TomDrafts

Today, 31 March 2026, marks a turning point in the life of this publication. After eight years, the founding editorial team hands over to a new team of volunteers, who take charge starting tomorrow, 1 April. We do not take this moment lightly. Last December, it seemed possible that News & Views might simply close its doors at the end of March. That it will not is entirely due to several members of our community who stepped forward, unprompted, to keep it alive. We are more grateful than we can easily say. The new team will be introducing themselves to readers in the coming days. Please give them a warm welcome — and give them your full support. The energy, commitment, and goodwill you have shown this publication over eight years is now theirs to build on. To our readers and contributors: thank you. The articles, photographs, personal stories, and comments you have shared are what made News & Views matter — what kept more than a thousand former colleagues, scattered across a hun...

Last week, an independent journalist filming bomb damage in Iran near the village of Kafari came across US antitank mines lying in the streets and backyards of homes. The nearest military target was several miles away. Instead, the 'Gator'—a 500-pound cluster bomb that breaks apart in mid-air—had seeded the village with an instant, indiscriminate minefield. The children of Kafari are now living in a minefield. And they are not alone. Irony among military spokespersons The 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions has been ratified by 112 nations. The United States, Israel, and Iran have not signed it — nor have any of the three signed the relevant white phosphorus protocols or the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty. All three have placed themselves, by deliberate policy choice, outside the international norms they are flouting. In June 2025, an Israeli military spokesman condemned Iran's cluster munitions for seeking "to maximise the scope of damage," even as Israeli for...

Slideshow We have received 514 photos for our album — a wonderful response! From this rich collection, we have curated a selection for the slideshow below.  Slideshows on Blogger can be unreliable and may not start automatically. If the slides do not move automatically, be sure to click the right arrow to browse. The full album of reunion photos is available here . It remains open, so please do add any additional photos you would like to share. Video   Here is the highlights video of our reunion, produced by Shearwater's media team, ItsNoMatata. We hope it brings back many fond memories of our time together. unicef x reunion.mp4 Reflections So Far Received from Participants Sam Fredricks Tanzania: Dear Susan we made it to Dar very early this morning after being "dragged out" of EHR...

XUNICEF 2026 Reunion — An Exciting Journey of Discovery and Creating Lasting Memories in Zimbabwe By Susan Muza Zimbabwe was nominated as the venue for the 2026 XUNICEF Annual Reunion at the April 2024 gathering in Malta and confirmed at the 2025 Reunion in Manila. XUNICEF Zimbabwe then set about planning what would become an extraordinary week of discovery — a journey from 7 to 13 March 2026 centred on one of the world's most spectacular natural landmarks, with ample opportunity for fun, reconnection, and lasting memories. Victoria Falls — known in the Tonga language as Mosi-oa-Tunya , “The Smoke that Thunders” — straddles the Zambezi River on the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia. At 1,708 metres wide, it is among the largest waterfalls on earth, set within a region of remarkable biodiversity. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it was also rated by Forbes Magazine as the world's top tourist destination in 2025. The itinerary, carefully curated by XUNICEF Zimbabwe in partne...

 

Note: This post expands on my previous article " Oil Crisis Today, Food Crisis Tomorrow "  A severely malnourished boy in Hajjah, Yemen. (Hani Mohammed/Associated Press) The Chain — gas, fertiliser, food prices, malnourished children The connection between a missile strike on a Qatari gas plant and a severely malnourished child may not be immediately obvious to many observers of the Iran war. Yet there is a direct chain of cause and effect that could lead, later this year, to a major crisis in child nutrition across Asia and Africa. To understand why the effective closure of a narrow strait threatens the food security of billions, it is necessary to understand the invisible architecture upon which modern agriculture depends — combining nitrogen from the atmosphere with hydrogen from natural gas to produce ammonia, the base from which all synthetic nitrogen fertilisers are created. Without this process, according to Vaclav Smil’s landmark study Enriching the Earth (MIT Press)...