‘It smells like death’: Gazans return to devastated Khan Yunis

‘It smells like death’: Gazans return to devastated Khan Yunis
A Palestinian boy walks past building rubble in Khan Yunis on April 7, 2024 after Israel pulled troops out of the southern Gaza Strip. (AFP)
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Updated 08 April 2024
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‘It smells like death’: Gazans return to devastated Khan Yunis

‘It smells like death’: Gazans return to devastated Khan Yunis
  • “We don’t have a city anymore — only rubble," Palestinian mother says

KHAN YUNIS: “It smells like death,” said Maha Thaer, a mother of four, as she returned to the devastated southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis on Sunday, after Israeli troops withdrew.
“We don’t have a city anymore — only rubble. There is absolutely nothing left. I could not stop myself crying as I walked through the streets,” the 38-year-old told AFP.
“All the streets have been bulldozed. And the smell... I watched people digging and bringing out the bodies,” said Thaer, whose home was partially destroyed.
Soon after the Israeli army said its troops were pulling out, people began to emerge into the devastated landscape — the residents of Khan Yunis returning to find what remained of their homes.
Nearly 400,000 people lived in Khan Yunis and its environs before October 7. Much of the area is now in ruins after months of bombardment and heavy fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants.
A straggle of men and boys riding donkey carts, bicycles and the odd pickup truck headed north out of Rafah in the far south of the Gaza Strip, where more than 1.5 million Palestinians had taken refuge from the relentless Israeli ground invasion and bombardment.
They passed the burned-out shell of the Al-Salam hospital, with almost all of the buildings around it razed to the ground.
Thaer, from the upmarket Hamad City district in the west of Khan Yunis, said she was “very shocked and sad.”
“There were no walls or windows. Most of the towers were completely blown up,” she said.
Thaer said she would move back into her badly damaged apartment, “even though it is not suitable for living, but it is better than tents.”
Her neighbors suffered a greater misfortune. “They found their homes destroyed and they don’t know where they will go,” she said.
Other Gazans carried a mattress on their heads in the hope they would still have four walls to put it in.
One of those who left Rafah on Sunday climbed on the top of a heap of rubble in Khan Yunis which once had been a home.
With everything around him in ruins, AFP photographs showed the man standing among smashed concrete and corrugated iron roofing.
Not a single structure within sight appeared untouched by the war.
Other images showed large swathes of the city flattened.
The Israeli army told AFP that it had pulled its 98th division of ground troops out of the southern city on Sunday to “recuperate,” with one official telling the Israeli media it had killed thousands of Hamas fighters there.
“There’s no need for us to remain... We did everything we could there,” an army official told Haaretz newspaper.
The Gaza war broke out on October 7 with an attack by Hamas militants that resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, Israeli figures show.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 33,175 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.


Congo brings forward launch of mpox vaccine drive to Oct 2

Updated 2 min 18 sec ago
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Congo brings forward launch of mpox vaccine drive to Oct 2

Congo brings forward launch of mpox vaccine drive to Oct 2
Congo is the epicenter of the ongoing mpox outbreak that WHO declared to be a global public health emergency last month
Health authorities now intend to start the campaign on Oct. 2, response chief Cris Kacita told Reuters

KINSHASA: Democratic Republic of Congo will start its mpox vaccination campaign on Oct. 2, nearly a week earlier than previously planned, the head of its outbreak response said on Wednesday.
Congo is the epicenter of the ongoing mpox outbreak that the World Health Organization declared to be a global public health emergency last month, but a lack of vaccines has until now hampered efforts to curb the spread of the sometimes deadly virus.
The central African country had been planning to launch vaccinations on Oct. 8 after receiving its first delivery of mpox doses last week. But health authorities now intend to start the campaign on Oct. 2, response chief Cris Kacita told Reuters.
“There are procedures that have evolved and helped reduce delays,” he said, adding that the vaccination campaign will last 10 days and target only adults, including health care professionals, park rangers and sex workers in Congo’s six provinces.
He has previously said that work was ongoing to combat mistrust of the vaccine in some communities and to manage the logistical challenge of rolling out the program across six provinces in a country the size of Western Europe.
On Tuesday, Congo received 50,000 mpox vaccine doses that had been donated by the United States, Ambassador Lucy Tamlyn said on X.
Kacita told Reuters that Congo had received in total 265,000 doses from the United States and the European Union.
He said those doses would not be sufficient to cover many areas in the central African country. “There have been promises from France and Belgium, and the number of doses is expected to be known within the week,” Kacita said.
Japan has promised to donate 3.5 million doses of a vaccine that could administered to children, who are among the main victims of the epidemic, he said, adding that discussions were still continuing.

Slavery reparations backed by all candidates vying for Commonwealth boss

Slavery reparations backed by all candidates vying for Commonwealth boss
Updated 3 min 4 sec ago
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Slavery reparations backed by all candidates vying for Commonwealth boss

Slavery reparations backed by all candidates vying for Commonwealth boss
  • Declared candidates — Mamadou Tangara of Gambia, Shirley Botchwey from Ghana and Joshua Setipa of Lesotho — said they backed the idea of making amends for slavery and colonialism
  • Caribbean Community has a 10-point reparation plan, which among other demands calls for debt cancelation
LONDON: All three candidates running to become the next secretary-general of the Commonwealth, a 56-nation club headed by Britain’s King Charles, said on Wednesday they supported reparations for transatlantic slavery and colonialism.
The Commonwealth evolved out of the British empire and is one of world’s biggest international organizations, covering some 2.7 billion people. Members include Canada and India as well as 21 African countries, and Caribbean islands such as Barbados and Jamaica.
Charles expressed deep sorrow over slavery in a speech to Commonwealth leaders in 2022 and last year gave his support to research that will examine the British monarchy’s links to slavery. However, Britain, like most colonial powers, has rejected calls for reparations.
The Commonwealth’s next leader, succeeding Britain’s Patricia Scotland, will be elected in October at the heads of government meeting in Samoa.
At a debate at London’s Chatham House, the three declared candidates — Mamadou Tangara of Gambia, Shirley Botchwey from Ghana and Joshua Setipa of Lesotho — said they backed the idea of making amends for slavery and colonialism.
“I stand for reparations,” Botchwey, Ghana’s foreign affairs minister, said, adding the Commonwealth could have a role to play if the member states request a “common voice” on the issue.
Setipa, a former trade and industry minister, said if he was elected he would not wait for member states to ask the Commonwealth to act.
“The Commonwealth has a long history of facilitating discussions about difficult issues,” he said.
Tangara, a Gambian diplomat and politician, said he “fully” supported reparations but it was up to member states to lead the conversations, which the Commonwealth could facilitate.
Both Botchwey and Setipa said reparations weren’t just about financial payments but also support to tackle climate change and build countries’ economic resilience, with Setipa noting these issues were crucial to addressing the legacy of centuries of slavery and colonialism.
From the 15th to the 19th century, at least 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped, forcibly transported by European merchants and sold into slavery. Britain transported an estimated 3.2 million people, the most active European country after Portugal, which enslaved nearly 6 million.
The highly divisive issue of reparations to address historical wrongs is long-standing but has been gaining momentum, with several institutions and some nations acknowledging their past.
Ghana’s Botchwey has previously said Africa should use declarations and admissions of guilt as a “compelling reason and a foundation for a demand for reparations.”
The Caribbean Community has a 10-point reparation plan, which among other demands calls for debt cancelation, and the African Union is developing a common position on the issue, with Ghana leading the efforts.
Earlier this year, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres called for reparations to “help overcome generations of exclusion and discrimination.”

Pakistan and European Union pledge joint efforts to tackle religious intolerance

Pakistan and European Union pledge joint efforts to tackle religious intolerance
Updated 6 min 41 sec ago
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Pakistan and European Union pledge joint efforts to tackle religious intolerance

Pakistan and European Union pledge joint efforts to tackle religious intolerance
  • Religious affairs minister tells a visiting EU official Pakistan is committed to protecting minority rights
  • Pakistan Ulema Council also urges religious scholars to highlight minority rights in Friday sermons

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Religious Affairs Minister Chaudhry Salik Hussain met with the European Union’s Special Envoy for the Promotion of Religion and Belief Frans van Daele in Islamabad on Wednesday, discussing the challenge of religious intolerance globally and agreeing to work together towards its eradication.

The EU has previously raised concerns over extremist violence perpetrated in the name of religion in Pakistan, specifically mentioning its blasphemy laws and forced conversions, which it says have marginalized religious minorities.

These concerns even prompted the European Parliament to consider reassessing Pakistan’s preferential trade status under the GSP+ scheme, which grants Pakistani exports duty-free access to the European market.

According to a statement circulated by the ministry after the meeting, they also discussed “terrorism, the eradication of sectarianism, the establishment of peace, and the promotion of interfaith harmony.”

“The participants [of the meeting] agreed to work together to reduce the trend of intolerance and achieve a peaceful common future,” it added.

Hussain told the EU official his ministry had formulated a policy on interfaith harmony and sent it to the federal cabinet for approval.

“Pakistan is committed to protecting the rights of minorities,” he said.

FRIDAY SERMONS

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Ulema Council urged religious scholars across the country to highlight the rights of women and minority rights in Islam during the Friday sermons.

“Like other sections of the society, women and minorities are entitled with due respect and honour in the teachings of Islam and all these rights play a pivotal role for the existence of an ideal society,” the council said in a statement.

The council said the teachings of Islam centered on human dignity and respect, urging prayer leaders across the country educate the public about this in the light the Qur’anic teachings.

 


AI must reflect human values for successful future job market, industry experts say

AI must reflect human values for successful future job market, industry experts say
Updated 37 min 30 sec ago
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AI must reflect human values for successful future job market, industry experts say

AI must reflect human values for successful future job market, industry experts say

RIYADH: Inserting human values into AI to ensure that the job market achieved a balance between the need for automation and the need for human input was vital, experts at the Global AI Summit in Riyadh said on Wednesday. 

During a panel discussion, titled “Job Disruption: Is it All Lost?,” Ray Wang, chairman and CEO of Constellation Research Inc, addressed this concern.

“We have to … make sure that we actually continue to operate at a machine-level scale and at a human scale, bringing those two areas together,” he said.

“When we think about the Internet age, it was open, it was decentralized — things were cheaper, we had a lot of players. This is closed, this is centralized. This is more expensive, and only a few will win … We have to work double as hard to make sure that jobs are going to be there.”

Wang said that jobs would not be “all lost” if the industry ensured a balance between the jobs that were replaced and the jobs that were created.

He said that it was the education system’s responsibility to teach children the right sets of skills t0 prepare them for future positions.

Mohamed Elhoseiny, associate professor of computer science at KAUST, echoed Wang’s view. He added that AI models needed to be developed to complement schooling rather than misusing AI to plagiarize work.

Elhoseiny also spoke about the importance of inserting human goals into AI designs and emphasized that humans were more powerful when working with AI than alone.

“A big problem right now in our schools is kids can use ChatGPT, for example, to solve problems. But this does not contribute to the very goal of developing the skills of the children, so how can we … help children do more and gain the skillsets, and how do we do that in away that aligns with our (human) goals,” he said.

Nancy Giordano, author and founder of Play Big Inc., wants to embrace the new job market that will be created hand-in-hand with AI.

“Are we trying to hold on to jobs so that we can protect an economic system that we may have outgrown?” she said.

But for that future model to succeed, there was a need rethink the approach to AI application, she said.

“How do we prepare economically for that kind of world?” Giordano asked. “We have not built the scaffolding for this new era that we’re heading into.”

Wang said that the PESTLE model, a framework that analyzes external factors within political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors, was “perfect for the scaffolding” of AI.

“And now is the time to actually do that,” he said.


Saudi crown prince congratulates Algerian president on re-election

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Algeria’s incumbent President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. (File/SPA/AFP)
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Algeria’s incumbent President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. (File/SPA/AFP)
Updated 27 min 16 sec ago
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Saudi crown prince congratulates Algerian president on re-election

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Algeria’s incumbent President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. (File/SPA/AFP)
  • Tebboune was re-elected with almost 95 percent of the vote

RIYADH: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman congratulated Algeria’s incumbent President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on his re-election during a phone call on Wednesday.

The crown prince wished Tebbounne success and the president thanked Prince Mohammed for his kind wishes. 

Algeria’s electoral authority ANIE announced on Sunday that Tebboune had been re-elected with almost 95 percent of the vote.

More than 5.3 million people voted for Tebboune, accounting for “94.65 percent of the vote,” ANIE head Mohamed Charfi said.