Category World News

Healthcare providers in the war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) treated more than 17,000 victims of sexual violence over just five months last year, according to a United Nations report.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s annual report on conflict-related sexual violence, released on Thursday, said the cases were registered in the province of North Kivu between January and May last year, as fighting between Congolese forces and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels intensified.

“Many survivors sought care after violent sexual attacks, including penetration with objects, perpetrated by multiple perpetrators,” said the report, which charted crimes like rape, gang rape and sexual slavery.

The conflict, which has killed thousands this year alone and displaced millions, is still ongoing despite a Qatar-mediated agreement between DRC and M23 last month that was supposed to pave the way to a ceasefire, running parallel to United States efforts to broker peace between Kinshasa and Kigali.

Last year’s figure marked a continued surge in sexual violence as the Rwanda-backed M23 rampaged through the east, with a total of 22,000 cases registered throughout 2023. That figure was more than double the previous year’s tally.

In 2023, the spike in violence occurred as the conflict spilled over from North Kivu into South Kivu, forcing UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO to withdraw from the latter.

The report said that MONUSCO’s operations narrowed, “owing to military operations and widespread insecurity”. The mission had documented 823 cases of sexual violence in 2024, affecting 416 women, 391 girls, seven boys and nine men.

The UN said that 198 of last year’s cases were perpetrated by DRC “state actors”, including the army. It found that “M23 elements”, which “continued to receive instructions and support from the Rwanda Defence Force”, were implicated in 152 cases.

According to the report, survivors reported that they were exposed to the threat of sexual violence while searching for food in the fields and areas around displacement sites.

Many displaced women had resorted to prostitution to survive, “highlighting the nexus between food insecurity and sexual violence”.

Denis Mukwege, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for his work combating sexual violence in DRC, told The Times newspaper this year: “When you have people raping with complete immunity – and think they can go on and on without any consequence, nothing will change.”

Guterres’s report charted violations in 21 countries, with the highest numbers recorded in DRC, the Central African Republic, Haiti, Somalia and South Sudan.

The United States Supreme Court has declined to put on hold a Mississippi law requiring that users of social media platforms verify their age and that minors have parental consent.

The high court made the decision on Thursday not to accept the challenge by NetChoice, a trade group that included tech giants such as Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Alphabet which owns YouTube, and Snapchat.

The justices denied a request to block the law while the Washington-based tech industry trade association’s legal challenge to the law, which, it argues, violates the US Constitution’s protections against government abridgement of free speech, plays out in lower courts.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a statement about the court’s order said the Mississippi law was likely unconstitutional, but that NetChoice had not met the high bar to block the measure at this early stage of the case.

In a statement, Paul Taske, co-director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, said Kavanaugh’s view “makes clear that NetChoice will ultimately succeed” in its challenge. Taske called the Supreme Court’s order “an unfortunate procedural delay.”

NetChoice had turned to the Supreme Court after the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals let the law take effect even though a judge found it likely runs afoul of the First Amendment.

NetChoice sued in federal court in 2024 in a bid to invalidate the law, which was passed unanimously in the state legislature amid concern by lawmakers about the potential negative effects of social media use on the mental health of children.

Its emergency request to the justices marked the first time the Supreme Court was asked to consider a social media age-verification law.

The law requires that a social media platform obtain “express consent” from a parent or guardian of a minor before a child can open an account. It also states that regulated social media platforms must make “commercially reasonable” efforts to verify the age of users.

Under the law, the state can pursue civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation as well as criminal penalties under Mississippi’s deceptive trade practices law.

Multiple lawsuits

US District Judge Halil Suleyman Ozerden in Gulfport, Mississippi, last year blocked Mississippi from enforcing the restrictions on some NetChoice members.

Ozerden issued a second order in June pausing the rules against those members, including Meta and its Instagram and Facebook platforms, Snapchat and YouTube.

The 5th Circuit on July 17 issued a one-sentence ruling that paused the judge’s order, without explaining its reasoning.

Courts in seven states have preliminarily or permanently blocked similar measures, according to NetChoice.

Some technology companies are separately battling lawsuits brought by US states, school districts and individual users alleging that social platforms have exacerbated mental health problems. The companies have denied wrongdoing.

NetChoice said the social media platforms of its members already have adopted extensive policies to moderate content for minors and provide parental controls.

In its request to the Supreme Court, the state told the justices that age-verification and parental consent requirements “are common ways for states to protect minors”.

Sudan’s worst cholera outbreak in years is spreading in a country ravaged by conflict.

Health and aid workers are battling desperately to stop it from escalating and crossing into neighbouring countries.

What’s driving the outbreak – and how serious is it?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Mathilde Vu – Advocacy manager for Sudan at the Norwegian Refugee Council

Simon Mane – Sudan national director at the humanitarian organisation, World Vision International

Lawyers have submitted a final statement on behalf of Brazilian ex-President Jair Bolsonaro in a trial focused on his alleged role in a plot to stay in power despite losing the 2022 election.

In a statement submitted on Wednesday evening, Bolsonaro’s legal representatives denied the charges against him and said that prosecutors had presented no convincing evidence.

“There is no way to convict Jair Bolsonaro based on the evidence presented in the case, which largely demonstrated that he ordered the transition … and assured his voters that the world would not end on December 31st,” the document states.

The right-wing former president faces up to 12 years in prison if convicted of attempting to mount a coup after losing a presidential election to left-wing rival and current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro, who raised alarm in the months leading up to the election by casting doubt on the voting process, has denied involvement in the plot, which allegedly included plans for Lula’s assassination.

The former leader’s legal representatives say the fact that he authorised the transition contradicts the coup allegations.

“This is evidence that eliminates the most essential of the accusatory premises,” they said.

Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet submitted final arguments in July, citing handwritten notes, digital files, message exchanges, and spreadsheets that he said show details of a conspiracy to suppress democracy.

Following Bolsonaro’s election loss, crowds of his supporters gathered outside of military bases, calling on the armed forces to intervene and prevent Lula from taking office. A group of Bolsonaro’s supporters also stormed federal buildings in the capital of Brasilia on January 8, 2023. Some drew parallels to a military coup in the 1960s that marked the beginning of a decades-long period of dictatorship, for which Bolsonaro himself has long expressed fondness.

Bolsonaro and his allies, including United States President Donald Trump, have depicted the trial as a politically motivated “witch hunt”.

A recent survey conducted by Datafolha, a Brazilian polling institute, found that more than 50 percent of Brazilians agree with the court’s decision to place Bolsonaro under house arrest in August. The survey also found that a majority believe that Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a frequent target of right-wing ire and central figure in the trial, is following the law.

Respondents also largely disagreed with the claim that Bolsonaro was being persecuted for political reasons, with 39 percent in agreement and 53 percent in disagreement.

Speaking from the White House on Thursday, Trump said Bolsonaro was an “honest man” and the victim of an attempted “political execution”.