They may not have brought the title home, but this year’s Miss Universe Pageant held at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel in Hollywood featured not one, not two, but three Ghanaian beauties.
No they did not provide three spots for Ghana. But in addition to the official contestant who flew the black star banner, two more beauties with Ghanaian blood represented two other countries.
The first is Jeannette Akua Yeboah Mensah, Miss Universe Great Britain.
Jeanette was chosen by a panel of judges after a virtual selection process on International Women’s Day.
Jeanette is passionate about music and education and has a master’s degree in International Economic Policy and Analysis. She works as a business development manager at a leading economic consultancy and often speaks at global conferences addressing CEOs and world leaders. She is also a former X Factor UK top 10 finalist and Britain’s Got Talent semi-finalist and has written and released her own music which has been streamed over a million times.
Jeanette, aged 28, lives in London and is the founder of the “Be Audacious” campaign, a movement run by women for women. The campaign aims to empower women to have the audacity to pursue their dreams and to have the nerve to walk through doors they are told are not meant for them.
Jeannette is a daughter of a Ghanaian father and a South African mother.
Next is Miss Universe Japan Aisha Harumi Tochigi with Ghanaian father and Japanese mother who was crowned Miss Universe Japan 2020 this past November in Tokyo edging out 29 other contestants.
“I grew up in Accra Madina,” Aisha proudly answered to the question about where she grew up. “It was really fun living in Ghana. Because my friends were really nice to me, I was able to make many of them and they taught me English.”
Aisha was introduced to Bayside Acting and Modelling Agency located in Saitama, Japan and run by a Ghanaian Samual Aning known in the industry as Nana Yaw Pop two years ago by her father Kareem who needed Aisha groomed for the run at the beauty pageant.
Then there is Chelsea Tayui, the official M.iss Ghana Universe.
Chelsea is a Ghanaian model and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss Universe Ghana in 2020 and represented Ghana at the Miss Universe 2020 pageant.
Tayui is a native of Keta in the Volta Region of Ghana. She graduated from the DePaul University in Chicago, U.S. with a bachelor’s degree in Communications and Media.
She is a communications executive currently works part time as the Communications Director for The KJM Foundation – a non-profit organization (NGO) seeking to create a world where every individual has access to basic human needs.
She initially started as a volunteer with KJM working on several developmental projects including clean water projects for impoverished villages in Ghana.
Officials say the South American nation will receive enough to produce as many as 25 million AstraZeneca and Sinovac jabs.
Brazil has announced it will receive enough coronavirus vaccine ingredients from China to produce as many as 25 million doses of the AstraZeneca and Sinovac jabs, as the South American nation continues to struggle to vaccinate its population.
Rodrigo Cruz, executive secretary of the Brazilian Health Ministry, said the Fiocruz medical research institute would receive two lots of AstraZeneca jab ingredients on Saturday.
“The good news is that today I received confirmation that these two lots will be shipped on May 21. It’s enough to produce approximately 18 million doses,” Cruz told a congressional committee hearing on the COVID-19 crisis on Monday.
Meanwhile, Sao Paulo State Governor Joao Doria said the state’s Butantan biomedical institute would receive ingredients for seven million shots on May 26. “Good news!” Doria tweeted.
Fiocruz and Butantan need ingredients from China to produce the two most common COVID-19 vaccines being used in Brazil.
The country continues to be hard-hit by the pandemic, registering more than 435,000 deaths linked to the coronavirus – the second-highest tally after the United States – and more than 15.6 million infections.
Health workers and public health experts have warned that another surge in cases could be imminent in the country’s Amazonas region, where a more highly transmissible variant of the virus was first discovered.
“A third wave is a big concern. It may not be as explosive as the second but it could last longer,” Lucas Ferrante, a biologist and researcher at the National Institute for Research in the Amazon, told Al Jazeera earlier this month.
The health system in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, collapsed during a deadly second wave of the pandemic that led to widespread shortages of oxygen and other medical supplies needed to treat COVID-19 patients.
Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who has eschewed public health measures such as lockdowns, has borne much of the blame for the coronavirus crisis.
A Senate committee is currently investigating the government’s handling of the pandemic.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has rejected coronavirus-related lockdowns and other health measures [Evaristo Sa/AFP]
Former Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta, who was fired by the president last year, testified in early May that he had warned Bolsonaro about ignoring the advice of health experts on how best to respond to the virus.
“We expressly recommended the president change his stance. We told him it could cause the health system to collapse,” Mandetta told the committee. “I warned Bolsonaro systematically of the consequences of not adopting the recommendations of science to fight COVID-19.”
About 17 percent of people in Brazil have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to date, while only 8 percent are considered fully vaccinated.
India becomes the second nation after the US to pass the grim milestone of recording more than 25 million infections.
India’s total coronavirus cases have surged past the 25 million mark, boosted by 263,533 new infections over the last 24 hours, while deaths from COVID-19 rose by a record 4,329.
India becomes the world’s second nation after the United States to pass the grim milestone. The country’s total case load is now at 25.23 million, while the death toll is at 278,719, according to health ministry data on Tuesday.
The official count of daily cases began to decline last week, with new infections on Monday put at 281,386 – the first time cases dropped below 300,000 since April 21.
Even with a downturn in infections over the past few days, experts said there was no certainty that infections had peaked, with alarm growing at home and abroad over the new more contagious B.1.617 variant taking hold.
“There are still many parts of the country which have not yet experienced the peak, they are still going up,” World Health Organization’s chief scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan was quoted as saying in The Hindu newspaper.
Swaminathan pointed to the worryingly high national positivity rate, at about 20 percent of tests conducted, as a sign that there could be worse to come.
“Testing is still inadequate in a large number of states. And when you see high test positivity rates, clearly we are not testing enough. And so the absolute numbers actually don’t mean anything when they are taken just by themselves; they have to be taken in the context of how much testing is done, and test positivity rate.”
Hospitals have had to turn patients away while mortuaries and crematoriums have been unable to cope with bodies piling up.
Photographs and television images of funeral pyres burning in parking lots and corpses washing up on the banks of the Ganges river have heightened impatience with the government’s handling of the crisis.
It is widely accepted that the official figures grossly underestimate the real effect of the epidemic, with some experts saying actual infections and deaths could be five to 10 times higher.
While the first wave of the pandemic in India, which peaked in September, was largely concentrated in urban areas, where testing was introduced faster, the second wave that erupted in February is rampaging through rural towns and villages, where about two-thirds of the country’s 1.35 billion people live, and testing in those places is sorely lacking.
“This drop in confirmed COVID cases in India is an illusion,” S Vincent Rajkumar, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in the US, said on Twitter.
“First, due to limited testing, the total number of cases is a huge underestimate. Second, confirmed cases can only occur where you can confirm: the urban areas. Rural areas are not getting counted.”
While lockdowns have helped limit cases in parts of the country that had been hit by an initial surge of infections in February and April, such as Maharashtra and Delhi, rural areas and some states are dealing with fresh surges.
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Al Jazeera’s Pavni Mittal, reporting from New Delhi, said a court in the northern Uttar Pradesh state – India’s most populous – has “echoed sentiments” regarding an undercount of coronavirus cases and made some “scathing observations” on medical infrastructure in its rural parts where there is “barely one bed for every 10,000 people”.
The court directed the state government to ramp up testing in rural areas, Mittal said.
The federal government issued detailed guidelines on Sunday for monitoring COVID-19 cases with the health ministry asking villages to look out for people with flu-like illness and get them tested for COVID-19.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come under fire for his messaging to the public, a decision to leave key decisions on lockdowns to states, and the slow rollout of an immunisation campaign in the world’s biggest vaccine producer.
India has fully vaccinated just over 40.4 million people, or 2.9 percent of its population.
A top virologist resigned on Sunday from a forum of scientific advisers set up by the government to detect variants of the coronavirus.
Shahid Jameel, the chair of the scientific advisory group of the forum known as INSACOG, declined to say why he had resigned but said he was concerned that authorities were not paying enough attention to the evidence as they set policy.
US president expresses support for a ceasefire in third call with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu since latest violence began.
Dozens of air strikes pounded Gaza on Tuesday as US President Joe Biden expressed support for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in a phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A new front in the conflict opened as the Israeli military said it also shelled Lebanon in response to six failed rocket launches from southern areas in the neighbouring country.
Biden held his third phone conversation with Netanyahu since violence flared on May 10 and expressed support for a ceasefire. But the US president stopped short of demanding an end to the violence.
At least 212 Palestinians, including 61 children, have been killed in Gaza since the attacks began. About 1,500 Palestinians have been wounded. Ten Israelis have died, including two children, while at least 300 Israelis have been wounded
Here are the latest updates:
3 mins ago (07:27 GMT)
Protests in Indonesia, South Korea against Israel
From Indonesia to South Korea, demonstrators are gathering to protest against the bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli army and show solidarity to the Palestinian people.
Members of Indonesian labour organizations carry placards during a protest against Israel outside the United Nations building in Jakarta, Indonesia [Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters]
Palestinian people and South Korean activists staged a protest against Israeli attacks on Gaza, in front of Israeli Embassy the country’s capital.
Palestinian people and South Korean activists stage a protest against Israeli attacks on Gaza, in front of Israeli Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, May 18, 2021. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
39 mins ago (06:51 GMT)
Gaza’s first 3D printer destroyed
Tashkeel3D, Gaza’s first 3D printer, which manufactured medical devices for years, has been destroyed by an Israeli air raid, according to Dr Tarek Loubani, a Palestinian Canadian physician and founder of the Glia Project, Tashkeel3D’s partner.
Tashkeel 3D was started with a 3D printer made by its founder from scratch, following open-source designs online, because the printers were not allowed in Gaza by Israel.
The company, who represented half of Gaza’s 3D printing capacity, was producing stethoscopes and tourniquets to support Gaza’s medical system.
1 hour ago (06:28 GMT)
Israeli military says it downed UAV near Jordan border
Israeli military said that its forces downed a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) that approached Israel’s border with Jordan, without specifying where the aircraft might have originated.
1 hour ago (06:09 GMT)
Iran’s FM reacts to US blocking UNSC statement and selling more arms to Israel
Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif slammed the US administration for approving the sale of $735m in weapons to Israel, while blocking a joint UN security council statement.
The arms sale, which Congress was notified of on May 5, a week before the current escalation began, includes Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), which are used to turn bombs into precision-guided missiles, according the the Washington Post.
3 hours ago (04:49 GMT)
More blasts in Gaza as day breaks
Israel continued its air raids on Gaza as day broke on Tuesday.
Explosions were heard and balls of fire and plumes of smoke were seen rising from several buildings in Gaza City.
Smoke and flames are seen following an Israeli attack on a building in Gaza City on May 18, 2021 [Mohammed Salem/ Reuters]Smoke rises following an Israeli attack on a building in Gaza City on May 18, 2021 [Mohammed Salem/ Reuters]
3 hours ago (04:03 GMT)
Jordan’s king blames ‘provocative’ Israeli actions for escalation
Jordan’s King Abdullah II spoke to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday and said it was Israel’s “recurrent provocative” actions against Palestinians that have led to the ongoing escalation.
The king also told Guterres that the “international community must shoulder its responsibility, move actively to stop Israeli violations in Jerusalem, aggression on Gaza,” the royal court wrote on Twitter.
4 hours ago (03:24 GMT)
Argentinians protest against Israel’s actions in Gaza
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered near the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires to protest against Israeli attacks on Gaza.
The demonstrators held banners that read “No to the Palestine genocide” and “Everybody with Palestine”.
Protesters hold a banner that reads ‘No to the Palestine genocide’ during a demonstration against Israel and in support of Palestinians, in Buenos Aires, Argentina [Victor R Caivano/ AP]
One protester held a sign that said “Boycott Israel” while another carried a placard that called on the Argentinian government “to break relations with Israel”.Riot police blocked the demonstrators from reaching the Israeli embassy.
6 hours ago (01:59 GMT)
Blasts in Gaza City as dawn approaches
Explosions lit up the night sky over Gaza City early on Tuesday as Israeli forces continued to shell the Palestinian enclave.
There were about 30 Israeli air attacks overnight, as well as bursts of Palestinian rocket fire.
A ball of fire explodes above buildings in Gaza City as Israeli forces shell the Palestinian enclave, early on May 18, 2021 [Mahmud Hams/ AFP]Israeli jets kept up a barrage of attacks against Gaza following a week of violence that has killed more than 200 people [Mahmud Hams/ AFP]
6 hours ago (01:49 GMT)
UN: Situation in southern Lebanon is ‘now calm’
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said it is enhancing security controls in southern Lebanon, in coordination with the Lebanese army, after detecting rocket fire from the area.
UNIFIL added on Twitter it has intensified patrols “to prevent any further incidents that endanger the safety of the local population and the security of southern Lebanon”.
It added the “situation in the area is now calm”.
7 hours ago (00:59 GMT)
Amnesty condemns US approval of arms sales to Israel
Human rights group Amnesty International has condemned US plans to sell weapons worth $735m to Israel in the midst of the latest conflict with Palestinian armed groups, saying the approval undermines the US commitment to upholding human rights around the world.
“By supplying weapons that could be used to commit war crimes, the US government is taking the risk of fuelling further attacks against civilians and seeing more people killed or injured by US weapons,” Philippe Nassif, Amnesty International USA’s advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement urging Biden to reconsider the decision.
7 hours ago (00:17 GMT)
Israel shells southern Lebanon after ‘failed rocket launches’
Six shells were fired from Lebanon towards northern Israel on Monday but did not cross the border, the Israeli military said.
It said that in response, artillery was fired at “the sources of the launches” in Lebanon.
The UN Interim Force in Lebanon said it had detected rocket fire around Rashaya al-Foukhar and urged all parties to “exercise maximum restraint”.
8 hours ago (23:27 GMT)
Gaza images suggest Israel committing ‘war crimes’, law professor says
Ardi Imseis, a law professor at Queen’s University in Canada, said Israel is responding with disproportionate force in the Gaza Strip and probably committing war crimes as a result.
“We have reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes are being committed, violations of international humanitarian law, primarily through lack of respect for the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution,” Imseis told Al Jazeera.
The violations appear to come “primarily from the Israeli side, but not exclusively”, Imseis said.
9 hours ago (22:21 GMT)
US ‘delay’ in ceasefire support ‘has caused slaughter of children’: Ilhan Omar
US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar said US President Joe Biden’s delay in expressing support for a ceasefire “has caused the slaughter of children and destruction of lives”.
The tweet came after Biden told Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call that he backed a ceasefire.
At least 61 Palestinian children have died since Israel began its bombardment on May 10, following Israeli attacks on Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem and rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip. Two children in Israel have also died.
10 hours ago (21:39 GMT)
Biden backs ceasefire, repeats support for Israel
US President Joe Biden “expressed his support for a ceasefire” during a conversation with Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday afternoon, according to a White House readout of the conversation.
Biden also “welcomed efforts to address intercommunal violence and to bring calm to Jerusalem” and “encouraged Israel to make every effort to ensure the protection of innocent civilians”.
Israel has come under criticism for the civilian death toll during its air raids.
Still, Biden “reiterated his firm support for Israel’s right to defend itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks”, the readout said.
Men in embattled town of Mindat flee to the hills as military steps up crack down on resistance to February 1 coup.
On May 15, Biak Thang hastily said goodbye to his wife and two children, grabbed a few days’ worth of food and supplies and ran to the forest.
“We heard that [military forces] are arresting men, so most of the men are escaping and only women and children are left,” said Biak Thang, who asked to use a pseudonym for security reasons.
“I don’t feel safe. I only heard about war-displaced people in the media, but we are war-displaced people now,” he said from the wooded hills on the outskirts of Mindat, a town in Myanmar’s Chin State.
The Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) has warned that the military, which seized power in a February 1 coup, may have committed war crimes and “grave breaches of the Geneva Convention” in Mindat, a town of 46,000 people located 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the border with India.
Since imposing martial law there on May 13, the military has used local youth as human shields, occupied schools and hospitals, destroyed property and conducted heavy-weapon attacks by air and land, according to the CHRO and local media reports.
The military, also known as the Tatmadaw, has described the violence in Mindat as a response to “armed terrorists,” referring to civilian defence forces, which have taken up arms in recent weeks, and said its forces returned fire after coming under attack.. While the military has reportedly used artillery fire, rocket-propelled grenades and automatic machine guns, the civilian forces are armed largely with homemade hunting rifles and makeshift explosives.
Worn down by bloody crackdowns and arbitrary arrests, Mindat’s fighters are among growing numbers of people across the country turning to armed resistance to overthrow military rule.
Soldiers stand guard outside Mindat’s hospital a month after the coup [Courtesy of Chin Human Rights Organisation]
Since the coup, millions have taken to the streets in peaceful protest, while a Civil Disobedience Movement has shut down infrastructure and public services. The military, meanwhile, has killed more than 800 civilians and more than 4,000 people remain in custody, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), which is tracking arrests throughout the country.
‘Big machine weapons’
Chin, a rural and mountainous state in Myanmar’s northwest which is among the country’s least developed, has become among the fiercest battlegrounds of resistance, along with Sagaing region to its north.
Beginning in late March, a group of civilians armed with hunting rifles and homemade weapons maintained a protest camp for more than 10 days in Sagaing’s town of Kalay, where it successfully negotiated a prisoner swap before the military attacked the camp with grenades and machine guns on April 7, killing 11 people.
In Mindat, fighting erupted on April 24, after the military refused to release seven detained youth. Two days later, civilian defence forces ambushed six military trucks carrying reinforcement troops and weapons; the military responded by firing rocket launchers and artillery into the town.
“The attacks started from the outskirts of Mindat. A few days later, they entered the town using big machine weapons. The situation intensified because they attacked indiscriminately, even in residential areas,” a local volunteer medic told Al Jazeera. She requested her name be withheld for her security.
By April 27, Mindat’s civilian defence forces claimed to have killed more than 30 military soldiers.
After the military released the seven detainees, the fighting paused for 10 days but resumed on May 12 when the military refused to release five more detainees. The next day, the military declared martial law over the town, after which it brought in troops and arms by land and air and attacked with heavy weapons during a three-day siege.
On the morning of May 15, soldiers stormed Mindat, firing into streets and arresting young men from their homes. According to the CHRO, soldiers used at least 15 of the young people they had arrested as human shields.
“These are ordinary youths who were trying to get outside of Mindat to avoid indiscriminate bombardment,” the CHRO’s Deputy Director Salai Za Uk Ling told Al Jazeera. “We are extremely concerned about their wellbeing as they are most likely to be mistreated and tortured under custody.”
The Tatmadaw’s power grab, which brought to an end a hesitant transition to democracy, has rekindled unresolved armed conflicts between the military and several ethnic armed organisations, which have been fighting for political autonomy in the country’s borderlands for decades. City dwellers have also begun travelling to the territories held by ethnic armed groups to seek training to fight against the military government, while grassroots civilian defence forces have sprung up in areas that had not previously seen fighting.
A nighttime protest in the town of Mindat in Chin State [Courtesy of Chin Human Rights Organization]
In March, a group of overthrown legislators and ethnic leaders serving as a parallel government in exile endorsed the public’s right to self-defence.On May 5, the shadow government announced the formation of a People’s Defence Force to protect the public’s “safety, property and wellbeing” and fight for the establishment of a federal democratic union. The People’s Defence Force is considered a step towards the creation of a federal army that could unite the country’s ethnic armed organisations and civilian defence forces under a single cause.
Biak Thang, the Mindat resident who fled the town on May 15, told Al Jazeera that the community has been living in fear since the Tatmadaw imposed martial law there.
“Civilians cannot move around freely,” he said. “We cannot go out to buy food or supplies. We are just depending on what we have stored.”
He estimates about 70 percent of local people are hiding in small groups in the forest, and there is a risk of food shortages. Local media have also reported an urgent need for food and medical supplies for those who fled.
The volunteer medic told Al Jazeera that she and her team are shifting to different locations in the forest to avoid arrest, while still attempting to care for the wounded.
“When we are moving from place to place, even we uninjured people get really exhausted,” she said. “The patients should be resting, but instead, they have to run … It added so much time for their injuries to heal.”
She is concerned that a lack of nutritious food will further hinder their recovery.
By the time civilian defence forces retreated on May 15, allegedly to prevent further harm to civilians, seven members had been killed, according to local media reports. The military-run TV channel reported that some of its own troops had been killed and were missing but did not give a number.
The US and UK embassies have condemned the military’s violence against civilians in Mindat, as has the National Unity Government, Myanmar’s government-in-exile.
The National Unity Government also expressed its support for the people’s right to self-defence and called for a no-fly zone over Myanmar as well as international action to end the violence and protect the people.
Women left vulnerable
With most men having fled Mindat, rights groups now warn the women and children left behind are increasingly vulnerable.
Soldiers have been looting property and burning down homes since taking over the town, while some residents have been unable to get medical assistance after being shot, a Mindat resident told Reuters news agency.
In the wake of the attacks, the National Unity Government’s Ministry of Women, Youths and Children Affairs said in a statement that it had received verified claims of sexual violence in Mindat. Al Jazeera was unable to reach the Deputy Minister for comment.
The secretary of the Chin Women Organization, who requested her name be withheld as she is currently in hiding, told Al Jazeera that she was “worried that the military could use sexual assault and rape as weapons as they have that history … As the military has occupied Mindat, the lives of Chin women and young girls, and all women in Mindat, are not safe anymore,” she said.
In August 2019, a UN Fact-Finding Mission reported that Myanmar military soldiers “routinely and systematically” employed rape and sexual violence and that sexual violence perpetrated by the military was “part of a deliberate, well-planned strategy to intimidate, terrorise and punish a civilian population.”
People elsewhere in Myanmar – including in Hpakant – have come out in support of Mindat following the brutal clashes with the Tatmadaw [Kachinwaves via AFP]
Salai Za Uk Ling of the CHRO told Al Jazeera that due to the stigma and sensitivity of the issue, his organisation was not releasing detailed information about alleged sexual violence in Mindat, but he shared concerns that incidents of sexual violence could happen.He also warned that patterns of violence seen in Mindat could spread to other parts of the country, leading to more displacement as the rainy season approaches. With neighbouring India so far refusing to offer asylum to those crossing the border, Salai Za Uk Ling worries that the displaced will be left with no safe place to go.
Although the civilian defence forces have retreated in Mindat, fighting is already spreading to other parts of the state.
The civilian defence forces claim to have killed five military soldiers in Hakha township, where a member of civilian defence forces was also killed on May 16. Clashes in Tedim township left four military soldiers and two unarmed civilians dead, according to local media reports. Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify the information.
“The junta’s actions in Mindat demonstrate how far they are willing to go in trying to put the population under control. Mindat is only the beginning,” said Salai Za Uk Ling. “We are now basically witnessing a humanitarian disaster in the making.”
Deborah contributed to this report from Chin State, Myanmar
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has rejected coronavirus-related lockdowns and other health measures [Evaristo Sa/AFP]
Members of Indonesian labour organizations carry placards during a protest against Israel outside the United Nations building in Jakarta, Indonesia [Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters]
Palestinian people and South Korean activists stage a protest against Israeli attacks on Gaza, in front of Israeli Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, May 18, 2021. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Smoke and flames are seen following an Israeli attack on a building in Gaza City on May 18, 2021 [Mohammed Salem/ Reuters]
Smoke rises following an Israeli attack on a building in Gaza City on May 18, 2021 [Mohammed Salem/ Reuters]
Protesters hold a banner that reads ‘No to the Palestine genocide’ during a demonstration against Israel and in support of Palestinians, in Buenos Aires, Argentina [Victor R Caivano/ AP]
A ball of fire explodes above buildings in Gaza City as Israeli forces shell the Palestinian enclave, early on May 18, 2021 [Mahmud Hams/ AFP]
Israeli jets kept up a barrage of attacks against Gaza following a week of violence that has killed more than 200 people [Mahmud Hams/ AFP]
Soldiers stand guard outside Mindat’s hospital a month after the coup [Courtesy of Chin Human Rights Organisation]
A nighttime protest in the town of Mindat in Chin State [Courtesy of Chin Human Rights Organization]
People elsewhere in Myanmar – including in Hpakant – have come out in support of Mindat following the brutal clashes with the Tatmadaw [Kachinwaves via AFP]
