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Government move follows months of drought and crop failures in Karamoja, with 1.5m people facing malnutritionUganda has launched emergency food relief distribution after at least 19 deaths from hunger were reported in an area of prolonged drought in the east of the country.A crisis has been building in the Karamoja region of Uganda as crops have failed without the season’s expected rains, leaving the region’s 1.5 million people facing acute food shortages and rising malnutrition. Continue reading...

In today’s newsletter: Across ​the country, a ​younger generation is turning private disillusionment into public defiance​ against a government that once felt untouchableGood morning. As flames engulfed parts of France and Spain this weekend, in India, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, was trying to put out a very different kind of fire. Thousands of people arrived in Delhi on Saturday to demand the resignation of his education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan. When he stepped down in the early afternoon, the protests turned into a triumphant block party.But the Cockroach protests that have swept through India this summer are about much more than a single minister. They have humiliated Modi and undermined the indomitable power of his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) that has ruled India for the past 12 years. They’re also a lesson in using humour to political advantage.Wild fires | Authorities in France battled to contain a huge wildfire near Bordeaux in the south-west as Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, warned Spain and the Iberian peninsula were suffering the effects of the climate emergency.Germany | A man suspected of driving a van into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride festival then going on a knife rampage in an Islamist terror attack has been shot dead by police, German officials have said.Iran | The US has paused strikes on Iran for a second night as top military officials advised Donald Trump to halt his bombing campaign, and diplomatic negotiations have continued to avoid a return to all-out war.UK politics | Britain’s foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, is to indicate he will put the climate crisis and overseas development at the heart of UK international relations by taking up the country’s seat on the board at the World Bank.UK news | Five Palestine Action activists face being sentenced as terrorists for breaking windows and throwing red paint at a branch of Barclays Bank in Lancashire.Monday | Andrew and Tristan Tate are due back in the Florida court where they’re fighting their extradition to the UK, to face rape and sex-trafficking charges.Tuesday | Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy are expected to be among those attending the Washington DC memorial service for the late South Carolina senator and Trump ally Lindsey Graham.Thursday | People will go to the polls to elect the next mayor of Greater Manchester, who will replace Andy Burnham. Continue reading...

President Donald Trump's foray into nuclear politics has created a "giant firestorm" that makes a nightmare scenario increasingly likely, according to one political scientist. Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, argued during a recent episode of "The Court of History" podcast on the Legal AF Network that Trump's demand that Saudi Arabia sign the Abraham Accords, and thereby normalize relations with Israel, is likely to backfire. Pape noted that the agreement provides no way to prevent Saudi Arabia from enriching uranium because there is no oversight or enforcement. "President Trump seems to realize this has touched off the giant firestorm," Pape said, noting that the deal increased Saudi Arabia's chances of getting a nuclear weapon from 98% to 99.999%. Once Saudi Arabia has a nuclear weapon, it's only a matter of time before other nations start knocking, Pape said. All of a sudden, nuclear weapons would proliferate across the globe. "What does it mean for [countries] besides Iran? It means the [United Arab Emirates] knocking on the door, 'Hey, what do you mean Saudi Arabia doesn't have to abide by these gold standards? We want to slip them as well here.' And then, of course, it doesn't take much to start looking at why Ukraine is not going down this road ... And why isn't Poland talking about doing this?"Pape said the situation could result in another forever war "quagmire" that Trump is unable to pull the U.S. out of. "If you thought you couldn't have made the situation worse, there was already a fire, and we're already pouring gasoline on the fire," Pape said.

There's something ominous in the air after one of President Donald Trump's confidants apparently switched sides in Ukraine's war against Russia. Recently, MAGA influencer and Trump whisperer Laura Loomer traveled to Ukraine to interview President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a move that even Loomer admitted was odd given her past denunciations of the country. But the event signaled something even more dire may be afoot for one global leader who seemed to have Trump's ear, according to William Taylor, a distinguished fellow at The Atlantic Council and a former ambassador to Ukraine. "I think what we're seeing is a change on the battlefield, and that's allowing the Ukrainians to demonstrate that they are actually winning on the battlefield," Taylor told CNN's Erica Hill on "CNN Newsroom." "They're taking the war to the Russians, deep into Russia. [Vladimir] Putin is on his back foot."The situation on the battlefield has become so dire that Putin is calling for a new draft to restock his military capacity, according to reports. That happened at a time when at least eight Russian soldiers are dying on the battlefield for every Ukrainian soldier lost, Taylor said. "This could be Putin's undoing, [his] political undoing. He's got big problems. He's not sure where to go," Taylor said.

A military expert's comments about President Donald Trump's next steps on the Iran war stunned a CNN anchor on Friday.Host Kasie Hunt spoke to retired Navy Admiral James Stavridis after Trump addressed the military strategy in the region to get more insights about what the president was suggesting. Stavridis said the president's comments about making it a "heavier dose" against Iran with American military strikes could signal increased and larger-scale attacks."Going big, sending B-1 bombers in, putting up all those new air tanker aircraft that Kristen [Holmes] mentioned coming out of Europe gives you the ability to recycle your strikes," Stavridis said. "I think also going to the Israelis and putting them into the mix, and also talking to the Arab nations. Increasingly, I'm seeing reporting that the Saudis, the Emiratis, lately I've seen the Bahrainis, the Kuwaitis, have potentially participated. So I think what you're hearing is somebody considering going very, very big in order to push things along."Stavridis also noted something else."By the way, on a human level, the president just looks tired to me," Stavridis added. "He looks like he's a man under significant stress. And frankly, I don't envy him the decisions ahead.""A little bit of a warning in your words," Hunt said, surprised by the comment.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly said the main rationale for the Iran war is to stop Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon.But according to The New York Times, everything he has done may have actually made it more likely.New assessments from U.S. intelligence have determined "that Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, is far more interested than his father and predecessor in pursuing a nuclear weapon," said the report. Mojtaba Khamenei assumed command of Iran after his father, the longtime supreme leader, was taken out as part of the U.S. offensives."American officials caution that most of the intelligence on Mojtaba Khamenei’s views comes from before the war," the report noted. The new supreme leader has not made many public appearances since he was injured in the war, out of concern for his own security and public image.U.S. officials believe the Iranian regime has not truly restarted its nuclear program. However, per reports, Israeli intelligence identified that Tehran is moving centrifuges to a secret underground facility U.S. officials call "Pickaxe Mountain," which they believe is more secure from conventional airstrikes than the facilities damaged by U.S. forces at Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan.Trump has spoken openly about a strike against Pickaxe Mountain in response.After the initial round of airstrikes, Trump had promised that Iran's nuclear capabilities had been "obliterated," even though the stated basis for the war is to stop Iran's nuclear capabilities.

Former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul expressed on MS NOW Friday morning extreme dismay at the sloppiness of President Donald Trump’s nuclear cooperation agreement with the Saudis.McFaul scoffed at the deal that would allow U.S. companies to help the Middle Eastern nation develop its atomic energy infrastructure and the reason it recently stalled: Trump's sudden demand Saudi Arabia normalize relations with Israel.“This is so crazy,” McFaul said. “I just just just to step back for a minute: This is a pattern of how they make decisions in the Trump administration.”McFaul explained his frustration stemmed from the Trump administration's tendency to make big moves without clearing it first in-house. “There's no interagency process, the National Security Council doesn't meet Secretary [Marco] Rubio's the national security adviser and half a dozen other jobs, so they roll this out,” he elaborated. “There doesn't sound like there was a discussion with the president, no explanation why they didn't sign the additional protocol that is to give more inspections. I think that's a huge mistake.”“And then the president finds out what's happening,” he added with a laugh. “He says, ‘Well, no, I want to change the deal.’ And I just think we're suffering from the consequences of this chaos.”“Same with the decision to invade Iran,” the diplomat exclaimed. “Was there a big decision? They sit down, did they talk about secondary consequences, tertiary consequences? It appears they didn't. And this is yet another case where it just appears that they didn't really talk about what they were doing.” - YouTube youtu.be

A decision by President Donald Trump’s administration to delete the names of four US service members from the Iran war dead was slammed Friday on MS NOW as “among the more offensive moves that the administration has made."The panel was responding to a New York Times report that the number of dead listed by the Pentagon mysteriously dropped from 18 to 14, ostensibly “because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April.” The “Morning Joe" panel said they didn't buy it, calling the move both “outrageous” and “despicable,” with co-host Jonathan Lemire reminding viewers of the president’s low opinion of American service members who die in wars.“I mean, this wouldn't be the first time that the government, that the Trump administration has tried to doctor things to make the president look better,” Lemire stated. "It is a nonsensical argument that these four lives would matter less because they happened after a ceasefire was declared, when obviously the ceasefire is over; there are major strikes happening in the region now for well more than a week. To me, this was particularly outrageous and disgraceful.”MS NOW contributor Sam Stein offered, “Well, to me too. It's both not shocking that the Trump administration would do this, and it's shocking that it happened. What is the actual goal of doing something like this is to try to limit your political exposure for the war.”“It's despicable, honestly,” he added. "It's failing to own the consequences of their actions, or at least trying to avoid the consequences of their actions. And honestly, it's insulting to the people who sacrificed to say, ‘Hey, this was not actually a war casualty.’ It was what a casualty of a — what's the word he uses? — skirmish. I found this to be among the more offensive moves that the administration has made politically, but it obviously reflects a larger thinking that they have internally, which is that this is politically problematic.”“The callousness here is off the charts,” Lemire agreed. “And but perhaps not surprising. I agree with you, Sam. Remember, President Trump and his first term called those who were reportedly killed in combat ‘suckers and losers.’” - YouTube youtu.be