുൻ കുറിച്ചു.

Pushpa 2 Jathara Episode: ఐకాన్ స్టార్ అల్లు అర్జున్ (Allu Arjun) నటిస్తున్న లేటెస్ట్ మూవీ పుష్ప 2 (Pushpa the Rule). ఈ పాన్ ఇండియా మూవీ కోసం ఐకాన్ స్టార్ అభిమానులే కాదు యావత్తు సీని లవర్స్ ఎంతగానో ఎదురుచూస్తున్నారు. పుష్ప 1 భారీ విజయం సాధించిన నేపథ్యంలో.. పుష్ప పార్ట్ 2

Pushpa 2 Run Time: ఐకాన్ స్టార్ అల్లు అర్జున్ (Allu Arjun)- సెన్సెషనల్ డైరెక్టర్ సుకుమార్ ( ) కాంబోలో తెరకెక్కుతున్న లేటెస్ట్ మూవీ పుష్ప 2 (Pushpa the Rule). ఈ పాన్ ఇండియా మూవీ కోసం ప్రపంచవ్యాప్తంగా కోట్లాది మంది ప్రేక్షకులు ఎంతగానో ఎదురుచూస్తున్నారు. పుష్ప 1 భారీ విజయం సాధించిన నేపథ్యంలో..

Warszawa : Izdatelʹstvo Ktoczyta.pl, 2018.

Environment clearance for ₹7,000-crore Patgaon Pumped Storage Project of Adani group was issued without public meetings and by selective interpretation of rules, alleged Congress’ Jairam Ramesh

Climate finance gets much-needed focus at the Delhi meet under India’s Presidency

BARC is sharing its technology for the recovery of copper oxide nanotechnology particles from end-of-life PCB boards

They have also sought a 20-year licence for providing satcom services

Altman also said that the next update for DALL-E was still in the works with no release date yet

Government allocates ₹1.52 lakh crore for agriculture and allied sectors in the Union Budget 2024-25; Finance Minister announces that the Centre will work with States to promote digital public infrastructure for agriculture

Biofuel-Compatible Cars: Japan plans to encourage automakers to make all new passenger cars biofuel-compatible by the early 2030s.

Systematic credit has been growing at 8 per cent CAGR since FY19 and at a much faster 12.5 per cent CAGR since FY21. The share of retail within systematic credit is also increasing Y-o-Y from 30 per cent in FY19 to 37 per cent in FY24. Retail credit, on the other hand, witnessed solid Y-o-Y growth at low teens since FY23 and the share of personal loan and gold loan have increased while that of housing and auto loan has decreased. However, moderation in retail credit growth is expected on account of RBI’s increase in risk weight mandate for riskier loans.  Compiled by Arun K Shanmugam

The National Payments Corporation of India has allowed non-residents with international numbers to be on-boarded into the UPI ecosystem, while the Union Cabinet approved a Rs 2,600 crore incentive scheme to promote RuPay debit cards and low-value BHIM-UPI transactions

ISRO conducted successful RLV-LEX-02 experiment demonstrating autonomous landing capabilities from high altitudes, marking progress in space technology

S.S. Rajamouli’s ‘RRR’ bagged six awards, followed by ‘Pushpa - The Rise’, ‘Uppena’ and ‘Konda Polam’ at the 69th National Film Awards. Allu Arjun won the award for best actor, while ‘RRR’ was declared the best popular film for providing wholesome entertainment

Actor Allu Arjun invited Instagram to the sets of his forthcoming Telugu film ‘Pushpa: The Rule’, directed by Sukumar

The much-anticipated ‘Pushpa 2: The Rule’, directed by Sukumar and starring Allu Arjun, Rashmika Mandanna and Fahadh Faasil to release in theatres in 2024

Bunny gave the audience at the India Day Parade a riff on his memorable line from Pushpa, to thunderous applause of course.

With the West imposing crushing sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine, Moscow is seeking ways to bolster its economy; one option on the cards is introducing a common currency for the BRICS nations