Research shows natural hazards linked to climate crisis disrupted 23 elections in 18 countries in 2024
Democracy is under mounting threat from the climate crisis, with new analysis documenting how elections are increasingly shaped not only by political forces but also by floods, wildfires and extreme weather.
At least 94 elections and referendums across 52 countries have been disrupted by climate-related impacts over the last two decades, researchers found.
Continue reading...Activists say clamp down on period products to target insurgents is gender-based violence and violates rights
Myanmar’s military regime is expanding its ban on the distribution of period products, claiming they are being used to treat wounded resistance fighters, according to local activists.
The south-east Asian country has been locked in civil war since 2021, when the military usurped the democratic government and launched a violent crackdown on dissidents. Artillery fire, the burning of townships and arbitrary arrests have become common in the years since then.
Continue reading...Donors exceed funding target at Berlin conference but prospects for ceasefire remain distant
More than £1bn (€1.15bn) has been pledged for war-ravaged Sudan at a conference in Berlin, eclipsing the funding target organisers had set to help mitigate the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
The financial commitments made on Wednesday will also help offset a chronic humanitarian funding shortfall in a country devastated by three years of conflict, where two-thirds of its population – 34m people – require assistance.
Continue reading...British aid to double as 19m people face acute hunger, but summit unlikely to end conflict amid Saudi-UAE tensions
The British foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, will urge Sudan’s warring parties to “cease bloodshed” during a major conference on Wednesday, which analysts believe is unlikely to deliver a significant step towards peace.
The talks in Berlin – held on the third anniversary of the start of Sudan’s ruinous war – are expected to help address a catastrophic funding shortfall that is compounding the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Continue reading...A top UN official has criticised lack of global urgency as reports confirm the world’s largest humanitarian crisis is worsening
Efforts to end Sudan’s catastrophic war have been criticised as “unacceptable” by the country’s top UN official as a series of new reports confirm that the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis is worsening.
Speaking to the Guardian on the eve of the third anniversary of the war, Denise Brown expressed her concern over the apparent lack of political urgency to end a conflict that has forced 14 million Sudanese to flee their homes. Tens of thousands of people are missing.
Continue reading...New study describes what may be the first case of a unified community of chimps, in Uganda, turning on itself
On a June day in 2015, primatologist Aaron Sandel was quietly observing a small cluster of the Ngogo chimpanzee group in Uganda’s Kibale national park when he noticed something strange. As other members of the chimpanzees’ wider group moved closer through the forest, the chimpanzees in front of him began to display nervous behaviour. They grimaced and touched each other for reassurance, acting more like they were about to meet strangers than close companions.
In hindsight, Sandel said, that moment was the first sign of what would become a years-long bloody conflict between a once close-knit group of chimps.
Continue reading...A huge rise in internet users under the age of 30 has fuelled an increase in online violence against women and girls with devastating real-life effects, activists say
Activists and lawyers in Africa are calling for urgent action to protect women, girls and boys as digital violence surges across the continent.
A massive rise in internet users, coupled with huge numbers of people aged under 30, has fuelled an increase in gendered online violence across the continent, according to experts, by giving perpetrators new tools to control and silence women and girls, and influence boys.
Continue reading...UK’s bilateral aid to African countries, which funds areas such as schools and clinics, to be cut by almost £900m by 2028-29
Some of the world’s poorest countries will lose out on UK aid that funds programmes such as schools and clinics, due to budget cuts set out by the foreign secretary.
The UK’s bilateral aid to African countries will be reduced by almost £900m by 2028-29 – a 56% cut – as part of more than £6bn in cuts which are funding an increase in defence spending.
Continue reading...Lemi Limbu, who has severe intellectual disabilities, remains in prison and will now face retrial for the murder of her daughter
A woman with severe intellectual disabilities in Tanzania has had her conviction and death sentence quashed after spending more than a decade in prison awaiting execution.
Lemi Limbu, now in her early 30s, was convicted of the murder of her daughter in 2015. On 4 March, a court in Shinyanga, northern Tanzania, declared she can appeal. She will face a retrial, but a date has yet to be set.
Continue reading...Programme which supports schemes in six African countries was previously hailed as vital protection for Britain against future pandemics
A flagship health project in Africa, which UK ministers said would play a vital role in protecting Britain from future pandemic threats, is being axed due to aid cuts, the Guardian can reveal.
The Global Health Workforce Programme (GHWP) which supported development and training for healthcare staff in six African countries, will close at the end of the month, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said.
Continue reading...Countries across the continent have spent more than $2bn on Chinese tracking technology that is not ‘necessary or proportionate’, new report finds
The rapid expansion of AI-powered mass-surveillance systems across Africa is violating citizens’ right to privacy and having a chilling effect on society, according to experts on human rights and emerging technologies.
At least $2bn (£1.5bn) has been spent by 11 African governments on Chinese-built surveillance technology that recognises faces and monitors movements, according to a new report by the Institute of Development Studies, which warns that national security is being used to justify implementing these systems with little regulation.
Continue reading...The perpetrators were jailed for 15 years for robbery with violence in the east African country, where homophobic attacks are increasing
The sentencing of two people who attacked and robbed two gay men in Kenya has been hailed by LGBTQ+ rights advocates as a breakthrough and a sign of hope for the country’s queer community. “Abel Meli & Another” were sentenced to 15 years in prison for robbery with violence on 3 March at Milimani law courts in Nairobi.
The ruling is a rare example of justice being served for the queer community in Kenya. Njeri Gateru, the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, an independent human rights institution working towards equality for sexual and gender minorities in Kenya, said: “A lot is going against [the queer community] with the existence of the criminal laws and prevailing homophobic attitudes, but some of us still trust that we can find justice, so this case encourages us.”
Continue reading...Many of those attending the world’s largest meeting on women’s rights in New York this week are primed to defend the two key UN agencies that protect women and girls around the world
Thousands of international delegates are gathering in New York this week for the world’s largest meeting on women’s rights. The United Nation’s annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is an opportunity for government ministers, UN officials, NGO representatives and activists to discuss the global state of gender equality and women’s empowerment. This year, there will be a strong focus on “ensuring and strengthening access to justice”.
But as senior UN figures urge countries to intensify their efforts to achieve gender equality, many of the delegates will be asking whether the UN is at risk of diluting its own commitment to women and girls.
Continue reading...Landmark ruling in Celia Ramos case finds 310,000 women, most Indigenous, were targeted in brutal 1990s campaign
The highest human rights court in Latin America condemned Peru on Thursday over the death of its citizen Celia Ramos, who died at the age of 34 in 1997 after undergoing sterilisation “under coercion”.
The landmark ruling by the inter-American court of human rights (IACHR) is the first on Peru’s forced sterilisation programme, which operated between 1996 and 2000 and was directed against poor, rural and Indigenous women.
Continue reading...As US-Israeli airstrikes hit their cities, people tell of how the authorities are warning them off the streets
At least 200 civilians have been killed since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran last weekend, according to rights groups, as people inside Iran told the Guardian they were fearful of a rising death toll.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society said that at least 555 people had been killed across Iran. However, in its latest update, the Norway-based human rights group Hengaw said the death toll on day three had reached at least 1,500, including 200 civilians and 1,300 members of the Iranian forces.
Continue reading...Zimbabwe refuses to sign agreement and Kenya faces a court case over data sharing as new aid deals come under scrutiny
A series of bilateral health agreements being negotiated between African countries and the administration of President Donald Trump have been labelled “clearly lop-sided” and “immoral” amid growing outrage at US demands, including countries being forced to share biological resources and data.
It emerged this week that Zimbabwe had halted negotiations with the US for $350m (£258m) of health funding, saying the proposals risked undermining its sovereignty and independence.
Continue reading...Wendy Faith and Alesi Diana Denise were taken into custody under laws that have outraged LGBTQ+ community and rights activists
Two women have been arrested and detained in Uganda after allegedly kissing in public, an act of “same-sex activity” which can lead to a life sentence in the east African country..
Wendy Faith, a 22-year-old musician known as Torrero Bae, and Alesi Diana Denise, 21, were taken into custody after police raided their rented room in Uganda’s north-west Arua City last week.
Continue reading...Not enough support for freed victims, say aid agencies, with growing numbers sleeping on the streets, unable to travel home without passports or money
Charities and aid workers have called for urgent international government support for victims of south-east Asia’s deadly scam compounds, following a damning report by Amnesty International.
The numbers of survivors of cyberscam “farms” left destitute and abandoned on the city streets of Cambodia and Myanmar is an “international crisis”, according to the research published in January.
Continue reading...Destined to a perilous life with no right to an education or to vote, state recognition ‘gives them hope’, campaigners say
Through the decades that the Daulatdia brothel in Bangladesh has existed, children born there have been invisible, unable to be registered because their mothers were sex workers and their fathers unknown. Now, for the first time, all 400 of them in the brothel village have their own birth certificates.
That milestone was reached after a push by campaigners who have spent decades working with Bangladesh’s undocumented children born in brothels or on the street. It means they can finally access the rights afforded to other citizens: the ability to go to school, to be issued a passport or to vote.
Continue reading...Reports highlight devastating impact of slashed funding, especially in parts of Africa, that could lead to 3.3m new HIV infections by 2030
In Mozambique, a teenage rape victim sought care at a health clinic only to find it closed. In Zimbabwe, Aids-related deaths have risen for the first time in five years. In Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), patients with suspected HIV went undiagnosed due to test-kit stocks running out.
Stories of the devastating impact of US, British and wider European aid cuts on the fight against HIV – particularly in sub-Saharan Africa – continue to mount as 2025 comes to an end, and are set out in a series of reports released in the past week.
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