REFUGEES in Tanzania will soon receive half the food ration they require, due to funding shortages afflicting the World Food Programme’s (WFP’s) response. More than 200 000 refugees in the East African country will be affected. WFP says it needs US$21 million to provide food assistance. In March, further reductions were made, dropping the ration from meeting 80 percent of the food needs to 65 percent. “A few contributions have arrived on time, and we are now forced to makethe…

HIROSHIMA, Japan, May 20 (Xinhua) — At the Group of Seven (G7) Summit starting here Friday, the U.S.-led clique is again hyping up their so-called “law and order,” whereas political observers have precisely debunked the essence of their lies — a scheme to play small-clique politics and dictate to the rest of the world. The G7 on Saturday issued a statement concerning economic resilience and security, threatening to counter “economic coercion,” which will de facto divide the world into two…

MOSCOW/KIEV, May 21 (Xinhua) — Russia said on Saturday that its forces had taken full control of the hotly contested city of Bakhmut, also known as Artyomovsk, while the Ukrainian side said the situation there was critical. Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russia’s Wagner private military group, said in a video message posted on his Telegram channel that Wagner will begin to withdraw its units on May 25 for rest and retraining, and its fighters will create “the necessary lines of…

ATHENS, May 21 (Xinhua) — Greek conservatives received a clear mandate from Greek people to continue efforts to change the country with a strong government, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Sunday after his New Democracy (ND) party won the general elections by a huge margin. ND garnered 40.79 percent of the votes, securing 145 seats in the next 300-member parliament, according to 96.03 percent of the votes counted, official results released by the Interior Ministry showed. The main opposition party,…

HIROSHIMA, Japan, May 22 (Xinhua) — “Re-enacting the Cold War would be foolish,” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Sunday, calling for settling the Ukraine crisis under a framework of the United Nations. Lula made the remarks at the just-concluded Group of Seven (G7) summit working session as an invited state leader. The Ukraine crisis should be discussed under a framework of the United Nations rather than the G7, he noted at a press conference on Monday, criticizing the…

HIROSHIMA, Japan, May 19 (Xinhua) — Amid waves of protests, the Group of Seven (G7) leaders’ annual summit got underway on Friday in Japan’s western city of Hiroshima. Hundreds of protesters from all over the country, even abroad, gathered in Hiroshima’s Funairi Daiichi Park, not far from the summit’s venue, to decry the finger-pointing bloc that advertises its own version of world order. Seen on-site were huge banners and placards that read “Junk G7,” “No Build-up to War” and “No…

GENEVA, May 17 (Xinhua) — The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) issued a worldwide appeal on Wednesday calling for an increase in the value of pledges for digitalizing the world from the current 30 billion U.S. dollars to 100 billion U.S. dollars by 2026. The target was announced on the occasion of World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD), observed annually on May 17 to mark the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention and ITU’s founding in 1865. “Tech is at…

SOUTH Africa will not take sides in a contest between global powers, President Cyril Ramaphosa has said as he hit out at critics accusing his country of siding with Russia in the war with Ukraine. Ramaphosa was writing in his weekly letter, days after the United States envoy in South Africa accused the African National Congress-led government of arming Russia. “Since the advent of democracy nearly 30 years, South Africa has pursued an independent foreign policy.” Ramaphosa said. He noted…

Left-wing political party, the EFF, has once again condemned the British monarchy’s continuous public display of the diamond taken from South Africa in 1907, said to be worth R6 billion, that adorns the royal crown. The party was responding to the display of the world’s biggest diamond, known as the Star of Africa, at the coronation of British monarch King Charles III in London on Saturday. The diamond was discovered in South Africa and handed over to the British Monarchy…

LONDON, May 5 (Xinhua) — Britain’s ruling Conservative party has lost over 1,000 seats in local elections across England, latest election results showed on Friday. Senior Conservatives had predicted ahead of the elections that major losses were to be expected after 13 years in power. By Friday evening, 222 out of 230 councils had already declared their results, with the Conservatives losing control of 45 city halls and the party’s 1,040 councilors lost their jobs in the process. However, the…