In school they taught me about war. About armed conflicts, structural violence and weapons of mass destruction. Peace, on the other hand, was simply something existing between wars, a taken-for-granted condition occurring in the absence of direct, large-scale armed or interstate violence. Omitted from my Swedish schoolbooks and classroom discussions were the resistance and alternative […]
The purpose of the Integrated food security Phase Classification (IPC) and FEWS NET is to provide real time warnings. They have done their job in Gaza and many other places.
As I wrote in my recent piece in the Guardian, we should not have to wait to count the graves of children […]
Amitav Ghosh’s remarkable book, Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s hidden histories, deserves its critical acclaim.
Imperial Britain forced opium on China in the name of ‘free trade’ and corrupted India in the process. It’s a disturbing story, that doesn’t fit any of the grand narratives of global markets and their benefits. It’s […]
Continue Reading →Yesterday, the IPC Global Initiative issued a special brief on food insecurity in Gaza. It is shocking. They warn of ‘imminent famine.’
USAID’s FEWS NET also provided a detailed analysis and confirmed the findings.
Let’s not be preoccupied with whether it’s ‘famine’ or not. It’s a disaster of surpassing intensity.
[…]
Continue Reading →Below is a round-up of recent news analysis and media commentary from the WPF’s Executive Director, Alex de Waal, a leading expert on mass starvation and famine. In the past weeks, he has discussed starvation crimes in Gaza (Occupied Palestinian Territories), Sudan, Tigray (Ethiopia) and the Horn of Africa.
Gaza
In his 1906 Handbook for Small Wars, Colonel Sir Charles Callwell advised his fellow British officers that colonial operations would likely involve confiscating cattle and burning villages, ‘an aspect that may shock the humanitarian.’ He continues:
The most satisfactory way of bringing such [native] foes to reason is by the rifle and the sward, […]
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