Category Archives: Global development

Egypt says climate finance must be top of agenda at Cop27 talks

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Host of November’s summit wants focus to be on ‘moving from pledges to implementation’

Financial assistance for developing countries must be at the top of the agenda for UN climate talks this year, the host country, Egypt, has made clear, as governments will be required to follow through on promises made at the Cop26 summit last year.

Egypt will host Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh in November. The talks will take place in the shadow of the war in Ukraine, as well as rising energy and food prices around the world, leaving rich countries grappling with a cost-of-living crisis and poor countries struggling with debt mountains.

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Médecins Sans Frontières condemned for ‘profiting from exploitative images’

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Medical charity criticised for using images that ‘endanger and exploit children’ amid row over photos from DRC identifying child rape survivor

Doctors, photographers, human rights activists and academics have written to Médecins Sans Frontières to raise concerns that the medical charity is exploiting the trauma of vulnerable patients to promote its work.

In an open letter to the international president and MSF board, almost 50 signatories, who include current and former staff, allege that the aid organisation has commissioned, published and allowed the sale of photographs that endanger and exploit vulnerable black people, including children.

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‘They won’t accept us’: Roma refugees forced to camp at Prague train station

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Humanitarian crisis grows as Ukrainian Roma families stuck at Czech train station say they are not treated like other refugees

Prague’s central railway station seems a picture of normality amid warm spring sunshine and the return of legions of tourists, who had been largely absent at the height of Covid. On the platform one weekday morning, two German sightseers gaze curiously at the statue of Sir Nicholas Winton, the British stockbroker who helped 669 mostly Jewish children escape from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the second world war.

Yet just yards away, hundreds of Roma people are sheltering in the only place available to them since they joined the millions of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion.

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‘I saw an oncologist cry’: Tigray cancer patients sent home to die for lack of drugs

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Doctors call for international help as Ethiopia civil war leaves terminally ill being treated with paracetamol in Mekelle hospital

Doctors caring for cancer patients at the main hospital in Tigray say they have only two chemotherapy drugs left in date and are treating terminally ill people with expired medication and paracetamol. Eighteen months of war have left the sickest in society suffering agonising deaths, they say.

For the first time in 11 months, doctors at the Ayder referral hospital in Mekelle took receipt of an oral chemotherapy drug earlier this month as part of an airlift by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Until then, they had had only one, Doxorubicin, still in date.

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Male Afghan TV presenters mask up to support female colleagues after Taliban decree

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#FreeHerFace campaign gathers force as high-profile men rebel against crackdown on face coverings in Afghanistan

Male TV presenters in Afghanistan are wearing face masks on screen to show solidarity after the Taliban issued an order that all women on news channels must cover their faces.

In a protest dubbed #FreeHerFace on social media, men on Tolo News wore masks to mimic the effect of the face veil their female colleagues have been forced to wear after a Taliban crackdown.

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Sisters allegedly murdered by husbands in Pakistan ‘honour’ killing

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Six men arrested after Pakistani-Spanish women tricked into travelling to Gujrat where they were shot

Two sisters with dual Pakistani and Spanish citizenship were allegedly killed by their husbands, uncle and brother in a so-called “honour” killing a day after they were tricked into travelling to Pakistan.

Aneesa Abbas, 24, and Arooj Abbas, 21, were strangled and shot dead on Friday after arriving in the eastern city of Gujrat with their mother, Azra Bibi.

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Pakistan town blames deadly cholera outbreak on government neglect

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Residents of Pir Koh say poor water provision and a dirty water tank led to 26 deaths, the majority among children under seven

Two weeks ago, Ruqiyya Bibi fell sick. The two-year-old was vomiting constantly; her father, Mohammed Iqbal, took her to a basic health unit in Pir Koh, a impoverished town with a population of 40,000 in the mountains of Balochistan, south-western Pakistan.

Iqbal was told at first that his daughter had malaria but when treatment did not help, he took her to another doctor who said she had a blood condition.

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Number of displaced people passes 100m for the first time, says UN

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‘Staggering milestone’ calls for urgent international action to address underlying causes of conflict, persecution and the climate crisis, says high commissioner for refugees

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has said the global number of forcibly displaced people has passed 100 million for the first time, describing it as a “staggering milestone”.

The UN high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, said the grim new statistic should act as a wake-up call for the international community and that more action is needed internationally to address the root causes of forced displacement around the world.

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Britain slashes humanitarian aid by 51% despite global food crisis

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Campaigners say ministers must change course as millions face famine in Africa and the Ukraine war threatens to disrupt global food supplies

Ministers have been accused of choosing the “worst moment in history” to slash the foreign aid budget, as provisional figures showed that UK overseas humanitarian funding was cut by more than half last year.

MPs and charity campaigners say the aid budget urgently needs to be increased to cope with the Ukraine conflict and the risk of famine in Africa. Up to 23 million people face acute hunger in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia due to drought.

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Mozambique confirms first wild poliovirus case in 30 years

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Case in child in Tete province follows detection of similar strain in Malawi in February, officials say

Mozambique has identified its first case of wild polio in three decades following the genetic sequencing of a similar strain of the childhood disease in Malawi earlier this year.

Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa, said the detection of the new case was “greatly concerning” and that it demonstrated “how dangerous this virus is and how quickly it can spread”.

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Twenty-five ethnic Pamiris killed by security forces in Tajikistan protests

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Escalating tensions erupt into regime-backed violence against the minority group in the autonomous region of Gorno-Badakhshan

At least 25 people were killed on Wednesday by security forces in Tajikistan during a protest in the autonomous region of Gorno-Badakhshan (GBAO), where the Tajik regime has targeted the Pamiri ethnic minority.

The deaths mark an escalation of violence in the region. Conflict between the central government and the Pamiri has continued for decades, with the cultural and linguistic minority ethnic group suffering human rights abuses, as well as discrimination over jobs and housing.

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‘Huge spike’ in global conflict caused record number of displacements in 2021

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Those fleeing combat were internally displaced 14.4m times, with biggest toll in sub-Saharan Africa, report reveals

Conflict and violence forced people from their homes a record number of times last year, a report has found, with sub-Saharan Africa bearing the brunt of mass internal displacement caused by “huge spikes” in fighting.

People fleeing violence were internally displaced 14.4m times in 2021, an increase of 4.6m on 2020, according to figures published by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

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US supreme court abortion reversal would be global ‘catastrophe’ for women

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If Roe v Wade is overturned, it will encourage anti-choice groups – particularly in the developing world, activists warn

The probable demise of abortion as a federal right in the US will be a “catastrophe” for women in low and middle-income countries, with an emboldened anti-choice movement likely to raise renewed pressure on hard-won gains, doctors and activists have warned.

The leak this month of the US supreme court’s draft majority opinion, which argued that the 1973 ruling effectively legalising abortion had been “egregiously wrong from the start”, stunned and enraged many in America.

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The ‘Spider-Man’ of Sudan: masked activist becomes symbol of resistance

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Dressed in red and blue, ‘Spidey’ is a fixture at protests against the military regime – and the subject of a new Guardian documentary

Violence and arrests will not deter Sudan’s young activists from resisting the military who “stole our revolution”, says one man who faces down the teargas and bullets in a blue and red superhero costume.

Featured in a new Guardian documentary, “the ‘Spider-Man’ of Sudan”, who cannot be named for his safety, has become a symbol of protests that began in October. Dressed in his increasingly frayed suit and mask he and other demonstrators confront teargas canisters, water cannon and often live bullets.

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‘Incredible cruelty’: gang battles leave 150 dead in Haitian capital

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Scores wounded as violence paralyses Port-au-Prince forcing thousands to flee their homes

Nearly 150 people have been killed and scores wounded during gunfights between warring gangs in Haiti, as the latest surge of violence has paralysed much of the sprawling capital, Port-au-Prince.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Thursday that it had treated more than 96 people with gunshot wounds in its medical facilities in Port-au-Prince since 24 April.

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‘Forgotten’ Syrian interpreter attempts suicide after UK asylum delays

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The man, who has been awaiting a Home Office decision for almost two years, says the anxiety has had a significant impact on his wellbeing

A Syrian interpreter who has worked for the British government and the White Helmets has tried to kill himself after waiting nearly two years for a decision on his asylum claim.

Ali [not his real name] worked as an interpreter and translator for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in Istanbul, and for Mayday Rescue, a humanitarian organisation that supported the work of the White Helmets (officially known as the Syria Civil Defence) across Syria.

In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Hotlines in other countries can be found here

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Hunger crisis grips Horn of Africa – but 80% of Britons unaware, poll shows

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UK government urged to act as worst drought in 40 years threatens region while aid efforts and global attention remain focused on Ukraine war

The UK government has been urged to give the hunger crisis gripping the Horn of Africa “proper attention”, as new polling showed just two in 10 people in Britain are aware that the worst drought in 40 years is even taking place, let alone threatening famine.

As the war in Ukraine rages, the combined effect of three failed rainy seasons has pushed parts of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia to the brink, killing livestock, forcing people to leave their homes and increasing levels of child malnutrition. The Russian invasion has exacerbated the situation, pushing up the price of staples such as wheat and sunflower oil, as well as fuel.

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Guardian wins Amnesty media award for best use of digital media

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Award given for the interactive reconstruction of the moment Israeli forces hit a residential tower block in Gaza

The Guardian has won a prestigious Amnesty media award for the interactive reconstruction Countdown to the airstrike: the moment Israeli forces hit al-Jalaa tower, Gaza, showing the race to evacuate residents of a block of flats before their homes were turned to rubble.

The Best Use of Digital Media award was given to the Guardian’s Global Development reporter Kaamil Ahmed and interactive designer Garry Blight, Airwars’ Joe Dyke and the Gaza-based journalist Anas Baba for their use of video, images and audio captured by the residents of al-Jalaa tower in the hour after Israeli forces called to tell them it would be demolished.

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Latin American feminists vow to protect abortion rights at home after shock US ruling

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Women’s movements have fought hard to reverse anti-abortion laws in their countries and say it’s not the end for the US

Reproductive rights activists across Latin America have vowed to protect hard-fought gains in their own territories as they brace for potential ripple effects if the US supreme court overturns Roe vs Wade – the 1973 ruling which guarantees the right to abortion.

Latin America has some of the most draconian anti-abortion laws in the world. But feminist movements have fought for decades to chip away at the prohibitions, and in recent years a younger, diverse generation of activists has mobilized in massive numbers to help clinch a string of victories in traditionally conservative countries.

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UK aid cuts have forced 40,000 Syrian children out of school, charity says

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Funding for 133 schools run by Syria Relief ended on 30 April, leaving pupils at risk of child labour and early marriage

More than 40,000 Syrian children are out of school as a direct result of British aid cuts and more schools could soon close, a leading charity has said.

British funding for 133 schools run by Syria Relief ended on 30 April, as the government cut its total foreign aid spending from its commitment of 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5%.

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