Category Archives: Global development

Secretive ‘gold rush’ for deep-sea mining dominated by handful of firms

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Greenpeace report warns against granting licences to ‘deeply destructive’ industry with opaque oversight, and calls for global ocean treaty

Private mining firms and arms companies are exerting a hidden and unhealthy influence on the fate of the deep-sea bed, according to a new report highlighting the threats facing the world’s biggest intact ecosystem.

An investigation by Greenpeace found a handful of corporations in Europe and North America are increasingly dominating exploration contracts, and have at times taken the place of government representatives at meetings of the oversight body, the UN’s International Seabed Authority (ISA).

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Yemeni woman makes epic eight-month journey to reach UK

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After walking across deserts and crossing seas on small boats, Noor wants to reveal the plight of women and girls in Yemen

A woman who crossed eight borders, two deserts and one sea to get to the UK to claim asylum has spoken for the first time about her incredible journey.

The 29-year-old, who calls herself Noor, escaped from Yemen when her life was threatened and travelled alone with only smugglers and other desperate migrants for company en route. It is highly unusual for a woman from a country such as Yemen to embark on this kind of journey unaccompanied.

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India’s biggest challenge: how to vaccinate 1.3bn people against Covid-19?

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Analysis: Even with the world’s largest vaccination scheme already in place, the distribution at this scale has huge potential pitfalls

India’s claim to fame is staggering scale of its general elections, with 900 million voters mobilised across 1 million polling stations, to choose from 8,000 candidates across a landmass spanning 2,000 miles north to south and pretty much the same east to west.

But now the country has to go one better. India must vaccinate 1.3bn people against Covid-19 – twice and twice as fast. With more than 9 million confirmed cases of coronavirus and a battered economy, how will the country meet this challenge?

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‘It’s not weird or foreign’: the Ugandan monk bringing Buddhism to Africa – photo essay

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Bhante Buddharakkhita, who became a Buddhist while studying in India, is on a mission to use mindfulness meditation to heal trauma

  • Photographs by Eugénie Baccot

As the first Ugandan Buddhist monk, the most venerable Bhante Bhikkhu Buddharakkhita has ambitions to train 54 novices, one for every African nation.

“I’m teaching Theravada Buddhism with African flavour to ensure people understand the Lord Buddha and don’t see it as something weird, foreign and Asian,” he says.

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Spice of life: how turmeric became the ‘new gold’ for Sri Lanka villagers

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Turmeric is synonymous with Sri Lankan cuisine and an import ban is helping boost production after the ravages of civil war

In Sri Lankan cuisine, a pinch of turmeric brings the gold colour to sodhi, the mildly spiced coconut soup eaten with the island’s carbohydrate-rich foods.

Turmeric is valued in every Sri Lankan kitchen for its subtle flavour, distinct yellow colour and powerful aroma. In ayurvedic medicine, this humble spice is hailed for its values as an anti-inflammatory.

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World Athletics accused over ‘abusive sex testing’ of athletes from global south

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Human Rights Watch says testing regulations are demeaning and target women based on racial stereotypes

World Athletics, the sport’s global governing body, targets women from countries in the global south for “abusive sex testing” based on arbitrary definitions of femininity and racial stereotypes, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

A report by the rights group, published on Friday, claims female runners are being pushed out of competitive events, which some rely on for their livelihoods. Athletes struggle with emotional trauma and feel discriminated against and humiliated by the testing, said HRW.

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World Bank ‘missed vital opportunities’ to support Covid response, says Oxfam

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Millions forced to do without or pay for services as funding fails to adequately shore up healthcare systems, report finds

Millions of people in low-income countries have been forced to go without healthcare or have had to pay for it during the coronavirus pandemic, despite billions of pounds in emergency World Bank funding, research has found.

The World Bank’s $6bn (£4.45bn) emergency health fund to 71 countries in response to Covid-19 failed to strengthen health systems or remove financial barriers to using them, according to an Oxfam report published on Friday.

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Yemen ‘one step away from famine’ as donors dry up amid Covid, UN warns

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Urgent alert issued over millions struggling with ‘catastophic levels’ of hunger as less than half of required aid received

The window to prevent the return of famine to Yemen is rapidly closing, UN agencies have warned, with a new assessment showing millions could head further into hunger in the coming months.

The alert came as a World Health Organization food security assessment showed thousands of people are slipping into famine – a number that is predicted to triple in the first half of next year – while millions more have seen declining access to food.

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Bangladesh begins moving Rohingya families to remote island

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Operation to move 2,500 families begins despite safety concerns and lack of consent from refugees

Bangladesh has begun moving Rohingya families from camps near the Myanmar border to a settlement on a remote island, despite concerns about its safety and a lack of consent from the refugees.

More than 1,600 Rohingya refugees set sail on Friday from Bangladesh’s southern port of Chittagong for the remote island of Bhasan Char in the Bay of Bengal, a naval official said, Reuters reported.

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Taliban denies targeting media as 50th journalist dies in Afghanistan

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Rising violence by militants raises fears for press freedom after US troops withdraw in May

The Taliban have denied they are deliberately targeting journalists in attacks amid the surge in violence throughout Afghanistan.

The US watchdog Sigar (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) says Taliban violence has risen by 50% since September, with media workers saying they don’t feel safe doing their jobs.

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All change: India’s railways bring back tea in clay cups in bid to banish plastics

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Stations switch to humble earthen kulhads in move to cut down on toxic waste and boost incomes of village potters

A small and humble relic from India’s past is about to stage a major comeback. At all 7,000 railway stations in the country, tea will be served in earthen cups known as kulhads.

The kulhads, redolent of a bygone pastoral era, are unpainted, unglazed and have no handles, but are perfectly biodegradable and environment-friendly, which is why the country’s railways minister, Piyush Goyal, has said they will replace plastic cups as part of the government’s goal of making India free of single-use plastic.

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‘I saw people dying on the road’: Tigray’s traumatised war refugees

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People who fled fighting in northern Ethiopia tell of atrocities and gruelling journey to Sudan

When Ethiopia’s army shelled Humera, a small agricultural city in Tigray, in mid-November, 54-year-old Gush Tela rushed his wife and three children to safety in a nearby town.

A few days later, he felt compelled to find out what had become of his home. As he approached the city on his motorbike, riding through the arid countryside, he said the stench of countless dead bodies filled the air.

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RoboDoc: how India’s robots are taking on Covid patient care

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The pandemic has spurred on robotics companies building machines to perform tasks in hospitals and other industries

Standing just 5ft tall, Mitra navigates around the hospital wards, guided by facial recognition technology and with a chest-mounted tablet that allows patients and their loved ones to see each other.

Developed in recent years by the Bengaluru startup Invento Robotics, Mitra costs around $13,600 (£10,000) and – due to the reduced risk of infection to doctors – has become hugely popular in Indian hospitals during the pandemic.

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Home Office faces legal challenge over asylum seeker payments during Covid

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Those in emergency accommodation struggling to meet basic needs as government fails to pay agreed increase in support

The Home Office is still failing to provide thousands of asylum seekers in emergency hotel accommodation with basic cash support and essentials more than a month after being instructed by the high court to fulfil their legal requirements to do so.

In October, law firm Duncan Lewis challenged the government’s failure to provide adequate asylum support in the high court. The judge, Sir Duncan Ouseley, said asylum seekers in emergency accommodation should have been receiving financial support during the pandemic, and ordered the department to increase weekly cash assistance from £5 to £8 to cover essentials, such as soap, medicine, bus fares and phone credit.

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This World Aids Day the global response to HIV stands on a precipice | Winnie Byanyima and Matthew Kavanagh

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Covid-19 has shown the power of innovation and community services in a pandemic. These lessons should be applied to HIV

In a pandemic, when policy falls short, people die. Amid the growing Covid-19 pandemic and the continuing HIV pandemic, this is clearer today than ever before. From rules on access to testing to the distribution of new medical technologies or the use of criminal law in public health, policymaking is fraught. This World Aids Day, the global Aids response stands on a precipice.

Actions in the next few years will either tip us towards halting HIV, making deaths and new infections rare, or towards a resurgent virus thriving on social faultlines.

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‘Moving mountains’: How Pakistan’s ‘invisible’ women won workers’ rights

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Home workers in Sindh province are celebrating new social security benefits, after being denied lockdown funding

Shamim Bano has been an invisible worker for 40 years. Working 12-hour days from home as a “cropper” in the port city of Karachi, she cuts the loose threads off clothing and makes samosas to sell at schools.

Bano is paid about 25 Pakistani rupees (£0.10) a day. It’s a precarious existence for Pakistan’s home-based workers, without access to social security benefits or pensions. Most of these informal workers are women.

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Obama didn’t deliver for Africa – can Biden prove that black lives matter everywhere? | Vava Tampa

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There is reason to hope the president-elect will pivot from long-standing US policy of backing continent’s strongman leaders

How different is the Biden-Harris administration’s Africa policy going to be from Donald Trump’s, or even Barack Obama’s? Many African people, as well as the continent’s strongman leaders, are now gingerly asking – is Biden going to be Obama 2.0, or Trump-lite?

For the sake of black lives mattering everywhere in these turbulent times, I hope Biden will chart a bold new course, diametrically away from not only Trump but also Obama’s Africa policy.

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Barefoot in thorns: Gaza through the eyes of a Palestinian photographer

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My Gaza by Jehad al-Saftawi is a personal account of peoples’ suffering as they go about their lives under Israeli blockade

Working as a journalist in Gaza, says Palestinian photographer Jehad al-Saftawi, is like walking barefoot in a field of thorns. “You must always watch where you step. Each neighbourhood is composed of its own intimate social network, and travelling through them with a camera makes you a significant suspicion.

“You’re caught between the two sides of the conflict: the rulers of Gaza limit what you can photograph and write about, imprisoning and torturing those who disobey. At the same time, the Israeli army sees you as a potential threat that must be eliminated, as has been the fate of many Palestinian journalists.”

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Silent victims: the hidden Romanian women exploited in the UK sex trade

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Sex traffickers can make profits of over £1m a year per brothel – and Covid lockdowns have only made it easier for them to operate

Three weeks ago, police entered a brothel in south-east England after receiving intelligence about criminal activity there. Inside, they found eight Romanian women wearing face shields and masks, and laminated Covid-19 health and safety sheets on the wall. An industrial-size bottle of hand sanitiser stood by the front door.

“On the surface, this did not look like a place where criminality and sexual exploitation was taking place,” says Cristina Huddleston, a trafficking victim support specialist who joined the raid that evening.

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‘This lack of humanity can’t go on’: Canary Islands struggle with huge rise in migration

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Spanish archipelago has received 20,000 migrants and refugees this year, 8,000 in the last month

In the Canary Islands, 2020 will be remembered as more than just the year of the coronavirus.

The streets of Arguineguín, a small town on the island of Gran Canaria, are thronged not with tourists in search of winter warmth, but with police officers, health workers and journalists, all scurrying to and from the crowded dock, which has become the newest symbol of an old phenomenon.

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