DEVELOPING Latest updates on the major wildfires burning in Canada
The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
A senior Red Cross official said he was furious that sanctions and donor freezes are cutting off basic services in Afghanistan, and he called on donors to find creative ways to prevent a "massive humanitarian crisis."
Humanitarian workers say that U.N. and unilateral sanctions on the Islamist Taliban, which seized power in August, are causing confusion and hesitation among donors despite some efforts to grant licenses to ease aid flows.
Dominik Stillhart, operators director for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said the charity this week began paying salaries and distributing medical supplies to 18 medical facilities in Afghanistan to prevent them from collapsing.
"I am livid," he said on Monday in a statement from Kabul after a six-day field visit to hospitals.
"As winter sets in, policies that were meant to avoid supporting those in power are now instead freezing out millions of Afghans from the very basic needs they require to survive."
Salaries in government-run hospitals have been unpaid for months, meaning the nurses who have not abandoned their posts are walking to work for two hours because they cannot afford transport, Stillhart told journalists.
"Every single person I spoke to, be it hospital staff, patients, people in the street - they are seriously worried about how to make ends meet in the coming months," he said after a visit to a pediatric ward in Kandahar Province.
Cases of severe malnutrition, pneumonia and dehydration have doubled since August and September in the facility, where up to three children are squeezed in each bed, he added.
Stillhart urged donors to find "creative solutions," saying the formation of a trust fund might help get money flowing.
"... Pulling the plug, turning off the generator and throwing away the key in my view is a recipe for disaster."
(Reporting by Emma Farge Editing by Mark Heinrich)
The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
Veteran TSN broadcaster Darren 'Dutch' Dutchyshen, one of Canada’s best-known sports journalists, has died. He was 57. His family says 'he passed as he was surrounded by his closest loved ones.'
A ‘lifetime of abuse’ led Dallas Ly to snap and repeatedly stab his mother inside their Leslieville apartment in 2022 but he never intended to kill her, his defence lawyers argued during at his murder trial in Toronto on Thursday.
A burgeoning track star says his dream of going to the Olympics is being derailed by a deportation order after Immigration officials rejected his family’s claim for asylum
A father has been charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of his 34-year-old daughter in southern Quebec.
A medical examiner says a Massachusetts teen who participated in a spicy tortilla chip challenge died from ingesting a substance 'with a high capsaicin concentration.'
A Montreal father who kidnapped his daughter who has autism and lied to police when they asked where she was should serve three years in prison, a Crown prosecutor said.
The province’s health minister and solicitor general are urging Toronto to rescind its request to decriminalize simple possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use, calling the proposal 'misguided' and 'disastrous.'
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he has "issues" with the Progressive Conservative government of New Brunswick.
A Starbucks fan — whose name is Winter — is visiting Canada on a purposeful journey that began with a random idea at one of the coffee chain's stores in Texas.
Members of Piapot First Nation, students from the University of Winnipeg and various other professionals are learning new techniques that will hopefully be used for ground searches of potential unmarked grave sites in the future.
ALS patient Mathew Brown said he’s hopeful for future ALS patients after news this week of research at Western University of a potential cure for ALS.
When Adam Kirschner wrote 'Slap Shot,' he never imagined the song would be embraced by his favourite team.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.