内容摘要：She began riding Satan’s Barrel at 17, drawn to it by curiosity while searching for work. Now 25, she’s a key performer in this iconic Indonesian night fair act.

She began riding Satan’s Barrel at 17, drawn to it by curiosity while searching for work. Now 25, she’s a key performer in this iconic Indonesian night fair act.

How did the coup rumours start?Videos showing hundreds of people demonstrating in the streets and setting fires to shops and malls started appearing on social media sites on Wednesday this week. French is the official language in Ivory Coast, but most of the posts and blogs with images purporting to be from were from Abidjan and claiming that a coup d’etat was in progress were written in English.

Some posts also claimed that the country’s army chief of staff, Lassina Doumbia, had been assassinated and that President Ouattara was missing. These claims were untrue and have been denied by the office of the president. Credible media outlets, including Ivorian state media and private news media, did not report the alleged violence.It is unclear how the rumours that President Ouattara was missing emerged. On Thursday, he chaired a routine cabinet meeting in the capital. He also attended a ceremony commemorating the revered former president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, alongside Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe.Why are there political tensions in the country?

The upcoming general elections on October 25 are at the root of current political tensions in the country.Elections have in the past been violent: During the October 2010 general election, former President Laurent Gbagbo refused to hand over power to Ouattara, who was proclaimed the winner by the electoral commission.

Tense political negotiations failed, and the situation eventually spiralled into armed civil war, with Ouattara’s forces, backed by French troops, besieging Gbagbo’s national army. France is the former colonial power in Ivory Coast, and Ouattara has close ties to Paris.

Some 3,000 people were killed in the violence. Gbagbo’s capture on April 11, 2011, marked the end of the conflict. He was later tried andSome say we should have been grateful that trucks were being allowed to enter at all. True, they were. But just as often, they weren’t, especially when we, the prisoners, were deemed to have misbehaved.

Countless times, I would find my neighbourhood bakery shut down because there was no cooking gas, or I would fail to find my favourite cheese because our jailers had decided it was a “dual-use” item and could not enter Gaza.We were good at growing our own food, but we could not do much of that either because much of our fertile soil was near the prison fence, and hence out of reach. We loved fishing, but that too was closely monitored and restricted. Venture beyond the shore and you would get shot.

All of this humiliating, calculated blockade was taking place well before October 7, 2023.After that day, the amount of food allowed into Gaza was drastically reduced. In the days that followed, I felt the shackles of the Israeli blockade on Gaza more tangible than ever, even though I had lived under it since I was born. For the first time, I found myself struggling to secure something as basic as bread. I remember thinking: surely the world will not allow this to last.