Category Archives: Global development

Another teenage girl dead at hands of Iran’s security forces, reports claim

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Allegations that 16-year-old Sarina Esmailzadeh was beaten to death at a protest follow news of the similar death of 17-year-old Nika Shakarami

Reports are emerging of the death of another teenage girl at the hands of security forces in Iran, as protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini looked set to enter their third week.

Sarina Esmailzadeh, a 16-year-old who posted popular vlogs on YouTube, was killed when the security forces beat her with batons at a protest in Gohardasht in Alborz province on 23 September, according to Amnesty International.

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Health workers among dead in Ugandan Ebola outbreak

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MSF calls situation ‘very serious’ as east African country grapples with outbreak of Sudan strain of virus, for which no vaccine exists

It seems like a normal day in Mubende, central Uganda. Shops remain open, children are at school and public gatherings are allowed, provided people remain socially distant.

The ambulances that whisk past every few hours and the health workers who wash themselves meticulously before they return home are the only indications that it is not business as usual in the densely populated mining district, which is struggling to contain an outbreak of Ebola.

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African countries urge rich nations to honour $100bn climate finance pledge

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Ministers rebuke ‘shameful’ failure to meet funding promises for poorer countries to cope with climate crisis ahead of Cop27 summit


Ministers and high-ranking officials of African nations have urged rich countries to do more to combat the climate crisis, and called the failure to meet a funding promise from 2009 “shameful”.

At a conference in Giza, Egypt, on Wednesday in the run-up to next month’s UN climate summit, Wael Aboulmagd, Egypt’s special representative for Cop27, attacked wealthier nations for not honouring an agreement to provide $100bn (£87.5bn) a year to developing countries by 2020.

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‘Shocking blow to Indigenous land rights’ as court dismisses Maasai herder claim

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Herders lodge appeal against ruling in their case against the Tanzanian government, which they say is violently evicting them from ancestral land

Lawyers for Maasai herders who say the Tanzanian government is trying to violently evict them from their ancestral land to make way for a luxury game reserve have lodged an appeal against a court ruling that dismissed their case.

Donald Deya, lead counsel for the herders and chief executive officer of the Pan-African Lawyers Union (Palu), said his team had, on Wednesday, appealed against the verdict of the east African court of justice, which campaigners branded “a shocking blow” to Indigenous land rights.

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Sudan faces ‘generational catastrophe’ as millions of children miss school

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Floods, militia raids and hunger mean a third of children are not in school at all, while the rest have too few teachers, aid groups warn

Nearly every school-age child in Sudan is missing out on education, either completely or facing serious disruption, aid organisations have warned.

Schools in some states reopened this week after delays due to severe flooding but millions of children are still unable to go, leaving the country facing a “generational catastrophe”.

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Failure to extend Yemen ceasefire leaves millions at risk, say charities

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International organisations cite 60% fall in civilian casualties over six months, but critics say benefits of truce have been exaggerated

The expiry of a six-month ceasefire in Yemen has thrust the country back into war after limited improvements in humanitarian conditions, according to analysts.

Charities have criticised the failure to extend beyond Sunday the truce that was first agreed in April, and which they said had created hope for Yemenis. Although critics have said it created only a temporary stop in fighting that allowed the Houthi rebels to strengthen.

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Young people demand climate justice in run-up to Cop27 UN talks

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Activists from global south demand recompense for damage from countries most responsible for crisis

Young people from some of the countries most affected by climate breakdown have warned they are not victims but a force to be reckoned with in the run-up to a UN climate conference in Egypt.

Led by climate groups across Africa and the Middle East, hundreds of activists from countries that are the least responsible for the crisis but are experiencing the worst impacts have gathered in Tunisia to prepare for what they say will be a collective fight for justice for their countries and communities, which they will take to Cop27 next month.

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Sudan campaigners demand action after alarming rise in ‘honour killings’

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Reported deaths more than double in a year, with women attacked by male relatives for appearing to talk to men on smartphones

Campaigners are calling for urgent action to tackle what they say is a rise in “honour killings” in Sudan.

Eleven women and girls have reportedly been killed by relatives so far this year, more than double the number reported in 2021. Two women have died in the past month.

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‘Unprecedented’ bird flu epidemic sees almost 50m birds culled across Europe

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Poultry farmers from Arctic to Portugal reported 2,500 outbreaks in past year, with migrating birds taking avian flu to North America

The UK and continental Europe have been hit by an “unprecedented” number of cases of avian flu this summer, with 47.7m birds having been culled since last autumn, according to new figures.

Poultry producers from as far north as Norway’s Svalbard islands to southern Portugal have together reported almost 2,500 outbreaks of the disease since last year.

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Prince Harry wildlife NGO under fire after elephants kill three in Malawi

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African Parks, of which the prince is president, is one of three parties accused of rushing a mass translocation of the mammals


Two wildlife organisations, including one headed by Prince Harry, have been accused of caring about animals more than people after three men died following an elephant translocation in Malawi.

In July, more than 250 elephants were moved from Liwonde national park in southern Malawi to the country’s second-largest protected area, Kasungu, in a three-way operation between Malawi’s national park service and the NGOs African Parks and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw).

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Venezuela’s mining region a hotbed of sex trafficking and violence, UN says

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Fact-finding mission reports brutal massacres and sexual slavery in gold-rich arc where armed gangs fight for control

Struggling to get by amid Venezuela’s runaway inflation, widespread shortages and rampant unemployment, a young woman left the city of San Félix for the promise of a job deep in the forests of Bolívar state.

The offer made on Facebook promised a good salary in exchange for working in a booming mining town.

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Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga found guilty of inciting violence

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Novelist given suspended sentence after staging peaceful protest calling for political reform

Renowned Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga has been given a suspended prison sentence after being found guilty of inciting violence by staging a peaceful protest calling for political reform.

Dangarembga and co-accused Julie Barnes were convicted of participating in a public gathering with intent to incite public violence at Harare magistrates court on Thursday. The pair were also each fined 70,000 Zimbabwe dollars (£200).

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More than 1,700 environmental activists murdered in the past decade – report

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Figures likely to be an underestimate, says Global Witness, as land defenders are killed by hitmen, crime groups and governments

More than 1,700 murders of environmental activists were recorded over the past decade, an average of a killing nearly every two days, according to a new report.

Killed by hitmen, organised crime groups and their own governments, at least 1,733 land and environmental defenders were murdered between 2012 and 2021, figures from Global Witness show, with Brazil, Colombia, the Philippines, Mexico and Honduras the deadliest countries.

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Iran launches airstrike against Kurdish group in northern Iraq

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Deadly attack comes in response to KDPI support for ongoing protests over Mahsa Amini death in custody

Iran has launched a deadly cross-border airstrike into northern Iraq to punish Kurds for their role in supporting demonstrations over the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman in Iranian police custody that are still rattling the Tehran regime.

As many as 13 people were killed and 58 injured in the Iranian drone strikes on military bases in northern Iraq that belong to the exiled Kurdish Democratic party of Iran.

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Iran protests: at least 450 arrested in northern province

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Amnesty says at least four children among those killed by state forces since start of protests over woman’s death in custody

At least 450 people have been arrested in Mazandaran, a northern province of Iran, during the last 10 days of protests, according to the province’s chief prosecutor.

Protests sparked by the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini have spread across the country. They have been met with internet shutdowns and violent repression.

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‘Humanitarian crime’: fighting cuts off insulin supply in Tigray

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International Diabetic Federation decries reports ongoing war has led to shortages of life-saving drug at Ethiopian region’s biggest hospital

Doctors at the biggest hospital in Tigray say they have just days supply left of insulin, as the resumption of fighting between rebels and Ethiopian government troops once again cuts off supplies to the region.

In what the head of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) has branded “a humanitarian crime,” medics at Ayder specialist referral hospital warn they have already run out of one kind of the life-saving medicine and have only a week’s supply of another.

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‘Give workers an equal seat’: pressure builds for Levi’s to protect factory employees

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Activists say that the company’s own audits have been ineffective and workers receive inadequate safety protections

Workers and activists have been campaigning to push Levi’s, one of the world’s largest clothing brands, to sign on to an international accord for workers’ health and safety in Bangladesh and Pakistan.

On 24 April 2013, the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which housed five garment clothing factories, collapsed, killing 1,134 people and injuring approximately 2,500, in the deadliest disaster in the garment industry’s history.

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Iran blocks capital’s internet access as Amini protests grow

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Social media platforms have also been cut off in areas of Tehran and Kurdistan as videos of dissent go viral

Iran has shut off the internet in parts of Tehran and Kurdistan and blocked access to platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp in an attempt to curb a growing protest movement that has relied on social media to document dissent.

The protests, which were sparked on 16 September after the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman in police custody, show no sign of subsiding. On Thursday, protesters torched police stations and vehicles in several cities.

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Horn of Africa drought puts 3.6m children at risk of dropping out of school

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Experts warn that girls’ education will be worst hit, as many families are forced to move away from schools

More than 3.5 million children are at risk of dropping out of school due to the drought in the Horn of Africa, the United Nations has said, amid warnings the crisis could lead to “a lost generation” that misses out on education.

According to new figures shared with the Guardian, Unicef now estimates that 3.6 million children in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia are in danger of leaving school as a result of the cumulative pressure on households caused by the unrelenting drought.

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Iran sends police to end Mahsa Amini protests as reports say seven killed

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Internet blackouts and Instagram blocks also reported amid anger after 22-year-old woman’s death in custody

Iran has sent police on to the streets in a scramble to end protests that have spread to at least 15 cities, as rights groups and local media reported up to seven people had been killed in crackdowns.

There were reports of internet blackouts in parts of the country while Instagram accounts with Iranian IP addresses were also blocked in an apparent attempt to quell growing anger.

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