Category World News

Leptospirosis is another potential health threat that Gaza’s authorities are advising of. According to Dr. Bassam Zaqout, widespread flooding and a lack of basic sanitation make the devastated strip a perfect breeding ground for the bacterial illness swamp or rat fever.

Former President Jair Bolsonaro’s defense team requested that he be put on house arrest, but the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court has once more rejected that request.

Bolsonaro, 70, has had numerous hospital stays and stays since last week after receiving numerous treatments for hernia and aggressive hiccups.

However, a day after filing, his request for “humanitarian grounds” for house arrest was denied on Thursday.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes argued that Bolsonaro already had access to round-the-clock medical care while being held in police custody in explaining the court’s decision.

After serving a 27-year sentence for attempting to overturn his 2022 electoral defeat, the former right-wing leader is currently being held in Brasilia’s federal police headquarters.

De Moraes also questioned Bolsonaro’s health’s need for “humanitarian” adjustments.

The justice stated in his decision that “contrary to what the defense claims, Jair Messias Bolsonaro’s health condition has not improved.”

Instead, his clinical condition improved in the discomfort he was experiencing following elective surgeries, as noted in the report from his own doctors.

multiple requests

Bolsonaro has reportedly suffered from lingering conditions, including hiccups, related to an abdominal stabbing he survived on the campaign trail in 2018, and this is not the first time the court has rejected a similar petition.

Bolsonaro was taken into custody in November after breaking an ankle monitor, which made it possible for him to stay at home while appealing. In September, he was found guilty.

However, his defense team requested house arrest shortly after Bolsonaro was remanded in custody and issued a warning about the potentially life-threatening conditions that might exist behind bars.

His attorneys wrote that “it is certain that placing the petitioner in a prison setting would pose a serious and immediate risk to his physical integrity and even his life.”

Both that request and a subsequent request in December have been rejected.

However, the Supreme Court granted Bolsonaro’s request to leave prison on December 23 so that he could have hernia surgery.

To treat his persistent hiccups, he traveled to Brasilia’s DF Star hospital for treatment, where he has since gone through additional procedures, including an endoscopy and a phrenic nerve block.

Unrest in the election

Bolsonaro, a former army captain, rose to prominence in Brazil’s far right and presided over the country’s elections from 2019 to 2023.

He was under fire for remarks he made while serving in Brazil’s military dictatorship, which oversaw the country’s ongoing hostility and murders.

He allegedly used his office to doubt Brazil’s electronic voting system’s validity.

Bolsonaro will be unable to hold office for eight years in Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Court in 2023, citing instances in which he made erroneous claims about the electoral process on state television and social media.

Bolsonaro faced two-term incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the presidential election in 2022, despite being viewed as the frontrunner.

An October 30 run-off will be held after the race has advanced. With 50.9 percent of the vote, Lula came out on top in the polls, defeating Bolsonaro by less than two percentage points.

Bolsonaro refused to declare his defeat in the aftermath, despite rumors that he might have done it in secret.

In the meantime, he and his supporters filed a legal challenge to the election result, which was quickly rejected due to the “total absence of any evidence.” For the “bad faith” petition, Bolsonaro’s coalition was fined nearly $4.3 million.

However, Bolsonaro’s supporters took to the streets because they unfounded the idea that his defeat was somehow illegitimate. Some roads are blocked. The federal police headquarters was attacked by other people.

A week after Lula’s inauguration, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed Brasilia’s Three Powers Plaza and seized the Supreme Court, Congress, and the presidency.

Some supporters expressed hope that Lula’s ouster would result in a military coup.

Legal hazard

Federal police released a comprehensive report accusing Bolsonaro and 36 allies of trying to “violently dismantle” Brazil’s constitutional order in November 2024.

The report provided alleged instances in which Bolsonaro and his supporters discussed assassinating Lula or modifying the election results.

In February, Bolsonaro and numerous other defendants were formally charged with trying to overthrow the 2022 election.

His trial took place despite significant international pressure from right-wing figures like US President Donald Trump, who imposed severe tariffs on Brazil in August in response to the prosecution’s prosecution.

Bolsonaro was found guilty of five counts in September, including a coup d’etat, an armed conspiracy, an attempted abolition of the rule of law, the destruction of public property, and damage to the country’s heritage.

Bolsonaro has consistently denied wrongdoing in the case and compared his prosecution to a political rival’s purges.

Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, his eldest son, announced last month that he would be running against Lula for president in October, and he continues to be a well-known figure in the right.

On the open sandy ground in Kosti, a city in south-central Sudan, Aziza sits with her children with her. It has become a gigantic way station for the desperate. They are protected from the sun and extreme weather by no roof or walls.

After making the long, agonizing journey to escape the war, Aziza and her family were forced to sleep in shabby, worn-out sheets that had been converted into a basic shelter.

Aziza only briefly touched on her desperate situation.

Our sons are seated among scattered items, Aziza told Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Taher Almardi, “There is no man to lead us, and we are in another place.” We are in the heat, “. These bedsheets are the only things that keep us safe.

Another mother weeps as she recounts the violence’s economic collapse hidden beneath a tarnishing fabric sheet.

She cried as she told Almardi, “We picked up these sheets from the street… We have nothing,” referring to the material she had used to construct a small tent to shield her family from the elements. “My situation is challenging.” I already had 10,000 Sudanese pounds [16] on the market when I needed to purchase these items right away.

A bottomless displacement

Similar to Aziza, many Sudanese have emigrated from the Kordofan region, which is located in central Sudan, to Kosti, which is located in the White Nile state south of Khartoum.

In recent months, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have made several gains that their Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) opponents are trying to reverse. The war is now more than two and a half years old and is now focused on those regions.

The RSF has been accused of crimes against civilians, particularly when it seizes El-Fasher, a city in North Darfur, in late October, allegedly killing at least 1,500 civilians, according to monitoring organizations.

Tens of thousands of people have fled RSF areas of control as a result of the killings, many of which have been recorded on video, as well as sexual assaults, robberies, and other attacks on civilians.

Women and children are frequently targeted for killing by fighters or forced to flee in a different direction from their families to avoid colliding with the RSF.

Kosti is currently thought to be largely stable in comparison to the front lines, and there are also a lot of new displaced people moving in.

More than 3,500 displaced Sudanese have recently arrived in Kosti, according to local officials, and Lamia Abdullah, White Nile’s commissioner for humanitarian aid, said the city is taking in between 100 and 150 families daily.

Some have been moved to larger canvas tents, but many more recent arrivals have had to use whatever they can until better shelters are available.

The displacement wave that has swept across Sudan as a result of the displacement of people from Darfur and Kordofan has an exemplified impact on Kosti.

In response to the RSF attacks, more than 100, 000 people reportedly fled El-Fasher and its surrounding villages between late October and early December, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). During the war, a quarter of those who had been displaced from El-Fasher had already done so.

Between October 25 and December 17, more than 50, 000 people were displaced from Sudan, according to the IOM. More than 9.3 million internally displaced people (IDPs) are currently documented by the IOM in Sudan, with 55% of them children.

According to an IOM report, “at least one member went without eating for the entire month due to insufficient food” in nearly a third of the displaced households.

As demand rises, aid costs are expected.

Al Jazeera’s Almardi, who was reporting from the Kosti camp, described a grim reality: needs are rising while the humanitarian response is crumbling.

International humanitarian organizations have announced reductions in aid starting this month as a result of donor governments’ budget cuts. This is in response to the camps’ severe lack of medical facilities.

According to Almardi, “health is the biggest challenge.” There are “a significant lack of medical staff, a lack of medicine, and a desperate need for field hospitals,” the statement reads.

That is particularly crucial given the distances people travel to Kosti.

Many of the newcomers spent up to 20 days in Sudan before heading back to White Nile, where they were safe. They leave feeling frightened, underfed, and frightened of the looming winter.