 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from around the world. Our headlines are Madagascar said to experience world's first climate-induced famine, thousands affected by toxic leak at Angolan Diamond Mine. In our course regional conference to discuss further cooperation, Israeli forces killed Palestinian man during anti-search protests in Gaza. And in our video section, we take a look at the impact of mining on the lives and livelihoods of people in Brazil. In our first video, Madagascar is at the edge of the world's first famine caused by climate change. As per UN estimates, 1.1 million people are facing some kind of severe food insecurity. Meanwhile, 30,000 people have already been pushed to level 5 of famine. These numbers are expected to rise as the country nears the lean season before harvest. The word food program has argued that conditions have been driven by climate and not conflict. The recent IPCC report also noted an increase in aridity in the country. Hundreds of thousands of people in the southern Grand Sud region are facing a devastating four-year drought. Agriculture losses have been up to 60% and these have been documented in the most populated provinces. Crop lands have been silted due to sandstorms and near total absence of food as forced many to survive of eating insects. Madagascar itself produces just over 0.01% of the world's annual CO2 emissions. Meanwhile, just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of these emissions. As per a 2019 report, the carbon footprint of the US military was greater than 140 countries combined. The brunt of the global impact of such levels of emissions is being borne by countries like Madagascar. The current drought is the worst the country has seen in 40 years. A WFP official told Quartz that there has been a 500% increase in countries facing climate extremes in the past 20 years. In our next 20-12 people have died in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after a tailings leak from a mine. It is located in Angola and is operated by the Sociedad Mineria de Katoka. The company is a joint venture of two firms including a state-owned company. It produces 75% of Angola's diamonds. Satellite imagery showed that a reservoir storing mining pollutants had been breached on July 15th. The water in the Chicago and Kasai tributaries of the Congo River turned red. Congo's Environment Minister on August 9th stated that the discovery was caused by a toxic substance spill. Katoka announced on the same day that the breach had been fixed. It also said that it would provide food baskets to the affected communities. The pollution impacted over 1 million people. It also killed a lot of fish and other big animals. The Congolese government announced on September 2nd that 4,400 people had fallen sick. The country will now seek reparations. The Congo Basin Water Resources Research Centre stated that this is an unprecedented catastrophe. It is also warned that if the spill could pollute natural reservoirs and aquifers, if this happens it could take decades to resolve the problem. The governor of Congo's Kasai province has already banned people from drinking water or eating fish from river. In our next 20, we go back one week where Iraq hosted regional conference in the capital city Baghdad on August 28th. It is attended by heads of state and senior ministers from 9 countries. Among them were Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, France, UAE, Kuwait, Iran and Saudi Arabia. On the agenda was the war in Yemen, the crisis in Lebanon and a regional water crisis. The leaders also discussed the possible resurgence of the Islamic State. Here is people's dispatch reporter Abdul Rahman talking about the significance of the meeting. The conference in Baghdad should be seen in the context of two major developments. One is the growing realization among the politicians in Iraq that the Islamic State terrorist organization which was defeated in 2017 is reemerging as a threat to national security and sovereignty. The recent attack in Baghdad in which several people died has basically made it urgent for some kind of alternative arrangement particularly in the context that the Iraqi parliament has asked the US and other foreign troops to leave the country. So, they will need some kind of regional alternative cooperation to fight the threat of Islamic State whenever it emerges. That is the one major agenda behind the regional conference in Baghdad was. The second was of course the larger agenda of addressing the regional conflicts through mutual dialogue. And in that context, the presence of supposedly rival or enemy countries in the conference like Iran and Saudi Arabia or Turkey, Egypt and so on basically gives a hope that there is an attempt to create a regional forum on which the issues like war in Yemen or war in Syria or the conflict inside Iraq itself will be discussed thoroughly. Iran basically has been pitching for this kind of regional cooperation for a very long time and it was a positive signal that Iranians, the new government in Iran chose to send its representative in the conference. This goes against the larger propaganda that the new government is more hardliner and so on and so forth and this is different from pursuing a different policy from what was pursued by the previous government in Iran. So, that is one positive development which came out from the Iran regional conference. In the context that this was the first regional meeting after the 2012 Arab Summit and where all the major conflicting parties were present sends a positive signal for the larger peace and cooperation in the West Asia region. Thank you. We now go to Palestine where 26-year-old Ahmad Saleh was shot and killed by Israeli forces in Gaza on September 2nd. Ahmad Saleh was among the 20 Palestinians injured during a protest against the Israeli blockade. Hundreds of people had gathered near the town of Khan Yunus on Thursday. This was part of the ongoing daily protest called the Hamas. Israeli forces have responded by firing live rounds, rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades. They have also flown drones carrying tear gas over the protesters causing many to suffocate. Ahmad Saleh was shot in his abdomen on Thursday. At least 15 people including 5 children were also shot and injured. Since last week, 3 Palestinians have been killed in the protests. The 14-year-old long blockade of Gaza has turned it into the world's largest open-air prison. It has destroyed the economy with an unemployment rate of around 50%. Israel controls major crossings into Gaza and has restricted the entry of basic goods. Thousands of homes and buildings were destroyed during Israel's 11-day bombardment in May. Construction material to rebuild was finally allowed into Gaza on September 1st. And for our final story, we take a look at the impact of Brazil's mining industry and local communities. A recent report by MAP Biomass revealed that illegal mining in Brazil grew by 4.95% between 2010 and 2020. 72% of the illegal extraction points are present in the Amazon. President Jair Bolsonaro has stated that he will further legalize mines. He has also pushed legislation that will open up protected lands to mining and agony business. Mining has caused some of the worst disasters in Brazil in recent years. The Brumadino-Talings Dam disaster in 2019 killed around 250 people. Just four years prior, the Mariana-Talings Dam collapsed destroyed two villages. Here is a video by President Ifato on this issue. On November 5th, 2015, the demo of the mining companies Samarco, Vale and BHP burst in Mariana, a city in their Minas Gerais state, southeastern Brazil. 19 people died and more than 60 million cubic meters of tailings went into the Dossi river basin. The population of 43 municipalities, which depended on the river for fishing and agriculture, had their way of life destroyed. The soil got contaminated, planting areas decreased, production dropped and costs increased. Amid an unprecedented health crisis, discouragement increased in these municipalities and other regions where mining companies operate. Either you work in mining or you work for an outsourced mining company, otherwise you won't get a job. Agriculture is affected, other farms of income are affected and this is a very serious process. In Mariana, the area planted with traditional cultures for family farming such as coffee, banana and cassava underwent a drastic reduction after the tailings mud. In 2015, according to IBGE data, more than 2,200 hectares were planted. In 2017, the number was 165 hectares, a reduction of 93%. In its last report released on the subject in 2017, the UN recommended that mining companies promote increased agricultural productivity in the areas in which they operate. It has a very big impact on the issue of survival. This is something that will impact diet and conditions of life. But this contradiction between hunger and mining doesn't just happen in Minas Gerais state. A former employee of Vali, who was fired shortly after recovering from COVID-19, worked for 8 years in Karajas in Parais state. He is one of the examples of so many who left rural work to get into mining. At most, the guy earns between 1,100 and 1,600 reais. He has to wake up at half past 3 am, take the birth at 5 am, get home at 7 pm from Monday to Saturday. Sometimes work and even on Sunday. He could be on his rural property, producing, scheduling his workload without suffering so much the dispossession of labour. It's all we have time for today's review. We are back on Monday with more news from around the world. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.