Officials have just weeks to slash costs, prompting fears that speed of cuts could cost lives
British diplomats have been instructed to find at least 50% cuts in UK overseas bilateral aid in the next few weeks in advance of the next financial year, the Labour party has said.
Sarah Champion, the Labour chair of parliament’s international development select committee, said: “Our ambassadors have today been instructed by the Foreign Office to cut 50-70% from the aid budget.”
Continue reading...International development committee tells government that pandemic and foreign aid cuts fuelling poverty and food insecurity
Billions of dollars of debt owed by poor countries must be permanently cancelled in order to stave off a “looming financial tsunami” caused by Covid-19 and the ensuing global recession, a cross-party committee of MPs has warned.
Debt relief will not be enough to help the world’s most vulnerable economies as they face skyrocketing levels of hunger and unemployment, according to an inquiry into Covid-19’s secondary impacts in developing countries, published on Tuesday by the House of Commons international development committee (IDC).
Continue reading...International community must put pressure on Egypt to prevent prison deaths, warns Amnesty International
A decade after the uprising that overturned politics in Egypt, political prisoners are being targeted inside the country’s overcrowded prison system.
Egypt’s prisons hold at least twice the number of people they were built for, with prisoners of conscience targeted by security forces and denied healthcare, according to Amnesty International. Prisoners of all kinds risk dying in custody because of the profound lack of basic care by the authorities, said the human rights organisation.
Continue reading...Sixty million more girls and women using modern contraceptives due to global campaign, but pandemic recession threatens services
Sixty million more women and girls in the world’s poorest countries are now using modern contraceptives, after an eight-year global effort to expand family planning services.
But the FP2020 global partnership, launched in London in 2012, warned that the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting financial crisis imperils further progress.
Continue reading...Opposition cries foul as Covid restrictions cut off incomes and health care in country where two-thirds live in severe poverty
For Abdulgadir Sanousi the decision to lock down the capital of Chad was “a nightmare”. His work driving from N’Djamena to Moundou in the south four times a week dried up overnight. This month any work has involved bribing police to let him through the checkpoints at N’Djamena’s four main entry points.
“The situation is just a nightmare for us. We are faced with difficulties by the police. In order to deal with them you need to bribe them, if not they would confiscate your vehicle,” says 27-year-old Sanousi.
Continue reading...Vice-president joins activists in calling for zero tolerance of ‘machismo’ that has left hundreds of women and girls dead
When authorities pulled the lifeless body of four-year-old María Ángel Molina out of a river in rural Colombia on 13 January, the South American country mourned what was the 14th documented case of femicide this year.
Her murderer, Juan Carlos Galvis, also kidnapped María’s sister, and later admitted to authorities that he committed the brutal crimes in order to punish the girls’ mother for seeing another man.
Continue reading...Biden administration’s demand that travelers provide a negative test and self-quarantine could hit Mexico’s tourist industry hard
New US coronavirus travel restrictions are likely to have an outsized impact on Mexico, which is also struggling with an uncontrolled outbreak of the virus and record-breaking deaths.
Related: Covid fatalities soar in Mexico as president condemned for inaction
Continue reading...Philipp Wilhelm knows local people rely on forum’s revenue – but still thinks world must change
In his youth, Philipp Wilhelm was at the forefront of protests against the World Economic Forum’s annual “extreme capitalism” gathering of the business and political elite in Davos, the Swiss mountain resort where he grew up.
Now, however, Wilhelm is the mayor of the town and his central mission is to ensure the return of the WEF jamboree, which had been scheduled to start next week but was cancelled this year due to the pandemic.
Continue reading...Nations outbidding each other creates an ‘immoral race towards the abyss’
Pharmaceutical companies should do more to transfer vaccine technology to prevent the poorest countries falling behind in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, according to an expert.
The warning came from Dag-Inge Ulstein, the co-chair of the global council trying to speed up access to Covid vaccines for the world’s poor, known as the Act (Access to Covid-19 Tools) Accelerator. Ulstein, Norway’s international development minister, oversees the drive to ensure vaccines reach the poor – the Covax programme.
Continue reading...Global study calls on governments to step up maintenance efforts to prevent failures, overtopping or leaks
By 2050 most people will live downstream of a large dam built in the 20th century, many of which are approaching the limits of the useful lifetime they were designed for, according to global research.
To avoid the potential for dam failures, overtopping or leaks, the dams will require increasing maintenance, and some may have to be taken out of service. Many governments have not prepared for these needs, warn the authors of a study by the United Nations University.
Continue reading...Four families seek damages and apology from Renee Bach, who settled two cases out of court last year
Four Ugandan families are taking legal action against an American missionary accused of taking part in treatments at a religious health centre she ran, despite having no medical qualifications.
Renee Bach founded the now defunct Serving His Children (SHC) centre in Jinja, a city in east Uganda, where the families took their children, three of whom later died.
Continue reading...Barrister urges landmark appeal hearing for courts in England and Wales to set aside decision that father should be allowed contact with child
A family court judge has come under fire for “wholly inappropriate” comments made to a young mother during a private hearing on child contact arrangements.
Judge Richard Scarratt made the mother “fearful” and put pressure on her to accept that the child have contact with her father, a barrister representing the mother has claimed.
Continue reading...Natsiraishe Maritsa saw so many friends being forced into marriage that she started a campaign to drive out the practice.
It is 11am on a Sunday and Natsiraishe Maritsa, 17, is running through some workout drills with a group of sweating teenage girls from her neighbourhood in Epworth, a poor township nine miles (15km) south-east of the capital, Harare.
On a normal Sunday, Maritsa and her friends would be attending church, but the strict 30-day lockdown imposed by the government earlier this month has banned religious gatherings – so it’s time to catch up on a taekwondo training session.
Continue reading...A constitutional reform would require a three-quarters majority in congress to overturn Latin America’s most draconian ban
Legislators in Honduras are pushing a constitutional reform through Congress that would make it virtually impossible to legalise abortion in the country – now or in the future.
Related: Argentina legalizing abortion will spur reform in Latin America, minister says
Continue reading...UN calls for help as cholera breaks out with the arrival of rainy season, compounding ‘dire’ situation in Cabo Delgado
Northern Mozambique has lurched into a humanitarian crisis as growing numbers of people have lost their homes amid escalating conflict.
Fighting in the northern province of Cabo Delgado displaced more than 500,000 people last year and on Wednesday UN agencies said they were deeply worried about the current situation and called for the international community to do more to help.
Continue reading...The UN calls for the resumption of state-led operations in the Mediterranean, as rescue groups’ vessels are detained in port
At least 43 people have been killed after a boat carrying migrants capsized off the Libyan coast, the UN said on Wednesday.
Ten people survived the shipwreck, which happened after the boat’s engine failed a few hours after departing the coastal city Zawiya, west of the capital Tripoli, on Tuesday morning.
Continue reading...The president-elect has promised to do away with ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, raising hopes that asylum seekers claims will be treated seriously
Selma López, 31, has spent nearly a year holed up in a two-room house not far from Mexico’s border with the US, along with her 11-year-old son Darikson and another woman who also made the long journey from Honduras in search of a new life.
Related: Remain in Mexico policy needlessly exposed migrants to harm, report says
Continue reading...Unemployment – especially among the young – falling living standards and lockdowns have sparked riots across the country
Ettadhamen, a marginalised district on the outskirts of Tunis, wears unrest well. Over the weekend and into this week, violent protests have dominated life in this overlooked and restive place.
The district is not unique. Over the past few days, protests have erupted in working-class neighbourhoods in at least 15 locations across Tunisia, in response to declining living conditions, poverty and endemic unemployment, especially among the country’s young people.
Continue reading...Despite government loans and staff trickling back to work, the pandemic has made survival precarious for the city’s vendors
On a normal working day, Venkateshwara Rao would be ready by 4pm, stationed on the pavement waiting for office workers to emerge and order their favourite varieties of idli and dosa from his bandi, a food cart grandly named Kavyajyotika Tiffin Centre.
“When the lockdown was lifted, but with many restrictions still in place, the inflow of customers plummeted. However, the last few weeks have been good with a handful of workers back in offices and people lining up for takeaways at my bandi,” says Rao.
Continue reading...Frontex director Fabrice Leggeri accused over failure to appoint officers to protect people’s rights, with home affairs commissioner calling for ‘clarity’
The head of the EU’s border force is under growing pressure to stand down after being accused by the European commission of acting unlawfully and giving misleading evidence to MEPs.
The allegations against Fabrice Leggeri, the executive director of Frontex, relate to the agency’s failure to recruit any of the 40 officers it is obliged to employ to protect the rights of people crossing into Europe.
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