Feb 05 (IPS) - CIVICUS discusses the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia’s Amhara region with Hone Mandefro, advocacy director at the Amhara Association of America, and Henok Ashagray, PhD candidate and project officer at the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria.

Feb 05 (IPS) - Americans consume more illicit drugs per capita than anyone else in the world; about 6% of the U.S. population uses them regularly. One such drug, fentanyl – a synthetic opioid that’s 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine – is the leading reason U.S. overdose deaths have surged in recent years. While the rate of fentanyl overdose deaths has dipped a bit recently, it’s still vastly higher than it was just five years ago.

KARACHI, Feb 05 (IPS) - “I may not be able to continue hosting my show because the content I put up will most certainly land me in prison,” said senior correspondent Azaz Syed who works for a private TV channel, but who also has his own private online digital channel. He was referring to the recent amendment in the already existing cybercrime law, terming it a “wild” law which has been instituted to grapple with fake news among other online harms.

NEW YORK, Feb 05 (IPS) - In less than two weeks in office, Trump issued scores of reckless executive orders that ironically will gravely undermine rather than enhance his “America First” agenda and America’s global leadership.

“I still see the knife, and the lady who held me down,” said Hawa’a Mohamed Kamil, a peer educator in Djibouti, who was subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) at just six years old, an experience that left both physical and psychological scars.

New executive orders issued by the White House are set to further impact the cooperative, multilateral work of the United Nations, two weeks since the United States declared that it was pulling out of the UN health agency, WHO.

Rwanda-backed M23 rebels continued to consolidate their hold over North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Wednesday, despite declaring a ceasefire two days earlier and pledging not to continue south, according to the UN’s Deputy Special Representative for Protection and Operations in the country.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged the international community to continue pushing for a full ceasefire and the release of all hostages in Gaza, and “to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing” in the enclave, in a speech in New York on Wednesday.

Sakina Sani was married off when she was 12 years old amid conflict and food shortages in northern Nigeria. She became pregnant at 15 but miscarried and then had two children in rapid succession.

As South Sudan enters a so-called “extended transitional period” this month, the UN’s top envoy to the country has warned that the clock is ticking to accomplish the commitments under a key 2018 peace accord, ahead of a new deadline set for February 2027.