Carrying backpacks and small children, hundreds of people sleeping on the streets of Paris climbed aboard buses surrounded by armed police on Thursday, the latest group of migrants and homeless people to be driven out of the city ahead of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics.

The group of largely African migrants headed for the fringes of the city in buses paid for by the French government and into temporary lodging until at least the end of the Games. While some living on the streets were happy to have a roof over their head for the night, few knew what laid ahead once the world’s eyes were off Paris.

“It’s like poker. I don’t know where I will go, or how much time I will stay,” said Nikki, a 47-year-old homeless Parisian who asked that her last name not be used to protect her privacy.

French authorities have been tearing apart migrant and homeless encampments for months leading up to the massive global sports event, which is an important moment for President Emmanuel Macron at a time of political turmoil.

But the Games also have faced criticism as Parisians have complained about everything from elevated public transit fees to government spending on cleaning up the Seine River for swimming instead of investing in the social safety net.

Authorities also have been sharply criticized as they have bused camping migrants from the city center where the Olympics are taking place to the fringes of Paris or other areas. Activist groups and migrants have called the practice – long used in other Olympic host cities like Rio de Janeiro in 2016 – a form of “social cleansing.”

“They want to clean the city for the Olympic Games, for the tourists,” said Nathan Lequeux, an organizer for the activist group Utopia 56. “As treatment of migrants is becoming more horrible and infamous, people are being chased off the streets. Since the Olympics, this aggressiveness, this policy of hunting has become more pronounced.”

Christophe Noël Du Payrat, chief of staff of the regional government of Île-de-France that surrounds Paris, firmly denied those accusations and said the government has relocated migrants from the city for years.

“We are taking care of them,” he said. ”We don’t really understand the criticism because we are very much determined to offer places for these people.”

He spoke as dozens of police rounded up migrants, blocking them from walking on the streets and putting up caution tape. When asked why there were so many armed police officers for a group largely made up of families, Noël Du Payrat said it was to maintain “peace and calm.”

The buses Thursday came after three days of protest by hundreds of migrants and other homeless people like Nikki, who slept in front of a local government office as athletes and tourists flooded into Paris. They railed against authorities breaking up homeless encampments and demanded better access to temporary housing.

Among them was Natacha Louise Gbetie, a 36-year-old migrant from Burkina Faso, and a 1-year-old son she carried on her back. Gbetie, who once worked as an accountant in her country, migrated to the southern French city of Montpellier with family members five years ago.

Many of the families relocated by French authorities are like Gbetie — from African countries once colonized by the French, including Burkina Faso, Guinea, Ivory Coast and Senegal.

After an abusive situation, she moved to Paris. She was able to make ends meet working as a babysitter and sleeping in public housing. That ended during the lead-up to the Olympics, when she said access to social housing was slashed and prices of lodging in hostels soared. She said most employers in France don’t want to hire her because she’s an immigrant without legal status and she has felt rejected as an anti-immigrant far-right party has gained greater power in France.

“I think France is saturated. They’re tired of migrants, they want us to leave their country,” Gbetie said.

The protest group agreed that families would board buses to a province near Paris and families would remain together in shelters.

Despite the agreement, protest leaders expressed concern that the move would isolate migrants and said it was still unclear what would happen to the city’s homeless people.

South African police arrested 95 Libyan nationals in a raid on a suspected secret military training camp on Friday and authorities said they were investigating whether there were more illegal bases in other parts of the country.

The camp was discovered at a farm in White River in the Mpumalanga province, about 360 kilometers (220 miles) northeast of Johannesburg, police said.

National police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said in a post on the social media site X that the Libyans stated they had entered the country on study visas to train as security guards, but police investigations suggest they have received military training.

The Newsroom Afrika TV news channel broadcast pictures of the site of the arrests, showing a military-style camp with large green tents set up in a row. Dozens of men were seen lining up as they were arrested. They were wearing civilian clothing.

Local government official Jackie Macie said investigations were ongoing and the owner of the farm would be questioned. He said authorities received information that there were similar secret camps near two other towns in Mpumalanga province.

The province borders neighboring countries Mozambique and Swaziland and is an area of concern for South African authorities with regards to illegal immigration.

Police and authorities have not said whether the camps are suspected of being connected to a particular group or conflict.

Macie said investigations would establish if there was a network of camps in South Africa and show “why they are here doing military training in our country.”

Police said the operation to arrest the Libyans and close down the camp began two days ago. Macie said the Libyan nationals had been in the country since at least April.

“The 95 individuals taken into custody are all Libyan nationals and are currently being questioned by the relevant authorities,” Mpumalanga acting provincial commissioner Maj. Gen. Zeph Mkhwanazi said in a statement.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva unveiled a global alliance against hunger and poverty in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday, an initiative he described as one of Brazil’s top priorities for its current presidency of the Group of 20 nations.

The Brazilian leader slammed the perpetuation of hunger across the world despite sufficient production at a ministerial meeting to establish the global alliance.

Lula was seeking to bolster support ahead of the formal establishment of the alliance later this year, when world leaders will gather in Rio de Janeiro for the Nov. 18-19 summit of the leading 20 rich and developing nations.

The alliance aims to implement a mechanism to mobilize funds and knowledge to support the expansion of policies and programs to combat inequality and poverty, according to a statement from Brazil’s G20 press office on Tuesday.

It will be managed from a secretariat located at the Food and Agriculture Organization headquarters in Rome and Brasilia until 2030, with half of its costs covered by Brazil, Lula said in his speech.

A former trade unionist who governed between 2003 and 2010, Lula returned to the presidency for a third, non-consecutive term in 2023 after thwarting the reelection bid of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Lula, who was born to a poor family in Brazil’s northeastern Pernambuco state, has long sought to tackle hunger both at home and abroad.

Brazil is also one of the world’s top exporters of food, sending abroad large quantities of corn, soja, coffee, sugar, beef and chicken.

Ending extreme poverty and hunger by 2030 are part of the UN’s sustainable development goals, adopted in 2015, but progress has been lagging.

Around 733 million people faced hunger in 2023, equivalent to one in eleven people globally and one in five in Africa, according to the annual State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, released in Rio on Wednesday.

There was a sharp upturn in people facing moderate or severe food insecurity in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and since then numbers have remained stubbornly high despite progress in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to a statement accompanying the launch of the report.

As well as spotlighting hunger and poverty, Brazilian diplomats are using the presidency of the G20 to push for the reform of global governance institutions and advocate for a sustainable energy transition.

Those efforts are part of Lula’s bid to pitch his nation – and himself – as leader for the Global South.

More than a dozen migrants died and at least 150 others are missing after their boat capsized off Mauritania on their way to Europe, the International Organization for Migration said, triggering a frantic search and rescue operation.

300 migrants on the boat capsized on Monday near the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, and 120 have been rescued by the Mauritanian Coast Guard, the IOM said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Tragically, 15 people were confirmed dead upon arrival,” it said, adding that search efforts were still underway.

A surge of migrants has left West Africa in recent years through Senegal, from where they have to navigate north past Mauritania to reach Spain’s Canary Islands.

In the latest case, the migrants were traveling on artisanal fishing boats, known as pirogues, which can be overwhelmed by strong winds and Atlantic currents. While thousands have survived the risky journey, many die or disappear along the way, with remains sometimes washing up on the other side of the Atlantic.

Among those so far rescued in Monday’s incident were four unaccompanied and separated children, the IOM said, adding that 10 survivors were referred to hospitals for medical attention.

African migrants trying to reach Europe are often fleeing poverty and instability. Although it is their journey to make, the decision to leave is sometimes not personal but made by their families in the hope of positive outcomes.

Nearly 20,000 migrants have arrived irregularly in the Canary Islands using the Mauritania route this year, which is almost triple the number from the same period in 2023, the IOM said. At least 1,950 migrants died on that route last year, which the IOM said was the second-deadliest year on record.

Russia and China staged a joint patrol over the north Pacific Ocean and the Bering and Chukchi Seas near the coast of Alaska, according to the Russian Defence Ministry.

The patrol, consisting of two Russian and two Chinese bomber jets, was intercepted by joint US-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) on Wednesday.

NORAD said the bombers stayed in international airspace and were not seen as a threat.

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Thursday that the air patrol was held as part of the Russian-Chinese military cooperation plan for 2024 and was “not aimed at any third party”.

The Ministry added that “at certain stages of the route, the aviation group was accompanied by fighter jets of foreign countries”. It did not provide further details.

The patrol consisted of Russian TU95MS strategic missile carriers and Chinese Xian H-6 strategic bombers, according to Russia. The bombers are all nuclear-capable.

China and Russia have drawn closer in recent years and regularly carry out joint military exercises. However, this was the first joint patrol in the north Pacific area with bombers from both countries.

At least 42 protesters were in court in Uganda on Tuesday for offences allegedly committed during a banned youth-led demonstration in the capital Kampala.

The young protesters had earlier on Tuesday marched on the city’s streets to denounce what they say are corruption and human rights abuses by lawmakers.

The charges against the protesters outline offences including being “idle and disorderly” and being a “common nuisance”, a charge that has often been used by authorities to supress protests.

They pleaded not guilty and were ordered to return to court at different dates between July 30 and August 6.

Opposition leaders, including Bobi Wine of the National Unity Platform, say embezzlement and misuse of government funds are widespread in Uganda and have long accused President Yoweri Museveni of failing to prosecute corrupt officials who are loyal to him. He has repeatedly denied condoning corruption.

The NUP headquarters were surrounded by soldiers and police on Tuesday, with Wine saying that some party officials had been “violently arrested”. He has denied that the NUP are behind the protest.

Human Rights Watch have accused the government of a “blatant violent of the rights to peaceful assembly and free speech, guaranteed in Uganda’s constitution and international law.”

HRW said that charges should be dropped and that the concerns of the protesters should instead be heard by authorities.

Nearly 40 million people were living with the HIV virus that causes AIDS last year, over 9 million weren’t getting any treatment, and the result was that every minute someone died of AIDS-related causes, the U.N. said in a new report launched Monday.

While advances are being made to end the global AIDS pandemic, the report said progress has slowed, funding is shrinking, and new infections are rising in three regions: the Middle East and North Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and Latin America.

In 2023, around 630,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses, a significant decline from the 2.1 million deaths in 2004. But the latest figure is more than double the target for 2025 of fewer than 250,000 deaths, according to the report by UNAIDS, the U.N. agency leading the global effort to end the pandemic.

Gender inequality is exacerbating the risks for girls and women, the report said, citing the extraordinarily high incidence of HIV among adolescents and young women in parts of Africa.

The proportion of new infections globally among marginalized communities that face stigma and discrimination – sex workers, men who have sex with men, and people who inject drugs also increased to 55% in 2023 from 45% in 2010, it said.

UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said: “World leaders pledged to end the AIDS pandemic as a public health threat by 2030, and they can uphold their promise, but only if they ensure that the HIV response has the resources it needs, and that the human rights of everyone are protected.”

As part of that pledge, leaders vowed to reduce annual new HIV infections to below 370,000 by 2025, but the report said in 2023 new infections were more than three times higher at 1.3 million.

Last year, among the 39.9 million people globally living with HIV, 86% knew they were infected, 77% were accessing treatment, and for 72% the virus was suppressed, the report said

César Núñez, director of the UNAIDS New York office, told a news conference there has been progress in HIV treatments — injections that can stay in the body for six months, but the two doses cost $40,000 yearly, out of reach for all but the richest people with the virus.

He said UNAIDS has been asking the manufacturer to make it available at lower cost to low and middle-income countries.

Núñez said there have also been seven cases where people with HIV who were treated for leukemia emerged with no sign of the HIV virus in their system.

He said injections and the seven cases will be discussed at the 25th International AIDS Conference which began Monday in Munich.

At present, he said, daily treatment with pills costs about $75 per person per year. It has allowed many countries to increase the number of people with HIV to receive treatment.

Núñez said UNAIDS will continue advocating for a vaccine to prevent AIDS