Israel-Palestine, Sudan, Afghanistan.

Today's three stories you should know.

Oct 12, 2023

Israel-Palestine

I’m going to focus again on giving you coverage recommendations for Israel-Palestine. You can find my first email on this here and my second here. Today, a word on news agencies. In so many ways, they are the unsung journalists the entire news business relies on. When major news breaks they are there, on the ground, every time. Their correspondents are not parachuted in, they live in the places they report from and they know what they’re talking about. The other thing they bring to the table, in a sea of disinformation and poor reporting, is editorial rigor. As a former Reuters correspondent myself, I can attest to the fact that nothing goes out that hasn’t been thoroughly fact-checked, thoroughly sourced, and fed through a series of experienced editors. They try hard to stay balanced and objective and, mostly, they achieve that.

The big three are Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Press.

Here is where you can find their work.

Reuters world news is here. (once you hit your article limit you can register for free)
Associated Press world news is here.
And I find AFP’s Facebook page is best to follow their work. It’s here.

As I said yesterday, if you have questions on how to navigate this very complex story, please feel free to email me. I will do my best to answer your questions.

Sudan

It’s dropped out of the headlines but the war in Sudan will be six months old this weekend. And medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) today said it shows "a catastrophic failure of humanity and shameful neglect." MSF called for an "immediate, substantial escalation” of aid to the country. The conflict erupted in April when the country’s military leader fell out with the head of a powerful militia.

Afghanistan

A staggering and horrible statistic today. More than 90 percent of the more than 2,000 people killed in a devastating earthquake in Afghanistan last weekend were women and children, according to the United Nations. “At that time of the day, men were out in the field,” the Afghanistan representative for the UN Population Fund, Jaime Nadal, told the Associated Press news agency. “Many men migrate to Iran for work. The women were at home doing the chores and looking after the children. They found themselves trapped under the rubble. There was clearly a gender dimension.”