Blog

Saudi-backed forces seize Aden airport: exiled government

Gulf-backed Yemeni forces recaptured Aden’s international airport from Houthi militia fighters on Tuesday as heavy combat took place across the port city following the collapse of a humanitarian truce, the exiled government said. Forces loyal to exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi also took Aden’s central district of Khormaksar, and aid sources reported fighting around the port area. Backed by air support from a Saudi-led coalition, the loyalist forces launched a

Guzman escape turns up heat on Mexican president over corruption

By Dave Graham and Alexandra Alper MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The dramatic escape on Saturday of the world’s most notorious drug lord has raised pressure on Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to curb corruption and the drug gangs that play an outsized and violent role in his country.     Speaking from Paris, where he was beginning a four-day state visit just as Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was breaking out of jail, Pena

New U.N. goals lack focus, global health experts warn

(This June 24 story corrects source’s name to Christopher Murray in paragraph 8.) By Stella Dawson WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Shrinking aid dollars threaten the major advances made over the past decade in fighting disease and preventable deaths, a task that will grow even more difficult under new United Nations’ development goals, experts in global health said. Child mortality has plunged since the U.N. set a development goal of

Up to 1.3 million in parched Ukraine face water crisis: UNICEF

By Magdalena Mis LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Up to 1.3 million people in war-torn eastern Ukraine are facing acute water shortages and a serious water crisis due to damaged or destroyed infrastructure, the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF said on Tuesday. In Mariupol, a city of 500,000 in the Donetsk region, they rely on water from a “rapidly depleting” reservoir, UNICEF said. “Water is one of the most acute