The IPC’s results, published in summary form on 12 May, estimated that 925,000 Gazans (44 per cent) were already experiencing ‘emergency’ acute food insecurity – close to the starvation threshold. A further 244,000 (12 per cent) were in ‘catastrophe’, meaning they had fallen below that threshold. That’s consistent with what we know about food stocks and the rate at which they’re being eaten.
Gaza is unique in the annals of starvation because of the simplicity of this calculation. In any other humanitarian calamity, a host of other factors complicate the picture, and overall food availability is a poor guide to levels of hunger. In Somalia or Sudan, for example, when food becomes scarce, people fall back on age-old alternatives such as gathering wild grasses and berries, or modern strategies such as calling for family members abroad to transfer cash. Palestinians in Gaza can’t do any of this. Israel controls every shekel, every sack of flour, every connection to the outside world.
The monument to the Duc de Richelieu, Odesa’s first governor, under wraps at the top of the Potemkin Steps. Photo © Nataliia Mykhailenko
Odesa is mostly Russian-speaking and sometimes thought to be more pro-Russian than other parts of Ukraine, but there isn’t a straightforward link between language and loyalty. When I raised the question of a potential backlash against Ukrainisation in Odesa, a Belgian diplomat was reminded of the way the French talk about Belgium. ‘There is something about multilingual countries that eludes the imperial mindset,’ he said, ‘French, British or Russian.’
Hugh Roberts has died from cancer at the age of 76. Among his books were a collection of penetrating articles on Algerian politics, The Battlefield; a meticulous historical study of Kabyle society, Berber Government; and a monograph on the Arab Spring, based on pieces he’d published in the LRB. To read Hugh’s writing – whether in his books, his articles or the analyses he wrote for the International Crisis Group – is to encounter a thinker of unusual rigour, seriousness and daring.
Months before the Trumpist onslaught on higher education, US universities were rushing to prohibit protest encampments. Why do some ramshackle tents on lawns present such a threat to authority – as opposed to demonstrations and marches, which remain generally permitted, subject to certain regulations?
The Trump court is a royal progress that moves between Palm Beach and the White House, for the most part in private planes. But the interests of the US government require that at least some of its members be willing to travel farther afield than Florida. Trump talks of putting the US economy behind a great tariff wall, but he also wants deals, which means he needs dealers. America’s official chief diplomat is the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, but so far his activities have been fairly limited. Instead, the role of principal US emissary is currently filled by the unlikely figure of the property developer Steve Witkoff.
Ain Anger as Dosifei and members of the Slovak Philharmonic Choir as Old Believers in Simon McBurney’s production of Mussorgsky’s ‘Khovanshchina’, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, at the Salzburg Easter Festival in April 2025. Photo © Inés Bacher
Mussorgsky’s alcoholism caught up with him before he could finish Khovanshchina. At the time of his death in 1881 he had completed a piano score but hadn’t begun the orchestration. He was also still working out the final act, where, after Golitsyn is exiled and Khovansky is killed, the Old Believers opt for martyrdom by self-immolation in protest against the tsar.
Colombia produced a record 2600 tons of cocaine in 2023 and at least a third of it passed through Ecuador – probably more. The Calabrian ’Ndrangheta long monopolised shipments to Europe via West Africa, but called on Albanian gangs to help move the increased volume through Guayaquil; the Albanians doubled the size of the loads and took over wholesaling in Rotterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg and Spanish port cities. Since 2021 there has been a sharp spike in the numbers of Albanian ‘businessmen’ operating in Ecuador along with an increase of banana shipments to Albania. In Guayaquil, homicide grew by a factor of ten in less than a decade.