While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Aug 24, 2025
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Palestinian women and girls pleading for cooked rice from a charity kitchen in Gaza City on Aug 23.
PHOTO: AFP
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‘Far too late’: Despair after UN declares famine in Gaza
Desperate Palestinians clutching pots and plastic buckets scrambled for rice at a charity kitchen in Gaza City on Aug 23, a day after the United Nations declared a famine in the war-battered territory.
AFP footage from Gaza’s largest city, which Israel plans to seize as part of an expanded military offensive, showed women and young children among the chaotic jostle of dozens clamouring and shouting for food.
One young boy used his hands to scrape a few leftover grains from the inside of a cooking vat. Another young girl sat on the edge of a tent and scooped rice from a plastic bag on the ground.
Further south at a charity kitchen in Deir el-Balah, 34-year-old Ms Umm Mohammad said the UN’s declaration of a famine had come “far too late”. The children are “staggering from dizziness, unable to wake up because of the lack of food and water,” she said.
Armenians hold rally against Russian army base
PHOTO: AFP
About 100 people staged a protest on Aug 23 outside a Russian army base in the Armenian city of Gyumri, calling for an end to Moscow’s military presence in the country.
Armenia, a landlocked ex-Soviet country in the Caucasus, has long relied on Russia to bolster its security in its standoff with neighbouring Azerbaijan.
But ties between the traditional allies have been strained since Azerbaijan’s 2023 offensive on Nagorno-Karabakh, in which Moscow did not intervene to back Armenia.
Harvard’s making changes, even without Trump deal
PHOTO: AFP
Early in the spring, an aggressive and polarising new presidential administration drafted a menu of demands, many of them very specific, designed to reshape the culture at Harvard, the nation’s richest university.
With billions of dollars in research funds in jeopardy, the university’s leaders are now negotiating with the White House.
But an eventual deal may not fully capture the changes, small and large, already enacted at Harvard before any papers are signed.
French park manager turned away Israeli kids
PHOTO: AFP
French prosecutors said on Aug 23 they had placed a man under investigation on suspicion of discrimination for having turned away a group of Israelis from the leisure park he managed.
The man has been released as the investigation continues, but if convicted of discrimination based on ethnic origin or nationality, he could be jailed for up to five years and fined €75,000 (S$110,000).
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau (above) on Aug 22 described the incident as “serious”.
Gyokeres double as Arsenal thrash Leeds 5-0
PHOTO: EPA
Arsenal striker Viktor Gyokeres netted his first two Premier League goals and defender Jurrien Timber scored twice in a 5-0 thrashing of Leeds United at the Emirates Stadium on Aug 23.
However, the loss of captain Martin Odegaard and winger Bukayo Saka to injury took some of the shine off Arsenal’s second win of the new season.
After beating Everton 1-0 in their opener a week ago, Leeds started brightly but began to crumble when Timber gave Arsenal the lead in the 34th minute with a superb glancing header from Declan Rice’s corner.
