Jona Ratu and his friends wanted to build an eco-lodge in their corner of paradise – then the diggers arrived
It was one of the most surreal days of Jona Ratu’s life. On a May morning in 2018 he strolled down to the palm-fringed beach on a parcel of land he owns on idyllic Malolo island to find a digger parked on the coral reef.
“They just dug, they kept digging, digging, digging,” Ratu remembers.
Continue reading...Rising seas are on the verge of swallowing two of the tiny archipelago’s nine islands, and the encroaching waves haunt locals’ dreams
On the hottest days, Leitu Frank feels like she can’t breathe any more. The housewife and mother of five decamps from her airless concrete home to catch the breeze in a simple wooden shack by the water’s edge. She folds washing and stares out at the unsettled turquoise sea, its moods and rhythms increasingly unpredictable, as its rising proximity threatens to strangle her family.
“The sea is eating all the sand,” says Frank, 32, dressed in a pink stretchy T-shirt and faded sarong.
Continue reading...Director gets death threats as 93,000 sign petition to have ‘LGBT film’ Memories of My Body banned lest young ‘imitate behaviour’
The release of an award-winning Indonesian film about a male dancer exploring his sexuality has led to a backlash from religious groups in the south-east Asian country.
The release of Garin Nugroho’s Memories of My Body comes at a time of increased antagonism towards the country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
Continue reading...The outsize influence of C-Fam in the top reaches of the Trump administration has helped turn the tide on the world stage on issues involving women’s reproductive rights
Last spring, Laurie Shestack Phipps, a diplomat at the US mission to the UN, received a set of talking points from the state department ahead of an international women’s conference, setting out clear red lines against mention of “sexual and reproductive health” care.
This had become the norm in the Trump administration, where the once uncontroversial phrase was seen as code for abortion. Use of the word “gender” was also strongly discouraged, as it was viewed as a stalking horse for LGBT rights.
Continue reading...Five million sex workers vow to vote en bloc in national elections in effort to have rights acknowledged
Sex workers across India are lobbying candidates in the country’s general election to support their demands for better health and welfare services in return for votes.
“We wanted to see which party accepts sex workers as part of the community,” said Kusum (who goes by only one name), president of the All India Network of Sex Workers (AINSW), which is coordinating efforts. “Some express support for us behind closed doors, but never in public.”
Continue reading...People in Butembo, where outbreak began, express anger over continued spread of virus and lack of community engagement
Christine Masika lives with her mother, sisters and a friend in Butembo, the town at the centre of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ebola outbreak.
She knew of many people who contracted the virus. Most, she says, are dead.
Continue reading...In the rarely visited town of Gedeb, fears are rife over state plans to return 150,000 people to areas they fled because of ethnic violence
Last week, a car rolled through the town of Gedeb in southern Ethiopia, flanked by federal police. A local official made an announcement to roughly 150,000 people who, displaced from their homes, have sought sanctuary in makeshift camps in the town and across the surrounding farmland.
In two days’ time, they were told through a loudspeaker, their shelters – mostly built of firewood, banana leaves and the odd tarpaulin sheet – would be demolished. Food aid, medical treatment and other humanitarian assistance would soon stop.
Continue reading...Key facts about the second largest outbreak of the disease in history
With more than 2,577 confirmed cases and more than 1,803 confirmed deaths, the outbreak in the eastern DRC is the second largest in history. It has a 67% fatality rate and 11 months after it began, the case numbers are still escalating. It is disproportionately affecting women (55% of cases) and children (28%).
Continue reading...World must ‘cut off money supply’ to commanders accused of war crimes and genocide against Rohingya, say investigators
The international community must cut off all support to Myanmar’s military as part of efforts to hold army commanders to account for crimes against humanity and genocide, UN investigators have said following a fact-finding mission in the country.
In a statement, the UN said there had been no progress in protecting the Rohingya minority, more than a million of whom have fled military “clearance operations” in the Rakhine region.
Continue reading...A hoax video showing children falling ill after polio vaccinations underlines the obstacles facing health workers for whom danger has become a way of life
It began with a rumour, a breathless video circulating on Facebook saying children in Peshawar had been taken ill after being vaccinated for polio.
Within hours, a second video emerged showing the same children being instructed to lie down and feign illness. But it was too late. The latest attempt to derail Pakistan’s formidable drive to eradicate polio had already taken hold, leaving thousands of parents panic-stricken and a government health facility partially burned down.
Continue reading...Afghanistan rebuilds the old town and creates register of dwellings to promote peace and help residents feel safer
Amir Gol first arrived in Kabul after fleeing his home – a Taliban stronghold – in Nangahar. He had no idea where to settle, so he rented a small mud house and started collecting and selling used plastic to make a living. Almost a decade later, little has changed for the 60-year old father of eleven. He sits cross-legged on a cushion outside the house he rents for 600 Afghani (£5) a month. Occasionally, he says, members of insurgent groups come to his neighbourhood, a settlement specked with poorly constructed mud houses and plastic tents in the city’s outskirts.
Continue reading...While the Ganges is sacred but heavily polluted, the Chambal’s ‘cursed’ but pristine waters have proved a blessing for locals
Cold-blooded gharials, a crocodile-like species unique to south Asia, catch the last of the day’s warmth as a setting sun paints the sky crimson above the Chambal river.
Two jackals and a jungle cat scuttle up thorny ravines that box in the expansive blue water, while the orange-beaked Indian skimmer bird glides overhead.
Continue reading...It’s staggeringly big business in Spain, where demand is being met by traffickers. Can a groundbreaking team turn the tide?
On a sunny morning in Madrid, two young women duck down a side street, into a residential block and up to an apartment front door. Then they start knocking. Marcella and Maria spend a lot of time banging on doors and yelling through letterboxes all over the city. Most of the time, these doors never open. When they do, the two women could find themselves in trouble. Their job on the frontline of Spain’s fight against sex trafficking is a dangerous one; both have been assaulted and threatened. Yet they keep on knocking, because they have been on the other side of those doors, forced to sell their bodies for a handful of euros, dozens of times a day, seven days a week.
To say that prostitution is big business in Spain would be a gross understatement. The country has become known as the brothel of Europe, after a 2011 United Nations report cited Spain as the third biggest capital of prostitution in the world, behind Thailand and Puerto Rico. Although the Spanish Socialist party, which two weeks ago won another term in government, has promised to make it illegal to pay for sex, prostitution has boomed since it was decriminalised here in 1995. Recent estimates put revenue from Spain’s domestic sex trade at $26.5bn a year, with hundreds of licensed brothels and an estimated workforce of 300,000.
Continue reading...Top official condemns lack of focus on record 41 million people left homeless in their own countries after fleeing violence
Record numbers of people have been forced from their homes by conflict in a crisis that has received “pitiful” international attention, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council has said.
A total of 41.3 million people were living in a state of internal displacement by the end of 2018 due to violence, researchers for the organisation found, with increasing numbers unable to return home for protracted periods. This is a rise of more than a million on the previous year.
Continue reading...Overcharging for life-saving medicines costs lives, yet the UK seems reluctant to support efforts to encourage fairer pricing
In a year when the British government should be working to secure progress towards universal health coverage, they are failing to champion access to life-saving medicines globally.
The Italian government has put forward a draft resolution to improve the transparency of markets for drugs, vaccines and other health-related technologies, to be discussed at the World Health Assembly in 10 days’ time.
Continue reading...Stigma and ignorance drive young people to undertake high-risk treatment without telling families, Amnesty researchers say
Young transgender people in China are risking their lives and health by taking unsafe hormones and attempting surgery on themselves, according to researchers at Amnesty International.
An “alarming” lack of knowledge and expertise within the country’s public health system, as well as restrictive eligibility requirements, has made it almost impossible for trans people to access safe hormone therapy or other gender-affirming treatment, said the human rights group in a report published on Friday.
Continue reading...For thousands of people in Benin and Togo, the illegal trade in fuel looted from oil-rich Nigeria offers a lifeline. The human impact of this lucrative dealing has been documented by Spanish photographer Antonio Aragón Renuncio, whose series on the subject – described by the judges as ‘brilliantly affecting’ – won him the 2019 London Business School photography award
Continue reading...Rescuers and medics in rebel-held Syrian province fear increased airstrikes will curtail their work
The familiar sound of warplanes was heard across towns and villages in north-west Syria this week as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad intensified their bloody assault on the country’s last major rebel stronghold.
Asem al-Yahiya, a volunteer with the White Helmets rescue organisation, was on call when the bombardment of Muhanbel, his hometown, started on Sunday.
Continue reading...International development committee evidence session on fighting sexual misconduct finds little has changed
Private aid companies and charities will be asked to reappear before MPs, after evidence given on tackling sexual abuse was condemned as “completely unsatisfactory”.
Stephen Twigg, chair of the international development committee (IDC), said he intended to invite representatives of both groups back.
Continue reading...‘Extreme, huge, and existential’ threat posed by climate change must be a central consideration when distributing aid
The British government’s aid spending is failing to recognise the “scale and urgency” of the climate change challenge facing the world, MPs warn.
Climate change must be placed at the centre of aid strategy and funding, if it is to address the seriousness of threats facing developing countries, the committee said. It urged a minimum spend of £1.76bn annually and a halt to funding fossil fuel projects in developing countries, unless they can demonstrate they support transition to zero emissions by 2050.
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