Category Archives: Global development

Sudan conflict ‘like planning for the apocalypse’, say aid workers

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At least 5.4 million people have been displaced by the fierce fighting that broke out in the country in April

Humanitarian officials say the widening conflict in Sudan has left them trying to “plan for the apocalypse” as aid supply lines are disrupted and more people are displaced both internally and across the country’s borders.

At least 5.4 million people have already been displaced by the fighting that broke out in April between between the Sudanese armed forces, led by Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces loyal to his rival Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – known as Hemedti.

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Investigation launched into killings and evictions on World Bank tourism project

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Tanzania government blamed for violence against villagers in national park, while thousands more people face losing their homes

The World Bank is investigating allegations of killings, rape and forced evictions made by villagers living near the site of a proposed tourism project it is funding in Tanzania.

The bank has been accused of “enabling” alleged violence by the Tanzanian government to make way for a $150m (£123m) project ministers say will protect the environment and attract more tourists to Ruaha national park.

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Pakistan welcomes fast-fashion brand Boohoo despite poor staff safety claims

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Call to set up role comes as report alleges retailer uses factories that violate minimum-wage requirements and workers’ rights

Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, has reportedly asked the British fast-fashion brand Boohoo to increase its presence in the country, despite claims that it has failed to tackle poor conditions at its suppliers’ factories there.

In a meeting with Kakar this week, Mahmud Kamani, chairman of Boohoo Group, expressed an interest in establishing long-term buying linkages with Pakistan, according to Radio Pakistan.

Kakar pointed out Pakistan’s pro-investment policies and facilities, and invited Boohoo to open franchises in the country, which is in economic turmoil, with a record inflation rate of 36.4%.

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South African anti-migrant ‘vigilantes’ register as party for next year’s polls

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Operation Dudula changes tactics from evictions and violence, with plans to fight elections on platform of expelling foreigners

An anti-migrant vigilante organisation in South Africa has registered as a political party and plans to contest seats in next year’s general elections.

Operation Dudula, whose name means “to force out” in Zulu, wants all foreign nationals who are in the country unofficially to be deported.

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Unilever to make payments to Kenyan tea pickers over 2007 plantation attacks

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UK law firm Leigh Day says money given to 77 workers for murders and rapes ‘sidesteps’ multinational’s responsibility over attack

Unilever is to make payments to 77 tea pickers who worked on one of its plantations in Kenya that was targeted during post-election violence in 2007.

The UK law firm Leigh Day, representing the workers, said the London-based consumer goods multinational had agreed to make voluntary, or ex-gratia, payments to former workers at its subsidiary Unilever Tea Kenya, who were attacked by armed assailants at its plantation in Kericho.

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Eliminate malaria once and for all or it will come back stronger, UN warned

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World faces ‘malaria emergency’ from resistance to insecticides, waning efficacy of drugs, funding shortfalls and climate change

African leaders have warned that the world is facing the “biggest malaria emergency” of the past two decades.

Heads of state and experts came together in a show of unity to call for urgent action on malaria at the UN general assembly on Friday, saying progress on eradicating the disease faced serious setbacks from mosquitoes’ growing resistance to insecticides, and the decreased effectiveness of antimalarial drugs and diagnostic tests.

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Pope Francis decries ‘fanaticism of indifference’ over migration

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Pontiff says rescuing those making Mediterranean crossings is a ‘duty of humanity’ on first visit by a pope to Marseille in 500 years

Pope Francis has decried what he called the “fanaticism of indifference” as people risked their lives on dangerous journeys by boat from north Africa to Europe, amid growing political debate over migration.

Opening an overnight visit to Marseille, the pontiff presided over a silent moment of prayer at a memorial dedicated to sailors and people who died at sea, surrounded by faith leaders and migrant rescue organisations from the Mediterranean port city.

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South Africa launches ‘unprecedented’ investigation of Johnson & Johnson over TB drug prices

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Competition watchdog probes claims of profiteering by US drugmaker in country where tuberculosis is biggest killer

South Africa’s Competition Commission will investigate the American drugmaker Johnson & Johnson for the high price it has been charging for the tuberculosis medicine bedaquiline, as well as for extending its 20-year patent until 2027 to block cheaper generics from entering the country.

The commission’s investigation was made public last week by the health department and the Health Justice Initiative (HJI) legal organisation at a media briefing of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The commission investigates matters when it has reasonable suspicion of exploitative or unethical behaviour.

This story was produced by the Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism. Readers can sign up here for the centre’s newsletter

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Rhino numbers rebound as global figures reveal a win for conservation

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Tally rises to 27,000 but is still a far cry from former half a million, and Javan and Sumatran rhino remain critically endangered

Global rhinoceros numbers have increased to 27,000 despite populations being ravaged by poaching and habitat loss, new figures show, with some species rebounding for the first time in a decade.

Rhinos numbered about 500,000 across Africa and Asia in the 20th century but their populations have been devastated. Last year, they began showing signs of recovery in some areas, although two species – the Javan and Sumatran – remain close to disappearing.

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Iran approves stricter hijab bill targeting those who ‘mock’ dress code

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Protestors face 10-year jail terms under new hijab and chastity bill, which UN human rights body says is intended to suppress women into ‘total submission’

Iran’s parliament has approved a controversial new bill under which women face up to 10 years in prison if they continue to defy the country’s mandatory hijab rules.

As well as harsher penalties on women defying the strict dress code, the draft law also intends to identify those who “promote nudity [or] indecency” or “mock” the rules in a virtual or non-virtual space.

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Elephants on the march across African borders as heat stress leads to fatalities

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Mortality rate grows as animals roam long distances and clash with local people in desperate search for water

The climate crisis is pushing elephants on a forced migration across borders in southern Africa in search of water, creating problems for national parks and conservation efforts.

In recent weeks, Zimbabwe’s elephants have been crossing the country’s borders into Botswana, officials said on Tuesday. Exactly how many elephants are affected is not yet known. The development comes as a survey this month revealed that elephants are dying of heat stress.

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Climate action must respond to extreme weather driving health crisis, says WHO

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Melting ice caps and rising sea levels are urgent but people care more about the floods, wildfires and droughts that are here now, New York summit hears

Floods, wildfires, drought and the onslaught of extreme weather are driving a global health crisis that must be put at the centre of climate action, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

“The climate crisis is a health crisis; it drives extreme weather and is taking lives around the world,” Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the WHO, said. “Melting ice caps and rising sea levels are, of course, crucial issues, but for most people they are distant threats in both time and place. The threats of our changing climate are right here and right now.”

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Tigray atrocities continuing almost a year after ceasefire, UN experts warn

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Ethiopian government is failing to protect its citizens from ‘grave’ human rights abuses, amid rising violence and hate speech – report

Human rights abuses are still being committed in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region more than 10 months after a ceasefire formally ended the bloody civil war, according to a group of UN experts.

The latest report by the UN’s International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia said the nation’s government was failing to protect its citizens from “grave and ongoing” human rights abuses being committed by militias and Eritrean troops, who fought alongside Ethiopia’s federal military and remain in border areas of Tigray.

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Western leaders defend slow progress to end global inequality as UN summit starts

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Leaders insisted war in Ukraine had not distracted them from sustainable development goals

Western leaders have gone on a charm offensive on the opening day of the UN general assembly as they were forced to defend their record in meeting the organisation’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), and insist that the war in Ukraine had not distracted them from this commitment to end global inequality.

At a special summit in New York amounting to a halfway stocktake on progress towards meeting the goals by the target date of 2030, all sides acknowledged there was little chance that the ambitious set of commitments set in 2015, including ending extreme poverty and safeguarding the environment, will be met on schedule.

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‘We never stopped protesting’: Iran’s youth take freedom fight underground

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Students tell of secret acts of defiance ahead of the first anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody

Young Iranians have taken their protests against the authoritarian regime underground one year on from the death in custody of a 22-year-old woman detained for allegedly wearing the Islamic headscarf incorrectly.

The death of Mahsa Amini on 16 September last year led to the largest wave of popular unrest for years in Iran and a brutal crackdown by security services in response, with hundreds of men, women and children killed and thousands more injured, according to human rights groups.

At the beginning of the uprising, one of these two women, both 25, was arrested at a protest gathering and spent 16 days in prison. One of her fellow inmates was Yalda Aghafazli, a 19-year-old protester who died under suspicious circumstances after her release

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‘Towns were erased’: Libyan reporters on the ‘horrifying, harrowing’ aftermath of floods

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Journalists who reported on last week’s catastrophic storm say the country’s bloody political tussle has contributed to the collapse of services

Early last week, Mohamed Eljabo travelled to the eastern provinces of Libya, passing through Derna, Al Bayda and Sousa, and what he saw he describes as “shock beyond comprehension”.

“I have visited these cities before and I know them well,” he says. “I expected to find these cities when I made the journey from Tripoli. I expected to see the neighbourhoods and towns. But these were gone. Erased. It was horrifying.”

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Quarter of schools closed in Burkina Faso as fighting escalates after coup

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Nearly 1 million children denied education, along with many more across eight countries in central and west Africa, new report warns

A quarter of schools are now closed in Burkina Faso after a sharp rise in fighting between militants and the government, according to a new report that warns of a looming education crisis in the region.

The number of schools closed in the country rose by almost a third over the past year to 6,149, affecting close to 1 million students.

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Iran’s ‘gender apartheid’ bill could jail women for 10 years for not wearing hijab

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Shops that serve unveiled women could be shut under draft law UN human rights body says suppresses women into ‘total submission’

Women in Iran face up to 10 years in prison if they continue to defy the country’s mandatory hijab law, under harsher laws awaiting approval by authorities. Even businesses that serve women without a hijab face being shut down.

The stricter dress code, which amounts to “gender apartheid”, UN experts said, comes one year after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, who had been detained for allegedly wearing the Islamic headscarf incorrectly. Her death, after allegedly being beaten by police, led to the largest wave of popular unrest for years in Iran.

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Zimbabwe’s president accused of nepotism after appointing son and nephew

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Emmerson Mnangagwa also criticised for inflating size of cabinet and reappointing underperforming ministers

The Zimbabwean president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, recently returned to power after a disputed election, has been accused by the opposition of attempting to create a family dynasty after appointing his son as deputy finance minister barely a week on from conferring his wife with an honorary doctorate.

Announcing his new cabinet on Monday, Mnangagwa said one of his younger sons, David Kudakwashe Mnangagwa, would be second in charge at the Treasury, while appointing a nephew, Tongai, as deputy minister in the tourism minstry.

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Climate crisis: Africa is talking but is the west listening?

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Africa’s largest meeting on the crisis finished last week amid arguments over ‘false solutions’ and unfulfilled promises. But will the lofty ideals presented translate into better lives for Africans?

More than a dozen African leaders stood outside Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi last Wednesday to review what had been billed as the continent’s largest meeting on the climate crisis.

Earlier that morning, the Nairobi Declaration had been adopted as a blueprint to guide the continent in future negotiations with the west in global forums such as the G20 meeting; the UN general assembly; the annual meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund; and Cop28.

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