In the World
Southern Sudan in hunger crisis
NAIROBI, Kenya - More than 80 percent of people living in a conflict zone in Sudan's southern region are eating only one meal a day, compared with 10 percent one year ago, a U.S. advocacy group said Thursday, citing research collected from a region where aid groups aren't allowed to operate.
The Enough Project warned that hunger is increasing to dangerous levels in the Sudanese state of South Kordofan. A study carried out by an aid group showed that girls are suffering the worst. Girls in the region have reached a "critical" level of malnutrition, the most serious classification on the World Health Organization's scale. Boys are just below that level, at "serious."
The research was conducted by an aid group the Enough Project said didn't want to be identified. Sudan forbids aid groups from operating in South Kordofan, where rebels are fighting government troops. Aid workers must sneak into the region by crossing the border from South Sudan.
John Prendergast, cofounder of the Enough Project, said the situation in South Kordofan is similar to the conditions seen leading up to the famine in Somalia last year.
- AP
Iraqi seeks faster weapons delivery
BAGHDAD - Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pressed Thursday for faster deliveries of U.S. weapons to help arm his country's military. He made the request during talks with U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter in Baghdad, according to a statement by the Iraqi leader's office.
Maliki said that Iraq needs to beef up its defenses to protect the country's security and national sovereignty, and to tackle terrorist groups that continue to threaten Iraq's stability more than nine years after the U.S.-led invasion.
Carter visited the Iraqi capital during a Mideast tour that included stops in U.S. allies Kuwait and Qatar. Iraq has agreed to buy a range of American-made weapons, including tanks and F-16 fighter jets. - AP
Rwanda to join Security Council
UNITED NATIONS - Rwanda was among five nations elected to the U.N. Security Council on Thursday, amid a continuing investigation by a U.N. panel of its role in neighboring Congo's rebellion.
Rwanda won a two-year non-permanent seat on the council, starting in 2013. The election of Rwanda was likely to renew questions about the image of the council, as it tries to overcome division and find a way to end the war in Syria.
An unpublished U.N. experts' report, leaked to the media this week, accuses Rwanda and Uganda of actively supporting the M23 rebels in eastern Congo. Rwanda and Uganda deny the allegations. - AP
Elsewhere:
President Vladimir V. Putin spoke out Thursday against the wearing of headscarves in Russian schools in his first public comment on a potentially explosive issue. Putin's statement follows a recent incident in the southern region of Stavropol in which a principal forbade girls from wearing Muslim scarves to class.
