Determined to prevent security forces from entering their community, people in the suburb of Anchar, in the disputed region of Kashmir, stand united in their desire to achieve freedom from India. Defying teargas and pellets, they are the last remaining pocket of resistance in the country's only Muslim-majority state
Category Archives: Global development
Clashes erupt after Ecuador fails to decriminalize abortion for rape victims
Pro-choice activists say decision is a death sentence, after illegal abortions resulted in 15.6% of maternal deaths in 2014
Clashes have erupted between pro-choice demonstrators and police outside Ecuador’s national assembly after lawmakers rejected a bill which would decriminalize abortion in cases of rape.
Abortion is illegal in Ecuador except in cases where the life of the mother is in danger, or if the pregnancy is the result of the rape of a woman with mental disabilities.
Continue reading...Experts warn world ‘grossly unprepared’ for future pandemics
Dire risk is compounded by climate crisis, urbanisation and lack of sanitation, says global monitoring board
It sounds like an improbable fiction: a virulent flu pandemic, source unknown, spreads across the world in 36 hours, killing up to 80 million people, sparking panic, destabilising national security and slicing chunks off the world’s economy.
But a group of prominent international experts has issued a stark warning: such a scenario is entirely plausible and efforts by governments to prepare for it are “grossly insufficient”.
Continue reading...Rise in children forced to join militias raises fresh fears over South Sudan
Growing number of young fighters combined with sexual violence and ethnic tensions threatens return to civil war, UN warns
UN investigators have warned that despite the fragile peace in South Sudan, the recruitment of children into the army and militias is on the increase as each side seeks to bolster infantry numbers.
The investigators also warned that sexual violence against women and localised ethnic violence are increasing tensions that could return the country to civil war.
Continue reading...US attack on WHO ‘hindering morphine drive in poor countries’
Claims have hurt efforts to help people around world in acute pain, say palliative care experts
An attack on the World Health Organization (WHO) by US politicians accusing it of being corrupted by drug companies is making it even more difficult to get morphine to millions of people dying in acute pain in poor countries, say experts in the field.
Representatives of the hospice and palliative care community said they were stunned by the Congress members’ report, which they said made false accusations and would affect people suffering in countries where almost no opioids were available.
Continue reading...Fighting climate crisis by avoiding meat ignores poor countries’ needs – report
Study recommends move away from ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to reducing carbon footprint
A “one-size-fits-all” solution to addressing the climate crisis through our diets could be unhelpful, as how we eat affects the environment in different ways depending on where we live and how our food is sourced, according to a new report.
Although reducing the consumption of meat and animal-based products globally could lower greenhouse gas emissions, it could also have adverse impacts on people’s health and nutrition in some countries, according to a report published online in the Global Environmental Change journal on Monday.
Continue reading...Honey project brings sweet success for families in Zambia
Beehives built out of scrap wood in the country’s virgin forests have reaped rewards for 10,000 local families
A former hedge fund manager has become one of Africa’s most prolific single-source honey producers through a social enterprise that impacts thousands of families.
The Zambia-based organisation, Mama Buci – meaning “Mother Honey” in Bemba, the local language – was started 10 years ago by former trader Martin Zuch and has since grown to provide more than 10,000 families with income.
Continue reading...Former minister arrested over alleged mismanagement of Congo Ebola funds
Oly Ilunga detained in connection with $4.3m allocated for fighting the deadly virus
The former health minister for the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been arrested over the alleged mismanagement of $4.3m (£3.4m) dedicated to the Ebola response.
Oly Ilunga, who resigned as health minister in July having been removed from leading the Ebola response by President Félix Tshisekedi, has denied any wrongdoing.
Continue reading...Africa should not be too quick to embrace the fourth industrial revolution
As a new age of technology dawns, cyber attacks in South Africa and beyond underline the need for caution
It has been hailed as a transformative moment, one that will bring algorithmic precision to the decisions we make and automate virtually every aspect of our lives, from switching on the lights to predicting what food we want to eat.
But amid all the hype surrounding the fourth industrial revolution and its disruptive digital technologies, there is confusion – and potential danger. While tech is being rolled out at an exponential rate, infrastructural support and safeguards seem to be lagging behind, leaving the global south particularly exposed.
Continue reading...Global renewable energy initiative aims to bring a billion people in from the dark
Worldwide commission aims to end energy poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia by driving investment in new technology
Electricity could be delivered to more than a billion people currently living without it within a decade by linking up small-scale projects into a giant, environmentally-friendly network.
According to a new global commission, advances in micro energy grids and renewable energy technologies could “dramatically accelerate change” and transform lives in rural areas of sub-Saharan African and south Asia.
Continue reading...Kenyan schoolgirl, 14, kills herself after alleged period shaming by teacher
Teenager who had her first period during school lesson was reportedly branded ‘dirty’ and expelled from classroom
A 14-year-old schoolgirl in Kenya took her own life after a teacher allegedly embarrassed her for having her period in class.
The girl’s death has prompted protests from female parliamentarians and reignited a national conversation about “period shaming” and access to menstrual products.
Continue reading...Indonesia takes steps to improve protection of mental health patients
National agencies granted greater power to enforce existing laws banning practices such as shackling
Indonesia is stepping up efforts to protect people with mental health conditions by affording national agencies new powers to monitor and close down institutions found to be abusing patients.
The country’s human rights commission and its witness and victim protection unit are among the agencies empowered to monitor facilities to check they don’t contravene a 1977 government ban on “pasung” – shackling or detaining patients in confined spaces.
Continue reading...Tanzanian journalist could face up to five years in jail without trial
Charges against Erick Kabendera preclude bail, say lawyers, as national media council claims case has been ‘politically handled’
A Tanzanian journalist charged with money laundering and leading organised crime could face up to five years in jail without trial because bail is not guaranteed in cases involving alleged economic crimes, his legal team has warned.
Erick Kabendera’s lawyers and family also criticised Tanzanian immigration authorities for refusing to return his wife and children’s passports, even though allegations over his citizenship have been dropped.
Continue reading...Hundreds of children die in Philippine dengue epidemic as local action urged
Health ministry calls for greater efforts to deal with mosquito-borne disease at village level as death toll reaches four figures
The Philippine health ministry has urged local officials to ramp up efforts to combat dengue fever after the death toll from the epidemic reached 1,021.
The young have born the brunt of the outbreak, with children under the age of 10 accounting for more than a third of the deaths recorded in the eight months up to August, when a national epidemic of the mosquito-borne disease was declared.
Continue reading...History shows it will take more than technology and money to beat malaria
Hopes of eradicating the disease by 2050 will fail unless we tackle the poverty and weak governance that allow it to thrive
The Lancet Commission on malaria eradication received widespread attention this week with its claim that the disease could be eradicated by 2050. This would be a very welcome achievement, as malaria currently kills about 435,000 people – predominantly children – each year.
The report argues that the key to eradicating malaria is the application of existing and new technology, coupled with £1.6bn extra annual funding. Unfortunately, this solution is unlikely to be successful because it fails to address the underlying causes of malaria: grinding poverty and state incapacity.
Continue reading...Nigeria detained children as young as five over ‘Boko Haram links’ – report
Human Rights Watch says thousands of children were detained in distressing conditions by military over last six years
The Nigerian military arrested thousands of children it suspected of involvement with Boko Haram, holding them in squalid conditions for years in some cases, according to a new report.
Some of the children detained were as young as five, and others described being crammed into overwhelmingly hot, crowded cells in a notorious military facility in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri called Giwa barracks, said a report released by Human Rights Watch.
Continue reading...Leak suggests UN agency self-censors on climate crisis after US pressure
International Organization for Migration apparently amends programme documentation to avoid conflict with US ‘political sensitivities’
Leaked communications suggest that the UN’s migration agency is censoring itself on the climate crisis and the global compact on migration, following pressure from the US government.
An email sent by a US-based official of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on 28 August to colleagues around the world relayed that the US state department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) told the agency documents related to programme activities it funds “must not be in conflict with current [US government] political sensitivities”.
Continue reading...‘Life-saving’: hundreds of refugees to be evacuated from Libya to Rwanda
First group expected to leave dire detention centres in days, as UN denies reports that plan is part of EU strategy to keep refugees from Europe
Hundreds of African refugees and asylum seekers trapped in Libyan detention centres will be evacuated to Rwanda under a “life-saving” agreement reached with Kigali and the African Union, the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday.
The first group of 500 people, including children and young people from Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan, are expected to arrive in Rwanda over the coming days, out of 4,700 now estimated to be in custody in Libya, where conflict is raging. The measure is part of an “emergency transit mechanism”, to evacuate people at risk of harm in detention centres inside the county.
Continue reading...#MeToo Bangladesh: the textile workers uniting against harassment
Women routinely face sexual assault and exploitation in factories, many of which supply western brands. A grassroots movement is helping victims to seek justice
Dolly Akhtar was only 16 when she started work in a garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, stitching clothing destined for shop floors in western countries thousands of miles away. She accepted the long hours and low pay, but what she wasn’t expecting was the sexual advances of her older, married line manager.
“When the line manager at the very first factory I worked at tried to get me to sleep with him, I was terrified,” she says. She left her job and found another but encountered similar problems there. “At the other factory, the management would curse and hit us. The men leered at us,” she says.
Continue reading...The psychiatrist helping mentally ill people left to wander India’s streets | Anne Pinto-Rodrigues
Dr Vatwani has spent three decades reuniting patients with mental health problems with their families
To the horror of the watching doctors, a young man on a Mumbai street picked up a broken coconut shell, scooped up dirty gutter water with it, and drank.
“I still recall the scene vividly,” says 61-year-old Mumbai psychiatrist Dr Bharat Vatwani. “My wife, Smitha – also a psychiatrist – and I, watched from across the street.”
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