Category Archives: Global development

‘Untouchable’ Bollywood poster provokes outrage over caste stereotypes

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Upper-caste actor playing Dalit politician Mayawati shown dishevelled and holding broom in publicity for new film

A picture of a woman holding a broom. Anywhere else, the image might pass unnoticed. But in India the poster for the film Madam Chief Minister, loosely based on the life of politician Mayawati, who is a Dalit, has triggered uproar for perpetuating caste stereotypes.

Bollywood actor Richa Chadha, who plays Mayawati, tweeted an image of the poster ahead of the film’s release later this month. She is shown looking dishevelled and holding the kind of large broom used by municipal roadsweepers. The tagline of the poster reads: Untouchable, Unstoppable.

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‘Like torture’: Calais police accused of continued migrant rights abuses

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Relentless and escalating programme of refugee evictions amounts to a campaign of harassment, say activists

Shortly before sunrise on 9 January, about 40 officers and officials gathered outside Calais police station as temperatures dipped to -3C (26.6F). Shortly after, in a well-drilled procedure, a nine-vehicle convoy started down the road towards the first of five forced evictions of makeshift refugee camps planned for that morning.

When the convoy arrived at the camp, just a few miles from the city centre, masked police in black uniforms chased refugees away from their tents and belongings. Some of the other 150 refugees who had been sheltering at the camp had already packed and fled before authorities arrived. Soon the camp was empty; frost-covered sleeping bags and jackets were all that remained.

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Wole Soyinka: ‘One casualty of the Capitol riot will be Uganda’s election’

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One of Africa’s most prominent literary figures says the election will be crucial for the continent

Global outrage at the storming of the US Capitol risks diverting attention from repression by Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, the Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka has said on the eve of Uganda’s election.

Soyinka, a Nobel laureate and one of Africa’s most prominent literary figures, described Thursday’s election as “crucial for the African continent”, and called for the 76-year-old Museveni and other older African leaders to step aside for a younger generation.

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PlayStation 5 launch gets more coverage ‘than 10 humanitarian crises combined’

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Charity says the media is failing countries by underreporting humanitarian emergencies, with women suffering most

The launch of PlayStation 5 received 26 times more news attention than 10 humanitarian crises combined in 2020, according to a Care International report published today.

The humanitarian crises, which included violence in Guatemala, hunger in Madagascar and natural disasters in Papua New Guinea, were largely swept aside by news of Covid-19, global Black Lives Matter protests and more clickbait-friendly events such as the Eurovision song contest and Kanye West’s bid for the US presidency; the latter two each received 10 times more online news attention than the humanitarian crises in question, the report found.

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Egypt denies ‘oxygen crisis’ as Covid-19 ward videos allege shortage

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Amid rising infection rates, authorities suppress efforts to discuss levels of vital supplies, as relatives’ claims fuel concerns

Filming on his phone inside Egypt’s Hussainiya hospital, Ahmed Mamdouh pans around the ward to show beds occupied by motionless bodies. “All the people are dead,” he says. Mamdouh’s own relative had just died, for which he blames a lack of medical oxygen.

In another video, a screaming woman at Zeftah hospital in Gharbiyeh governorate demands nurses help resuscitate a relative. In a third, a man in Damanhour, in the Nile delta, gasps for air, glassy-eyed as he holds an oxygen mask in his hand. “There is a lack of oxygen,” he says, extending an invitation for local health minister to come and witness the problem. “Join us, minister.”

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‘There is no noise’: inside the controversial Bhasan Char refugee camp – a photo essay

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Amid concern from charities and NGOs, Bangladesh is relocating Rohinghya refugees to a remote island. One resident describes his new life there

I wanted to come here. No one forced me, and my wife also agreed in a snap.

To be honest, though, I didn’t tell my brother. He lives where I used to live – Kutupalong camp. He is very against this island for some reason. He might have tried to stop me coming if I dared to discuss the topic. So I didn’t. I only told him after I arrived. I was amazed that he didn’t yell at me.

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Aid spending in Africa must be African-led – it needs a Black Lives Matter reckoning | Dedo Baranshamaje and Katie Bunten-Wamaru

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If we use this pivotal moment to shift funding to grassroots groups we could unlock transformational change

While the US continues to reckon with its long-simmering struggle against racial injustice, it is important to remember that racism is not just a homegrown problem – we are also exporting it.

As we begin 2021, global philanthropy has an opportunity to address this.

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Nigeria cattle crisis: how drought and urbanisation led to deadly land grabs

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The death toll of animals and humans is mounting as herders seeking dwindling reserves of pasture clash with farmers

In February last year, Sunday Ikenna’s fields were green and lush. Then, one evening, a herd of cattle led into the farm by roving pastoralists crushed, ate, and uprooted the crops.

“I lost everything. The situation was sorrowful, watching another human being destroy your farm,” says Ikenna, a father of 10 who farms in Ukpabi-Nimbo in Enugu state, southern Nigeria. “I farmed a smaller portion this year because I am still scared of another invasion.”

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‘Agent of foreign interests’: Museveni lashes out at Uganda election rival

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Presidential challenger Bobi Wine has been protesting against corruption and youth unemployment

As Uganda readies for an election on Thursday, President Yoweri Museveni is doubling down on his main rival and preparing himself for a sixth term in office.

After 35 years in power, he faces a powerful opponent, the popular singer Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, 38, known by his stage name Bobi Wine, who has captured the hearts of a new generation by protesting against corruption and youth unemployment.

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‘We can’t cope’: Lesotho faces Covid-19 disaster after quarantine failures

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Rise in cases reported after workers returned from South Africa for Christmas, with many crossing illegally to avoid tests

A Covid-19 disaster is threatening the small southern African kingdom of Lesotho after revelations that the government released people who had tested positive for the virus from quarantine early.

Government sources this week said they had been sending Covid-19 patients home from as far back as last June over cost concerns.

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Kenya faces $62bn bill to mitigate climate-linked hunger, drought and conflict

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Country accounts for less than 0.1% of global emissions but suffers disproportionately from related disasters, say new report

Kenya needs $62bn (£46bn) to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis in the next 10 years, according to a government document sent to the UN framework convention on climate change. It equates to almost 67% of Kenya’s GDP.

The report illustrates the scale of the challenge as the country aims to cut greenhouse gases by 32% within the next decade. It will rely on international sources to fund close to 90% of the expenditure. Securing such a colossal amount of often contentious climate financing from rich countries yet to honour their commitments to the $100bn target pledged during the 2015 Paris agreement will be a tall order.

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Covid billionaires should help starving people, says charity boss

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Head of World Food Program USA says 235 million people ‘marching toward starvation’

Billionaires whose wealth has soared during the coronavirus pandemic should stump up to provide emergency aid to the record numbers of people facing starvation, the head of a US charity supporting the World Food Programme has said.

Related: Billionaires' wealth rises to $10.2 trillion amid Covid crisis

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Guatemala mine’s ex-security chief convicted of Indigenous leader’s murder

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  • Mynor Padilla pleaded guilty over death of Adolfo Ich in 2009
  • Mining firms accused of litany of abuses in Central America

A judge in Guatemala has accepted a guilty plea by the former head of security at Central America’s largest nickel mine who was on trial for killing an Indigenous leader, in a rare conviction over human rights violations allegedly linked to Canadian-owned mining companies in the region.

Mynor Padilla was found guilty on Wednesday of homicide for the 2009 fatal shooting of Adolfo Ich, a Maya Q’eqchi’ teacher and community leader who opposed the Fenix mine outside the town of El Estor.

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Bob Grose obituary

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For some people, the work they do and the life they lead are in perfect alignment. My friend and colleague Bob Grose, who has died aged 71, was one of those people.

He did historically important work on HIV/Aids for the World Health Organization (WHO) in Africa, and for polio, HIV and leprosy for the Overseas Development Administration (ODA, later DfID) in India. Writing for War on Want in the mid-1980s, Bob was one of the first to predict that truckers would be high-risk vectors for the HIV epidemic in Africa. He was quickly snapped up by the WHO’s Global Programme on Aids (later UNAids) in Geneva, where he worked from 1987 to 1992 as a technical adviser. He was ahead of his time, mobilising community groups in Africa to raise awareness of the epidemic: a focus of UNAids to this day.

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Making waves: the hit Indian island radio station leading climate conversations

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With its unique blend of gossip, jokes and songs mixed with serious global issues, Kadal Osai has built a devoted audience

Selvarani Mari is a fisher and seaweed collector who lives on Pamban Island of Tamil Nadu, on the southernmost tip of India.

Every day she helps her husband cast the fishing nets, maintains rafts for cultivating seaweed, and dives into the ocean to gather sargassum. But she always makes time to listen to the radio.

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Congolese people have been brutalised since 1996. Why isn’t the west helping?

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Despite accusations of war crimes in the central African country, the international community seems unmoved

On New Year’s Eve, a gang of militia left its jungle base and swept across Beni, a forested north-eastern corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, looking for Nande people to kill.

Locals alerted the Congolese army but they were ignored. In small farms in Tingwe, a few kilometres from a DRC army base, the gang found 25 people – men, women and children – out harvesting food. One by one they hacked them to death with machetes and axes.

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Virginity tests for female rape survivors outlawed by Pakistani court

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Judge said the ‘humiliating’ practice was used to cast suspicion on the victim, and deflected focus from the act of sexual violence

A Pakistani court has outlawed the practice of subjecting female rape survivors to a virginity test in an unprecedented ruling.

Lahore’s high court ruled on Monday that the virginity test has no legal basis and “offends the personal dignity of the female victim”.

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Zimbabwe enters Covid lockdown amid fears over crowded new year parties

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Panic over infection rates mixed with fear of widespread hunger as 30-day shutdown is imposed after people defy ban on gatherings

Parties and new year celebrations that attracted thousands of revellers with little social distancing or mask wearing have triggered panic and a strict 30-day national lockdown in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

On New Year’s Eve thousands of people gathered at Matapi, Mbare, one of Zimbabwe’s oldest townships for a dancehall concert, while thousands of others held parties across the city despite a police ban.

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New-sprung: the project turning PPE offcuts into Covid patient mattresses

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Cheap, hygienic and sustainable, the mattresses made by Indian fashion designer Lakshmi Menon also generate income for rural women

At the height of the pandemic in the Indian state of Kerala, fashion designer Lakshmi Menon, 46, heard that every new Covid care centre had to have 50 beds. Mattresses were in short supply. Every time a patient was discharged, the mattress had to be incinerated. “I thought: that’s a lot of mattresses and a lot of burning,” says Menon.

Menon’s solution was to collect the mountains of plastic pieces from factories that make PPE – all the little bits left over after cutting. Women then braid the bits into rope-like plaits 6ft long. The braids are laid out in a zigzag and the ends tied together. The result is a light, soft, washable, hygienic mattress for just 300 rupees (£3) – half the price of a normal one.

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‘Not enough work, not enough money’: can this Kyrgyz village survive without tourists? A picture essay

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Life was hard in this remote area of central Asia, until tourism offered new hope. Then Covid-19 struck and the visitors stopped coming

  • Photographs by Danil Usmanov

It has been over a decade since Umar Tashbekov saw his opportunity. His village, Sary-Mogol in Kyrgyzstan, at an altitude of 3,600 metres, is close to Lenin’s Peak, a popular mountain destination for tourists. If they were already hiking there, why not attract them to visit his village too?

Sary-Mogol is a three-hour drive from the nearest city of Osh, in the country’s south-east. Life here is not easy – short summers and unfavourable growing conditions make it hard to grow much more than potatoes and barley. The main source of work is the large livestock market in town. Others find employment as teachers or in the nearby coal mine. Out of its 5,200-strong population, about 500 people have left for Russia where companies welcome factory workers.

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