Category Archives: Global development

WHO members vote to move Moscow office and urge Russia to stop attacks on hospitals

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Member states vote to relocate the office to Denmark by the end of the year, in response to health impacts of Ukraine conflict

Member states of the World Health Organization voted on Wednesday to move a Moscow-based office of the WHO to Copenhagen, and urged Russia to stop attacks on hospitals and healthcare facilities in Ukraine.

At the 76th World Health Assembly in Geneva, 80 member states voted to request the WHO secretariat to relocate the European Office for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases to Denmark before the new year.

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Families ask human rights court to free jailed Tunisian opposition leaders

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Daughters of Rached Ghannouchi and Said Ferjani demand justice amid continuing crackdown on dissent by President Saied


Families of detained Tunisian opposition politicians filed a case at the African court on human and peoples’ rights in Arusha, Tanzania, on Wednesday, accusing Tunisia of unlawfully arresting and detaining the leaders.

“On the evidence we are seeing so far, there is no proper basis for the charges,” said Rodney Dixon, a British lawyer handling the case. “They weren’t arrested lawfully with proper warrants, and the allegations haven’t been substantiated.”

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‘A gamechanger’: new meningitis vaccine hailed as major step

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Successful trials in Africa of NmCV-5 vaccine open the door to affordable treatment for disease that kills 250,000 people a year

An effective, affordable meningitis vaccine has been successfully tested in Africa, raising hopes for the elimination of a disease that kills 250,000 people a year.

The NmCV-5 vaccine, developed by the Serum Institute of India and global health organisation Path, will protect against the five main meningococcal strains found in Africa, including the emerging X strain, for which there is currently no licensed injection.

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UK funding cuts to east Africa ‘insulting and shortsighted’, say aid organisations

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NGOs dismayed at reduction in Britain’s contribution as crisis-hit region faces challenges from drought, rising prices and conflict

The UK has been accused of taking the “insulting and shortsighted” decision to cut humanitarian aid to east Africa at a time of chronic drought, conflict and rising food prices.

At a United Nations pledging conference in New York on Wednesday, which the UK is co-chairing, Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s international development minister, announced a humanitarian aid package to the region of £143m.

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Plastic waste puts millions of world’s poorest at higher risk from floods

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More than 200 million face more intense and frequent floods due to plastic pollution blocking drainage systems, report finds

A devastating 2005 flood that killed 1,000 people in the Indian city of Mumbai was blamed on a tragically simple problem: plastic bags had blocked storm drains, stopping monsoon flood water from draining out of the city.

Now a new report, attempting to quantify this problem, estimates that 218 million of the world’s poorest people are at risk from more severe and frequent flooding caused by plastic waste.

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Race against time to stop ‘humanitarian disaster’ among Sudan refugees in Chad

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Coming rainy season threatens 80,000 living in ‘heartbreaking’ conditions in vulnerable border region after fleeing war at home

Tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees, many of them children, who have crossed the border into Chad risk a “major humanitarian disaster” when the rainy season begins within weeks, a Red Cross official has warned.

About 80,000 people have sought refuge in the country to the west of Sudan as weeks of fighting between two warring generals forces hundreds of thousands from their homes.

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Hundreds of refugees in Malawi rounded up and sent to camps

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Army brought in to forcibly relocate refugees from the capital, despite pleas from human rights organisations

Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers in Malawi have been forcibly relocated from the capital, Lilongwe, to an overcrowded government camp.

Over the past week, more than 300 refugees, including 100 children, have been rounded up and sent to Dzaleka camp, about 30 miles away.

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‘We give our blood so they live comfortably’: Sri Lanka’s tea pickers say they go hungry and live in squalor

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Top tea firms investigate as plantation workers say they have to pick 18kg a day but still skip meals and make their children work

Some of the world’s leading tea manufacturers, including Tetley and Lipton, are examining working conditions on the plantations of its Sri Lankan suppliers, following a Guardian investigation.

Two global trade-certification schemes, Fairtrade and the Rainforest Alliance, are also conducting inquiries after it was revealed that some workers on 10 certified estates could not afford to eat and were living in squalid conditions.

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Nigeria’s doctors furious over plans for five years of mandatory service

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MPs back new bill for medical graduates, designed to limit brain drain to countries including the UK and US

A new bill to impose five years’ mandatory service on Nigeria’s medical graduates in an effort to stop the exodus of doctors to the UK and the US has been attacked as “obnoxious”.

The bill, which could be put to a public hearing in the next few days, passed its second reading in the Nigerian parliament’s lower house last month.

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UN denied access to Rohingya refugee camps after Cyclone Mocha

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UNHCR says Myanmar government has refused to allow it to distribute health supplies in Sittwe, where an estimated 90% of Rohingya homes have been destroyed

UN staff say they have been denied access to help thousands of Rohingya living in displacement camps in Myanmar who are in urgent need of food, medicine and shelter in the aftermath of Cyclone Mocha, which struck the west of the country on Sunday.

People living in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, said they estimated that about 90% of homes of Rohingya people had been destroyed and more than 100 people killed when winds of more than 150 miles an hour hit the region. However, the refugee agency UNHCR said the Myanmar government has refused access to the camps in Sittwe, home to about 100,000 people. “As yet, UNHCR has not been granted access to carry out needs assessments.”

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‘No one saw this level of devastation coming’: climate crisis worsens in Somalia

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Torrential rain, coming on top of the country’s worst drought in four decades, has forced 250,000 people to leave their homes

Jamal Ali Abdi has seen flooding in Beledweyne before but never on the scale witnessed earlier this month when the Shabelle River burst its banks, causing devastation to the central Somali town and displacing almost the entire population.

As water gushed through the streets, Ali’s home was soon surrounded by murky brown flood water.

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Lesotho orders indefinite curfew after radio journalist is shot dead

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Murder of Ralikonelo ‘Leqhashasha’ Joki prompts crackdown in southern African nation amid warnings of threat to media freedom

Lesotho has imposed anationwide curfew after the killing of a prominent radio presenter in the capital, Maseru, this week.

Ralikonelo “Leqhashasha” Joki, who worked for Ts’enolo FM radio station, was shot at least 13 times by unknown assailants as he left the studio at 10pm after his Sunday evening show.

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Injectable HIV-prevention drug to be made in South Africa for the first time

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Indian drug company to make cheaper generic version of CAB-LA, potentially protecting millions of people in Africa from the virus

An affordable version of a groundbreaking HIV-prevention drug will be made in South Africa for the first time, potentially giving millions of people at risk of HIV infection in Africa access to a two-monthly jab that can almost eliminate their chances of contracting the virus.

The Indian drug company Cipla confirmed that a generic version of the prophylaxis, long-acting cabotegravir (CAB-LA), would be manufactured at its plants in Benoni, near Johannesburg, or Durban.

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‘On every corner someone disappears’: the frantic search for Sudan’s missing

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Since fighting erupted last month, dozens of people have vanished, but communities are organising to find and bring them home

Kamal Ali Osman sent a text message to his family saying he was being stopped by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the militia group whose checkpoints now throttle the roads of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.

Minutes later, the text was deleted from his phone. He has not been heard from since.

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European leaders urged to help Tunisians resist assault on democracy

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International academics join effort to highlight crackdown on freedom after jailing of opposition leader, Rached Ghannouchi

European powers must stand by pro-democracy Tunisians resisting a fierce onslaught designed to take the country back to the darkest days of dictatorship, a letter from more than 70 academics has urged.

The letter, designed to shine a light on the Tunisian crackdown, was in part collated by Soumaya Ghannoushi, whose father, the Tunisian opposition leader, Rached Ghannouchi, was sentenced to a year in jail on Monday.

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Malawi’s Rastafarian children return to school after ban on dreadlocks is lifted

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Schools told to honour court order as families seek compensation and training for pupils who missed education because of their hair

About 1,200 Rastafarian children in Malawi are expected to return to state schools over the next month after being banned for a decade because of their hair.

After a landmark decision at the high court in March, letters have now been sent out to about 7,000 schools telling headteachers that the exclusion of children with dreadlocks from the classroom has been ruled as unconstitutional.

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Sudan: Reports of women being raped in Khartoum by armed men

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Refugees are among those receiving support since civil war broke out last month – and officials believes more sexual assault cases are going unreported

There have been multiple reports of civilians being raped by armed men in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum where fighting broke out last month, say government officials.

Four women and a girl, three of them refugees, are being supported by a specialist unit whose director said she thought most of the sexual violence in the city was going unreported.

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Diabetics fleeing Sudan struggle to keep their insulin safe in 40C heat

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With makeshift coolbags and an endless quest for ice, refugees are desperately struggling to protect their precious medication – if they can access any at all

Bags of ice and wet towels have become the emergency lifelines for Sudanese diabetics struggling to keep their insulin cool while waiting in extreme heat as they try to escape the recent violence.

A vital medication for many diabetics, insulin must be kept cool to remain effective, But since fighting broke out between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces last month, hospitals and pharmacies have forced to close and there has been damage to cold-storage facilities.

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Wealth tax of 0.5% could cover UK’s share of loss and damage fund, says charity

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International fund set up at Cop27 is intended to provide compensation to countries worst hit by climate breakdown

A tax on wealthy Britons of just 0.5% could more than meet the UK’s entire “fair share” contribution to the international loss and damage fund established to support countries worst hit by global climate breakdown, a charity has suggested.

Taxing 5p of every £10 of individuals’ wealth over £1m would raise £15bn a year by 2030, well in excess of an estimated $15bn (£12bn) UK contribution to the new fund, according to an analysis by the anti-poverty campaigners Christian Aid.

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Locust outbreak in Afghanistan’s ‘breadbasket’ threatens wheat harvest

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With 20m people at the highest risk of famine for 25 years, farmers are desperately trying to kill the pests before vast swarms form

The northern “breadbasket” of Afghanistan is battling a potentially devastating outbreak of locusts that threaten to eat their way through up to a quarter of the country’s annual wheat harvest, the UN has warned.

After three years of disappointing, drought-afflicted harvests, Afghan farmers were expecting better this year – a much-needed boost for a country where nearly 20 million people are thought to be at the highest risk of famine in 25 years.

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