Senate expenses climbed to $7.2 million in 2023, up nearly 30%
Senators in Canada claimed $7.2 million in expenses in 2023, a nearly 30 per cent increase over the previous year.
A new report says an estimated 43,000 people died amid Somalia's longest drought on record last year and half of them likely were children under 5 years old.
It is the first official death toll announced in the drought withering large parts of the Horn of Africa.
At least 18,000 people, and as many as 34,000, are forecast to die in the first six months of this year.
"The current crisis is far from over," says the report released Monday by the World Health Organization and the United Nations children's agency and carried out by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Somalia and neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya are facing a sixth consecutive failed rainy season while rising global food prices and the war in Ukraine complicate the hunger crisis.
The UN and partners earlier this year said they were no longer forecasting a formal famine declaration for Somalia for now but called the situation "extremely critical" with more than 6 million people hungry in that country alone.
Famine is the extreme lack of food and a significant death rate from outright starvation or malnutrition combined with diseases like cholera. A formal famine declaration means data shows more than a fifth of households have extreme food gaps, more than 30% of children are acutely malnourished and over two people out of 10,000 are dying every day.
"The risk of famine still remains," the UN resident co-ordinator in Somalia, Adam Abdelmoula, told journalists on Monday.
Some humanitarian and climate officials this year have warned that trends are worse than in the 2011 famine in Somalia in which a quarter-million people died.
"The death rate was increasing as the year came to a close," London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine professor Francesco Checchi told journalists. The hardest-hit populations are in Bay and Bakool in southwest Somalia and displaced people who have fled to the capital, Mogadishu.
Millions of livestock have died in the current crisis compounded by climate change and insecurity as Somalia battles thousands of fighters with al -Qaeda's East Africa affiliate, al-Shabab. The UN migration agency says 3.8 million people are displaced, a record high.
A food security assessment released last month said nearly a half-million children in Somalia are likely to be severely malnourished this year.
This time, the world is looking elsewhere, many humanitarian officials say.
"Many of the traditional donors have washed their hands and focused on Ukraine," the UN resident co-ordinator told the visiting U.S. ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, during a briefing in Mogadishu in January.
Senators in Canada claimed $7.2 million in expenses in 2023, a nearly 30 per cent increase over the previous year.
Police say a baby and a pedestrian suffered non-life-threatening injuries after a vehicle struck a baby stroller and dragged it for two blocks before stopping in Squamish, B.C.
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
The RCMP says it has uncovered a plot by two men in Montreal to sell Chinese drones and military equipment to Libya illegally.
The U.S. Justice Department announced a US$138.7 million settlement Tuesday with more than 100 people who accused the FBI of grossly mishandling allegations of sexual assault against Larry Nassar in 2015 and 2016, a critical time gap that allowed the sports doctor to continue to prey on victims before his arrest.
The Vancouver Canucks will be without all-star goalie Thatcher Demko when they face the Nashville Predators in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series.
A 35-year-old man wanted in connection with the murder of Toronto resident 29-year-old Sharmar Powell-Flowers nine months ago has topped the list of the BOLO program’s 25 most wanted fugitives across Canada, police announced Tuesday.
The Canadian Medical Association is asking the federal government to reconsider its proposed changes to capital gains taxation, arguing it will affect doctors' retirement savings.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a Grade 4 student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.