Exclusive: 12 die as Malta uses private ships to push migrants back to Libya

Posted on May 19, 2020 by Admin

Survivor reveals further evidence to Guardian and La Repubblica of Malta’s deadly strategy to intercept migrants crossings

Further evidence of Malta’s strategy to push migrants back to the conflict zone of Libya has been revealed by a woman who survived a Mediterranean crossing in which 12 people died.

A series of voice messages obtained by the Guardian have provided confirmation of the Maltese government’s strategy to use private vessels, acting at the behest of its armed forces, in order to intercept migrant crossings and return refugees to Libyan detention centres.

McDonald’s accused over ‘systemic sexual harassment’ of employees worldwide

Posted on May 18, 2020 by Admin

Complaint filed by international coalition of labor unions lists numerous incidents of harassment, including attempted rape

An international coalition of labor unions has filed a complaint against McDonald’s, alleging systemic sexual harassment of its employees around the world.

The complaint, filed at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s offices in the Netherlands, lists numerous incidents of harassment, including attempted rape and indecent exposure in the United States, a promotion in exchange for sexual acts in Brazil, and a hidden cellphone camera installed in the women’s changing room in France.

DRC has seen epidemics before, but Covid-19’s toll on older people leaves me sleepless

Posted on May 18, 2020 by Admin

Many of the people I support in Kinshasa have no money, no soap, no water – and when they are struggling to breathe, no ventilators

We’re used to emergencies and people dying in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whether it’s a result of the long-running conflict or Ebola, cholera and malaria. But coronavirus has knocked us for six, because it has affected people we are very close to.

I’ve been working in development for decades, but I have to admit I have shed tears these past few weeks.

‘People are desperate’: floods and rock slides devastate western Uganda

Posted on May 16, 2020 by Admin

Villagers who have lost everything are sheltering in makeshift camps where food, bedding and water are in short supply

It was about 1am last Thursday when Dorothy Masika was woken by the rumble of water and boulders as they crashed down Mount Rwenzori.

Then came the alarms raised by those living in the hilltop areas, those who could run, racing down to warn people along the valley and lowlands to run. A torrent of water was on its way down the mountain. Four rivers in Kasese district – the Nyamwamba, Mubuku, Nyamughasana and Lhubiriha – had burst their banks.

West Africa facing food crisis as coronavirus spreads

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Admin

Pandemic adds to jihadi and climate change threats to present ‘immense challenge’ for region

More than 43 million people in west Africa are likely to be in urgent need of food assistance in the coming months – double initial estimates – as the Covid-19 outbreak accelerates, the World Food Programme has said.

Food insecurity could also double this year to affect 265 million people across the continent; west Africa, where the outbreak of the virus is most severe, is of increasing concern.

‘People are more scared of hunger’: coronavirus is just one more threat in Nigeria

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Admin

The pandemic has left many people in Orile, Lagos state, struggling for survival – and compounded the risks of the area’s heavily polluted air and water supply

All photographs by Nurudeen Olugbade

For Nurudeen Olugbade taking photographs of life in Orile-Iganmu, Lagos state, during the pandemic is a way to affirm that the disruption it has wrought on the neglected town does matter.

“We are not really seen. There’s very little attention paid to us but the struggle out here is real,” says Olugbade, 28, who has documented the crisis on his phone.

Kenya’s pastoralists face hunger and conflict as locust plague continues

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Admin

As herds are devastated and crops destroyed across east Africa, there are fears of violence as competition for grazing increases

Tiampati Leletit had heard tales of massive desert locust swarms darkening Kenya’s horizon. But when they hit his farm the devastation was all too real. They ate everything.

“I have never seen anything like this. When the swarms of locust invaded, they consumed everything and all the vegetation was gone. The livestock had nothing to eat,” says the 32-year-old. In January, he had 80 goats. Today he has four.

Africa facing a quarter of a billion coronavirus cases, WHO predicts

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Admin

But continent will have fewer deaths than Europe and US because of its younger population and other lifestyle factors

Nearly a quarter of a billion people across 47 African countries will catch coronavirus over the next year, but the result will be fewer severe cases and deaths than in the US and Europe, new research predicts.

A model by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) regional office for Africa, published in the BMJ Global Health, predicts a lower rate of transmission and viral spread across the continent than elsewhere, resulting in up to 190,000 deaths. But the authors warn the associated rise in hospital admissions, care needs and “huge impact” on services such as immunisation and maternity, will overwhelm already stretched health services.

Gordon Brown: coronavirus must be ‘eradicated in every continent’

Posted on May 14, 2020 by Admin

Britain’s former prime minister says only international cooperation can bring the pandemic to an end

Gordon Brown has warned that a second or third wave of coronavirus infection could emanate from poor countries with undeveloped health systems, saying the risks can be controlled only by coordinated international action.

The global crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic will not end until it is “eradicated in every continent”, the former prime minister said.

‘A bloody method of control’: the struggle to take down Europe’s razor wire walls

Posted on May 13, 2020 by Admin

Spain is removing lethal razor wire from its borders in north Africa, but elsewhere the controversial ‘concertinas’ stay put

You could barely see that it was a finger. “The wound was large, with several deep cuts into the flesh. He had tried to climb the fence and was up there when he was caught by police in the middle of the night,” says András Léderer, advocacy officer for the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a Budapest-based NGO.

“He lost his balance. The wound was so horrific because as he fell, he tried to grab the razor wire – and also, he said, touched the second layer of the fence, which is electrified.”

The unnamed Pakistani refugee in his 30s had attempted to cross the fence near Sombor, Serbia, to get into Hungary in 2016. The coils of metal that lacerated his finger are ubiquitous at the perimeters of “Fortress Europe” and can be found on border fences in Slovenia, Hungary, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Spain and France.

‘Finally, a virus got me’: Ebola expert on nearly dying of coronavirus

Posted on May 13, 2020 by Admin

Peter Piot tells of his brush with death and predicts people will suffer effects of the virus for years

Peter Piot, the scientist who helped discover the Ebola virus, and the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, has told of his brush with death after contracting Covid-19.

The professor had never previously been seriously ill, but after 40 years studying and leading the global response to infectious diseases including HIV and Aids, he said that “finally, a virus got me”.

Unicef: 6,000 children could die every day due to impact of coronavirus

Posted on May 13, 2020 by Admin

Disruption of essential maternity and health services is the biggest crisis faced by under fives since second world war

As many as 6,000 children around the world could die every day from preventable causes over the next six months due to the impact of coronavirus on routine health services, the UN has warned.

Global disruption of essential maternal and child health interventions – such as family planning, birth and postnatal care, and vaccinations – could lead to an additional 1.2 million deaths of under fives in just six months, according to analysis by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, published in the Lancet Global Health Journal.

Croatian police accused of spray-painting heads of asylum seekers

Posted on May 12, 2020 by Admin

UN has asked the government to investigate latest allegations of abuse against migrants crossing on Balkan route from Bosnia

Croatian police are allegedly spray-painting the heads of asylum seekers with crosses when they attempt to cross the border from Bosnia.

The Guardian has obtained a number of photographs of what has been described by charities as the “latest humiliation’’ perpetrated by the Croatian authorities against migrants travelling along the Balkan route.

Just the tonic: app helps Iraqi patients locate vital medicines

Posted on May 12, 2020 by Admin

In Mosul, sourcing essential medication can be an expensive struggle – but entrepreneur Ameen Hadeed may have found the solution

When Ameen Hadeed’s father had heart surgery in 2015, the tricky part was not the operation but finding the drugs to aid his recovery.

The clinic had no medicine, so Hadeed was told to hustle around his home city Mosul to find the prescriptions. It took hours and cost a small fortune, as he visited store after store.

‘We wrap services around women’: Brazil’s innovative domestic violence centre

Posted on May 12, 2020 by Admin

With violence against women endemic in the country, new initiatives are desperately needed but slow to arrive

Lucas da Silva* sits in a cell while he waits to hear from the court what will happen to him.

The 33-year-old is not in a prison, but at Casa da Mulher Brasileira (“house of the Brazilian woman”), a centre for survivors of violence in Campo Grande, central Brazil, that is open 24/7.

Malnutrition leading cause of death and ill health worldwide – report

Posted on May 12, 2020 by Admin

Coronavirus highlights weakness of food and health systems, as Global Nutrition Report finds one in nine of world’s population is hungry

An overhaul of the world’s food and health systems is needed to tackle malnutrition, a “threat multiplier” that is now the leading cause of ill health and deaths globally, according to new analysis.

The Global Nutrition Report 2020 found that most people across the world cannot access or afford healthy food, due to agricultural systems that favour calories over nutrition as well as the ubiquity and low cost of highly processed foods. Inequalities exist across and within countries, it says.

‘We depend on God’: gravediggers on frontline of Kano’s Covid-19 outbreak

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Admin

Outbreak in northern Nigerian city highlights difficulties faced by authorities in detecting and controlling the virus

Musa Abubakar used to dig two or three graves a day at the main cemetery in the northern Nigerian city of Kano. Then overnight it became 40.

“I have never witnessed mass deaths like this,” the 75-year-old said, his white kaftan muddied from his work at the Abbatuwa cemetery, where he has dug graves for 60 years. “From the first day of Ramadan to date, over 300 people have been buried.”

Women are on the Covid-19 frontline – we must give them the support they need | Mark Lowcock and Natalia Kanem

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Admin

An effective response to the pandemic means tackling the violence and inequality faced by women

After a week in which people in some parts of the world have been given cause for optimism that they may have passed the peak of the pandemic, we have seen how extraordinary actions of individuals can change the trajectory for a whole nation.

Retired doctors putting themselves back on the frontline, nurses making their own face masks, parents voluntarily separated from their children so they can care for the sick.

‘Finally, at last’: vulnerable migrants to leave Greece for UK

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Admin

Group including teenagers Walid and Mustafa will be reunited with relatives after grim odyssey

Until last week, Walid and Mustafa had never met. Owing to their disparate backgrounds, they might not have had anything in common, bar their age: both turned 18 this year.

But the fresh-faced, bright-eyed teenagers have been brought together by a common desire to escape danger in their respective homelands – Syria and Somalia – and rebuild lives shattered by war.

Roundup Newswires

Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network

Category Archives: Global development

Exclusive: 12 die as Malta uses private ships to push migrants back to Libya

McDonald’s accused over ‘systemic sexual harassment’ of employees worldwide

DRC has seen epidemics before, but Covid-19’s toll on older people leaves me sleepless

‘People are desperate’: floods and rock slides devastate western Uganda

West Africa facing food crisis as coronavirus spreads

‘People are more scared of hunger’: coronavirus is just one more threat in Nigeria

Kenya’s pastoralists face hunger and conflict as locust plague continues

Africa facing a quarter of a billion coronavirus cases, WHO predicts

Gordon Brown: coronavirus must be ‘eradicated in every continent’

‘A bloody method of control’: the struggle to take down Europe’s razor wire walls

‘Finally, a virus got me’: Ebola expert on nearly dying of coronavirus

Unicef: 6,000 children could die every day due to impact of coronavirus

Croatian police accused of spray-painting heads of asylum seekers

Just the tonic: app helps Iraqi patients locate vital medicines

‘We wrap services around women’: Brazil’s innovative domestic violence centre

Malnutrition leading cause of death and ill health worldwide – report

‘We depend on God’: gravediggers on frontline of Kano’s Covid-19 outbreak

Women are on the Covid-19 frontline – we must give them the support they need | Mark Lowcock and Natalia Kanem

‘Finally, at last’: vulnerable migrants to leave Greece for UK