World

Humanitarian aid workers in Nigeria say that food prices have soared because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the cost is driving hunger in parts of the country that can ill afford yet another challenge. “Everywhere we work the food prices have gone up, in some places they doubled. It means that millions of people in the northeast of Nigeria do not have enough to eat,” said Ruth Mwakiuna Muriungi, an economic security programs coordinator for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The ICRC says severe malnutrition in children is up by 10 percent compared with the same time last year, while the number of children receiving aid overall is up 20 percent. “What we are seeing now is just the tip of an iceberg, and we are very concerned by the trend, especially in Maiduguri,” said Tho...

Photo credit: Olga Ernst via Wikimedia Commons A senior court official at Pongola in KwaZulu-Natal in one of two people arrested in connection with stock theft in the Vryheid area on Friday. The official, together with a co-accused arrested at the same time, will now appear in familiar surroundings at the Vryheid Magistrate’s Court on Monday to face charges of stock theft, cruelty to animals, defeating the ends of justice and possession of a dangerous weapon. A vehicle belonging to the official has also been seized since it was allegedly being used in the commission of a crime. Police spokesperson, Colonel Thembeka Mbele, said members of the Stock Theft Task Team were alerted about illegal slaughtering of cows on a farm at Brakfontein and rushed to the area. CARCASSES OF FIVE COWS F...