Indonesia’s Prabowo heads to China at start of multi-country trip

WASHINGTON: The world’s most desperate countries are falling further and further behind, their plight worsened by conflicts that are growing deadlier and more frequent.

That is the sobering conclusion of the World Bank’s first comprehensive study of how 39 countries contending with “fragile and conflict-affected situations’’ have fared since the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020.
“Economic stagnation — rather than growth — has been the norm in economies hit by conflict and instability,” said Ayhan Kose, the World Bank’s deputy chief economist.
Since 2020, the 39 countries, which range from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific to Mozambique in sub-Saharan Africa, have seen their economic output per person fall by an average 1.8 percent a year. In other developing countries, by contrast, it grew by an average of 2.9 percent a year over the same period.

More than 420 million people in the fragile economies are living on less than $3 a day — the bank’s definition of extreme poverty. That is more than the combined total of everywhere else, even though the 39 countries account for less than 15 percent of the world’s population.
Many of these countries have long-standing problems with crumbling infrastructure, weak governance, and low educational standards.
People in the 39 countries get an average of just six years of schooling, three years fewer than those in other low- and middle-income countries. Life expectancy is five years shorter, and infant mortality is twice as high.
Increasing conflicts have made things worse.
In the 2000s, the world saw an annual average of just over 6,000 conflicts — in which organized groups used armed force against other groups or civilians and caused at least one death. Now the yearly average exceeds 20,000.
The conflicts are more lethal, too: In the 2000s, they took an average of fewer than 42,000 lives a year. From 2000 through 2024, the number averaged almost 194,000.
Of the 39 countries, 21 are involved in active conflicts, including Ukraine, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Gaza.
The World Bank finds that countries involved in high-intensity conflict — which result in more than 150 deaths per million people — experience a cumulative drop of 20 percent in their gross domestic product, or the output of goods and services, after five years.
More conflict also means more hunger: The World Bank estimated that 18 percent — around 200 million — of the people in the 39 countries are “experiencing acute food insecurity’’ compared with just 1 percent in other low and middle-income countries.
Some countries have managed to escape the cycle of conflict and economic fragility. Kose cites Nepal; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Rwanda; and Sri Lanka as relative success stories.
And the World Bank report notes that the 39 countries do enjoy strengths, including natural resources such as oil and natural gas, and a lot of young, working-age people at a time when many economies are aging.
“Some of them are very rich when it comes to their tourism potential,’’ Kose said.
“But you need to have security established. You and I are not going to go and visit these places unless they are safe, even though they might be the most beautiful places in the world.’’

HOUSTON: The leader of a human smuggling ring convicted of involvement in the deaths of 53 migrants in a sweltering truck in Texas in 2022 was sentenced to life in prison on Friday.

Felipe Orduna-Torres, 30, headed a network that brought adults and children from Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico into the United States between December 2021 and June 2022, according to prosecutors.

He was convicted in March of transporting aliens within the United States resulting in death, causing serious bodily injury, and placing lives in jeopardy.

District Judge Orlando Garcia of the Western District of Texas sentenced Orduna-Torres to life in prison on Friday and a $250,000 fine, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Another convicted member of the smuggling ring, Armando Gonzales-Ortega, 55, was sentenced to 83 years in prison for his involvement in the deaths of the 53 migrants.

“These criminals will spend the rest of their lives in prison because of their cruel choice to profit off of human suffering,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said. “Today’s sentences are a powerful message to human smugglers everywhere: we will not rest until you are behind bars.”

Five other defendants have pleaded guilty to their roles in the fatal smuggling operation and are to be sentenced later this year.

Another alleged member of the smuggling ring, Rigoberto Ramon Miranda-Orozco, 48, was extradited to the United States from Guatemala and is scheduled to go on trial in September.

According to the US authorities, the smugglers charged $12,000 to $15,000 per person to bring the migrants, who mostly hailed from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras, into the United States.

At least 64 migrants including eight children and a pregnant woman were loaded into a 53-foot (16-meter) tractor-trailer on or around June 27, 2022 to be moved across the US-Mexico border.

The trailer’s air conditioning was not working properly and the temperature inside the truck soared as it drove north to San Antonio.

Forty-eight people were dead when the trailer reached San Antonio and five more died later in hospital. Six children and the pregnant woman were among the dead.