Around the world people took to the streets in pro-democracy protests, while extreme weather, disease and violence wreaked havoc in some of the most vulnerable communities. But amid disaster, new grassroots leaders came to the fore, women fought to claim their rights and radical treatments for diseases were trialled
Continue reading...Category Archives: Global development
How do you sign chicken and chips? Pakistan’s cafe run by and for the deaf
Menus in sign language and jobs for the hearing impaired are challenging discrimination against those with disabilities
It’s not just the bright yellow walls that make the Abey Khao cafe in Islamabad’s Mughal Market stand out. The menu is in sign language, as is the English alphabet painted on the walls, along with the signs for “yes”, “no”, and “thank you”. Customers are encouraged to place their orders using sign language.
The Abey Khao - which means “Hey Eat” – cafe is the believed to the only fast food cafe in Pakistan set up and run by deaf people.
Continue reading...Fraud fighters and bamboo bikes: the African innovators driving change
Software for fighting cybercrime in Ghana and tools for speeding up cervical cancer diagnosis in Uganda are among innovations recognised by the judges of this year’s Africa prize
The Royal Academy of Engineering’s Africa prize, now in its sixth year, is the continent’s biggest award for engineering innovation. Sixteen African inventors from six countries – including, for the first time, Malawi – have been shortlisted to receive funding, training and mentoring for projects intended to revolutionise sectors ranging from agriculture and banking to women’s health. The winner will be awarded £25,000 and the three runners-up will receive £10,000 each.
This year’s inventions include facial recognition software to prevent financial fraud, a low-cost digital microscope to speed up cervical cancer diagnosis, and two separate innovations made from water hyacinth plants. Four inventors spoke to the Guardian about their innovations and their plans to change Africa for the better.
Continue reading...‘Everybody is talking about it’: women’s rights to take centre stage in 2020
Campaigners hail year of key global gatherings and events as vital opportunity to secure ‘bold, accountable commitments and action’
World leaders, civil society and the private sector are preparing to make 2020 the biggest year yet for the advancement of women’s rights.
Over the course of the year, thousands of people are expected to attend high-level UN events and forums in Mexico City and Paris to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing platform for action, a landmark agreement to end gender inequality.
Continue reading...Coke, crisps, convenience: how ads created a global junk food generation
From Bangladesh to Britain, blanket exposure to promotional material for unhealthy foods is encouraging children to eat badly, new research claims
Nepalese schoolgirl Prasiddhika Shrestha is holding up a video camera at her aunt’s house, filming her cousins as they devour crisps, corn puffs, soda and dalmoth, a traditional lentil-based snack.
“What is it that you like eating most?” she asks them. “Lay’s chips and Coke,” says Diwani, who drinks between one and two litres of soft drink every day. Rihana includes a pack of Kurkure corn puffs in her daily diet.
Continue reading...‘We never chose this’: refugees use art to imagine a better world – in pictures
London will be the setting for a January exhibition and auction of art by people living in Moria camp, on the Greek island of Lesbos. The proceeds will go to the Hope Project, an initiative that promotes greater dignity for refugees and aims to transform the way they are seen
• Nine paintings will be exhibited in St James’s Church, Piccadilly, from 6 to 17 January 2020, while a charity auction will take place at Christie’s on 13 January
Continue reading...Single woman sues Chinese hospital for refusal to freeze eggs
Teresa Xu says doctor told her to hurry up and get married before having children
At the end of last year, Teresa Xu visited a hospital in Beijing to discuss options for freezing her eggs. The doctor said she could not help Xu, a single woman, because it went against regulations. Then she gave the 31-year-old some sisterly advice: hurry up, get married and have children now.
Xu was shocked and disappointed. “I had no way to express my anger,” she said. She felt like she was being treated like a wayward child. “Like I was an intruder, delaying other couples … like my demands were too much. I felt powerless and depressed.”
Continue reading...‘I want to tell of our suffering’: comms crackdown puts Rohingya on mute
The Bangladeshi government is making life hard for young people trying to document levels of hardship in the world’s largest refugee settlement
For Azimul Hassan, 19, life before he entered the world’s largest refugee settlement was always busy.
He would wake early to visit his private tutor before school, then work late every evening to finish his homework. On Fridays, he would play football with friends – he was a striker.
Continue reading...‘We were so close’: how unrest in Congo thwarted the battle against Ebola
World Health Organization rues spike in violence that impeded efforts of health workers when outbreak was almost under control
The men who came to the village of Ntombi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in mid-December aimed to spare no one.
Militants with the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), one of dozens of armed groups operating in DRC’s North Kivu, they hacked to death women and children, killing 22 people in a single incident in one of a series of attacks over the course of a weekend that left 43 dead in total.
Continue reading...The underpaid Georgian workers who risk their lives for your Christmas tree
In Georgia’s northern mountains, workers scale daunting heights in search of the pine cones seeds that produce Europe’s favourite Christmas tree. But while foreign importers line their pockets, the climbers hazard all for a pittance
It takes Ramaz Chelishvili just a few seconds to reach the top. Soon, a pine cone falls to the ground. Then another. One by one, cones keep dropping, until none are left in the tree. Chelishvili, as fast as he climbed up, gets back down.
“I try to not think of anything up there, just focus. The problem is, if you lose concentration, then you might fall,” he says.
Continue reading...‘Blood on the ground’ at Croatia’s borders as brutal policing persists
While heavy snow makes life unbearable for migrants, a dangerous nightly ‘game’ has led to alleged assault and injury
Photography by Alessio Mamo
In a room in the intensive therapy unit of a hospital in the port city of Rijeka, Croatia, Farouk fights for his life.
The 18-year-old Afghan has life-threatening injuries to his thorax and abdomen. On 16 November, in the woods around Tuhobić, a Croatian police officer shot Farouk – who, with dozens of other migrants, was attempting to cross the border with Slovenia.
Continue reading...Hope and heartbreak, three years after the fall of Aleppo
When the Observer spoke to people in the besieged city three years ago, they told of their daily struggle. Now they tell their stories of exile
In December 2016, in the eastern half of Aleppo, a brutal siege was drawing to a bloody end. The last bombs were falling on its shattered streets, snipers were picking off their last victims. Besieged civilians, if they still had food, prepared their final meagre meals inside a city they had clung to for four painful years.
Continue reading...Downward spiral of war, crisis and need to worsen in 2020, fears top UN official
UN relief chief fears women, girls and disabled people will bear brunt of continued conflict, climate and economic deprivation
The UN’s relief coordinator, Mark Lowcock, believes next year could be worse than a “terrible” 2019, when conflict, the climate emergency and economic desperation left 165 million people in need of aid.
Extreme storms, drought and other disasters driven by the climate crisis hit the world’s poorest “first and worst”, Lowcock told the Guardian, with women, girls and those with disabilities the most badly affected.
Continue reading...Ferrero Rocher chocolates may be tainted by child labour
Ferrero says it has ‘zero tolerance’ for human rights abuses amid claims hazelnut pickers as young as 11 may be part of supply chain
The hazelnuts inside millions of Ferrero Rocher chocolates sold across Europe this Christmas may have been picked by children working in farms in Turkey, according to human rights campaigners.
Ferrero, the world’s third largest chocolate company, is struggling to address concerns that multiple farms where it sources hazelnuts for its chocolate products may use child labour.
Continue reading...Seafarer abandoned for three years off UAE will be home in time for Christmas
After 39 months of waiting for his wages Vikash Mishra will finally be able to return home to his family in Mumbai
For the past three years, Vikash Mishra, a merchant seaman from Mumbai, has been stranded on a rusting cargo ship at sea in the United Arab Emirates, thousands of miles from his young family, after being abandoned by the vessel’s owner.
His 39-month ordeal, which he describes as “mental torture”, was covered by the Guardian in July, when conditions in the busy shipping lane became so dangerous after the vessel developed engine failure that he and three crew members feared for their lives.
Continue reading...‘They travel hours to see a doctor for a minute’: India’s mental health crisis
With fewer than two psychiatrists for every 100,000 people, experts are seeking innovative solutions to address the emergency
On a sunny morning at Calcutta Pavlov Hospital, 600 people wait patiently in the outpatient department. For many, the journey to see a doctor started hours before sunrise, with some even travelling overnight to secure their place in line. Despite waiting for hours, most will spend just 90 seconds with the psychiatrist.
One of the doctors on call, Dr Debananda Saha, expects to treat about 250 patients during his seven-hour shift at the government hospital.
Continue reading...Aid groups warn Boris Johnson against combining DfID with Foreign Office
Charities caution that ‘UK aid risks becoming a vehicle for UK foreign policy’ if post-Brexit merger comes to fruition
A coalition of aid groups including the British Red Cross, Cafod and Oxfam GB has warned Boris Johnson that to abolish the Department for International Development would suggest Britain is “turning our backs on the world’s poorest people”.
One climate diplomacy expert said it would be “political suicide” to merge DfID with the Foreign Office in 2020, the same year the UK is hosting the UN climate summit, since the move would tie up senior civil servants when they were most needed to tackle the response to the climate crisis.
Continue reading...How the race for cobalt risks turning it from miracle metal to deadly chemical
As a case in the US alleges links between tech companies and child miners in Congo, the Guardian’s global environment editor assesses the dangers of element in high demand for batteries
If the prophets of technology are to be believed, the best hope for solving the climate crisis is ever more efficient batteries. But the race to produce enough materials for this energy-storage revolution is creating a host of other environmental problems, as cobalt-producing nations like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia and Cuba are discovering.
Lung disease and heart failure have been linked to high levels of this element, while the mines that produce it are blamed for devastated landscapes, water pollution, contaminated crops and a loss of soil fertility. Scientists are also investigating a possible link to cancer.
As with any chemical, the risks depend on the amount and duration of exposure. Cobalt is a metal that occurs naturally in rocks, water, plants, and animals. It is less toxic than many other metals. At low levels, it is beneficial to human health and is a component of vitamin B12.
Related: Apple and Google named in US lawsuit over Congolese child cobalt mining deaths
Continue reading...‘We might be next’: families flee as Burkina Faso tips into chaos
Schools targeted by extremist groups as half a million people are driven from their homes by violence and the climate crisis
Roukiata Sow looks tired. The mother of five has welcomed 26 people under the roof of her small brick house. “What will those kids become? Some haven’t been to school for more than two years … Are they all going to be bandits?” she asks.
She is sitting, her head draped in a long grey veil, with other women and girls in a small courtyard in front of her home in Dori, the capital of the Sahel region of northern Burkina Faso.
Continue reading...Every McDonald’s in Peru closes amid protests at death of two workers
Chain to close all its restaurants for two days of mourning after deaths lead to protests over workplace safety
The death by electrocution of two young employees at a McDonald’s restaurant in Lima has spurred protests and stoked anger over working conditions in the wider economy, which are viewed as exploitative and sometimes dangerous.
Peru’s public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the deaths of Alexandra Porras, 19, and her former boyfriend Gabriel Campos, 18, who were reported to have died in the early hours of Sunday while cleaning the kitchen at the fast-food outlet.
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