Category Archives: Global development

‘Migrants never disappeared’: the lone rescue ship braving a pandemic

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As the coronavirus crisis deepens, the plight of people crossing the Mediterranean to escape conflict has been all but forgotten. A crew of German rescuers is intent on bucking that trend

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    • After a two-month break, the Alan Kurdi migrant rescue boat is heading back out into the central Mediterranean, as asylum seekers continue to attempt the desperate journey to reach Europe despite coronavirus fears.

    The boat, operated by the German NGO Sea-Eye, left the Spanish port of Castellón de la Plana on Tuesday and is expected to reach waters off the coast of Libya this weekend.

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    ‘We will starve’: Zimbabwe’s poor full of misgiving over Covid-19 lockdown

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    Unable to access state benefits, food and even running water as the country shuts up shop, people in Harare fear the worst

    Nelson Mahunde, 70, trudges along the deserted streets of Harare’s central business district to collect his monthly pension.

    In one hand, he clutches a pension letter; with the other, he hold on firmly to his walking stick.

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    ‘If it comes, it will overwhelm us’: Malawi braces for coronavirus

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    Concern is growing that a woefully inadequate health system will leave Malawi unable to cope when Covid-19 arrives

    When the overcrowded, long-distance bus from Johannesburg arrived at the Malawian border post of Mwanza last week, one passenger was dead. Fearing he had picked up Covid-19 in South Africa and infected all his fellow travellers, the guards sent everyone to a hastily built quarantine centre for 14 days.

    The man had died of other causes but Malawi, which is well used to devastating diseases like HIV and Aids, cholera and malaria, is taking no chances. Along with São Tomé, Comoros, South Sudan, Burundi, and Sierra Leone in Africa, it is one of the last countries in the world not to have confirmed a single Covid-19 case yet.

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    Coronavirus crisis may deny 9.5 million women access to family planning

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    Charity warns loss of services caused by lockdowns could result in millions of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions

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    • Up to 9.5 million women and girls could miss out on vital family planning services this year because of Covid-19, potentially resulting in thousands of deaths.

    Marie Stopes International warned on Friday that travel restrictions and lockdowns could have a devastating affect on women as they struggle to collect contraceptives and access other reproductive healthcare services, such as safe abortions, across the 37 countries in which it works.

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    Primark among retailers cancelling £2.4bn orders in ‘catastrophic’ move for Bangladesh

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    Coronavirus cutbacks amount to a ‘wholesale abandonment’ of garment workers, says labour rights group

    More than a million Bangaldeshi garment workers have been sent home without pay or have lost their jobs after western clothing brands cancelled or suspended £2.4bn of existing orders in the wake of the Covid-19 epidemic, according to data from the Bangladeshi and Garment Exporters Association (BGMEA).

    Primark and the Edinburgh Woollen Mill are among retailers that have collectively cancelled £1.4bn and suspended an additional £1bn of orders as they scramble to minimise losses. This includes nearly £1.3bn of orders that were already in production or had been completed, according to BGMEA.

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    ‘Zero accountability’: US accused of failure to report civilian deaths in Africa

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    US military vows to be more open about activities after allegations that teenager and farmer were killed in Somalia airstrikes

    Faced with new allegations of killing civilians with drone strikes in Somalia, the US military has announced plans to make its operations across Africa more transparent.

    Amnesty International accused the US military on Wednesday of providing “zero accountability” for civilian victims of airstrikes by its Africa command, Africom.

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    Protests, postponements and the last stand of an African strongman

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    Once hailed as a champion of democracy, Alpha Condé is threatening to outstay his welcome as Guinea’s president

    Even before the pandemic there were postponements. Before that, there were protests. From a large armchair positioned beneath his own portrait, the 82-year-old president of Guinea is not answering the key question preoccupying his country whether or not he wants to remain in situ until he is 94.

    In the Sekhoutoureah presidential palace in Conakry, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and trousers, Alpha Condé is flanked on one side by a large photograph of himself alongside Barack Obama in the White House. On the other, framed photographs on a table show him shaking hands with the Turkish leader, Recep Erdoğan, and with China’s Xi Jinping. There’s also a golden bust of Chairman Mao and a hefty book about the Beninese politician Robert Dossou.

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    The village still suffering from Peru mercury spill fallout – after 20 years

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    When the people of Choropampa saw a bright, silvery liquid on the road, they imagined it was valuable. Two decades on, the toxic truth is all too apparent

    When a truck spilled mercury from a gold mine on the dirt road outside her house, Francisca Guarniz Imelda scooped it up with her bare hands, thinking it had healing powers.

    She took it home to her mud-brick house in Choropampa, in Peru’s northern Cajamarca region. The heat of the day vaporised some of the mercury, contaminating the walls and ceiling with the toxic metal.

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    Brazil confirms first indigenous case of coronavirus in Amazon

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    Positive test for 20-year-old woman from Kokama tribe comes amid fears virus could devastate remote communities

    An indigenous woman in a village deep in the Amazon rainforest has contracted the novel coronavirus, the first case reported among Brazil’s more than 300 tribes, the Health Ministry’s indigenous health service Sesai has said.

    The 20-year-old from the Kokama tribe tested positive for the virus in the district of Santo Antonio do Iá, near the border with Colombia, 880km (550 miles) up the Amazon river from the state capital Manaus, Sesai said in a statement on Wednesday.

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    Fears for civilians in Chad after army suffers devastating Boko Haram attack

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    Local communities flee as boundaries with Lake Chad become a war zone following ambush in which almost 100 soldiers died

    The Chadian army that lost nearly 100 soldiers to a Boko Haram ambush a week ago has declared the Lake Chad borderlands a war zone, heightening fears that civilians will suffer an escalation in violence.

    President Idriss Déby travelled to the region to announce the Wrath of Boma operation, named after the island where Boko Haram launched a seven-hour assault that Déby said was the worst the country’s military had ever suffered.

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    ‘No profit, no food’: lockdown in Kabul prompts hunger fears

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    Residents of Afghanistan’s capital face stark choice between providing food for their families and limiting risk of coronavirus

    The streets of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, were packed on Friday; a hectic bustling in the markets and shops, pious whispers ringing from prayer gatherings at the mosques, the skies full of kites that children were flying.

    But on Saturday the city of around six million people went into lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus in one of the poorest and most war-torn countries in the world.

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    ‘Really amazing’: scientists show that fish migrate through the deep oceans

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    Analysis of underwater photographs has demonstrated what marine biologists have long suspected – seasonal fish migrations

    New research has finally demonstrated what many marine biologists suspected but had never before seen: fish migrating through the deep sea.

    The study, published this month in the Journal of Animal Ecology, used analysis of deep-sea photographs to show a regular increase in the number of fish in particular months, suggesting seasonal migrations.

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    Afghanistan braces for coronavirus surge as migrants pour back from Iran

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    Returnees flood across the border after lockdown leads to loss of jobs, amid warnings that influx threatens health catastrophe

    More than 130,000 Afghans have fled the coronavirus outbreak convulsing Iran to return home to Afghanistan amid fears they are bringing new infections with them to the conflict-ridden and impoverished country.

    The huge spike in Afghans crossing the porous border from Iran, in one of the biggest cross-border movements of the pandemic, has led to mounting fears in the humanitarian community over the potential impact of new infections carried from Iran, one of the countries worst affected by the virus.

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    ‘A big wake-up call’: survey shows work still to be done on women’s sexual rights

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    Efforts to achieve gender equality by 2030 are being hampered by lack of progress on reproductive health issues, says UN body

    Almost half of women and girls living in more than 50 countries around the world are not able to make their own decisions about their reproductive rights, with up to a quarter saying they are unable to say no to sex, a new survey has found.

    The findings, published by the UN population fund (UNFPA) on Wednesday, have been described as a “big wake-up call” in global efforts to achieve gender equality by 2030.

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    Teargas, beatings and bleach: the most extreme Covid-19 lockdown controls around the world

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    Violence and humiliation used to police coronavirus curfews around globe, often affecting the poorest and more vulnerable

    As coronavirus lockdowns have been expanded globally, billions of people have found that they are now faced with unprecedented restrictions. Police across the world have been given licence to control behaviour in a way that would normally be extreme even for an authoritarian state.

    Related: ‘We can’t go back to normal’: how will coronavirus change the world?

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    Costa Rican president pledges to protect indigenous rights after activists murdered

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    Carlos Alvarado seeks solution that will end conflicts over land despite previous delays

    Costa Rica’s president has pledged to protect the rights of indigenous defenders following a spate of violence against native communities in his country.

    Last month, an activist, Yehry Rivera, from the Brörán indigenous community in Térraba, Puntarenas province, was shot and killed after he was attacked by an armed mob while trying to reclaim ancestral land. The murder happened just two weeks after an indigenous leader of the Bribri indigenous people in nearby Salitre was shot in a surge of unpunished violence against native communities in Costa Rica.

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    Sierra Leone lifts ban on pregnant girls going to school but shutdown expected

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    Decision hailed as ‘victory’ comes amid warnings that coronavirus could close schools and leave teenagers vulnerable in quarantine

    Sierra Leone has lifted an internationally criticised ban that prohibited pregnant schoolgirls from attending school and sitting exams, in a move heralded by activists as a “victory for feminism” in the west African nation.

    The decision, announced on Monday, follows a judgment last December by a top regional court that ordered the immediate overturn of the ban, which effectively barred tens of thousands of girls the right to finish their education. The Economic Community of West African States court instructed Sierra Leone to establish nationwide programmes to help pregnant girls return to school.

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    Planting hope: the Syrian refugee who developed virus-resistant super-seeds

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    Plant virologist Dr Safaa Kumari discovered seeds that could safeguard food security in the region – and risked her life to rescue them from Aleppo

    The call came as she sat in her hotel room. “They gave us 10 minutes to pack up and leave,” Dr Safaa Kumari was told down a crackling phone line. Armed fighters had just seized her house in Aleppo and her family were on the run.

    Kumari was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, preparing to present a conference. She immediately began organising a sprint back to Syria. Hidden in her sister’s house was a small but very valuable bundle that she was prepared to risk her life to recover.

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    The UK feigns ignorance, but five years on it’s still intimately involved in Yemen’s war

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    The British government refuses to track the use of its weapons in a conflict that has targeted civilians and healthcare facilities, and now a coronavirus outbreak looms

    The coronavirus pandemic has forced questions of life and death to the fore around the world. National health infrastructures risk being overwhelmed, food supply chains are struggling to keep up with stockpiling, and restrictions on movement are enforcing social distancing. Worries about loved ones and fears for the future combine with outbreaks of neighbourliness and solidarity.

    The questions about who is – or should be – responsible for mitigating the crisis and addressing its worst effects are being raised urgently. For many this is the new reality. But for those in conflict zones, such as Yemen, basic survival has long been the pressing preoccupation.

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    Coronavirus: Indian migrant workers sprayed with disinfectant amid mass exodus from cities – video

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    Video footage shows Indian health workers spraying disinfectant on a group of migrant workers, amid fears that a large scale movement of people from cities to the countryside risks spreading the coronavirus widely. The prime minister, Narendra Modi, has ordered the country's 1.3 billion people to remain indoors until 15 April, saying that was the only hope to stop the pandemic. 

    But the order has left millions of impoverished Indians jobless and hungry, prompting a mass exodus from cities to the countryside

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