Category Archives: Global development

Vietnam accused of teaching young people that being gay is a ‘disease’

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Government has ignored laws intended to prevent stigma, discrimination and bullying, Human Rights Watch claims

Young people in Vietnam continue to be taught at home and at school that same-sex attraction is a “disease” and a “mental illness” that can be cured and treated, despite legislation designed to support and protect LGBTQ+ rights.

Stigma and discrimination about sexual orientation and gender identity contribute to the verbal harassment and bullying of LGBTQ+ young people, which in some cases leads to physical violence, according to a report published on Thursday by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

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Healing hands: the Italian surgeon treating Libya torture camp survivors

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Prof Massimo Del Bene aids African migrants whose captors inflicted horrific injuries to extort ransom payments

The first patient was a young Ghanaian man who had been tortured every day for more than a year in Libya by traffickers trying to extort a ransom for his release, says Prof Massimo Del Bene, head of reconstructive surgery at the San Gerardo hospital in Monza, north of Milan.

Since then, the surgeon renowned for performing the first double hand transplant in Italy, has adapted his expertise to what he calls “torture surgery”, helping African migrants who have survived Libyan detention camps, where traffickers and criminal gangs are documented to have tortured captives to extort ransom money.

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African countries braced for ‘inevitable’ arrival of coronavirus

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Health centres step up preparations as World Health Organization raises fears about ability to cope with major outbreak

African health authorities are stepping up preparedness for coronavirus after the head of the World Health Organzation described the outbreak as a “very grave threat for the rest of the world”.

The number of African countries that can test for the virus tripled to 15 this week, with more expected to have testing labs up and running in the coming days. The head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said health centres were on “high alert” for new cases.

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The cheating wife, her rich lover and a court case for ‘immoral’ Pakistan TV hit Meray Paas Tum Ho

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Creators of Meray Paas Tum Ho could be facing legal suit amid accusations the hugely popular show was ‘misogynistic’

A court in Pakistan has summoned the creators of a wildly popular television series after a petition was filed demanding they apologise for portraying Pakistani women as “greedy, selfish and non-professional”.

In the petition filed at the Sindh high court last month, lawyer Sana Saleem said the television series Meray Paas Tum Ho (I Have You) was “ridiculing a woman who makes the same decision as every other man in society”.

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‘It’s a pain you will never overcome’: crisis in Venezuela as babies die of malnutrition

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As Venezuela enters its seventh year of a crushing depression, doctors are seeing a rise in infant mortality rates due to deprivation

Her coffin was little larger than a shoe box. Her life had lasted three short months.

“She was a calm little thing,” the girl’s grandmother, Yamilet Zerpa, remembered as mourners filed into her sitting room to say their last goodbyes.

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A humanitarian crisis looms in Africa unless we act fast to stop the desert locust

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The destructive migratory pest threatens catastrophe as it swarms through countries already plagued by food insecurity

A colleague at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) tells a terrifying story about the desert locust.

In 2005 she visited farmers in Niger as they prepared to harvest their crops. Just hours later, a swarm of locusts swept through the area and destroyed everything. One month later, truckloads of families were forced to leave their homes because they had nothing to eat.

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Deaths of 16 Rohingya at sea raises fears trafficking ring has been revived

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Smugglers responsible for mass atrocities in Thailand may be linked to capsized boat carrying refugees from Bangladesh to Malaysia

Activists fear a dangerous transnational trafficking network is being revived after at least 16 Rohingya refugees drowned in the Bay of Bengal on Tuesday morning.

Bangladeshi officials said a wooden fishing boat carrying about 138 people capsized near Bangladesh’s St Martin’s island in the early hours.

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Trump puts Cuban doctors in firing line as heat turned up on island economy

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After US allies expel foreign health missions, Havana warns that patients will pay the highest price for campaign against its scheme

A Cuban medical programme that has helped some of the world’s poorest communities has become the latest target of the Trump administration’s escalating attempts to pressure Havana’s faltering economy.

Dubbed “Cuban doctors”, the celebrated – if controversial – humanitarian medical mission was founded more than half a century ago in the aftermath of Fidel Castro’s revolution, in part to enhance the country’s international influence.

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UN calls for urgent evacuation of Lesbos refugee camp

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Doctor warns of pandemic risk due to lack of healthcare in Greek camp

The UN refugee agency has called for the urgent evacuation of families and sick people from the Moria camp on Lesbos. Over the weekend boats continued to arrive on the Agean islands, sending more families into “alarming” and overcrowded conditions in the refugee camps.

The Moria camp in Lesbos has grown from a population of 5,000 last July to around 20,000, with new families arriving daily. Even the most vulnerable new arrivals can no longer find space in the official area, but have to build makeshift shelters in a rubbish-filled olive grove around the camp.

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Militia strike gold to cast a shadow over Sudan’s hopes of prosperity

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Supported by wealthy foreign backers, a feared paramilitary outfit controls Sudan’s most lucrative industry, complicating the country’s path to democracy

Ornate, heavy necklaces gleam on stands above stacks of thick filigree bangles in the windows of Khartoum’s gold market. The gold is Sudanese, dug from the rich mines that span the country.

Shop owner Bashir Abdulay hands over a palm-sized lump of pure gold with two small bore holes as he explains how the prized metal goes from mine deposit, through middlemen, to Khartoum.

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More than half of women in Zimbabwe have faced sextortion, finds survey

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Widespread corruption and deteriorating economy have contributed to rise in sexual bribery, say researchers

Zimbabwe has recorded an unprecedented number of women reporting being forced to exchange sex for employment or business favours.

More than 57% of women surveyed by Transparency International Zimbabwe (TIZ) said they had been forced to offer sexual favours in exchange for jobs, medical care and even when seeking placements at schools for their children.

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102 migrants try to cross Channel as Storm Ciara approaches

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Dangerous conditions fail to deter record number of people from attempting to enter UK

The approach of Storm Ciara has not deterred 102 people from trying to cross the Channel on Friday.

Five inflatable boats carrying migrants who said they were from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Syria were picked up by Border Force, the Home Office said.

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Armed ecoguards funded by WWF ‘beat up Congo tribespeople’

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Exclusive: Inquiry into $21.4m conservation project reports ‘credible’ evidence of abuse

Armed ecoguards partly funded by the conservation group WWF to protect wildlife in the Republic of the Congo beat up and intimidated hundreds of Baka pygmies living deep in the rainforests, an investigation into a landmark global conservation project has heard.

A team of investigators sent to northern Congo by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) to assess allegations of human rights abuses gathered “credible” evidence from different sources that hunter-gatherer Baka tribespeople living close to a proposed national park had been subjected to violence and physical abuse from the guards over years, according to a leaked draft of the report.

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The foxes, the young refugees and me: a unique bond – in pictures

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A nature photographer captured an unlikely friendship between children living in a disused army barracks in Berlin and local wildlife

  • All photographs by Jon A Juárez

It all started when I began working as a sports educator for refugee children living in the old military barracks in Spandau, Berlin. It was just a job in the beginning, but it slowly turned into much more. It changed my life.

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Drought and hunger: why thousands of Guatemalans are fleeing north

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The threat of famine and the battle for dwindling natural resources are increasingly being recognised as major factors in the exodus

Martina García grinds just enough maize kernels to make a handful of tortillas which she serves to her children and grandson for breakfast with a sprinkling of salt.

García, 40, must ration the family’s last few sacks of tiny corncobs after drought and prolonged heatwaves linked to the climate emergency devastated crops across Guatemala.

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Tunisia to ban plastic bags in supermarkets and chemists

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Gradual phaseout will begin in March as part of government plan to outlaw all single-use bags by 2021

Tunisia has announced plans to stop its supermarkets and pharmacies from using single-use plastic bags from next month before phasing them out completely in 2021.

Plastic pollution has been a growing problem in the north African country in recent years, along with the challenges presented by its ancient industrial plants and barely managed household waste.

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Concerns coronavirus is going undetected in Indonesia

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World’s fourth most populous country says it has no confirmed cases despite close links to China

There is growing concern that the new coronavirus may be going undetected in Indonesia, where officials have not confirmed a single case of infection among the 272 million-strong population despite the country’s close links to China.

As of Thursday, Indonesia said it had no confirmed cases of the coronavirus and that 238 people evacuated from Wuhan, the centre of the outbreak, had not shown symptoms, although it said they hadn’t been tested.

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We will end female genital mutilation only by backing frontline activists

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From the Gambia to Kenya, FGM has been fought most successfully at grassroots level. The world must pay heed

I underwent female genital mutilation at the age of seven, while on holiday in Djibouti. When I returned to school in the UK my teacher told me that this happened to “girls like me”.

Thankfully, this type of reaction is no longer common, and this country is much better equipped to protect girls at risk. FGM is now seen as a global issue, which we know has affected more than 200 million women and girls around the world.

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‘Hidden’ coronavirus cases could thwart containment efforts, experts warn

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Failure to report mild symptoms combined with highly contagious nature of disease raises fears existing figures are ‘tip of the iceberg’

Global health experts have warned that “hidden” infections make containment of the coronavirus unlikely and raised fears that the rapidly rising caseload of 25,000 people could be the “tip of the iceberg”.

“Hidden” cases – where people with mild symptoms do not seek medical help and so remain untested and unrecorded – combined with the highly contagious nature of the disease mean there could be “vastly more cases” than previously thought, according to Tom Frieden, a former director at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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