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Hello, I'm Chris Barrow with the BBC News.
A new report by the U.N. Children's Organization says sexual violence against children in the Democratic Republic of Congo is systemic and appears to be increasing. The report documents 45,000 cases this year alone, three times the number recorded in 2022. Here's Imogen Foulkes. War and displacement are putting children in DRC at extreme risk, the UNICEF report says. Most cases of sexual violence are concentrated in North and South Kivu and Ituri, where longstanding conflict has driven millions from their homes. Aid workers describe mothers searching for hours to get help for daughters who can no longer walk after being sexually assaulted. While adolescent girls are the most at risk, UNICEF says boys are also subjected to sexual violence. During an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, several countries have questioned Israel's formal recognition of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland. Israel's decision, which was announced on Friday, has been widely condemned. Pratiksha Ghildial reports from New York. At the beginning of the meeting, the Somali representative to the U.N., Abukar Osman, condemned Israel's move and accused it of aiming to destabilize the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region. Firmly backing Israel, the United States representative, Tammy Bruce, said Israel had the right to conduct diplomacy like any other sovereign nation. Ms. Bruce added that she had no announcement to make on the U.S. recognition of Somaliland and that her country's policy had not changed. President Trump has warned that Hamas would have "hell to pay" if it does not disarm quickly as part of the Gaza peace deal. Speaking in Florida at a press conference with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Trump said the consequences of a failure to disarm would be really "horrible" for Hamas. Mr. Netanyahu was asked about the Palestinian Authority's involvement in the future of Gaza. "I think President Trump put clearly the conditions of reform that he wants to see in the PA for them to be involved. And I think he put it very clearly, what he wants to see, the kind of real reforms, not just perfunctory reforms, but real reforms, stop, pay to slay, change the curriculum in your textbooks, open up, you know, a different society and a different future." The U.S. military says it's carried out what it calls a "lethal kinetic strike" on a boat suspected of carrying drugs. Two men were killed in the strike in international waters in the eastern Pacific. Earlier President Trump confirmed that U.S. forces had struck a facility for processing drugs in Venezuela. Mr. Trump said the U.S. had hit a dock area where drugs were loaded onto boats. This is the world news from the BBC. The Russian foreign minister has suggested that Moscow has no intention of compromising on Ukrainian territory it already occupies. Speaking to a Russian news agency, Sergei Lavrov said that Kyiv's Western allies had to come to terms with the new realities. It comes after Russia accused Kyiv of carrying out a drone attack on one of President Putin's official residences in Novgorod. Police in Nigeria have confirmed that two friends of the boxer Anthony Joshua were killed in a car crash. Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele were part of the training team for Joshua, a former two-time men's heavyweight champion of the world. The boxing star was a passenger in an SUV which crashed into a truck in southeastern Nigeria. The Hollywood star George Clooney, along with his wife, the human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, and their two children have officially become French citizens. Alice Adderley reports. According to an entry in the French official gazette, George Clooney and his family have been granted French citizenship. It confirms an ambition the actor alluded to in early December. In an interview with French radio at the time, he praised French privacy laws which he said would shield his children from paparazzi and which he said didn't exist in the United States. The Clooneys own a former wine estate in southern France and he said although the family jetsets around the world, their French home is where they are happiest. Italy's top football league is to cancel the use of orange balls which were introduced in November because of complaints by people who find it hard to follow the action due to color blindness. The ball had been introduced specifically to make it more visible to players and spectators in all circumstances. But the president of the Serie A football league said that in future only yellow or white balls will be used as was the case previously because the league had received a lot of criticism. And that's the latest BBC news. |