WHO readying medical supplies for ‘huge’ Myanmar quake
WHO readying medical supplies for ‘huge’ Myanmar quake/node/2595168/world
WHO readying medical supplies for ‘huge’ Myanmar quake
People gather on the street, after the tremors from a strong earthquake that struck central Myanmar on Friday hit Bangkok, in Bangkok, Mar. 28, 2025. (Reuters)
WHO readying medical supplies for ‘huge’ Myanmar quake
WHO is coordinating its earthquake response from its Geneva headquarters “because we see this as a huge event” spokeswoman Margaret Harris said
She said the WHO would also be concentrating on getting in essential medicines
Updated 28 March 2025
AFP
GENEVA: The WHO said it had triggered its emergency management system in response to Friday’s “huge” earthquake in Myanmar and was mobilizing its logistics hub in Dubai to prepare trauma injury supplies.
The World Health Organization is coordinating its earthquake response from its Geneva headquarters “because we see this as a huge event” with “clearly a very, very big threat to life and health,” spokeswoman Margaret Harris told a media briefing.
“We’ve activated our logistics hub to look particularly for trauma supplies and things like external fixators because we expect that there will be many, many injuries that need to be dealt with,” Harris said.
She said the WHO would also be concentrating on getting in essential medicines, while the health infrastructure in Myanmar itself might be damaged.
Harris said that due to recent experience with the 2023 Turkiye-Syria earthquakes, “we know very well what you need to send in first.”
The UN health agency already has a special cell to deal with Myanmar, which has been rocked by fighting between numerous ethnic rebel groups and the army.
And by chance, the WHO had done an assessment in recent weeks of the best ways to get supplies into Myanmar.
“We are ready to move in — but now we have to know exactly where, what and why. It’s information from the ground that’s really critical right now,” said Harris.
Democratic senator Cory Booker enters second day of marathon speech in bid to rally anti-Trump resistance
"The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent, and we all must do more to stand against them,” the legislator from New Jersey said
The speech was not a filibuster, but a critique of Trump’s agenda, meant to hold up the Senate’s business and draw attention to what Democrats are doing to contest the president
Updated 26 min 46 sec ago
AP
WASHINGTON: New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker held the Senate floor with a marathon speech that lasted all night and into Tuesday afternoon in a feat of endurance to show Democrats’ resistance to President Donald Trump’s sweeping actions.
Booker took to the Senate floor on Monday evening, saying he would remain there as long as he was “physically able.” More than 22 hours later, the 55-year-old senator, a former football tight end, was plainly exhausted but still going. It was a remarkable show of stamina — among the longest in Senate history — as Democrats try to show their frustrated supporters that they are doing everything possible to contest Trump’s agenda.
“These are not normal times in our nation,” Booker said as he launched into his speech. “And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate. The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent, and we all must do more to stand against them.” Booker warns of a ‘looming constitutional crisis’
Pacing, then at times leaning on his podium, Booker railed for hours against cuts to Social Security offices led by Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. He listed the impacts of Trump’s early orders and spoke to concerns that broader cuts to the social safety net could be coming, though Republican lawmakers say the program won’t be touched.
Booker also read what he said were letters from constituents, donning and doffing his reading glasses. One writer was alarmed by the Republican president’s talk of annexing Greenland and Canada and a “looming constitutional crisis.”
Throughout the day Tuesday, Booker got help from Democratic colleagues, who gave him a break from speaking to ask him a question and praise his performance. Booker yielded for questions but made sure to say he would not give up the floor. He read that line from a piece of paper to ensure he did not slip and inadvertently end his speech. He stayed standing to comply with Senate rules.
“Your strength, your fortitude, your clarity has just been nothing short of amazing and all of America is paying attention to what you’re saying,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said as he asked Booker a question on the Senate floor. “All of America needs to know there’s so many problems, the disastrous actions of this administration.”
As Booker stood for hour after hour, he appeared to have nothing more than a couple glasses of water to sustain him. Yet his voice grew strong with emotion as his speech stretched into the afternoon, and House members from the Congressional Black Caucus, including House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, stood on the edge of the Senate floor to support Booker.
“This is a very powerful and principled moment led” by Booker, Jeffries said.
For his part, Booker called on his Democratic colleagues to look to their core values to find the resolve to counter the Republican president.
“Moments like this require us to be more creative or more imaginative, or just more persistent and dogged and determined,” Booker said.
Booker’s cousin and brother, as well as Democratic aides, watched from the chamber’s gallery. Sen. Chris Murphy accompanied Booker on the Senate floor throughout the day and night. Murphy was returning the comradeship that Booker had given to him in 2016 when the Connecticut Democrat held the floor for almost 15 hours to argue for gun control legislation. His Senate floor speech isn’t the longest, but it’s close
The record for the longest individual speech belongs to Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, according to the Senate’s records. As it rolled past 22 hours, Booker’s speech marked the fourth longest in Senate history.
“I don’t have that much gas in the tank,” Booker said, yet anticipation in the Capitol was growing that he could surpass the record held by Thurmond.
Booker already surpassed the longest speech time for a sitting senator — the 21 hours and 19 minutes that Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, had held the floor to contest the Affordable Care Act in 2013. Responding to his record being broken, Cruz posted a meme of Homer Simpson crying on social media.
Throughout his determined performance, Booker repeatedly invoked the civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis of Georgia on Tuesday, arguing that overcoming opponents like Thurmond would require more than just talking.
“You think we got civil rights one day because Strom Thurmond — after filibustering for 24 hours — you think we got civil rights because he came to the floor one day and said, ‘I’ve seen the light,’” Booker said. “No, we got civil rights because people marched for it, sweat for it and John Lewis bled for it.”
Booker’s speech was not a filibuster, which is a speech meant to halt the advance of a specific piece of legislation. Instead, Booker’s performance was a broader critique of Trump’s agenda, meant to hold up the Senate’s business and draw attention to what Democrats are doing to contest the president. Without a majority in either congressional chamber, Democrats have been almost completely locked out of legislative power but are turning to procedural maneuvers to try to thwart Republicans. Can his speech rally the anti-Trump resistance?
Booker is serving his second term in the Senate. He was an unsuccessful presidential candidate in 2020, when he launched his campaign from the steps of his home in Newark. He dropped out after struggling to gain a foothold in a packed field, falling short of the threshold to meet in a January 2020 debate.
But as Democrats search for a next generation of leadership, frustrated with the old-timers at the top, Booker’s speech could cement his status as a leading figure in the party’s opposition to Trump.
On Tuesday afternoon, tens of thousands of people were watching on Booker’s Senate YouTube page, as well as on other live streams.
Even before taking to the national political stage, Booker was considered a rising star in the Democratic Party in New Jersey, serving as mayor of Newark, the state’s largest city, from 2006 to 2013.
During college, he played tight end for Stanford University’s football team. He became a Rhodes scholar and graduated from Yale Law before starting his career as an attorney for nonprofits.
He was first elected to the US Senate in 2013 during a special election held after the death of incumbent Democrat Frank Lautenberg. He won his first full term in 2014 and reelection in 2020.
As Democratic colleagues made their way to the Senate chamber to help Booker by asking him questions, he also made heartfelt tributes to his fellow senators, recalling their personal backgrounds and shared experiences in the Senate. Booker also called on Americans to respond not just with resistance to Trump’s actions but with kindness and generosity for those in their communities.
Booker said, “I may be afraid — my voice may shake — but I’m going to speak up more.”
Macron urges ‘mercy’ from Algerian leader for jailed writer
Sansal, known for his criticism of Algerian authorities as well of Islamists, found himself in the dock for saying in the interview that colonial-era France unfairly ceded Moroccan territory to Algeria
Updated 02 April 2025
AFP
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday urged Algerian counterpart Abdelmadjid Tebboune to show “mercy and humanity” toward a jailed French-Algerian writer, Boualem Sansal, the Elysee palace said in a statement.
Macron made the plea during a “long, frank and friendly” phone call covering bilateral ties and “tensions that have accumulated over recent months,” it said.
Macron has repeatedly called for Algeria to release Sansal, citing his fragile state of health due to cancer.
The author was sentenced last Thursday to five years in prison after an interview he gave to a French far-right media outlet was deemed to undermine Algeria’s territorial integrity.
Macron “called for a gesture of mercy and humanity toward Mr.Boualem Sansal, given the age and state of health of the writer,” the Elysee statement said.
According to his French publisher, Sansal is 80 years old.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot will visit Algiers on Sunday, at the invitation of the Algerian government, to plan ways to shore up ties, it said.
Sansal’s conviction and sentence further frayed ties between France and Algeria, already strained by migration issues and Macron’s recognition last year of Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara, which is claimed by the Algeria-backed pro-independence Polisario Front.
Sansal, known for his criticism of Algerian authorities as well of Islamists, found himself in the dock for saying in the interview that colonial-era France unfairly ceded Moroccan territory to Algeria.
In Monday’s call, Macron and Tebboune spoke of their willingness to repair relations, and to resume cooperation on security.
They also said that “fluid” migration between the two countries should “immediately” be restored — seeking to soothe tensions after Algiers refused to accept the return of undocumented Algerian migrants from France.
A joint panel of historians plumbing the past between France and Algeria, its former colony that won independence in 1962 after a bloody eight-year conflict, will also get back to work, they said.
The two leaders also agreed in “principle” to meet in person at a future date, the statement said.
Tebboune said a week ago that he viewed Macron as the “only point of reference” for mending French-Algerian ties.
Supreme Court may open door to US victim suits against Palestinian authorities
The long-running case involves the jurisdiction of US federal courts to hear lawsuits involving the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization
Updated 02 April 2025
AFP
WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday on whether American victims of attacks in Israel and the West Bank can sue the Palestinian authorities for damages in US courts.
The long-running case involves the jurisdiction of US federal courts to hear lawsuits involving the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Americans killed or injured in attacks in Israel or the West Bank or their relatives have filed a number of suits seeking damages.
In one 2015 case, a jury awarded $654 million to the US victims of attacks which took place in the early 2000s.
Appeals courts dismissed the suits on jurisdiction grounds.
Congress passed a law in 2019 — the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act — that would make the PLO and PA subject to US jurisdiction if they were found to have made payments to the relatives of persons who killed or injured Americans.
Two lower courts ruled that the 2019 law was a violation of the due process rights of the Palestinian authorities but a majority of the justices on the conservative-majority Supreme Court appeared inclined on Tuesday to uphold it.
“Congress and the president are the ones who make fairness judgments when we’re talking about the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” said Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler, representing the Trump administration, agreed, saying the courts should not substitute themselves for Congress or the president.
“Congress and the president made a judgment that is entitled to virtually absolute deference — that it is appropriate to subject the PA and the PLO to jurisdiction,” Kneedler said.
“In this case, respondents had a chance to avoid that by just stopping those activities, but they didn’t,” he said.
Mitchell Berger, representing the PA and PLO, said assigning jurisdiction is “over and above what Congress can prescribe.”
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling before the end of its term in June.
UK government urged to condemn Taliban over arrest of elderly Brits
Peter and Barbie Reynolds, both in their 70s, were detained in February, accused of using false passports
Daughter demands action from UK government after US authorities secured release of American citizen
Updated 02 April 2025
Arab News
LONDON: The daughter of an elderly British couple being held in Afghanistan has called on the UK government to publicly condemn the Taliban over the detention.
Peter and Barbie Reynolds, both of whom are also Afghan citizens, were arrested in February as they returned to their home in Bamiyan province. They are accused of traveling on fake passports.
An American woman, Faye Hall, who was detained along with the couple was released last week after US officials reached a deal with Afghan authorities.
Sarah Entwistle, the daughter of the Reynolds, told The Telegraph newspaper that the family wants UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy to make a public statement condemning the Taliban for detaining her parents “without any evidence of wrongdoing.”
She said that if US authorities were able to secure Hall’s release, the UK government should be able to do the same for her parents.
“We understand that there have been reasons for caution over previous weeks but now that America has Faye back, we are desperately hoping there is more the British Government can do,” Entwistle said.
She added that her 75-year-old mother is suffering from malnutrition, while her father, 79, has had a chest infection, an eye infection and severe digestive issues. The family previously warned that his life is at risk.
“We continue to hope that the Taliban will embrace all that is decent and just by granting clemency during this meaningful time of Eid,” Entwistle said.
A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said: “We are supporting the family of two British nationals who are detained in Afghanistan.”
The couple, who have lived in the country for 18 years, run a company there that provides education and training programs. The Telegraph reported that they were arrested by members of the Haqqani network, a powerful Taliban faction, in an attempt to gain concessions from the governments of the UK and US. Last week, the US lifted a $10 million bounty from Sirajuddin Haqqani, a senior figure in the network.
’I bought their dream’: How a US company’s huge land deal in Senegal went bust
The failed project has undermined community trust, said herder Adama Sow, 74: “Before, we lived in peace, but now there’s conflict for those of us who supported them”
Updated 02 April 2025
AFP
DAKAR, Senegal: Rusting pipes in a barren field and unpaid workers are what remain after a US company promised to turn a huge piece of land in Senegal — about twice the size of Paris — into an agricultural project and create thousands of jobs.
In interviews with company officials and residents, The Associated Press explored one of the growing number of foreign investment projects targeting Africa, home to about 60 percent of the world’s remaining uncultivated arable land. Like this one, many fail, often far from public notice.
Internal company documents seen by the AP show how the plans, endorsed by the Senegalese government, for exporting animal feed to wealthy Gulf nations fell apart.
Herders and farmers from left, Adama Sow, Oumar Ba and Daka Sow walk outside Niéti Yone, northern Senegal, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP)
At first glance, the landscape of stark acacia trees on the edge of the Sahara Desert doesn’t hold much agricultural promise. But in an age of climate change, foreign investors are looking at this and other African landscapes.
The continent has seen a third of the world’s large-scale land acquisitions between 2000 and 2020, mostly for agriculture, according to researchers from the International Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands.
But 23 percent of those deals have failed, after sometimes ambitious plans to feed the world.
Union leader Doudou Ndiaye Mboup speaks to reporters in Niéti Yone, northern Senegal, Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. (AP)
Why target land on the edge of the Sahara Desert?
In 2021, the Senegalese village of Niéti Yone welcomed investors Frank Timis and Gora Seck from a US-registered company, African Agriculture. Over cups of sweet green tea, the visitors promised to employ hundreds of locals and, one day, thousands.
Timis, originally from Romania, was the majority stakeholder. His companies have mined for gold, minerals and fossil fuels across West Africa.
Rusting pipes stand in a barren field outside Niéti Yone, northern Senegal, Monday, Dec. 9, 2024. (AP)
Seck, a Senegalese mining investor, chaired an Italian company whose biofuel plans for the land parcel had failed. It sold the 50-year lease for 20,000 hectares to Timis for $7.9 million. Seck came on as president of African Agriculture’s Senegalese subsidiary and holds 4.8 percent of its shares.
Now the company wanted the community’s approval.
The land was next to Senegal’s largest freshwater lake, for which the company obtained water rights.
The proposal divided the community of subsistence farmers. Herders who had raised livestock on the land for generations opposed it. Others, like Doudou Ndiaye Mboup, thought it could help ease Senegal’s unemployment crisis.
“I bought their dream. I saw thousands of young Africans with jobs and prosperity,” said Mboup, who was later employed as an electrician and now leads a union of employees.
Despite the formation of an opposition group called the Ndiael Collective, African Agriculture moved ahead, hiring about 70 of the community’s 10,000 residents.
Stock exchange vision: One year later, almost worth nothing
After planting a 300-hectare (740-acre) pilot plot of alfalfa, the company announced in November 2022 it would go public to raise funds.
African Agriculture valued the company at $450 million. The Oakland Institute, an environmental think tank in the US, questioned that amount and called the deal bad for food security as well as greenhouse gas emissions.
The company went public in December 2023, with shares trading at $8 on the NASDAQ exchange. It raised $22.6 million during the offering but had to pay $19 million to the listed but inactive company it had merged with.
That payment signaled trouble to investors. It showed that the other company, 0X Capital Venture Acquisition Corp. II, didn’t want to hold its 98 percent of stock. And it highlighted the way African Agriculture had used the merger to bypass the vetting process needed for listing.
One year later, shares in African Agriculture were worth almost nothing.
Now, security guards patrol the land’s barbed-wire perimeter, blocking herders and farmers from using it. The company has been delisted.
Big ambitions leave big impacts for the local community
Mboup said he and others haven’t been paid for six months. The workers took the company to employment court in Senegal to claim about $180,000 in unpaid wages. In February, they burned tires outside the company’s office. Mboup later said an agreement was reached for back wages to be paid in June.
“I took out loans to build a house and now I can’t pay it back,” said Mboup, who had been making $200 a month, just above average for Senegal. “I’ve sold my motorbike and sheep to feed my children and send them to school, but many are not so lucky.”
Timis didn’t respond to questions. Seck told the AP he was no longer affiliated with African Agriculture. Current CEO Mike Rhodes said he had been advised to not comment.
Herders and farmers are furious and have urged Senegal’s government to let them use the land. But that rarely happens. In a study of 63 such foreign deals, the International Institute of Social Studies found only 11 percent of land was returned to the community. In most cases, the land is offered to other investors.
“We want to work with the government to rectify this situation. If not, we will fight,” warned Bayal Sow, the area’s deputy mayor.
The Senegalese minister of agriculture, food sovereignty and herding, Mabouba Diagne, did not respond to questions. The African Agriculture deal occurred under the previous administration.
The failed project has undermined community trust, said herder Adama Sow, 74: “Before, we lived in peace, but now there’s conflict for those of us who supported them.”
Former CEO announces acquisition in Cameroon and Congo
Meanwhile, African Agriculture’s former CEO has moved on to a bigger land deal elsewhere on the continent — with experts raising questions again.
In August, South African Alan Kessler announced his new company, African Food Security, partnering with a Cameroonian, Baba Danpullo. It has announced a project roughly 30 times the size of the one in Senegal, with 635,000 hectares in Congo and Cameroon.
The new company seeks $875 million in investment. The company’s investor prospectus, obtained by the AP, says it plans to register in Abu Dhabi.
In an interview with the AP in January, Kessler blamed the failure of the Senegal project on the way African Agriculture’s public offering was structured. He said there were no plans for a public offering this time.
He claimed his new company’s project would double corn production in these countries, and described African Food Security as the “most incredibly important development company on the planet.” He said they have started to grow corn on 200 hectares in Cameroon.
Experts who looked over the prospectus raised concerns about its claims, including an unusually high projection for corn yields. Kessler rejected those concerns.
“When he was CEO of African Agriculture, Kessler also made lofty claims about food production, job creation, exports and investment returns that did not pan out,” said Renée Vellvé, co-founder of GRAIN, a Spain-based nonprofit for land rights.
Hype without proof was a key strategy for African Agriculture, said its former chief operating officer, Javier Orellana, who said he is owed 165,000 euros ($178,000) in unpaid salary after leaving the company in 2023.
He told the AP he had been suspicious of the company’s $450 million valuation.
“I know the agriculture industry well and ($450 million) didn’t add up,” Orellana said, adding he stayed on because the company gave him what he called a very attractive offer.
In the end, a share in African Agriculture is now worth less than a penny.
“We are looking forward to going back to Senegal,” Kessler said. “We were appreciated there. We’ve been welcomed back there.”
