World
Landmark report highlights untapped potential of Africa’s film industry
Africa’s film and audiovisual industries could create over 20 million jobs and contribute $20 billion to the continent’s combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the UN cultural agency, UNESCO, said on Oct. 5 in a new report highlighting this untapped potential. The African Film Industry: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities for Growth is the first-ever mapping of the sector, which currently employs...
Iran concerned by Israel presence in Caucasus, will not accept
Iran’s foreign minister has ringed the alarm about Israel’s presence in the Caucasus, stressing Tehran will not tolerate a geopolitical change in the region. “The Islamic Republic of Iran is deeply concerned by Israel’s presence in the Caucasus,” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Oct. 6, stressing, Tehran “will not accept a map change in the region.” He made the remarks at a...
In Barbados, UN Secretary General Guterres highlights power of ‘youth voices’ ahead of key trade and development conference
The UN secretary-general on Oct. 3 said he was committed to ensuring that the organization is a place where “youth voices are heard, and their ideas lead,” as he spent the day in Barbados which hosted a major UN conference on trade and development, focused on the need to build a global green economy and recover equitably from the...
French report: 330,000 children victims of church sex abuse
PARIS—Victims of abuse within France’s Catholic Church welcomed a historic turning point Oct. 5 after a new report estimated that 330,000 children in France were sexually abused over the past 70 years, providing the country’s first accounting of the worldwide phenomenon. The figure includes abuses committed by some 3,000 priests and an unknown number of other people involved in the...
Questions about EU, World Bank, IMF ties with Sudan
Davoe Malpass recently landed in Khartoum, the first visit for a World Bank president to Sudan in more than 50 years, announced Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. The prime minister of the East African nation hailed the visit as a sign that Sudan’s integration into the international community “is progressing in strides,” Hamdoks’s office said. Malpass tweeted that the World Bank “is...
Sudan downplays progress in Israel ties, dismiss plans for Israeli embassy in Khartoum
Eleven months after Sudan agreed to normalize relations with Israel, the country’s foreign minister has played down progress in building ties with the regime, saying there are no plans to open an Israeli embassy in Khartoum. “There’s not any sign of normalization with Israel … and there is no talk at any official level,” Mariam al-Sadiq al-Mahdi asserted in an interview with...
Canada’s Catholic Church apologizes ‘unequivocally’ to indigenous peoples for school abuses
Canada’s Catholic bishops have issued a public apology to indigenous people for a century of grave abuse and suffering at church-run residential schools. In a statement, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) apologized “unequivocally” to indigenous people for the suffering they endured at residential schools set up by the government to forcefully assimilate children into the mainstream. The apology came after...
DR Congo: Abuse allegations amid Ebola outbreak ‘a sickening betrayal of the people we serve’
Sexual abuse and exploitation allegedly carried out by World Health Organization (WHO) staff during the UN health agency’s response to an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is “a sickening betrayal of the people we serve,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General said on Sept. 28. An independent panel commissioned by WHO identified more than 80 alleged cases of abuse...
UN food systems confab draws fire from food activists
(GIN)—The first-ever UN Food Systems Summit saw nearly 300 commitments from hundreds of thousands of people from around the world and across all constituencies to accelerate action and to transform food systems, according to a UN press release. The summit process was also applauded by farmer leaders for “inclusivity.” “The summit has been very inclusive,” said president of the Pan-African...
President Raeisi talks face-to-face with southwestern Iranian nomads, promises to resolve their problems
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raeisi has promised to resolve problems faced by Iranian nomads, in particular water shortages, upon visiting southwestern regions of the country to talk with the nomads face-to-face. “We are seriously pursuing the resolution of your water shortage problems, and on the other hand, we will strive to cut off the hands of middlemen and brokers in selling...