Category Archives: Global development

From Qatar to Vietnam, global heating is making the workplace deadly for millions

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Regular exposure to dangerously high temperatures poses a grave and growing threat to workers around the world

By now, many of us recognise that we are confronting a climate emergency on a vast scale, and that rising temperatures will threaten the lives of millions across the planet. Severe heat waves have already killed many thousands of people over the past decade, but what is less recognised is that rising temperatures are also, slowly but surely, bringing more dangerous heat stress into our daily lives.

Millions of people work outside or in uncooled indoor environments every day. People working in construction, agriculture, fishing, forestry or the military often work intensively in direct sun for extended periods of time. Millions of workers in indoor factories, warehouses and workshops are also exposed to excessive workplace heat. A study of a garment factory in Cambodia predominantly employing young women showed indoor temperatures as high as 37C.

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Dead at 24: did heat kill Doha World Cup worker Rupchandra Rumba? | Pete Pattisson

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The Nepali’s sudden death was attributed to ‘natural causes’ – but like hundreds of other young migrants who die in Qatar each year he worked in extreme temperatures

Revealed: hundreds of migrant workers dying of heat stress in Qatar each year

It is a grim place to die: a bunk bed in a filthy, crowded room, deep within Qatar’s largest labour camp, thousands of miles from home.

As Rupchandra Rumba lay there in the early hours of 23 June, his friends heard him struggle for breath.

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Revealed: hundreds of migrant workers dying of heat stress in Qatar each year

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As construction boom hits its peak ahead of Fifa World Cup, Guardian analysis shows workers toiling in potentially fatal temperatures

Dead at 24: did heat kill Doha World Cup worker Rupchandra Rumba?

Migrant labourers are being worked to death in searing temperatures in Qatar, with hundreds estimated to be dying from heat stress every year, a Guardian investigation can reveal.

This summer, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers toiled in temperatures of up to 45C for up to 10 hours a day as Qatar’s construction boom hit its peak ahead of the Fifa World Cup 2022.

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‘Based in hatred’: violence against women standing in Colombia’s elections

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Killing of Karina García reflects targeting of female contenders, amid mounting security concerns

The body of mayoral candidate Karina García was found shot and incinerated in her car in the Cauca department of southern Colombia, on 1 September.

For weeks, García had reported receiving threats and asked the government for increased protection during campaigning for the local and departmental elections at the end of the month.

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Geena Davis: ‘damaging stereotypes’ on screen limit women’s aspirations

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Actor speaks out as film industry study on characters in leadership roles finds women four times more likely than men to be shown naked

The promises of positive change for women on screen that followed her role in the groundbreaking film Thelma and Louise have failed to materialise, leaving girls today with few role models, according to the actor Geena Davis.

The media continue to have a huge influence on how the world views women and girls, and how they view themselves, she said. But few current roles show women in powerful positions, and continue to reinforce damaging gender stereotypes.

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‘He took huge risks to get to the truth’: rights activist Patrick Naagbanton dies

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Tributes paid to the inspirational Nigerian campaigner and writer, who was hit by a car outside his home in Port Harcourt

A leading activist, journalist and writer who fought for the environmental rights of Nigerians in one of the most polluted places on earth has died after being hit by a car.

Friends and colleagues of Patrick Naagbanton described him as highly respected in the Niger Delta, Africa’s most important oil-producing region. They said his death, and the absence of his work holding the government, companies and individuals with interests in the region to account, would leave an enormous hole.

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Narendra Modi to face down critics by hailing Clean India scheme a success

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Prime minister’s announcement of an end to open defecation in India marred by claims of coercion and violence

Narendra Modi is to declare that his flagship sanitation programme has ended open defecation in India, amid accusations that the scheme has sparked violence and abuse.

India’s prime minister will make the announcement on Wednesday at an event in his home state of Gujarat, attended by 20,000 village chiefs and international dignitaries, according to the government.

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Nigeria warned it risks humanitarian disaster by expelling charities

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Aid agencies strongly deny Nigeria’s claims they are diverting funds to Boko Haram

Nigeria has been warned it risks a humanitarian disaster if the government goes ahead with its threat to throw aid agencies out of the north-east of the country, claiming they are in league with extremist Islamic groups.

A spate of aid offices have been forcibly shut after unproven claims they have been acting as conduits for cash that has ended up with Boko Haram, or Islamic State West Africa Province (Iswap).

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Inch by inch: how Angola is clearing its killing fields

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As Prince Harry visits the country to build on the anti-landmine work begun by his mother, Princess Diana, the Observer joins a group of women while they clear one village of explosives

From Benguela, a city on the west coast of Angola, it takes four hours to reach the village of Cabio by car, first on potholed highways and then on unmarked sandy tracks that take you deep into the bush. It is a remote place, and a poor one. Its 82 inhabitants live in tiny houses built of mud bricks and corrugated iron. Its open-air church is little more than an arrangement of sticks. Its school is a blackboard tacked to a tree.

For the newcomer, however, Cabio has a surprise up its sleeve. Though barely reachable by road, the village is a stop on the Benguela Railway, which runs from the port of Lobito in the west all the way to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the east. The railway, which fell into disrepair during Angola’s brutal civil war, was reconstructed between 2006 and 2014 by the Chinese, and with it Cabio’s station. Flamingo pink, in the Portuguese style, it could not look more incongruous if it tried.

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Nepal’s family planning clinics feel the force of Trump’s global gag rule

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Brutal cuts to US-funded reproductive health services threaten to throw progress in the south Asian country into sharp reverse

Devendra Amgai lost his job in November. The 42-year-old public health professional was working in one of Nepal’s more remote districts, distributing contraceptives to women.

The project was proving successful. With little alternative access to medicines or healthcare, local women were seeking out the clinic in ever-increasing numbers.

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UK development bank launches inquiry after murder of Congolese activist

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Independent investigators to explore alleged involvement of security guard for palm oil company supported by CDC

An independent investigation has been launched following the alleged murder of a Congolese activist by a security guard in the employ of a palm oil company part-funded by the UK development bank.

CDC, which is wholly owned by the Department for International Development, appointed independent investigators to examine the circumstances surrounding the death of Joël Imbangola Lunea, a 44-year-old father of eight, in Bempumba on 21 July.

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The Palestinian entrepreneur bringing power to Gaza

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Energy blackouts had been a feature of daily life for almost as long as Majd Mashharawi could remember. Then a visit to Japan changed everything

When Palestinian entrepreneur Majd Mashharawi left Gaza for the first time in 2017, she counted herself lucky to be among a small minority able to get away from a place described by its residents as the world’s largest open-air prison.

But during her visit to Japan, what most caught her eye were the lights in the streets. The Palestinian enclave she comes from is notorious for its power cuts. Mashharawi, 25, decided to do something about the problem on her return to Gaza.

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We’ve got a deadline to save people and planet – let’s start the charge

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The sustainable development goals, which promise to end extreme poverty and inequality by 2030, are alarmingly off track. It’s not too late to act

We might seem a strange group to be writing this together – a British film-maker, a Libyan doctor and women’s rights activist, and an indigenous leader from Chad – but what we have in common is that we are all appointed by the UN secretary general as advocates for the sustainable development goals.

Some won’t have heard of these global goals – 17 objectives to which every nation signed up in 2015 – but they form the basis of a masterplan to make us the first generation to end extreme poverty, the last to be threatened by climate change, and the most determined to end injustice and inequality.

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Leonardo DiCaprio urged to end support for Indian river project

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Charities warn actor that Cauvery tree-planting scheme could harm endangered waterway and its environs

Leonardo DiCaprio has been urged to withdraw support for a controversial tree-planting programme in India, which could result in catastrophic environmental damage.

An open letter, signed by more than 90 Indian environmental and rights groups, warned that the Hollywood actor and activist’s endorsement of the Cauvery Calling campaign was ill-advised. The signatories said the campaign could lead to the “drying up of streams and rivulets, and destruction of wildlife habitats”.

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Greta Thunberg wins ‘alternative Nobel’ for environmental work

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Chinese women’s rights advocate Guo Jianmei also among quartet of ‘practical visionaries’ recognised in Right Livelihood awards

Days after her powerful speech to the UN climate action summit reverberated around the world, Greta Thunberg has been named among four winners of an international award dubbed the “alternative Nobels”.

The Swedish activist, whose emotional address accusing world leaders of betraying her generation went viral this week, was recognised by the judges of Sweden’s annual Rights Livelihood awards for “inspiring and amplifying political demands for urgent climate action reflecting scientific facts”.

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Turning the tables: global poverty conference to be held in a slum

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Inaugural World Poverty Forum – dubbed ‘Davos with the poor’ – to take place in Kenya’s Kibera to ensure voices of poorest are heard

A global conference on poverty is to take place in Africa’s largest slum in an effort to make sure the poorest get a voice.

The inaugural World Poverty Forum will be announced on Wednesday in New York at the Decade of Action event taking place during UN general assembly week. It is already being dubbed as “Davos with the poor”.

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MPs criticise ‘dramatic increase’ in aid spending over lack of transparency

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Questions over rise in funds to ministries outside Department for International Development, with little clarity on value for money

MPs have criticised a “dramatic increase” in aid spending in ministries outside the Department for International Development, because they have not put in place adequate measures to assess value for money.

A report, by the House of Commons public accounts committee, questioned the doubling of the Newton Fund, managed by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to £735m, despite the department’s “weak understanding” of how funds were spent, where and with what results.

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UK promises extra £600m for family planning in poorest countries

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Majority of funding will go to UN population fund, which works across countries with highest maternal death rates

The UK government has pledged to spend an extra £600m to support family planning programmes in some of the world’s poorest countries.

Most of the money, which will be rolled out between 2020 and 2025, will be given to the UN population fund (UNFPA), which works in 150 countries, including the 46 with the highest rates of maternal deaths and lowest rates of modern contraceptive use.

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