A bus carrying worshippers headed to an Easter festival plunged off a bridge on a mountain pass and burst into flames in South Africa on Thursday, killing at least 45 people, authorities said. The only survivor of the crash was an 8-year-old child, who was receiving medical attention, according to authorities in the northern province of Limpopo. They said the child was seriously injured. Taps have run dry across South Africa's largest city in an unprecedented water crisis The Limpopo provincial government said the bus veered off the Mmamatlakala bridge and plunged 50 meters (164 feet) into a ravine before busting into flames. Search operations were ongoing, the provincial government said, but many bodies were burned beyond recognition and still trapped inside the vehicle. Top UN court rejects South African request for urgent measures to safeguard Rafah Authorities said they believe the bus was traveling from the neighboring country of Botswana to the town of Moria, which hosts a popular Easter pilgrimage. They said it appeared that the driver lost control and was one of the dead. Minister of Transport Sindisiwe Chikunga was in Limpopo province for a road safety campaign and changed plans to visit the crash scene, the national Department of Transport said. She said there was an investigation underway into the cause of the crash and offered her condolences to the families of the victims. How genocide officially became a crime, and why South Africa is accusing Israel of committing it The South African government often warns of the danger of road accidents during the Easter holidays, which is a particularly busy and dangerous time for road travel. More than 200 people died in road crashes during the Easter weekend last year. The Zionist Christian Church has its headquarters in Moria and its Easter pilgrimage attracts hundreds of thousands of people from across South Africa and neighboring countries. This year is the first time the Easter pilgrimage to Moria is set to go ahead since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah fired rockets with heavy warheads at towns in northern Israel, saying it used the weapons against civilian targets for the first time Thursday in retaliation for Israeli airstrikes the night before that killed nine, including what the group said were several paramedics. There were no reports of Israelis hurt in the rocket attack, local media said. The Israeli military did not immediately offer comment on the rocket attack. Israel vows to target Lebanon's Hezbollah even if cease-fire reached with Hamas in Gaza Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza on Oct. 7, concerns have grown that near-daily clashes along the border between Israel and Lebanon could escalate into a full-scale war. Airstrikes and rocket fire Wednesday killed 16 Lebanese and one Israeli, making it the deadliest day of the current conflict. Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said Israel had killed 30 Hezbollah militants in the past week and had destroyed dozens of Hezbollah military sites in an effort to push the Iran-backed group away from the border. Strike kills Hezbollah fighter, civilian in Lebanon, amid seeming Israeli shift to targeted killings The recent increase in violence has raised alarm in Washington and at the United Nations. “Restoring calm along that border remains a top priority for President Biden and for the administration," White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters, saying the U.S. is closely monitoring developments. “We’ve also been very, very clear: We do not support a war in Lebanon.” Leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah holds talks with senior Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad figures Kirby said the U.S. is working to halt the fighting through diplomatic efforts. This needs to be a top priority for Israel and Lebanon, he said, and would allow displaced civilians to return home. Tens of thousands of people on both sides have fled the fighting. At around sunset Thursday, a barrage of Katyusha and Burkan rockets was fired toward the Israeli village of Goren and Shlomi, a statement from Hezbollah said. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said the group had not previously fired Burkan rockets at civilian targets, but was now responding to the recent spate of Israeli airstrikes. Lebanon’s state media reported that 10 paramedics were among those killed Wednesday. The Israeli military said it struck targets for Hezbollah and an allied Sunni Muslim group. Hezbollah has frequently used Russian-made portable anti-tank Kornet missiles in recent months. More rarely, it has launched Burkan rockets which, according to the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, can carry a warhead that weighs between 300 kilograms (660 pounds) and 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds). Hezbollah says its attacks aim to keep some Israeli divisions busy and away from Gaza, and Nasrallah says attacks on the border will only stop when Israel halts its offensive in Gaza. Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Thursday he has discussed with Israeli counterparts that Israel doesn’t need “to have a northern front that they have to deal with as they’re dealing with Gaza.” And he said he spoke with Lebanon’s chief of defense also, in an effort to do what the U.S. can to “help bring down the temperature.” The U.N. peacekeeping force in south Lebanon known as UNIFIL said Thursday it was imperative that “this escalation cease immediately.” “We urge all sides to put down their weapons and begin the process toward a sustainable political and diplomatic solution,” UNIFIL said. It added that the peacekeeping force remains ready to support that process in any way it can. The fighting has killed nine civilians and 11 soldiers in Israel. More than 240 Hezbollah fighters and about 50 civilians have died in Lebanon.

The top United Nations court on Thursday ordered Israel to take measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including opening more land crossings to allow food, water, fuel and other supplies into the war-ravaged enclave. The International Court of Justice issued two new so-called provisional measures in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of acts of genocide in its military campaign launched after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. Israel denies it is committing genocide. It says its military campaign is self defense and aimed at Hamas, not the Palestinian people. Thursday’s order came after South Africa sought more provisional measures, including a cease-fire, citing starvation in Gaza. Israel urged the court not to issue new orders. In its legally binding order, the court told Israel to take measures “without delay” to ensure “the unhindered provision” of basic services and humanitarian assistance, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies. Israeli bombardment hits 212 schools in Gaza: UN It also ordered Israel to immediately ensure that its military does not take action that could that could harm Palestinians' rights under the Genocide Convention, including by preventing the delivery of humanitarian assistance. The court told Israel to report back in a month on its implementation of the orders. Israel declared war in response to a bloody cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 others were taken hostage. Israel responded with a campaign of airstrikes and a ground offensive that have left over 32,000 Palestinians dead, according to local health authorities. The fighting also displaced over 80% of Gaza's population and caused widespread damage. The U.N. and international aid agencies say virtually the entire Gaza population is struggling to get enough food, with hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine, especially in hard-hit northern Gaza. South Africa welcomed Thursday's decision, calling it “significant.” “The fact that Palestinian deaths are not solely caused by bombardment and ground attacks, but also by disease and starvation, indicates a need to protect the group’s right to exist,” the South African president said in a statement. Israel’s Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on the order. Victory' in Gaza only 'a few weeks away', Netanyahu tells US Congress members In a written response earlier this month to South Africa's request for more measures, Israel said the claims by South Africa were “wholly unfounded," “morally repugnant" and "an abuse both of the Genocide Convention and of the Court itself.” After initially sealing Gaza’s borders in the early days of the war, Israel began to permit entry of humanitarian supplies. It says it places no restrictions on the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza and accuses the United Nations of failing to properly organize the deliveries. The U.N. and international aid groups say deliveries have been impeded by Israeli military restrictions, ongoing hostilities and the breakdown of public order. Israel has been working with international partners on a plan to soon begin deliveries of aid by sea. Israel has repeatedly feuded with the United Nations, particularly UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees and main provider of aid in Gaza. Israel accuses the agency of tolerating and even cooperating with Hamas — a charge UNRWA denies. The court said in its order that “Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine ... but that famine is setting in." It cited a report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs that said at least 31 people, including 27 children, have already died of malnutrition and dehydration. 783 million people face chronic hunger. Yet the world wastes 19% of its food, UN says The world court said earlier orders imposed on Israel after landmark hearings in South Africa’s case “do not fully address the consequences arising from the changes in the situation” in Gaza. On Tuesday, the army said it inspected 258 aid trucks, but only 116 were distributed within Gaza by the U.N. COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs, has also run pilot programs to inspect the humanitarian aid at Israel’s main checkpoints in the south and then use land crossings in central Gaza to try to bring aid to the devastated northern part of the Strip. The agency had no immediate comment on the ICJ ruling.

The heavy bombardment against Gaza by Israel has resulted in "direct hits" on 212 schools within the enclave, according to analysis partnered with the United Nations released on Wednesday. Satellite images have shown that at least 53 schools have been "completely destroyed" since the conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023, along with an almost 9-percent rise in attacks on school facilities since mid-February, as reported by the UN children's fund (UNICEF), the Education Cluster, and Save the Children. The "high trend of attacks on school facilities" has worsened the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, the report's authors noted, amid "intense Israeli bombardment from air, land, and sea across much of the Gaza Strip." Of the 563 school buildings in Gaza, 165 of the 212 that received a direct hit are in areas designated for evacuation by the Israeli military. Data indicates that 62 schools were directly targeted in southern Khan Younis governorate, 14 in the Middle Area governorate, 94 in Gaza governorate, and 42 in North Gaza governorate -- which is the most severely affected area to date, with 86.2 percent of school buildings either directly hit or damaged. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, pioneer of behavioural economics dead at 90 More than one in two school premises run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) have also been hit since October last year, according to the report, along with government buildings targeted by Israeli shelling or during the ground operation. "No education is happening in Gaza at all for nearly six months," UNRWA said on Wednesday upon the publication of the UN-partnered report, noting more than 625,00 students and 22,000 teachers attended school before Oct. 7. Additional findings derived from the satellite imagery and other sources "provide evidence for military use of schools" by Israeli Security Forces "since the beginning of the escalation." The report also highlighted that since Oct. 7, over 320 school buildings have been utilized as shelters by displaced individuals. Among these facilities, 188 have experienced direct hits or have been damaged. The authors of the report stated that once the conflict ends, at least 67 percent of schools in Gaza "will require either complete reconstruction or significant rehabilitation to become functional again."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a meeting of US Congress members that "victory" in Gaza and "getting" Hamas' senior leadership in the enclave are only "a few weeks away."On Wednesday, Netanyahu told a bipartisan group from the US Congress, “We’ve killed many senior leaders [of Hamas], including number four in Hamas, number three in Hamas. We’ll get number two and number one. That’s victory. Victory is within reach. It’s a few weeks away," reports CNN. Hosting the congressional delegation in Jerusalem, which the Prime Minister's Office claimed was organised by the pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Netanyahu said it was "very important to maintain bipartisan support" but "especially in these trying times." Netanyahu stated that Israel "had no choice" but to enter Rafah because its "very existence is on the line." Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace: US Senate Majority Leader Chuck SchumerThe prime minister stated that Israel has had a "remarkable alignment" with the Biden administration since the October 7 Hamas attack, but they have fundamentally opposing views on an Israeli incursion into Rafah, the report said.Israel has received international condemnation before of its planned onslaught on the southern Gaza city, where over one million Palestinians are currently taking shelter. Netanyahu had previously stated to the delegation that displaced Palestinians in Gaza could "just move" out of Rafah and "move with their tents." Biden: Netanyahu 'hurting Israel' by not preventing more civilian deaths in Gaza"There is all of the Gaza Strip north of Rafah," Netanyahu remarked. "People can move up or down," he continued.Disagreements regarding the possible invasion of Rafah and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza have strained relations between Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden.Earlier this week, Netanyahu postponed a scheduled government trip to Washington in protest over the United States' abstention from a UN Security Council vote that allowed a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza to pass, the report also said.The resolution, proposed by the 10 non-permanent members of the Security Council, demanded an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan, the immediate and unconditional release of hostages and “the urgent need to expand the flow” of aid into Gaza. Netanyahu snaps back against growing US criticism after being accused of losing his way on Gaza

Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist who won a Nobel Prize in economics for his insights into how ingrained neurological biases influence decision making, died Wednesday at the age of 90. Kahneman and his longtime collaborator Amos Tversky reshaped the field of economics, which prior to their work mostly assumed that people were “rational actors” capable of clearly evaluating choices such as which car to buy or which job to take. The pair's research — which Kahneman described for lay audiences in his best-selling 2011 book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” — focused on how much decision-making is shaped by subterranean quirks and mental shortcuts that can distort our thoughts in irrational yet predictable ways. Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai says world needs to recognise Taliban’s ‘gender apartheid’ against women Take, for instance, false confidence in predictions. In an excerpt from his book, Kahneman described a “leaderless group” challenge used by the Israeli army's Psychology Branch to assess future leadership potential. Eight candidates, all unknowns to one another, had to cross a six-foot wall together using only a long log — without touching the wall or the ground with the log, or touching the wall themselves. Observers of the test — including Kahneman himself, who was born in Tel Aviv and did his Israeli national service in the 1950s — confidently identified leaders-in-the-making from these challenges, only to learn later that their assessments bore little relation to how the same soldiers performed at officer training school. The kicker: This fact didn't dent the group's confidence in its own judgments, which seemed intuitively obvious — and yet also continued to fail at predicting leadership potential. “It was the first cognitive illusion I discovered,” Kahneman later wrote. He coined the phrase “ the illusion of validity ” to describe the phenomenon. Nobel economics prize given to Claudia Goldin Kahneman’s partner, Barbara Tversky — the widow of Amos Tversky — confirmed his death to The Associated Press. Tversky, herself a Stanford University emerita professor of psychology, said the family is not disclosing the location or cause of death. Kahneman's decades-long partnership with Tversky began in 1969 when the two collaborated on a paper analyzing researcher intuitions about statistical methods in their work. “The experience was magical,” Kahneman later wrote in his Nobel autobiography. “Amos was often described by people who knew him as the smartest person they knew. He was also very funny ... and the result was that we could spend hours of solid work in continuous mirth.” Jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi wins the Nobel Peace Prize for fighting women's oppression The two worked together so closely that they flipped a coin to determine which of them would be the lead author on their first paper, and thereafter simply alternated that honor for decades. “Amos and I shared the wonder of together owning a goose that could lay golden eggs -– a joint mind that was better than our separate minds,” Kahneman wrote. Kahneman and Tversky began studying decision making in 1974 and quickly hit upon the central insight that people react far more intensely to losses than to equivalent gains. This is the now-common notion of “loss aversion,” which among other things helps explain why many people prefer status quo choices when making decisions. Combined with other findings, the pair developed a theory of risky choice they eventually named “prospect theory.” Kahneman received the Nobel Prize in economics in 2002 for these and other contributions that ended up underpinning the discipline now known as behavioral economics. Economists say Tversky would certainly have shared the prize had he not died in 1996. The Nobel is not awarded posthumously.

The U.S. on Wednesday imposed sanctions on online media site Gaza Now and its founder Mustafa Ayash for allegedly supporting Hamas. U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control says that after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas against Israel — the online entity began a fundraising effort in support of the organization. Israel and Hamas dig in as pressure builds for a cease-fire in Gaza Gaza Now's Arabic channel has more than 300,000 followers on social media channel X, formerly known as Twitter, and a large following on the encrypted chat platform Telegram. Included in the sanctions are firms Al-Qureshi Executives and Aakhirah Ltd., and their director Aozma Sultana, who are alleged to have partnered on multiple fundraising efforts alongside Gaza Now. Cease-fire talks with Israel and Hamas are expected to resume Sunday in Qatar The sanctions were imposed in collaboration with the U.K.’s Office of Foreign Sanctions Implementation. Treasury Under Secretary Brian Nelson said in a statement that the U.S. and its partners "will continue to leverage our tools to disrupt Hamas’ ability to facilitate further attacks.” Palestinians in Gaza begin Ramadan with hunger worsening and no end in sight to the Israel-Hamas war A representative for Gaza Now and Ayash were not immediately available. The sanctions block access to U.S. property and bank accounts and prevent those designated from doing business with Americans.

The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent “routine engine maintenance” in port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday, as divers recovered the bodies of two of six workers who plunged into the water when it collapsed. The others were presumed dead, and officials said search efforts had been exhausted. Investigators on Wednesday began collecting evidence from the vessel that struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge the previous day. The bodies of the two men were located in the morning inside a red pickup submerged in about 25 feet (7.6 meters) of water near the bridge’s middle span, Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent of Maryland State Police, announced at an evening news conference. Baltimore bridge collapse: ‘Heroes’ scrambled to stop traffic; construction crew feared dead He identified the men as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, who was from Mexico and living in Baltimore, and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, who was from Guatemala and living in Dundalk, Maryland. The victims, who were part of a construction crew fixing potholes on the bridge, were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, Butler said. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore addressed their families in Spanish during the news conference, saying, “Estamos contigo, ahora y siempre,” which means, “we are with you, now and always.” All search efforts have been exhausted, and based on sonar scans, authorities “firmly” believe the other vehicles with victims inside are encased in superstructures and concrete from the collapsed bridge, Butler said. Divers are to return to search for remains once the waters are clear of debris. U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said authorities had been informed that the ship was going to undergo the maintenance. “As far as the engine goes, we were not informed of any problems with the vessel," he said. “We were informed that they were going to conduct routine engine maintenance on it while it was in port. And that’s the only thing we were informed about the vessel in that regard.” Baltimore bridge collapses after powerless cargo ship rams into support column; 6 presumed dead The investigation ramped up as the Baltimore region reeled from the sudden loss of a major transportation link that's part of the highway loop around the city. The disaster also closed the port, which is vital to the city's shipping industry. Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board boarded the ship to recover information from its electronics and paperwork and to do interviews with the captain and other crew members, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said during a separate news conference. Twenty-three people, including two pilots, were on the ship when it crashed, she said. The vessel was also carrying 56 containers of hazardous materials including corrosives, flammables and lithium ion batteries, Homendy said. She added that some containers were breached, and that a sheen on the water from those materials would be handled by authorities. The agency also is reviewing the voyage data recorder recovered by the Coast Guard and building a timeline of what led to the crash, which federal and state officials have said appeared to be an accident. The ship’s crew issued a mayday call early Tuesday, saying they had lost power and steering just minutes before striking one of the bridge’s columns. At least eight people initially went into the water, and two of them were rescued Tuesday, officials said. The debris complicated the search, according to a Homeland Security memo described to The Associated Press by a law enforcement official. The official was not authorized to discuss details of the document or the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity. Gov. Moore said the divers faced dangerous conditions. “They are down there in darkness where they can literally see about a foot in front of them,” Moore said, adding that they were also trying to navigate mangled metal. One missing worker, a 38-year-old man from Honduras who came to the U.S. nearly two decades ago, was described by his brother as entrepreneurial and hard-working. He started last year with the company that was doing the bridge maintenance. Video showed the ship moving at what Maryland’s governor said was about 9 mph (15 kph) toward the 1.6-mile (2.6-kilometer) bridge. Traffic was still crossing the span, and some vehicles appeared to escape with only seconds to spare. The crash caused the bridge to break and fall into the water within seconds. A last-minute warning from the ship allowed police just enough time to stop traffic on the highway. One officer parked sideways across the lanes and planned to drive onto the bridge to alert a construction crew once another officer arrived. But he did not get the chance as the powerless vessel barreled into the bridge. Attention has also turned to the container ship Dali and its past. Synergy Marine Group, which manages the ship, said the impact happened while it was under the control of one or more pilots, who are local specialists who help guide vessels safely in and out of ports. The ship, which was headed from Baltimore to Sri Lanka, is owned by Grace Ocean Private Ltd., and Danish shipping giant Maersk said it had chartered the vessel. The vessel passed foreign port state inspections in June and September 2023. In the June 2023 inspection, a faulty monitor gauge for fuel pressure was rectified before the vessel departed, Singapore’s port authority said in a statement Wednesday. The ship was traveling under a Singapore flag, and officials there said they will conduct their own investigation in addition to supporting U.S. authorities. The sudden loss of a highway that carries 30,000 vehicles a day and the disruption of the vital port will affect not only thousands of dockworkers and commuters but also U.S. consumers who are likely to feel the impact of shipping delays. “A lot of people don’t realize how important the port is just to everything,” said Cat Watson, who used the bridge to get to work every day and lives close enough that she was awakened by the collision. “We’re going to be feeling it for a very long time.” The Port of Baltimore is a busy entry point for new vehicles made in Germany, Mexico, Japan and the United Kingdom, along with coal and farm equipment. Ship traffic has been suspended indefinitely. Windward Maritime, a maritime risk-management company, said its data shows a large increase in ships that are waiting for a port to go to, with some anchored outside Baltimore or nearby Annapolis. At the White House, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the Biden administration was focused on reopening the port and rebuilding the bridge, which was completed in 1977. But he avoided putting a timeline on those efforts. He noted that the original bridge took five years to construct. Buttigieg also planned to meet Thursday with supply chain officials. Barges, including some with cranes, were on their way to Baltimore to help remove the wreckage, Gilreath said. Homendy said the NTSB investigation could take 12 to 24 months but the agency may issue urgent safety recommendations sooner. A preliminary report should come in two to four weeks. “It’s a massive undertaking for an investigation,” Homendy said. “It’s a very tragic event.” From 1960 to 2015, there were 35 major bridge collapses worldwide due to ship or barge collisions, according to the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure.

The Indian government has strongly protested statements made by a US State Department spokesperson regarding Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's recent arrest in connection with suspected liquor policy scam. The External Affairs Ministry summoned Gloria Berbena, the US Acting Deputy Chief of Mission, for a 40-minute meeting at its Delhi office on Wednesday afternoon, reports NDTV. India's Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal arrested in liquor bribery case The MEA issued a brief statement immediately afterwards, warning of "unhealthy precedents" and "unwarranted aspersions." "States are expected to be respectful of the sovereignty and internal affairs of others, and this responsibility is even more so in case of fellow democracies. It could otherwise end up setting unhealthy precedents," said the ministry statement. Arvind Kejriwal slapped during roadshow in Moti Nagar "India's legal processes are based on an independent judiciary which is committed to objective and timely outcomes. Casting aspersions on that is unwarranted," it said. On Tuesday, the US State Department said it is watching news of Kejriwal's arrest and urged New Delhi to guarantee "a fair and timely legal process" for the incarcerated Aam Aadmi Party chief, said the report. The US State Department's remarks come only days after Germany's Foreign Office stated that Kejriwal, like any other Indian citizen facing allegations, is entitled to a fair and impartial trial. The Indian government responded sharply to the remarks, summoning the German ambassador and labelling the Foreign Office spokesperson's remark as "blatant interference in internal affairs." "We see such remarks as interfering in our judicial process and undermining the independence of our judiciary," the External Affairs Ministry said, "Biased assumptions are most unwarranted." The Enforcement Directorate arrested Arvind Kejriwal last week in connection with the alleged liquor policy scam, which has engulfed his AAP and sparked violent demonstrations from the opposition ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

The world wasted an estimated 19% of the food produced globally in 2022, or about 1.05 billion metric tons, according to a new United Nations report. The U.N. Environment Programme's Food Waste Index Report, published Wednesday, tracks the progress of countries to halve food waste by 2030. The U.N. said the number of countries reporting for the index nearly doubled from the first report in 2021. The 2021 report estimated that 17% of the food produced globally in 2019, or 931 million metric tons (1.03 billion tons), was wasted, but authors warned against direct comparisons because of the lack of sufficient data from many countries. The report is co-authored by UNEP and Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), an international charity. Researchers analyzed country data on households, food service and retailers. They found that each person wastes about 79 kilograms (about 174 pounds) of food annually, equal to at least 1 billion meals wasted worldwide daily. Most of the waste — 60% — came in households. About 28% came from food service, or restaurants, with about 12% from retailers. “It is a travesty,” said co-author Clementine O’Connor, the focal point for food waste at UNEP. “It doesn’t make any sense, and it is a complicated problem, but through collaboration and systemic action, it is one that can be tackled.” Trump selling Bibles for $59.99 as he faces mounting legal bills The report comes at a time when 783 million people around the world face chronic hunger and many places facing deepening food crises. Food waste is also a global concern because of the environmental toll of production, including the land and water required to raise crops and animals and the greenhouse gas emissions it produces, including methane, a powerful gas that has accounted for about 30 percent of global warming since pre-industrial times. Food loss and waste generates 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. If it were a country, it would rank third after China and the U.S. Fadila Jumare, a Nigeria-based project associate at Busara Center for Behavioral Economics who has studied prevention of food waste in Kenya and Nigeria, said the problem further disadvantages many people who are already food insecure and cannot afford healthy diets. “For humanity, food waste means that less food is available to the poorest population,” said Jumare, who wasn't involved in the report. Brian Roe, a food waste researcher at Ohio State University who wasn't involved with the report, said the index is important to tackling food waste. “The key takeaway is that reducing the amount of food that is wasted is an avenue that can lead to many desirable outcomes — resource conservation, fewer environmental damages, greater food security, and more land for uses other than as landfills and food production,” said Roe, who wasn’t involved in the report. The report showed notable growth in coverage of food waste in low- and middle-income countries, the authors said. But it may fall to wealthier nations to lead in international cooperation and policy development to reduce food waste, they said. The report said many governments, regional and industry groups are using public-private partnerships to reduce food waste and its contributions to climate and water stress. Governments and municipalities collaborate with businesses in the food supply chain, whereby businesses commit to measure food waste. The report said food redistribution — including donating surplus food to food banks and charities — is significant in tackling food waste among retailers. One group doing that is Food Banking Kenya, a nonprofit that gets surplus food from farms, markets, supermarkets and packing houses and redistributes it to schoolchildren and vulnerable populations. Food waste is an increasing concern in Kenya, where an estimated 4.45 million tons of food is wasted every year. Baltimore bridge collapse: ‘Heroes’ scrambled to stop traffic; construction crew feared dead “We positively impact the society by providing nutritious food and also positively impact the environment by reducing the emission of harmful gases,” said John Mukuhi, the group's co-founder and executive director. The report’s authors said they found that the differences in per capita household food waste between high-income and lower-income countries were surprisingly small. Richard Swannel, a co-author and director of Impact Growth at WRAP, said that shows food waste “is not a rich world problem. It's a global problem.” “The data is really clear on this point: that here is a problem right around the world and one that we could all tackle tomorrow to save ourselves money and reduce environmental impact," he said.