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@livus@kbin.social

If you like international and eclectic news, come and join me at @worldwithoutus (Link for Lemmy = worldwithoutus).

I've also started helping out at @worldnews, (Link for Lemmy = worldnews), @movies, (Lemmy = movies), and am a ghost at @13thfloor (Lemmy = 13th Floor).

The ‘man who repairs women’ on rape as a weapon and how the world forgot the Democratic Republic of Congo (www.theguardian.com)

For the Nobel laureate Denis Mukwege, who has treated more than 80,000 survivors of sexual violence by armed groups, the west displays double standards over the ‘stain on our humanity’. Walking around a camp for displaced people in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo this year, the Nobel peace laureate Dr Denis Mukwege...

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From the article:

Known as the “man who repairs women”, Mukwege, 69, has treated more than 80,000 survivors of sexual violence by armed groups at Panzi hospital, which he founded in Bukavu, South Kivu, in 1999. In 2018, along with the Yazidi activist Nadia Murad, he was awarded the Nobel peace prize for his work, which he dedicated to sexual violence survivors across the world.

In his Nobel lecture, he talked about the first patients admitted to the hospital. One had been raped and shot in her genitals; another was an 18-month-old baby horrifically injured by rape.

“The macabre violence knew no limit,” he said at the time. That violence has never stopped. Every day, between five and seven new survivors of rape come through the doors of the hospital.

Médecins Sans Frontières said last year that it was treating 48 people a day after a surge in cases of sexual violence around Goma. Photograph: Marion Molinari/MSF

“Raping a woman, raping the children and hurting them, and showing it to the community, is a way of traumatising [everyone],” says Mukwege, who, with Murad, set up the Global Survivors Fund to provide reparations for victims...

DRC has experienced three decades of conflict, with militias >and groups of bandits emerging from two civil wars fought between 1996 and 2003. The east of the country has borne the brunt of the fighting. More than 100 armed groups now operate there.

Among them is a resurgent M23, which the UN says is backed by neighbouring Rwanda, a claim Kigali denies. Since 2021, about 1.7 million people have fled fighting linked to the group in North Kivu, and hundreds of thousands of people are living in overcrowded camps in Goma and the surrounding area.

Mukwege has been critical of the Congolese government’s response to the fighting, denouncing its impunity over war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the “plundering of [the country’s] natural resources”. His comments have brought him enemies and he narrowly survived an assassination attempt in 2012. For a time he was under UN protection, but that ended in 2020.

In December, he ran in the presidential election. “I wanted to take my responsibility before history,” he says. “And we tried to offer an alternative vision to say that there is no fatality, that there is the possibility of changing things.”

Mukwege took about 1% of the vote and the incumbent, Felix Tshisekedi, won a second term in office in a vote that nine opposition candidates condemned as a “sham”.

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He wants the international community to ditch “double >standards” in prioritising the crises in Ukraine and Gaza over that of the DRC.

“We’re experiencing almost the same tragedy as those taking place in the Middle East and Ukraine, but nobody is talking about the DRC, or very little,” he says.

Despite this, Mukwege retains his optimism and will continue to fight for those who suffer.

“I have hope,” he says, “because I am convinced that the victims who are suffering today will be able to take their destiny into their own hands and put an end to all the injustices we are experiencing here.”..

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Hyun-su and Soo-jin are newlyweds. Seemingly out of nowhere, he starts talking in his sleep: ‘Someone’s inside.’ From that night on, whenever he falls asleep, he transforms into someone else with no recollection of what happened the night before. Soo-jin is overwhelmed with anxiety that he’d hurt her family while she sleeps and can barely sleep a wink because of this rational fear. Despite sleep treatment, Hyun-su’s sleepwalking only intensifies, and she begins to feel that her unborn child may be in danger…”

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I found that pretty relatable though right? I think most of us have made that mistake at some point!

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Interesting approach! Kind of depends on the era, it may be that they had to squash their story to get to 90...

I haven't noticed any drop off in quality but haven't been looking for it I have to admit. This graph is interesting but 8 years out of date.

2h20 is probably my cut off for one sitting of films that aren't amazingly good. When I was young I was a lot more relaxed and up for super long films but not so much now.

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That makes sense. I was thinking of the 1950s.

Japan to trial AI scheme for spotting bears as attacks on humans rise (mainichi.jp)

The Japanese government is planning to trial an artificial intelligence system for spotting wild bears to better deal with an increasing number of attacks by the animals on humans, a government source said Monday. Under the system, AI will use security camera footage to instantly detect bears and share the information with the...

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From the article:

Scarce food sources for the bears due to poor crops are believed to be behind the increased instances of bears entering human spaces.

The government has stepped up efforts to address bear attacks under a policy compiled in February, and the swift detection of the animals when they show up in urban areas as well as speedy information-sharing among police, municipalities and local hunters have been seen as key.

The new system is expected to be helpful as it connects AI with governmental, municipal and private camera networks.

In the trial in Toyama Prefecture, the system is expected to use cameras installed for surveillance and disaster management by the central and prefectural government facilities, as well as those used by utility companies.

Cooperation from private entities would allow for wider coverage around urban areas, riversides and mountainous areas...

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Yeah, I think it's going to get much much worse than the current situation, which is already terrible.

Russia has tightened its hold over the Sahel region – and now it’s looking to Africa’s west coast (theconversation.com)

Niger’s military government sides with Russia in the latest sign of Moscow’s growing influence in Africa. Armed troops in Niger overthrew the government in July 2023, seizing power for themselves. The following months were rife with speculation that the military government would align with Moscow and possibly form ties with...

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Reddit is going to poison LLMs sooner than I thought.

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Doubt it, they are interwoven into almost any conversation with more than 70 comments.

US military ships are working to build a pier for Gaza aid. It's going to cost at least $320 million (apnews.com)

A U.S. Navy ship and several Army vessels involved in an American-led effort to bring more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip are offshore of the enclave and building out a floating platform for the operation that the Pentagon has said will cost at least $320 million....

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It's more subtle than this:

The new port sits southwest of Gaza City and a bit north of a road bisecting Gaza that the Israeli military built during the current war against Hamas... Now Israeli military positions are on either side of the port...

In other words they are going to act as a bottleneck the same way they do for the road crossings.

Meanwhile humanitarian NGOs are all saying the worst famine is in the North. It's obvious this is just a PR exercise.

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This is quite an interesting outcome:

According to several media reports, there have also been closures of several McDonalds and Starbucks outlets in Malaysia.

These popular chains have been experiencing a slowdown in business as a result of boycotts against US-linked companies linked to the country’s stance in the Israel-Hamas war.

“KFC is not on the (Palestinian-led movement) BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) list of targeted companies. But many Malaysians see any American fast-food operator to be related to Israel including KFC,” said Professor Mohd Nazari Ismail, chairman of pro-Palestinian group Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Malaysia, quoted in regional media.

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What a horrpr show, and now some of the victims have grown up and are self harming.

The leaked documents describe a staff member pinning him up against the wall of a room and hitting him with such force his body is recorded as "jolting" before he then becomes unsteady on his feet.

The external consultant found that the incident constituted proven physical abuse and said the teacher had shown no remorse or concern for Ashley's welfare when interviewed, suggesting a "potential absence of learning".

More like an obvious absence of basic humanity. Those teachers should never have been allowed to stay on, they are sociopathic.

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Odd thing to focus on.

Anyway neither of you are going to get your way with this because the abusive teachers in this story were never even fired let alone facing criminal charges.

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Minerals from the DRC are being mined in govt-backed mines supported by Russian mercenaries.

The Rwanda-funder M23 however are invading DRC over the border, stealing them and then on-selling from Rwanda.

So'it's a whole extra can of worms.

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This guy is a hero. When people hear there was rape in war a lot of them don't really understand what that entails.

In his Nobel lecture, he talked about the first patients admitted to the hospital. One had been raped and shot in her genitals; another was an 18-month-old baby horrifically injured by rape.

“The macabre violence knew no limit,” he said at the time. That violence has never stopped. Every day, between five and seven new survivors of rape come through the doors of the hospital.

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