Africa
To Slow World Hunger, It Will Take More Than Ukrainian Grain Exports
NAIROBI, Kenya — In Afghanistan, starving children stream into hospitals. In the Horn of Africa, villagers trek for days across dust-blown wastelands to escape drought-induced famine. In cities from Syria to Central America, families go to bed hungry. On Monday, a ship carrying grain that left the Ukrainian port of Odesa, the first since Russia […]
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Where China Is Changing Its Diplomatic Ways (at Least a Little)
Whirlwind visits to crisis-riven nations in Africa. A sleek training center for the continent’s up-and-coming politicians. The prospect of major debt forgiveness for a favorite African country. As relations with the United States and Europe plummet, China is starting a new wave of diplomacy in Africa, where it dominates trade with resource-rich nations and keeps […]
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W.H.O. Declares Monkeypox Spread a Global Health Emergency
For the second time in two years, the World Health Organization has taken the extraordinary step of declaring a global emergency. This time the cause is monkeypox, which has spread in just a few weeks to dozens of countries and infected tens of thousands of people. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director general, on […]
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In West Africa and Beyond, Mali’s Famed Manuscripts Are Put to Use
BAMAKO, Mali — In an air-conditioned room on a quiet tree-lined street in Mali’s capital, Bamako, three young men sat at desks with cameras mounted overhead, picked up one page of parchment at a time from tall stacks at their left, clicked the shutter button and then reached for the next page. Click. Flash. Repeat. […]
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‘We Buried Him and Kept Walking’: Children Die as Somalis Flee Hunger
DOOLOW, Somalia — When her crops failed and her parched goats died, Hirsiyo Mohamed left her home in southwestern Somalia, carrying and coaxing three of her eight children on the long walk across a bare and dusty landscape in temperatures as high as 100 degrees. Along the way, her 3-and-a-half-year-old son, Adan, tugged at her […]
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Biden Races to Expand Coalition Against Russia but Meets Resistance
WASHINGTON — Even before the start of the war in Ukraine, an international alliance to rally the world against a Russian invasion came together so quickly that President Biden later marveled at the “purpose and unity found in months that we’d once taken years to accomplish.” Now, with the conflict in its fourth month, U.S. […]
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‘From Russia With Love’: A Putin Ally Mines Gold and Plays Favorites in Sudan
AL-IBEDIYYA, Sudan — In a scorched, gold-rich area 200 miles north of the Sudanese capital, where fortunes spring from desert-hewn rock, a mysterious foreign operator dominates the business. Locals call it “The Russian Company” — a tightly guarded plant with shining towers, deep in the desert, that processes mounds of dusty ore into bars of […]
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‘Everybody Should Be Concerned’ About Monkeypox, Biden Warns
President Biden raised the alarm on Sunday about monkeypox, a viral infection fast spreading around the world, and warned that the disease, which can be spread as easily as through handling a contaminated object, is something “that everybody should be concerned about.” Monkeypox, rarely seen outside Africa, has been found in recent weeks in Europe […]
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Poor Countries Face a Mounting Catastrophe Fueled by Inflation and Debt
Before war ravaged Yemen, Walid Al-Ahdal did not worry about feeding his children. At his hometown near the Red Sea, his family grew corn, raised goats and relied on their own cow for milk. But for the last four years, after fighting forced them to flee, their home has been a tent at a camp […]
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