Category Archives: Global development

‘Open your eyes’: Yemen on brink of famine again, UN agencies warn

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Millions face devastating hunger if relief efforts are not stepped up in a country ravaged by war, locusts and now Covid-19

Yemen is in danger of an imminent return to devastating levels of hunger and food insecurity, according to new analysis released by UN agencies.

The World Food Programme (WFP), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Unicef say that the percentage of the population predicted to face acute food insecurity in southern areas of the country will rise from 25% to 40% by the end of the year.

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‘We were beaten’: 20 LGBTQ+ Ugandans file lawsuit over alleged torture

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Group arrested during Kampala lockdown and later released allege horrific abuse during the 50 days they were on remand in prison

Twenty LGBTQ+ men and women have filed lawsuits against the Ugandan authorities over alleged torture after they were arrested and imprisoned on charges related to the coronavirus lockdown.

The group were held on remand for more than 50 days and according to a statement from the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF), the legal organisation defending them, endured “taunting, flogging, scalding … as well as denial of access to food, sanitary facilities and medication”.

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Femicides rise in Mexico as president cuts budgets of women’s shelters

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New figures reflect surge in violence against women during pandemic while government implements austerity measures

Violence against women has surged in Mexico since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, but the country’s president has downplayed the problem and slashed the budgets of agencies charged with addressing women’s issues.

Figures released this week show that crimes such as femicides climbed 7.7% in the first half of 2020, when compared with the same period last year, and shelters have reported a sharp rise in the number of women attempting to flee domestic violence.

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‘We suffer in silence’: coronavirus takes heavy toll on Brazil’s army of gravediggers

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Alcoholism and depression ‘part and parcel’ for those who bury the bodies of Covid-19 victims – more than 80,000 so far

Miguel Braga has done many things in life: sold lollipops, hawked cleaning products, guarded cars. This year, as Covid-19 shook Brazil, he turned his hand to burying bodies.

“Someone has to do it,” said the 30-year-old father-of-two, who earns £200 ($250) a month carving 2m x 1m resting places into the caramel coloured soils of Latin America’s largest cemetery.

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‘Coronavirus ruined everything’: the long wait for new limbs in Kurdistan

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Decades of war have resulted in a high demand for prosthetics – and patients are anxious to visit clinics as they finally reopen

Concentration is etched on Hussein’s face as he walks along a scuffed yellow line painted on the floor of the clinic’s rehabilitation room. He’s getting a feel for his new prosthetic.

Hussein lost his left leg below the knee in 1987 when he stepped on a landmine while fishing at Lake Dukan, around 100km (62 miles) east of Erbil in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Mines and other unexploded remnants of successive wars litter the landscape, causing new injuries every year. More than half the clinic’s 15,100 patients are amputees. Roughly 4,600 of them lost limbs as a result of conflict – 2,500 of these to landmines.

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‘It’s just too long’: children in detention may face Covid-19 restrictions until 2022

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Rules allowing up to 22 hours of solitary confinement for young offenders could continue, in move lawyers say is ‘very concerning’

The Ministry of Justice has said that new rules that allow youth detention facilities to hold children in solitary confinement for up to 22 hours a day to prevent the spread of Covid-19 could remain in place for two years despite lockdown measures being relaxed for the rest of the UK.

Lawyers have told the Guardian that time out of cells and access to education are still being severely curtailed in many facilities across the country.

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Rohingya face ‘cruel’ caning sentence in Malaysia as hostility to refugees grows

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Survivors of dangerous sea journey convicted amid a rise in hate speech and mass detentions in centres rife with Covid-19

A group of Rohingya refugees who survived a treacherous journey at sea now face caning and seven months in jail after they were convicted under the immigration act in Malaysia, where activists have warned of an alarming rise in xenophobia and inhumane treatment of the migrants.

Hundreds of arrests and a sharp rise in hate speech have shocked refugees and migrants who had seen Malaysia as a welcoming country, particularly for Muslims, despite not being signed up to the 1951 refugee convention.

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Women’s health organisation accused of ‘institutional racism and bullying’

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Investigation launched into the International Women’s Health Coalition following criticism of ‘toxic’ culture, weeks after Women Deliver CEO issues public apology

A global women’s health organisation has launched an independent investigation into claims that it operated a “paralysing” culture of racism and bullying.

The International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC), which advocates for women and adolescent girls, will also conduct an internal review.

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Africa can become a renewable energy superpower – if climate deniers are kept at bay

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Nigel Lawson’s thinktank is pushing dirty energy on the continent with the greatest capacity for creating clean fuel

The power of climate science denial in the UK, thankfully, has been in retreat over the past decade. Nigel Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) may still boast a prime Westminster address, but its influence has waned. In fact, its decline aptly mirrors the fortunes of the coal industry, including US titans such as Peabody Energy, which saw its share price plunge 99% between 2008 and 2016 before filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

With countries rightly phasing coal out of their energy mix, the GWPF has turned its sights on Africa to peddle its misinformation about the merits of burning fossil fuels. It has published a new report, derisively titled Heart of Darkness: Why Electricity for Africa is a Security Issue, and launched a glossy website for “energy justice”, which uses the language of climate justice campaigners to try to undermine renewable energy.

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UN chief slams ‘myths, delusions and falsehoods’ around inequality

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António Guterres uses Mandela lecture to call for radical shake-up of IMF and World Bank in wake of coronavirus pandemic

The UN secretary general will today deliver one of his most stinging speeches to date, attacking the “myths, delusions and falsehoods” around international progress on equality.

In an unusually strongly worded speech, António Guterres urged major reform to the UN security council, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to address systemic inequalities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic.

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Paraguay: indigenous girl’s murder fires public outrage at child sexual abuse

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The conservative South American country has high levels of sexual violence against minors and a shocking child pregnancy rate

Human rights activists in Paraguay have led a wave of fierce public indignation after a series of alarming cases in which sexual violence towards young girls has culminated in murder and child pregnancy.

The highly conservative South American country has long struggled with high levels of sexual violence towards children.

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Protests predicted to surge globally as Covid-19 drives unrest

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New analysis finds economic shock of pandemic coupled with existing grievances makes widespread public uprisings ‘inevitable’

The economic impact of coronavirus is a “tinderbox” that will drive civil unrest and instability in developing countries in the second half of 2020, according to new analysis.

Highest risk countries facing a “perfect storm”, where protests driven by the pandemic’s economic fallout are likely to inflame existing grievances, include Nigeria, Iran, Bangladesh, Algeria and Ethiopia, the analysis said.

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‘Money makes money’: Uganda’s Tarantino raises funds with rap

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Wakaliwood’s Isaac Nabwana swapped directing shootouts to parody music videos to support rural projects hit by Covid-19

The helicopter and the bling are made of cardboard and the dollar bills carefully drawn on paper by local children. But the people are very real and the music is totally authentic.

A new video from Ugandan film director Isaac Nabwana is a move away from his previous output – movies heavy on blood and gore and ultra-low on budgets – which is gaining him an international cult following. And he says the pandemic’s impact in pushing film online, with the trend towards all-digital film festivals, has helped.

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DfiD merger will ‘severely impact’ UK’s status, concludes cross-party inquiry

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Commons committee chair warns of ‘damage beyond repair’ over abolition of overseas aid department

A cross-party committee of MPs has said Boris Johnson’s “rushed and impulsive” merger of the Foreign Office and Department for International Development will “severely impact the UK’s superpower status”.

Attacking the prime minister’s decision as “coming out of the blue”, a report published on Thursday from the Commons international development committee (IDC) said it was likely it would be disruptive and “incredibly costly”.

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Inexorable spread of coronavirus snuffs out Mexico’s ‘municipalities of hope’

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More than 300 towns free of Covid-19 were allowed to reopen in May to mitigate the pandemic’s economic cost. With cases surging, most have been forced to close

As the coronavirus pandemic advances across Mexico, leaving thousands dead in its wake, Tepango de Rodríguez has – so far – remained untouched.

The town of about 4,000 people sits high in the mountains of the Sierra Norte in Puebla state, and was quick to apply strict preventive measures, closing its food market and installing health checkpoints.

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From hunger to abuse: how Covid-19 has affected women worldwide

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Experts fear the pandemic may set gender equality back decades. Here, seven women explain the struggles it has brought and their hopes for the future

More men than women may have contracted Covid-19 around the world, but experts have warned that the pandemic may set gender equality back by decades.

Melinda Gates, the co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said in a paper this week that policymakers risked prolonging the crisis and slowing economic recovery if they ignored the gendered impacts of coronavirus. She added that overhauling systems could allow governments to build “more prosperous, more prepared and more equal” countries.

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‘Thank you, our glorious revolution’: activists react as Sudan ditches Islamist laws

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After 30 years under Omar al-Bashir, the country has abolished several discriminatory policies and banned FGM – in what activists have called ‘great first steps’ towards liberalisation

Sudan’s transitional government has been praised for its latest reforms, which decriminalise apostasy, ban female genital mutilation (FGM) and end the requirement for women to get travel permits.

The legislation makes major strides in pushing back against discrimination faced by women and minorities during the 30-year rule of Omar al-Bashir that came to an end in 2019, according to equality advocates.

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Alarm as Covid-19 reaches recently contacted Amazon tribe

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  • Activists fear devastation as virus arrives at indigenous reserve
  • At least six coronavirus cases among isolated Nahua people

The Covid-19 virus has reached a remote reserve for recently contacted indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon, despite efforts to shield the extremely vulnerable population from the pandemic.

Related: 'Coronavirus could wipe us out': indigenous South Americans blockade villages

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Tensions mount as Ethiopia allows dam across Nile headwaters to fill

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Egypt fears hydroelectric project will restrict limited waters on which its population depends

Ethiopia has allowed a controversial dam built across the headwaters of the Nile to fill with rain water, raising tensions with Egypt and Sudan.

The huge hydroelectric project on the Blue Nile, known as the Grand Renaissance dam, is at the centre of Ethiopia’s plan to become Africa’s biggest power exporter, but Egypt fears already limited Nile waters, on which its population of more than 100 million people depends, might be restricted.

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Colombian cartels killing those who don’t obey their Covid-19 lockdowns

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Human Rights Watch calls on government to do more to protect civilians after at least eight murdered by armed groups

Drug cartels and rebel groups are imposing their own bloody coronavirus lockdowns across Colombia – and killing those who do not obey, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

At least eight civilians have been murdered by the armed groups, some of them holdovers from Colombia’s half-century civil war, which are using Whatsapp chats and pamphlets to warn citizens of the lockdowns in the rural areas where they operate.

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