Category Archives: Global development

A year on, the devastating long-term effects of Pakistan’s floods are revealed

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Country’s health and economy ruined as Islamic charity says rich nations must compensate those suffering worst of climate crisis

A year after Pakistan’s worst floods in living memory, a report by Islamic Relief Worldwide has revealed the devastating long-term impact on people, especially children, and argued that rich nations must compensate those countries most affected by the climate emergency.

Researchers from Islamic Relief who talked to people in the flood-affected areas found 40% of the children they surveyed had stunted growth and 25% were underweight as families struggle to access food and healthcare. About 80% of mothers reported sickness among children, with outbreaks of diarrhoea, malaria and dengue fever increasing.

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Ethiopia declares a state of emergency in Amhara amid increasing violence

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Clashes between the army and a regional militia threaten public security and are causing ‘serious economic and humanitarian damage’, said officials

Ethiopia’s council of ministers has declared a state of emergency in the Amhara region after its leader said he was no longer able to contain a surge in violence between a local ethnic militia and the army.

The office of the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, announced the emergency on Friday, saying attacks by “armed extremist groups” posed an increasing threat to public security and were causing significant economic damage.

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Meta, Google and YouTube ‘profiting’ off posts for bogus women’s health cures in Kenya

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Tech firms permit ads for potentially harmful products including vaginal ‘cleanse’ balls and useless herbs for infertility, according to an investigation

Meta, YouTube and Google are profiting from posts promoting harmful and useless health products to women in Kenya, according to an investigation.

Researchers from the media collective Fumbua have accused big tech firms of amplifying content that promises unproven cures for infertility and herbs that can stave off cancers on their networks.

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Women’s health at risk from UK aid cuts, Foreign Office warned

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Thousands more women will be forced into unsafe abortions and die in pregnancy and childbirth, ministers told

Hundreds of thousands more women will face unsafe abortions and thousands will die in pregnancy and childbirth as a result of UK aid cuts in 2023-24, Foreign Office ministers were warned in an internal assessment.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) published its programme allocations for the next two years last month, showing that official development assistance (ODA) spend is due to rise marginally in 2023-24 and then increase by 12% in 2024-25 to £8.3bn.

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Mexican city of Chihuahua bans misogynist lyrics in live music venues

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Fines of up to £55,000 could be imposed on musicians who sing songs deemed to promote violence against women

Authorities in the north-western Mexican state of Chihuahua have banned artists from singing misogynist lyrics in live music venues.

Chihuahua, the capital city of the state, which borders the US, has passed a measure to prohibit musicians from performing songs that promote violence against women.

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Twenty years ago, Africa’s women’s treaty set a path to equality. We must be ready for the next steps

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The landmark Maputo protocol has led to huge gains in women’s rights, from abortion access to equal pay. But to go further will require political will and action

Signed 20 years ago, in the Mozambique city that bears its name, the Maputo protocol was a landmark treaty in the progress towards gender equality across Africa.

It promises equality and non-discrimination to women and girls in civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

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‘Our biggest challenge is simply to exist’: atheist society fights for legal recognition in God-fearing Kenya

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Non-believers say their civil liberties are at stake in a court battle against a bishop who wants to strip them of legal recognition

Kenya’s first atheist group is battling to keep legal recognition in a case filed by a Christian bishop seeking to suspend its registration.

The Atheists in Kenya Society (AKS) said basic civil liberties hung in the balance as it prepares to file a submission on Monday in response to a petition presented against the group and the Kenyan registrar of societies by Stephen Ndichu.

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Ghana abolishes death penalty, with expected reprieve for 176 condemned prisoners

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Country joins growing list of African nations free of capital punishment, but execution remains for high treason

Ghana has become the 29th country in Africa to abolish the death penalty in a move hailed by human rights activists.

The decision means that the 176 people currently on death row, including six women, are likely to have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

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Baby dies after teargas fired at Rohingya trying to escape Indian detention centre

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Child’s death follows hunger strike at Jammu & Kashmir jail amid increasing hostility towards 40,000 refugees ahead of elections

A five-month-old girl has died after Indian forces fired teargas at Rohingya refugees trying to escape a detention centre where they have been held for more than two years.

Videos – sent to Rohingya activists by detainees at Hiranagar jail, now operating as a holding centre – appear to show women and men amid clouds of teargas. About 270 Rohingya detainees at the centre, in the Indian-administered territory of Jammu & Kashmir, have been on hunger strike since April over their detention.

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The RSF are out to finish the genocide in Darfur they began as the Janjaweed. We cannot stand by | Kate Ferguson

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Peace between Hemedti’s RSF and Sudan’s army will not end war crimes. As UN security council president, Britain must act

As conflict in Sudan escalates, it is becoming clear that the Rapid Support Forces has returned to Darfur to complete the genocide it began 20 years ago. The RSF is the Janjaweed rebranded, the “devils on horseback” used by the Sudanese government from 2003 to implement widespread and systematic crimes against non-Arab communities across Darfur. The RSF was, and still is, commanded by Gen Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo.

In recent weeks, what we knew was coming has been confirmed. Yale University’s Conflict Observatory, which uses a combination of satellite imagery, Nasa thermal-detection data and open-source analysis, found evidence of the “targeted destruction of at least 26 communities” by the RSF between 15 April and 10 July. Mass graves have been discovered, and satellite imagery shows entire urban neighbourhoods and villages have been burned down.

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Russia ‘holding humanity hostage’ over Black Sea grain deal, UN hears

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Security council session told that world’s poorest and most vulnerable at risk after Russia blocked exports

• What was the Black Sea grain deal and why did it collapse?

Russia has been accused at the UN security council of stoking famine by blocking grain exports through the Black Sea, with the aim of profiting from higher global food prices.

Russia’s representative said on Friday that Moscow might consider restarting the scheme if it was given better terms for its own food and fertiliser exports, but was accused by western diplomats of holding the world’s poor to ransom.

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Sudan: Attacks on health workers jeopardise remaining hospitals operating in Khartoum

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A rise in violence towards staff has led Médecins Sans Frontières to rethink its presence in the Sudanese capital as intense fighting continues

Increased violence against health workers in Khartoum is endangering the few hospitals still open in the Sudanese capital, the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said after its employees were beaten and whipped by armed men on Thursday.

The MSF team was attacked 700 metres from the Turkish hospital, one of only two operating in southern Khartoum after others were forced to close during almost 100 days of fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

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Death toll rises as Kenya’s cost-of-living protests continue

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Opposition leader Raila Odinga rallies his supporters to the streets where there have been clashes with armed police in Nairobi and western city of Kisumu

Teargas and live ammunition were used against demonstrators as pockets of violence broke out in Kenya during a second day of protests against tax increases and rising living costs.

Despite relative calm in Nairobi on Thursday morning, there were clashes in the informal settlements of Kibera and Mathare in the capital, and in the western city of Kisumu. Protesters threw stones at police, who had mounted a heavy presence in Nairobi after the deaths of at least six demonstrators and more than 300 arrests around the country on Wednesday.

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‘Gut-churning’: anger as Hungarian president addresses major women’s rights conference

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Katalin Novák, an anti-abortionist and promoter of pro-natalist policies, spoke at the opening of the Women Deliver conference in Rwanda

Some leading delegates at a women’s rights conference in Rwanda have expressed shock at the appearance there of the Hungarian president, an anti-abortionist criticised for an anti-equality stance.

Katalin Novák, an important player in the international “anti-gender movement”, was invited by the Rwandan government to speak at the Women Deliver conference in Kigali this week, where reproductive rights is one of the areas under discussion.

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Polio scare hits Malawi with 17 possible cases, just as huge vaccine drive ends

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Cyclone Freddy cited as contributing factor in feared new outbreak that follows inoculation of 8 million children

Malawi is investigating at least 17 suspected polio cases just as a vaccination campaign is completed with more than 90% of the country’s children inoculated against the virus.

Health authorities fear Cyclone Freddy – the world’s longest-lasting tropical cyclone – which made landfall in March in the southern African nation and led to hundreds of deaths and thousands of displacements – could be a contributing factor.

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Russian veto on aid lifeline to Syria could bring ‘catastrophe’ for millions

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Fears rise that UN could be forced into compromise with Damascus to keep vital corridor open from Turkey to rebel-held Idlib

Aid groups and their backers at the United Nations are pushing to revive an aid corridor into rebel-held Syria after Russia vetoed the renewal of the cross-border lifeline that has been getting food and medicines into Syria for almost a decade.

Moscow has repeatedly attempted to stymie deliveries through the Bab al-Hawa border crossing from Turkey into Idlib, a strip of land controlled by the de facto opposition known as the National Salvation government, which is linked to the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham militant group. At least nine people were killed in a Russian airstrike on a vegetable market in rural Idlib last month.

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UN unable to feed 100,000 Haitians this month amid ‘catastrophic’ conditions

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The World Food Programme’s Haiti response is only 16% funded with more than half of the country’s population regularly hungry

The World Food Programme (WFP) will be unable to feed 100,000 Haitians this month as the UN agency has insufficient funding to meet burgeoning humanitarian needs in the embattled Caribbean nation.

Haitians grappling with dire malnutrition will have to endure the absence of vital food and financial support amid the worst hunger crisis the country has ever witnessed, the WFP announced on Monday.

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Student journalists in Indonesia face backlash after reporting on sexual harassment

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Students say they are being targeted with expulsion, physical assault and death threats after writing about sensitive subjects

Yolanda Agne, 23, was just months away from graduating in journalism at a university in Maluku province, Indonesia, when she was banned from finishing her studies.

In March last year, the student magazine Lintas – of which Agne was then editor-in-chief – published a damning piece on the prevalence of sexual harassment on her campus at Ambon Islamic State Institute. Among the alleged perpetrators were eight lecturers, with incidents dating over a six-year period.

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Sexual violence is junta’s ‘modus operandi’, Myanmar activist tells UN

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People are united to end military dictatorship but international support is needed, Naw Hser Hser says

The crisis in Myanmar should be referred to the international criminal court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including widespread sexual violence, an open session at the UN security council will be told.

Naw Hser Hser, the first Myanmar human rights defender to brief council members in an open session since the 2021 coup, will also call for greater action to cut crucial supplies of arms and finances to the military junta.

In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for rape and sexual abuse on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

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Religious groups march in Malawi before court case on LGBTQ+ rights

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Faith leaders say the proceedings, brought by a transgender woman, are an attempt to legitimise ‘sinful acts’

Scores of religious groups and churches took to the streets of several cities in Malawi on Thursday to denounce same-sex marriage before a constitutional court hearing next week.

The court is expected to sit for two days from 17 July to consider a case brought by Jana Gonani, a transgender woman who was charged with “unnatural” behaviour.

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