As the president is sworn in for a further four years, the challenges of tackling corruption, poverty and conflict grow ever more intense
Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari will be sworn in on Wednesday, the former military dictator taking a new four-year tenure after a keenly contested election in February.
When the results were announced, it cleanly split national emotion into joy and sadness – a divide that now has knitted back together into widely felt indifference.
Continue reading...Global agreement urges governments to share information on actual cost of medicines, with aim of making them more affordable
The UK government has refused to sign up to a global resolution on greater transparency for drug pricing.
The resolution urges governments and others buying health products to share information on actual prices paid, and pushes for greater transparency on patents, clinical trial results and other factors affecting pricing from laboratories to patients.
Continue reading...Unicef research shows more than 1,000 schools were closed by the end of last year due to ongoing conflict
Attacks on schools in Afghanistan tripled between 2017 and 2018, surging from 68 to 192, according to the UN children’s agency, Unicef, the first increase since 2015.
According to figures collected by the agency, the ongoing conflict had left more than 1,000 schools closed by the end of last year, with half a million children unable to get an education.
Continue reading...From politicians to members of the LGBTQI community, social media in Sri Lanka is a hotbed of harassment and hostility
The threats began after Jegatheeswaram Jeyachandrika decided to contest local government elections.
Clutching a file of printouts, Meena, as she is known, points to a Facebook post in which she is pictured, circled in red, among a group of people.
Continue reading...One of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries is already suffering floods, droughts and coral bleaching
All photographs by Sean Gallagher
Continue reading...In failing to hold Egypt and Saudi Arabia to account over the deaths of Giulio Regeni and Jamal Khashoggi, the west is making a rod for its own back
The parents of Giulio Regeni, the Italian doctoral student murdered in Cairo three years ago, last week wrote an emotionally charged letter to Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. “As long as this barbarism remains unpunished,” they told the Egyptian president, “until all those who are guilty, regardless of their position, are brought to justice in Italy, no one in the world can stay in your country and feel safe.”
Regeni was found in a ditch in February 2016, less than 2km away from the national security agency headquarters. His body, naked from the waist down, bore clear signs of brutal torture. Regeni’s parents, who say they have yet to see any sign that the murder is being investigated, said they could only identify their son by the tip of his nose. They want those responsible extradited to Italy.
Continue reading...British specialist among those aiming to develop ‘next generation’ treatment that could help millions of victims each year
Scientists in five countries, including the UK, hope to find a universal cure for snakebite using the same technology that discovered HIV antibodies.
A new consortium of venom specialists in India, Kenya, Nigeria, Britain and the US will locate and develop antibodies to treat critical illness from snakebites, which harm nearly 3 million people worldwide each year.
Continue reading...To the outside world, Loujain al-Hathloul is regarded as one of the most influential women on the planet – but in her own country, she is seen as a threat who must be stopped
Loujain al-Hathloul always likes to ask questions, her brother Walid says. “Growing up, she always pointed out the hypocrisy around driving in Saudi Arabia, trying to understand why women were banned from driving. She kept questioning.”
But when Hathloul, now 29, was pulled over while driving in neighbouring United Arab Emirates last April before being deported back to Saudi Arabia, the kingdom’s rulers began the latest in a series of increasingly brutal efforts to silence her.
Continue reading...Improvements in detection, diagnosis and treatment hailed by World Health Organization as ‘a model for other countries’
Algeria and Argentina have been declared malaria-free by the World Health Organization, in what has been described as a “historic achievement” for both countries.
The declaration follows warnings that the global fight against malaria has slipped off track in recent years, with cases rising in many of the countries worst affected by the disease.
Continue reading...Tackling gender violence in crises requires changes of response and focus – as delegates in Oslo for a major summit will be told
Nomtaz Begum had lived all her life in Myanmar. Two years ago, men in uniform came to her village. They killed the men there, including her husband and three small children, boys aged two, five and 11.
She was raped by six of the soldiers, one after the other. They left after setting her house on fire. Badly burned, Begum and her daughter hid in the forest for four days before they were able to flee, making their way to a refugee camp.
Continue reading...In a country where dirty water and poor sanitation jeopardise the lives of millions, moves are afoot to improve health facilities
It was midnight when Kalpana and Rohit Agri had to take their three-day-old daughter, Kritima, to Bardiya hospital in western Nepal. She was listless and, despite the antibiotics she’d been prescribed, had developed a high fever. Hearing her struggling to breathe, they woke a neighbour to take them.
Kritima was admitted with life-threatening neonatal sepsis, probably an infection she had picked up in the hospital where she was born.
Continue reading...Attacks on health clinics provoke concern that disclosing details of funding might ‘put a target on the head’ of medical workers
The UK has agreed not to publicly disclose how much funding has been allocated to the Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, following warnings this might put those responding to the outbreak at risk.
Harriett Baldwin, minister of state for Africa, said the Congolese government had asked for these details not to be made public over fears this will put “a target on the head of some of the responders”.
Continue reading...Federal prosecutors say complaint presents ‘worrying evidence’ of sexual harassment and discrimination
It was a busy day at a McDonald’s branch in São Paulo. Marcelo says he was struggling to keep up with demand while manning the chips and white meat stations when the shift boss called him a “damned stupid blackie”.
Marcelo protested and said he would pursue legal action for racism. The store manager fired him the next day, according to his statement in court documents seen by the Guardian.
Continue reading...Southern African countries to appeal to watchdog for permission to sell stockpiled ivory worth more than £230m
Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia are making a fresh appeal for a global watchdog to lift restrictive measures on the trade in raw ivory.
The watchdog, Cites, prohibits unregulated commercial trade in endangered species around the world.
Continue reading...As MPs thank Jeremy Hunt for his efforts in securing peace in the war-torn country, the UK’s attempts to justify its weapons sales are ever more absurd
After more than 1,500 days of war in Yemen, in the midst of the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, reports of the Houthi withdrawal from Hodeidah port are a welcome but extremely fragile development, surrounded by suspicion and fear.
A Houthi pullout from Hodeidah, Saleef and Ras Issa ports would be one step in the implementation of the Stockholm agreement, but a very small step. There are much wider conflict dynamics to be addressed before we can talk confidently of moves towards peace.
Continue reading...Struck by failings in the implementation of health projects, a Mozambican entrepreneur has turned to tech for a solution
The limited success of foreign-backed projects to fight diseases in Africa is down to basic misunderstanding about how to communicate even the simplest messages, a Mozambican education entrepreneur has said.
Dayn Amade, founder of Maputo-based technology company Kamaleon, is calling for the World Health Organization and aid groups to reassess how people on the African continent are educated about disease prevention.
Continue reading...The star of ER and The Good Wife is back – as a doctor fighting to save humanity. She gives her bodyguard the slip to talk about our imperilled planet – and her love of Sussex A-roads
Before I meet Julianna Margulies, I spend three days staring at her bodyguard. He’s impossible to miss: one of those men whose every attempt to blend in flounders. Margulies and I are in Lille, judges at the Series Mania television festival, although our experiences differ a little. My cloak of anonymity allows me to roam the city unpestered. Margulies, however, has been a TV mainstay for 25 years, with roles in two juggernaut shows, ER and The Good Wife. Everybody knows who she is, hence Muscles.
He’s even there at the start of our interview, looming in the doorway of our room at the Chamber of Commerce. As I ease past and close the door, I ask if it isn’t a pain being constantly tailed. She smiles and says: “Three years ago, I was the guest of honour when they held this festival in Paris. When I get there, they say, ‘We have detail for you.’ I say, ‘Guys, I don’t need a bodyguard.’ But they won’t budge. We get to the hotel and I say to my bodyguard, ‘My husband and I are going out to lunch. You go home, please.’ So we left the hotel and I’ve never seen anything like it. People were everywhere. We backed into the hotel and my husband called the bodyguard and said, ‘We made a mistake!’ He said, ‘I know – I’m just around the corner.’”
Continue reading...Sexual health organisations warn women will die if they are forced to seek DIY abortions
The Trump administration has taken its war on abortion worldwide, cutting off all funding to any overseas organisation or clinic that will not agree to a complete ban on even discussing it.
The Mexico City policy, dubbed the “global gag” by its critics, denies US federal funds to any organisation involved in providing abortion services overseas or counselling women about them. It was instituted by the then US president Ronald Reagan and has been revoked by every Democrat and reinstated by every Republican president since.
Continue reading...Home Office refuses to confirm plans, but campaigners warn Dubs scheme closure would leave minors facing ‘daily risk’ of abuse
The scheme to transfer vulnerable child refugees from France to Britain is being ended, the Guardian has learned, leaving hundreds of lone children facing a “daily risk” of exploitation in Dunkirk and Calais.
Charities in France say they have been told by French authorities that only nine more children, who have already been identified, will be transferred to the UK under the Dubs scheme for unaccompanied child refugees.
Continue reading...Legislation passed following murder of Qandeel Baloch in 2016 proves ineffective as authorities fail to pursue cases
The killer was unrepentant.
“I killed my sister because she brought [a] bad name for the family,” he told neighbours in the Kachi district of Balochistan, Pakistan.
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