insecurity

VOV 129: The Dangers of Farming Amidst Insecurity | RSS.com

You used to spend long days on the farm, planting a variety of crops and bringing home a full harvest. Now, you work only a few hours under the watch of soldiers. You can’t go far from town, and you can’t plant tall crops anymore because they can conceal terrorists. 

So you plant only beans and groundnuts, but the yield is never enough. And each time you step onto the farm, you know you might hear gunshots, and you would have to run for your life.

Reported and scripted by Sabiqah Bello

Voice acting by Rukayya Saeed

Multimedia editor is Anthony Asemota

Executive producer is Ahmad Salkida

Beyond the Numbers: Inside Nigeria’s Insecurity Tr | RSS.com

On The Crisis Room, we’re following insecurity trends across Nigeria.

Every week at HumAngle, we track the state of insecurity across Nigeria: the attacks, abductions, armed clashes, displacements, and the lives caught in between.

All of it feeds into the HumAngle Insecurity Tracker, a data-driven project documenting trends, patterns, and stories behind the numbers.

Today, we ask: What does an insecurity tracker reveal about the state of a country? What do these numbers say about security policies, responses, and the future of communities at risk? Our guests are two journalists who live at the intersection of data, storytelling, and accountability: Adejumo Kabir and Abdussamad Yusuf.

Hosts: Salma and Salim

Guests: Adejumo Kabir and Abdussamad Yusuf

Audio producer: Anthony Asemota

Executive producer: Ahmad Salkida

Global hunger fell in 2024 for a third straight year, but conflict and climate shocks deepened crises in Africa and the Middle East.

Global hunger levels declined for a third consecutive year in 2024, according to a new United Nations report, as better access to food in South America and India offset deepening malnutrition and climate shocks in parts of Africa and the Middle East.

Around 673 million people, or 8.2 percent of the world’s population, experienced hunger in 2024, down from 8.5 percent in 2023, according to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, jointly prepared by five UN agencies.

The agencies include the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

The agencies said the report focused on chronic, long-term problems and did not fully reflect the impact of acute crises brought on by specific events and wars, including Israel’s war on Gaza.

“Conflict continues to drive hunger from Gaza to Sudan and beyond,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in remarks delivered by video link from a UN food summit in Ethiopia on Monday, adding that “hunger further feeds future instability and undermines peace”.

The WHO has warned that malnutrition in the besieged Palestinian enclave has reached “alarming levels” since Israel imposed a total blockade on March 2.

The blockade was partially lifted in May, but only a trickle of aid has been allowed to enter since then, despite warnings about mass starvation from the UN and aid organisations.

Hunger rate falls in South America, southern Asia

In 2024, the most significant progress was reported in South America and southern Asia, according to the UN report.

In South America, the hunger rate fell to 3.8 percent in 2024 from 4.2 percent in 2023. In southern Asia, it fell to 11 percent from 12.2 percent.

Progress in South America was underpinned by improved agricultural productivity and social programmes, such as school meals, Maximo Torero, the chief economist at the FAO, told news agency Reuters.

In southern Asia, it was mostly due to new data from India showing more people with access to healthy diets.

The overall 2024 hunger numbers were still higher than the 7.5 percent recorded in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hunger more prevalent in Africa

The picture was very different in Africa, where productivity gains were not keeping up with high population growth and the impacts of conflict, extreme weather and inflation.

In 2024, more than one in five people on the continent, or 307 million people, were chronically undernourished, meaning hunger is more prevalent than it was 20 years ago.

According to the current projection, 512 million people in the world may be chronically undernourished in 2030, with nearly 60 percent of them to be found in Africa, the report said.

“We must urgently reverse this trajectory,” said the FAO’s Torero.

A major mark of distress is the number of Africans unable to afford a healthy diet. While the global figure fell from 2.76 billion in 2019 to 2.6 billion in 2024, the number increased in Africa from 864 million to just over one billion during the same period.

That means the vast majority of Africans are unable to eat well on the continent of 1.5 billion people.

Inequalities

The UN report also highlighted “persistent inequalities” with women and rural communities most affected, which widened last year over 2023.

“Despite adequate global food production, millions of people go hungry or are malnourished because safe and nutritious food is not available, not accessible or, more often, not affordable,” it said.

The gap between global food price inflation and overall inflation peaked in January 2023, driving up the cost of diets and hitting low-income nations hardest, the report said.

The report also said that overall adult obesity rose to nearly 16 percent in 2022, from 12 percent in 2012.

Love Island’s Helena has been slammed online by fans as ‘insecure’ as they ‘work out’ her real game plan and say her ‘main personality trait’ is putting ‘other girls down’

Love Island’s Helena has been slammed by fans after the latest instalment of the reality show, as fans claim they have worked out her game plan and said her ‘main personality trait’ is putting ‘other girls down’, following a chat with the latest Bombshell, Harrison.

Helena, 29, was getting to know Harry, 30, however, their relationship came tumbling down after he kissed Yasmin three times in the hideaway and then lied about it. The blonde beauty is now opening herself up to Harrison, but fans aren’t pleased with their conversation.

Helena and Harrison were seen having a cosy chat in the pool together when Helena brought up his other interest, American girl Toni, 24. Helena said Toni was “marking her territory” with Harrison and said she feels like Toni doesn’t like it when she talks to Harrison.

Fans rushed to express their opinions on X, as one person wrote: “Helena’s main personality trait is putting other girls down. And she has the audacity to call THEM boring”, while another added: “Helena’s chat is literally just talking down other girls”.

A third added: “I’m seeing a very nasty pattern with Helena…..”, while another said: “Can we get a compilation of Helena talking shit about the girls behind their backs on movie night please”.

Helena’s flirty conversation was followed by another game in the villa, which is proving to be very dramatic this year. The islanders were tasked with a game of spin the bottle, which saw chaos erupt in the villa.

The Islanders were faced with telling truths and dares. Conor, who is currently getting to know Emily, got a dare to put the person he thinks is best in bed in his “most favourite sex position”, and he chose Megan.

Conor got her to lie on her tummy on the floor and declared his favourite position to be “speed bumps”, before he hovered above her and said: “Pump”. Megan’s partner Tommy shook his head disapproving of the actions.

Emily then said: “If he carries on, he’ll never find out how I am in bed.”

Elsewhere in the episode, fans showed real concern for Alima as they pointed out her lack of airtime and questioned if she had gone missing.

Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, one fan penned: “is alima still in that villa??#LoveIsland,” as another questioned: “WHERE IS ALIMA ?? #LoveIsland“

Love Island 2025 airs every night at 9PM on ITV2 and ITVX. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads.