Food insecurity soars in conflict-ridden Democratic Republic of Congo (14.08.2017)

Around 7.7 million people require urgent humanitarian assistance, FAO and WFP warn.

ROME, Italy, August 14, 2017 – Amid rising violence and displacement in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), 7.7 million people face acute hunger – a 30 percent increase over the last year, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) warned today in a new report.

According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis released today, between June 2016 and June 2017, the number of people in “emergency” and  “crisis” levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase 4 and 3) – which precede “famine” levels on the IPC scale – and requiring urgent humanitarian food assistance  rose by 1.8 million, from 5.9 million to 7.7 million.

This means that more than one in ten people living in rural areas suffer from acute hunger.

Hunger is on the rise due to escalating and prolonged conflict and displacement in central and eastern DRC, mainly in the Kasaï and Tanganyika regions, where there has been widespread violence. Some 1.4 million people have been forced to flee their homes over the past year.

The report noted that the humanitarian situation has been exacerbated by the spread of fall armyworm infestations and cholera and measles outbreaks.

In conflict-ridden areas, over 1.5 million people are facing “emergency” levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase 4) according to the IPC report, which means people are forced to sell everything they have and skip or reduce their meals.

“In conflict-ridden areas, farmers have seen their villages and fields pillaged. They have not been able to plant for the last two seasons. There is a lack of local markets providing for their food needs. Conflict toppled with armyworm infestations destroying crops in over a quarter of the country’s vast territories are devastating for rural communities. The situation is set to get worse if urgent support does not come in time,” said Alexis Bonte, FAO Representative ad interim in DRC.

“Farmers, especially those displaced – majority women and children – desperately need urgent food aid but also means to sustain themselves, such as tools and seeds so that they can resume farming. Many of the displaced women lost their husbands. Farming, for them, is a way to get back on their feet, and face the future with dignity and hope,” added Bonte.

Coping with acute hunger

Between 50 to 80 percent of people in some of the areas affected by hunger struggle to make ends meet and to have something to eat. In several areas, people only eat once a day, and their meals – based on corn, cassava or potatoes – do not meet their daily nutritional and calorie needs. Food prices have been rising for the last three months. In some cases, diets are limited to starches and leaves.

Others have to resort to reducing or skipping meals, selling assets, borrowing money and sending family members to beg or eat elsewhere.

Chronic malnutrition affects 43 percent of children under five – more than 7 million children – in DRC.

Widespread displacement – some 3.7 million people are displaced in DRC – and a steady flow of refugees from neighboring countries putting a strain on already stretched resources as well as the alarming spread of fall armyworm infestations, which affects 50 out of DRC’s 145 territories, have been exacerbating food insecurity. This particularly in areas with high levels of poverty and malnutrition and chronic food insecurity.

Much of the recent deterioration is down to the worsening plight of people in Kasaï.

“WFP is extremely concerned about food security and nutrition, which are deteriorating in many parts of DRC,” says WFP’s DRC Country Director, Claude Jibidar. “But nowhere is the situation more alarming than in Kasaï. We call on all parties to allow passage for life-saving assistance, and on the international community to help meet pressing needs.”

Support is urgently needed

FAO and WFP call for an urgent increase in the provision of lifesaving food and specialized nutrition assistance to combat malnutrition as well as seeds and tools so that farmers can plant again and regain their livelihoods.

In conflict-hit areas of Kasaï  and Tanganyika regions, FAO is providing vegetable seeds and hand tools to rapidly boost food production and increase the availability of nutritious foods among displaced and hosting communities. Ultimately, livelihoods are people’s best defense against hunger and catastrophe. In 2017, FAO is seeking to assist 2.1 million people in DRC to tackle hunger, restore food production and build more resilient livelihoods.

WFP continues to support DRC’s most vulnerable people. It has deployed staff in two of Kasaï’s hardest hit provinces, Tshikapa and Kasaï Central, where it will launch food distributions in the coming days. Elsewhere in the country, WFP is providing logistics capacity including air and road transport, fuel and storage to the wider humanitarian community.

President Trump’s insane call to the Governor of Guam!

Governor Eddie Baza Calvo must feel strange and weird after the call from his Commander-In-Chief President Donald Trump. He must be wondering what the hell that is going-on. The White House released this statement expressing their concern for Guam today: “President Donald J. Trump spoke yesterday with Guam Governor Eddie Baza Calvo. President Trump reassured Governor Calvo and our fellow Americans on Guam that United States stand ready to ensure the safety and security of the people of Guam, along with the rest of America” (White House, 12.08.2017).

With that sort of statement you would expect the conservation to a bit different, than how it really was. Since the President who is escalating tensions with North Korea and their dictatorship, the militarized leadership of Pyonyang, who has threaten to attack Guam with long-rage missiles. Clearly, the American territory are under siege. So, let’s just take some of the words from Trump talking to Calvo!

Calvo said this: “Mr. President, as the governor of Guam representing the people of Guam, and as an American citizen, I have never felt more safe or more confident with you at the helm. So with all the criticism going on over there, from a guy that’s being targeted, we need a guy like you. So I am thankful and I’m glad you’re holding the helm sir”.

The governor trying to ease the president and give him confidence, even nearly sounding like supporter, but clearly, he is not ready for what the President will say. Since he cannot imagine, this sort of conversation. Since the President clearly like the admiration and thinks the flattering talk is genuine.

Trump said this: “Well, we’re going to do a great job, don’t worry about a thing. They should have had me eight years ago. I wish. Nobody with my thought process. Because that was the last time, but uh, and frankly you could have said that for the last three presidents. But you’re gonna be taken care of. You’ve become – Eddie, I have to tell you, you’ve become extremely famous. All over the world they’re talking about Guam and they’re talking about you”.

I don’t think Governor Calvo is in public office to become famous or wanting the North Korean tension and possible missiles launched from the Korean Peninsula because the rhetoric of Trump. I am sure that Calvo and the local government wants silence and less threats to their lives. They could clearly lived in peace and calm if it wasn’t for the war-talk of President Trump. North Korea is only answering back to the threats of nuclear warfare and annihilation. Surely, the fame isn’t what is at risk for Calvo, that is that the island he reside and where is family lives will be bombed by foreign forces.

Trump continues to say: “So look, governor, I just want to let you know. We’re with you 1000%. You have nothing – you notice he hasn’t spoken recently. He doesn’t talk so much anymore. And we’ll see how it all works out, but you’re not going to have a problem. You don’t – this is between you and I, but you don’t like to talk. You can’t do that. And you can’t do that with people like us. So I just wanted to pay my respects and say you seem like a helluva guy”.

Trump is weird and insane, talk about if and when President Kim Jong-Un talks and such. It is not all Presidents who hugs the media and is obsessed with their own ego’s like Trump. North Koreans are spreading propaganda fitting their works and objectives with clear strategies, not like Trump who does whatever to gain popularity and create deflection crisis. That he says North Korea wont be a problem, says it all, when the North Koreans can actually hit Guam with their missiles and their technology.

I am sure Calvo couldn’t care less about his own state of fame, more about the worry of the missiles coming his way to, the island where he is governing. Clearly, Trump do not understand that part or have the clarity of the efforts and worries the locals would have for a possible air-strike. As the Local Government of Guam, as published warning material for a possible air attack from North Korea. That is how serious the leadership there takes it. Something, the President doesn’t seem to grasp. Because his unique mind doesn’t understand the worry of the people on Guam.

Guam, should not feel safe by this and by the response the American President had. He is ignorant and also clearly in his own state of mind. That doesn’t fit the paradigm and the possible plans of North Korea. North Koreans has an agenda and a plan, Mr. President is just winging-it and hoping it doesn’t fail him. Peace.

U.S. Representative Cicilline letter to Paul Ryan on “If President Donald Trump won’t take nuclear war off the table, Congress must” (11.08.2017)

Opinion: the World does not need War-games on the Korean Peninsula!

The World never needs war, we have enough unsolved conflicts to handle in Iraq, Libya, Syria, South Sudan, Yemen and so on. These are all going on right now. We don’t need another conflict, when the grand gentleman and the leadership of the world cannot fix the ones that are going-on. With all the innocent dying and killings going daily.

Therefore, the warmongering between President Donald J. Trump and President Kim Jong-Un. The possible warfare will be devastating. Not only for the Korean Peninsula, but for world in general. This will possible put lives in danger in South Korea, Japan and China. Not only American territories in the Pacific and on the Asian continent. United States playing a dangerous game with the tough tone.

North Koreans aren’t the most predictable pack of republics, third generation of dictatorship and militarism out of proportions. They can clearly damage their neighbors as the camps of production and total control of population can muster painful weapons who has force to hit Seoul, Tokyo and other major cities. This should worry anyone!

President Trump seems to just want to show his balls and be the biggest voice, not within reason or within thinking consequence. Since his army is placed THAAD missiles on South Korean soil, they might have a bigger nuclear submarines at ports in South Korea. Therefore, their forces are close by the North Korean borders.

No-one with a clear mind and spirit want to venture into a nuclear war, no one with a clear mind wants to venture into war. Because of the effects of the war and the possible destruction of lives. The possible hurt and devastation of society. This here will not only inflict possible hurt on North Korea, it most likely hit South Korea, Japan and China. Even other states who will be hit by random bombs and missiles sent to hurt either off them. For all we know Philippines could get a burner who was supposed to hit Guam. Bombs and missiles aren’t always hitting their targets.

Therefore, it is time for diplomacy and talk. Not enrich plutonium and uranium, while hoping the sanity of our leaders are there. It is time for slowing the rhetoric and talk. Discuss and maneuver in within measure. The end-game are so dire, so unnecessary and a conflict that will take decades to revive a possible positive outcome. Not like the Iraqi war the American’s ventured in are solved by now and that is decades after the invasion and killing of President Sadam Hussain. The history does not need to happen again, neither a similar destruction of a republic like the death of Muammar Al-Gaddafi and Libya. The same could happen in North Korea, with effects that would be mirrored in South Korea.

That is not a weird vision, that is most likely. It is time for Trump to play more golf, lay-off Twitter and stop his alarming statements. Actually shut-up and let his foreign officials work on peaceful means. The North Korean leadership will gain leverage and reason for their testing of more sophisticated equipment. Something the world doesn’t need! Peace.

RDC: ARPTC – “Mesures preventives a prendre face a l’usage absif des reseaux sociaux” (07.08.2017)

RDC: “Declaration du Bureau du Moise Katumbi” (07.08.2017)

Statement by H.E. Ri Yong Ho, Minister of Foreign Affairs – Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – North Korea) at 24th ASEAN Regional Forum (Manila, Philippines, 7 August 2017)

The DRC Armed Group Leader Sheka Handed Over by MONUSCO to the Congolese Authorities (07.08.2017)

Sheka has been wanted since 2011 by the Congolese justice system for crimes against humanity, including mass rape and child recruitment.

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo, August 7, 2017 – Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka, leader of the armed group Nduma Defense of Congo (NDC), was transferred on Friday August 4th to Kinshasa and was handed over by MONUSCO to the Congolese judicial authorities. Sheka has been under MONUSCO supervision in Goma since his surrender on 26 July.

He is accompanied by two alleged NDC combatants who also surrendered and are subject to judicial warrants of arrest for crimes against humanity including rape and child recruitment. The individuals will be detained, awaiting trial, in a location where MONUSCO will have access to ensure that relevant international human rights standards are observed.

The United Nations, through the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba, called on the DRC government to “take all necessary measures to ensure that Sheka is promptly tried in adherence to basic standards of due process and that the charges against him appropriately correspond to all the crimes committed”.

Sheka surrendered to MONUSCO in the village of Mutongo about ten kilometers north of Walikale in full knowledge of the fact that he is the subject of an arrest warrant and will be brought to justice. Sheka has been wanted since 2011 by the Congolese justice system for crimes against humanity, including mass rape and child recruitment. NDC fighters are alleged to have raped almost 400 civilians, including 300 women, 23 men and 61 children, in 13 villages on the Kibua-Mpofi axis in the Walikale (North Kivu) between 30 July and 2 August 2010. United Nations have also documented the alleged recruitment of at least 154 children by this rebel group.

“Sheka’s surrender is a positive sign. A fair trial would be a significant step in the fight against impunity and a victory for victims of abuses by armed groups who have the right to justice”, said Maman Sidikou, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in the DRC.

RDC: Declaration Politique Conjointe des Forces Politiques et Sociales Soutenant la Candidature de Moise Katumbi (05.08.2017)

RDC: Communique du Gouvernement – “Sur le rapport nouvellement publié de l’OCHA sur la violence à Kasai” (04.08.2017)