Category Archives: Global development

Elderly Uyghur women imprisoned in China for decades-old religious ‘crimes’, leaked files reveal

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Hundreds of women sentenced for practices such as studying the Qur’an, dating back as far back as 60s and 70s, analysis of Chinese police files shows

Hundreds of thousands of Uyghur female religious leaders are estimated to have been arrested and imprisoned in Xinjiang since 2014, with some elderly women detained for practices that took place decades ago, according to an analysis of leaked Chinese police files.

There is growing evidence of the abusive treatment of the Uyghur Muslim population of the north-west Chinese region of Xinjiang, with their traditions and religion seen as evidence of extremism and separatism.

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South Sudan flooding hampers efforts to contain hepatitis E outbreak

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MSF begins vaccine drive against incurable disease, which is spread via dirty water and kills thousands of pregnant women

A push to tackle an outbreak of hepatitis E in South Sudan is being hampered by flooding that has isolated populations and turned villages into islands.

A pioneering vaccination drive has begun to protect people against a spate of cases but the true scale of the disease outbreak is unknown.

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Somalia to launch its first current affairs TV show led by women

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New show will follow Question Time format answering audience questions on taboo subjects from periods to women in politics

Somalia’s only all-female media team, Bilan, is launching the country’s first TV current affairs show to be hosted by a woman.

The debate show, which plans to address some taboo subjects, will also be the first programme on Somali television to have a panel of at least 50% women, and the first to broach contentious topics, such as a critical shortage of female teachers and the challenges faced by women trying to get into politics, as well as environmental issues.

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Three years on from Myanmar’s military coup, the junta is struggling to assert control

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Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing facing criticism after months of battlefield losses, with an estimated two-thirds of the country gripped by conflict

Three years after seizing power, Myanmar’s junta is struggling to assert control, with humiliating losses in recent months and growing criticism of its leader, Min Aung Hlaing, by pro-military figures.

Images shared across social media show hauls of weapons seized from overrun military outposts in the north, exhausted soldiers surrendering en masse and even a military jet plunging from the sky after it was shot down. In one unprecedented image, brigadier general commanders are pictured raising a glass – apparently with their former enemies – after they were forced to concede defeat in the key town of Laukkai in northern Shan state, along with almost 2,400 men.

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Chagos islanders stunned as David Cameron rules out return

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Statement from British foreign secretary comes just months after his predecessor confirmed resettlement was part of talks with Mauritius

Britain’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, has provoked fury by abruptly ruling out the resettlement of former inhabitants of the Chagos Islands, months after his predecessor revealed that the UK was discussing their potential return.

The former prime minister suggested that a return to the islands was now “not possible” for Chagossians who were forcibly displaced by the British government in the 1960s and 1970s.

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Bangladesh launches investigation into children ‘wrongly’ adopted overseas

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Police start to interview witnesses following Guardian reports on adoptions to the Netherlands nearly 50 years ago

Read more: ‘I was told I could visit. Then she went missing’: the Bangladeshi mothers who say their children were adopted without consent

Police in Bangladesh have launched an investigation into historical allegations that children were adopted abroad without their parents’ consent, after a Guardian investigation into adoptions to the Netherlands in the 1970s.

Bangladesh special branch in Dhaka confirmed it had opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the adoption of a number of children between 1976 and 1979.

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Carriers sneak life-saving drugs over border as Mexico battles opioid deaths

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People forced to bring overdose-reversal drug naloxone from US, as critics accuse Mexican government of creating shortage

Every day, people cross the US-Mexico border with drugs – but not all of them are going north. Some head in the opposite direction with a hidden cargo of naloxone, a life-saving medicine that can reverse an opioid overdose but is so restricted as to be practically inaccessible in Mexico.

This humanitarian contraband is necessary because Mexico’s border cities have their own problems with opioid use – problems that activists and researchers say are being made more deadly by government policy.

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World first: malaria vaccine rollout begins in Cameroon

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Another 19 African countries have plans to join the programme – bringing ‘more than just hope’ to a continent that suffers the vast majority of malaria deaths

The rollout of the world’s first malaria vaccine began in Cameroon on Monday, which is said to be a “transformative chapter in Africa’s public health history”.

The RTS,S vaccine – 662,000 doses of it – will be administered to children in the west African country, the first to be vaccinated after successful trials of the drug in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi between 2019 and 2021.

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UN staff on £1.5bn Iraq aid project ‘demanding bribes’

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Exclusive: whistleblowers allege large sums are being lost to corruption in Iraq as donors fail to track spending on postwar reconstruction

Staff working for the UN in Iraq are allegedly demanding bribes in return for helping businessmen win contracts on postwar reconstruction projects in the country, a Guardian investigation has found.

The alleged kickbacks are one of a number of claims of corruption and mismanagement the Guardian has uncovered in the Funding Facility for Stabilization, a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) scheme launched in 2015 and backed by $1.5bn (£1.2bn) in support so far from 30 donors, including the UK.

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‘The pigs have disappeared’: swine fever threatens food source for millions as disease hits wild herds

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Scientists call for urgent intervention, as bearded pig populations are devastated by the deadly virus on islands such as Borneo

Populations of wild pigs are crashing due to the spread of African swine fever (ASF), threatening the livelihoods of millions who depend on them for food, researchers warn.

With a fatality rate of almost 100%, ASF has swept across Asia, Europe and Africa, devastating domestic and wild pig populations over the past 10 to 20 years. The impacts are especially significant in Borneo, in south-east Asia, where bearded pig numbers have declined by between 90% and 100% since it arrived on the island in 2021, researchers said.

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Femicide in Kenya a national crisis, say rights groups

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At least four women have been murdered since the start of the year, leading to accusations of government inaction

Rights groups are calling for the Kenyan government to urgently investigate and prosecute cases of femicide, after the brutal murders of two women.

“This is a national crisis – we are not doing enough as a country to protect women,” said Audrey Mugeni, the co-founder of Femicide Count Kenya, an NGO that documents the number of women killed across the country each year.

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US-UK airstrikes force aid agencies to suspend operations in Yemen

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Charities warns of ‘dire’ outcome for the impoverished country, where two-thirds of the population already relies on aid to survive

Aid agencies have begun suspending vital operations in Yemen after the recent US and UK strikes on Houthi targets, amid warnings that further military intervention risks deepening one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

A coalition of 23 aid organisations operating within the Gulf state issued a joint statement on Tuesday, warning that military escalation will further compromise their ability to deliver critical services while worsening living conditions for millions of people in Yemen.

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Cholera cases soar globally amid shortage of vaccines

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Resurgence classified as grade 3 emergency by WHO, with southern Africa and Haiti among those hardest hit

Cholera cases soared last year, according to preliminary data from the World Health Organization, which recorded 4,000 cholera deaths and 667,000 cases globally.

The numbers surpassed that of 2022, and the WHO has classified the global resurgence of cholera as a grade 3 emergency, its highest internal health emergency level.

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Cape Verde becomes fourth African country to eliminate malaria

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With no recorded cases since 2017, the archipelago has had a long journey to become free of the disease, which killed 608,000 people globally in 2022

Cape Verde has become the fourth country in Africa and the 44th in the world to eliminate malaria.

Africa has the highest number of cases of the mosquito-borne disease in the world. In 2022, 94% of the 249 million cases globally and 95% of deaths were recorded on the continent.

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Human rights in decline globally as leaders fail to uphold laws, report warns

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Human Rights Watch’s annual report highlights politicians’ double standards and ‘transactional diplomacy’ amid escalating crises

Human rights across the world are in a parlous state as leaders shun their obligations to uphold international law, according to the annual report of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In its 2024 world report, HRW warns grimly of escalating human rights crises around the globe, with wartime atrocities increasing, suppression of human rights defenders on the rise, and universal human rights principles and laws being attacked and undermined by governments.

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Afghan girls detained and lashed by Taliban for violating hijab rules

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Girls as young as 16 arrested in shops, classes and markets in Kabul by the Taliban, who labelled them ‘infidels’ for wearing ‘bad hijab’

Girls as young as 16 have been arrested across the Afghan capital, Kabul, in the past week for violating the Taliban’s hijab rules.

The girls – who were detained in shopping centres, classes and street markets – were accused of “spreading and encouraging others to wear a bad hijab” and wearing makeup.

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Fashion firms agree to compensate garment workers in Mauritius

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Calvin Klein, Hilfiger and Barbour among brands to pay £400,000 after report alleges illegal hiring fees, deception and intimidation

Leading fashion brands including Barbour and PVH, which owns Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, have said they will pay £400,000 to garment workers in Mauritius after an investigation found that migrant workers were forced to pay thousands of pounds for their jobs.

Transparentem, a US-based organisation that investigates workers’ rights, looked into conditions at five factories in Mauritius and interviewed 83 workers in 2022 and 2023.

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‘All feminists are under attack’: ultra-right threat in Milei’s Argentina forces writer into exile

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The new president’s rightwing supporters are targeting journalists and women’s rights activists – but the fight goes on

Female journalists who write about gender issues say they are having to deal with a toxic wave of threats against them in Argentina. Some are fighting back, others are lying low and one has gone into self-imposed exile for her safety.

“We are facing a witch-hunt from the ultra-right,” said the author, journalist and activist Luciana Peker, who recently left Argentina for an undisclosed location due to the weight of threats against her.

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Palestinians desperate to flee Gaza pay thousands in bribes to ‘brokers’

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Fixers with alleged links to Egyptian intelligence are making a fortune in ‘fees’ from people hoping to exit through the Rafah crossing

Palestinians desperate to leave Gaza are paying bribes to brokers of up to $10,000 (£7,850) to help them exit the territory through Egypt, according to a Guardian investigation.

Very few Palestinians have been able to leave Gaza through the Rafah border crossing but those trying to get their names on the list of people permitted to exit daily say they are being asked to pay large “coordination fees” by a network of brokers and couriers with alleged links to the Egyptian intelligence services.

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‘I can ride the bus. I can walk the streets’: the joy of freedom for Rohingya resettled in the US

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A diplomatic breakthrough has allowed 62 refugees to start a new life in America. Yet a million still remain in fear and poverty in the Bangladeshi camps

After 23 hours on his first international flight, it was only after stepping off the plane in the United States that Nurul Haque finally felt the relief of escaping the refugee camps of Bangladesh, where he was born.

Haque was among the first Rohingya refugees allowed to leave Bangladesh in more than a decade. The 62 people who have flown to the US since late last year might be few, but resettlement has given them hope of opportunity and security that was denied them in Bangladesh.

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