News headlines in January 2024, page 22

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 02 (IPS) - When US President Joe Biden lambasted “the largest aerial assault,” which hit “a maternity hospital, a shopping mall and residential areas killing innocent people”, he was not talking of the devastating Israeli attacks on Gaza but criticizing the most recent Russian military assault on Ukraine.

Critical food aid support is to be stepped up for many hundreds of thousands of Myanmar refugees sheltering in neighbouring Bangladesh, the UN World Food Programme, WFP, announced on Tuesday.

Major aerial attacks causing widespread death and destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure have rained down on Ukraine in the first days of 2024 due to an intense new Russian offensive.

UN humanitarians repeated dire concerns for civilians caught up in the war in Gaza on Tuesday, amid reports of continued Israeli bombardment of the southern towns of Deir al Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah, direct clashes on the ground and the firing of rockets overnight by Palestinian armed groups into Israel.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is ripe to help resolve certain major problems in Africa, from farming to the health sector, but Senegalese expert Seydina Moussa Ndiaye is warning of a new “colonization” of the continent by this new technology if foreign companies continue to feed on African data without involving local actors.