Author: Aljazeera

ِAl-Yaman Camp, Idlib, northwest Syria – Looking to make something tasty and thrifty, Bayan al-Jassem, 32, decided to reach for a staple of the Syrian kitchen, maqali (said with a glottal stop). The decision was reached a few hours before sundown on the second day of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting for Muslims across the world, and a decision was needed so food could be readied for iftar, the sunset breaking of the fast. Because maqali is a simple dish, true to its name which means “fried things”, Bayan was not too worried about whipping it up in time.…

Since February 25, women with name tags and huge stacks of papers have been knocking on every door in the Russia-occupied parts of four Ukrainian regions or approaching residents outside their apartment buildings or houses. The documents are lists of voters, and the women and, rarely, men are election officials who usually teach in nearby schools, accept utilities payments or work as government clerks. They ask residents for their IDs and nudge them to fill in an early ballot form with the names of four candidates in Russia’s presidential election, current and former residents of the occupied areas told Al…

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a third straight term in the marathon six-week vote – the world’s largest democratic exercise.India will hold a seven-phase general election starting on April 19, with the results to be declared on June 4. The Election Commission of India announced the schedule of the six-week marathon vote during a news conference in New Delhi on Saturday. Nearly 970 million voters – more than the entire population of the United States, the European Union and Russia combined – are eligible to cast their ballot, according to the poll panel’s data, making the election the largest…

Violent repression in the West Bank is making a bad situation unbearable.With the global media’s attention trained on Gaza since October 7, things have worsened for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, and near impossible for journalists to cover. With their movement severely restricted, dozens of Palestinian journalists have been arrested, often held without trial or charge. Contributors:Anan Quzmar – Journalist Assal Rad – Middle East Scholar and Author Mariam Barghouti – Writer and Journalist Oren Ziv – Journalist, +972 Magazine On our radar: Ahead of an upcoming election in India, there has been a slew of movie releases built…

Buon Ma Thuot, Vietnam – The white-walled room in a house on the outskirts of Buon Ma Thuot, Vietnam’s coffee capital, is quiet. The only thing breaking the silence is the occasional beep of an electronic scale, or the sound of coffee being poured into a measuring glass. A handful of people, all wearing white lab coats, concentrate on their work. “This is really a lab,” says Nguyen Van Hoa, as he walks around the room in the white lab coat he wears over his jeans and trainers. A young man, Hoa calls himself a “green bean hunter” and is…

New Delhi, India – India, the world’s largest democracy, has kicked off its two and a half month long parliamentary election to decide who will rule the South Asian nation. On Saturday, the Election Commission of India – the country’s independent poll-conducting body – announced the dates for a democratic exercise that is unmatched in scale globally, and in history. From the Himalayas in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south, from the hills of the east to the deserts in the west, and in concrete jungles that are some of the world’s biggest cities to the smallest…

UN aid chief says 730,000 Sudanese children are thought to suffer from ‘severe’ malnutrition.Nearly five million people in Sudan are at risk of “catastrophic” hunger in the coming months, the United Nations has warned, calling for the country’s warring parties to allow aid deliveries. In a note to the UN Security Council on Friday, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said acute levels of hunger were being driven by the impact of the conflict on agricultural production, damage to major infrastructure and livelihoods, disruptions to trade, severe price hikes, impediments to humanitarian access and massive displacement. “Without urgent humanitarian assistance and…

Following the loss of Alexey Navalny and with the approaching Russian presidential election predetermined, what are the hopes of Russia’s Gen Z?Russia’s Gen Z has only known life under Vladimir Putin – they have grown up with his increasingly anti-Western, patriarchal and patriotic narratives. Polling shows that young Russians are currently the group most critical of Putin’s rule and the most dissatisfied with Russia’s political system. As dissent grows on social media, research also shows that most of Russia’s Gen Z is apolitical. With the upcoming presidential election seemingly predetermined and the opposition sidelined, what drives the activism of young…

Twenty-one years ago today, an Israeli soldier drove an 80,000-pound (26,287kg) bulldozer over a 23-year-old woman from Olympia, Washington. Her name was Rachel Corrie, and she was part of an international team of peace activists who had volunteered to protect Palestinian homes from demolition by Israeli settlers. The US magazine, Mother Jones, gave this account of her final hours: “At two o’clock on the afternoon of Sunday, March 16, Rachel Corrie received a cell-phone call from a comrade in the International Solidarity Movement. ‘The Israelis are back,’ she told Corrie. ‘Get over here right away. I think they’re heading for…

Navy captures MV Ruen off the Indian coast, ending the three-month hijacking of the Maltese-flagged bulk carrier.Indian naval forces including special commandos have seized a cargo vessel that had been hijacked by Somali pirates and rescued 17 crew members, a spokesperson for the navy said. In a post on the social media platform X on Saturday, the navy said that all 35 pirates on board the Maltese-flagged bulk cargo vessel MV Ruen had surrendered, and the ship had been checked for the presence of illegal arms, ammunition and contraband. The MV Ruen was hijacked late last year and the navy…