Category Archives: Global development

#Demlootchallenge: Zimbabwean activists sing to protest corruption

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Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono’s song denouncing “looting” in Mnangagwa’s regime has inspired a host of follow up versions

Zimbabwean journalist Hopewell Chin’ono has taken his fight against corruption to the ears of thousands around the world via reggae with a new song entitled “Dem Loot”.

The reporter, who has been arrested three times in six months for his work challenging the current government, released a short video on Twitter singing against what he says is an endemic rot in Zimbabwe – and it has sparked a flurry of follow up versions under the hashtag #demlootchallenge.

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Decades of progress on extreme poverty now in reverse due to Covid

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Analysis: The pandemic, combined with the climate crisis and crippling debt burdens, has led to an ‘unprecedented increase’ in poverty, experts warn

Two decades of progress in the reduction of extreme poverty, the elimination of which is one of the sustainable development goals, have been pushed into a sharp reverse by a combination of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the growing climate emergency and increasing debt.

With the World Bank warning of a “truly unprecedented increase” in levels of poverty this year, and renewing calls for debt forgiveness, experts are warning of a growing crisis in multiple areas from education to employment, likely to be felt for years to come.

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‘Savage’ cuts to UK aid put children’s lives at risk, says Gordon Brown

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Former prime minister says chancellor is paying bills for Covid ‘off the backs of the poor’

The former prime minister Gordon Brown has launched a scathing attack on the unprecedented cuts to UK aid, saying they put at risk tens of thousands of children’s lives while millions more face losing an education.

Writing in the Guardian, Brown said the planned cuts of 30% – £5bn – which come into force at the end of next month meant that the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was “paying the bills for Covid off the backs of the poor – at home and abroad”.

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Rishi Sunak is paying Covid bills off the backs of the poor. It shames our country | Gordon Brown

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A savage reversal of aid is happening at the very moment people need our help most. MPs must join together to stop it


Nothing shames our country more than Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, paying the bills for Covid off the backs of the poor – at home and abroad.

He has recently been pushed off his plan to cut £20 a week from the already low universal credit paid to 6 million of Britain’s poorest families.

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Myanmar coup: civil disobedience campaign begins amid calls for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release

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National League for Democracy urges military to acknowledge 2020 election result

The party of Aung San Suu Kyi has called for her immediate release and for Myanmar’s 2020 election results to be acknowledged by the military, which took power in a coup on Monday.

The country’s elected leader, who was among dozens of political figures picked up by the army, reportedly remains under house arrest.

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The nights of pots and pans are back, on Myanmar’s fearful streets

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Activists are urging a traditional show of solidarity amid wary anger over the military’s coup

In Myanmar, if you want to drive evil from your home, you bang pots and pans. Yangon’s streets were filled with the din of clashing metal in 2007, when monks called for an end to military rule, and before that, in 1988 when the former president Sein Lwin, or the “butcher of Rangoon”, ordered troops to shoot pro-democracy protesters. On Tuesday night, pots and pans were back again.

Evil has returned, they say; Gen Min Aung Hlaing has led a military coup against the democratically elected government and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, whose immense popularity within the country helped her National League for Democracy (NLD) win a landslide victory in 2020. The military’s electoral proxy secured fewer than 7% of available seats, leading it, and the military, to claim widespread electoral “fraud” without evidence.

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Lagos traffic creating ‘life or death’ situations for women trying to reach hospital – report

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Study of pregnant women travelling to health facilities found journeys took up to four times longer than online maps suggested

The heavy traffic and bad roads of Lagos have been baffling online mapping tools with potential “life and death implications” for people trying to reach the city’s hospitals, research has found.

Researchers looked at cases of pregnant women trying to reach hospital in Nigeria’s most populous city, infamous for its roads, and found they faced a journey of up to four times longer than computers and satellites suggest, which mean the models for access to healthcare facilities are also out of kilter.

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A Bosnian winter: families bid to reach Europe’s heart – in pictures

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Through mud and ice, parents and children from Afghanistan and elsewhere attempt the desperate crossing into Croatia. Few make it. Most are reportedly pushed back, time and again, often brutally. The Guardian followed some migrants on their exhausting journeys

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Worker at H&M supply factory was killed after months of harassment, claims family

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Fashion brand to investigate the death of 20-year-old Jeyasre Kathiravel, reportedly killed by supervisor at Natchi Apparels

The family of a young garment worker at an H&M supplier factory in Tamil Nadu who was allegedly murdered by her supervisor said she had suffered months of sexual harassment and intimidation on the factory floor in the months before her death, but felt powerless to prevent the abuse from continuing.

H&M said it is launching an independent investigation into the killing of Jeyasre Kathiravel, a 20-year-old Dalit garment worker at an H&M supplier Natchi Apparels in Kaithian Kottai, Tamil Nadu, who was found dead on 5 January in farmland near her home.

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‘Police searched my baby’s nappy’: migrant families on the perilous Balkan route

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‘The game’ of crossing the Croatian-Bosnian border with children often results in degrading treatment and violent pushbacks, refugees say

An Afghan girl pulls her baby sister along in a pram through the mud and snow. Saman is six and baby Darya is 10 months old. They and their family have been pushed back into Bosnia 11 times by the Croatian police, who stripped Darya bare to check if the parents had hidden mobile phones or money in her nappy.

“They searched her as though she were an adult. I could not believe my eyes,” says Darya’s mother, Maryam, 40, limping through the mud and clinging to a stick.

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Myanmar army takes power in coup as Aung San Suu Kyi detained

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Military has previously threatened to ‘take action’ over alleged fraud in a November election

Myanmar’s military has taken power in a coup and declared a state of emergency, hours after detaining Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior figures from the ruling party.

Phone and mobile internet services in the city of Yangon were down on Monday morning and military trucks, one carrying barbed-wire barriers, were parked outside City Hall. The state-run MRTV network said it had been unable to broadcast. Banks were closed across the nation.

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Crushing costs of Covid care leave grieving Mexican families facing ruin

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As the death toll mounts, even for those with health insurance medical bills can run into tens of thousands of dollars

For more than 50 years, Pedro Martínez would drive his truck through the mountains of Jalisco state, carrying stock for clothing business in the week, and taking his family on excursions at the weekend.

Martínez, 90, was long retired when he was admitted to hospital in early October with coronavirus-linked complications. His family prayed he would soon recover and return home, but 33 days later he died, leaving them emotionally and financially ruined.

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Malawi sex workers protest at ‘targeted police brutality’ after Covid-19 curfew

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Petition urges government to extend closing times for bars as women go hungry and are forced to skip HIV medication

Dozens of sex workers took to the streets of Malawi’s capital Lilongwe on Thursday to protest against what they described as “targeted police brutality” following new Covid-19 restrictions.

The protests were led by the Female Sex Workers Association (FSWA), which has about 120,000 members across the country, according to its national coordinator, Zinenani Majawa.

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WHO’s Covid warnings were not heeded. Now the world has a new chance to beat the virus

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If nations make vaccine delivery equitable, step up testing and study variant genomes, the pandemic could be under control by January 2022

A year ago, on 30 January, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of the new coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern – the highest level of alarm at our disposal under international law.

At the time there were 98 confirmed cases and no deaths reported outside China. The WHO repeatedly urged all countries to capitalise on the “window of opportunity” to prevent widespread transmission of this new virus.

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‘Finally some justice’: court rules Shell Nigeria must pay for oil damage

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Nigerian farmers win claim for compensation in The Hague after 13-year battle

A Dutch court has ordered Shell Nigeria to compensate farmers for major oil spills they say caused widespread pollution.

On Friday an appeals court in The Hague rejected Shell’s argument that the spills were the result of sabotage, saying not enough evidence had been provided.

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Brazil: viral rapper becomes unexpected champion of Covid vaccine drive

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MC Fioti’s ‘vaccine anthem’ remix celebrates coronavirus inoculation with music video shot at biomedical research centre

Leandro Aparecido Ferreira laid bricks and flipped burgers for a living until becoming one of Brazil’s most famous funk musicians.

This year, the 26-year-old – whose stage name is MC Fioti – has added a new and unexpected string to his bow: as an unlikely champion of science and vaccinology in a country being pounded by coronavirus.

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Chile police officer sentenced for killing of Mapuche farmer on ‘historic day’

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  • Camilo Catrillanca, 24, was shot during a vehicle chase
  • Case highlights treatment of largest indigenous group

A Chilean police officer has been jailed for killing a Mapuche farmer during a vehicle chase in a case that cast a harsh spotlight on the country’s treatment of its largest indigenous group.

Related: Chile: four police officers arrested over fatal shooting of indigenous man

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Biden move to refund UN population agency is ‘ray of hope for millions’

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‘Women’s bodies are not political bargaining chips’ says UNFPA director, as US funding restored after Trump era

The decision by US president Joe Biden to refund the UN population fund, UNFPA, offers “a ray of hope for millions of people around the world”, said the agency’s executive director.

Dr Natalia Kanem said the announcement on Thursday would have an “enormous” impact on the agency’s work, particularly as the world continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic.

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‘Violence starts at home’: the Afghan women tackling domestic abuse at its source

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A new women-led initiative in Afghanistan is working to break down the barriers to help both victims and perpetrators

Nabila felt her diesel-drenched clothes stick to her skin, her lungs filling with fumes, hot panic rising.

It hadn’t been the first time an argument with her husband had escalated: he’d been beating her throughout their 30-year marriage, even tying her to a tree in the garden outside their small home in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, leaving her freezing in the winter cold.

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We are seeing a global vaccine apartheid. People’s lives must come before profit | Winnie Byanyima

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The poorest countries are missing out on adequate doses of vaccines – and the health implications should concern us all

Nine months ago world leaders were queueing up to declare any Covid-19 vaccine a global public good. Today we are witness to a vaccine apartheid that is only serving the interests of powerful and profitable pharmaceutical corporations while costing us the quickest and least harmful route out of this crisis.

I am sickened by news that South Africa, a country whose HIV history should have taught us all the most appalling life-costing consequences of allowing pharmaceutical corporations to protect their medicine monopolies, has had to pay more than double the price paid by the European Union for the AstraZeneca vaccine for far fewer doses than it actually needs. Like so many other low- and middle-income countries, South Africa is today facing a vaccine landscape of depleted supply where it is purchasing power, not suffering, that will secure the few remaining doses.

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