Gaza is close to famine, the UN has warned
At least a quarter of Gaza’s population is “one step away from starvation”, a UN humanitarian official told the Security Council yesterday. Aid groups say people are so hungry they are resorting to eating leaves, donkey feed and food scraps.
In northern Gaza, one in six children under the age of 2 suffers from acute malnutrition, said official Ramesh Rajasingham. The UN has been unable to provide any aid to the area since early this month, he said, due to security risks and Israeli restrictions.
Fighting, war damage and Israeli restrictions on basic goods entering Gaza have decimated the area’s ability to feed itself through agriculture, livestock and fishing, Rajasingham said.
Data: A new World Bank report found that the enclave’s economic output shrank by more than 80 percent in the last quarter of 2023, calling it “one of the biggest economic shocks ever recorded in recent history.” Up to 96 percent of Gaza’s agricultural infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, and about 80 percent of the population has lost their jobs. In the short term, “every resident of Gaza will live in poverty,” the report said.
Ceasefire talks: Hamas’s political leader said the group was flexible but was ready to continue the war. Egypt’s president said a truce could be reached “in the next few days.”
The “non-aligned” sent Biden a message
President Biden and Donald Trump both won the Michigan primary on Tuesday.
Perhaps the biggest result of the day was that a movement urging Democrats to vote “non-aligned” instead of Biden managed to get his attention. The effort, which was intended to pressure Biden to call for an unconditional cease-fire in Gaza, helped garner 13 percent of the vote. While that percentage paled next to Biden’s 81%, it surprised his campaign. Until this week, the president’s team had not predicted the strength of apparent anti-Biden sentiment among Michigan Democrats, especially after he swept the first two primaries in South Carolina and Nevada.
The movement is now likely to spread to other states, many of which have the option for voters to choose “not attached” or “no preference” in their primaries.
The lonely spiral of a K-pop star
Goo Hara was one of South Korea’s most popular music artists, who found international fame with the K-pop girl group Kara. But with the stardom came savage attacks on social media from a Korean public that is just as quick to criticize stars as it is to treat them. Commenters took aim at her appearance, personality and sex life.
Goo committed suicide in November 2019 at the age of 28. My colleagues Motoko Rich and John Yoon explored Goo’s struggles in the South Korean entertainment industry.
If you are having suicidal thoughts, go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of resources. In South Korea, call 109 for the Ministry of Health’s suicide prevention hotline or go to the Korean language website 129.go.kr/109. In Japan, contact TELL Lifeline at 03-5774-0992 the telljp.com/lifeline/or go to the Japanese language website inochinodenwa.org.
It’s a leap year, February 29, the extra day we add to the calendar every four years to account for the imperfect rotation of the Earth. The odds of being born on February 29 are 1 in 1,461, and my colleague Remy Tumin is one of those smaller numbers. He’s here to tell you all about the quirkiness of the calendar.
The bright side of no
For author Leslie Jamison, keeping a notebook every time she said no to something helped her realize what mattered most.
When he turned something down—whether it was a speaking gig, a magazine order, or an invitation from a friend—he wrote down the opportunity and then drew a line on the page. Underneath, he wrote what he had made room for saying “no.” Sometimes it was more time with her partner, or a chance to call her mother, or extra time to write.
As she collected more of those no’s, she realized that missed opportunities often came back, and that the people she was afraid of letting down were okay. “It was not only my right, but my responsibility to draw my own boundaries, rather than waiting for another person to draw them for me,” she wrote.
