Category Archives: Global development

Rwandan-backed rebels M23 claim capture of eastern DRC city Goma

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Fighters enter city on border with Rwanda after lightning advance, raising risk of broader regional war

Fighters from the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group claim to have taken the eastern city of Goma after a lightning advance in recent weeks that has forced thousands from their homes and risked reigniting a broader regional war.

The M23 spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka said on X: “We urge all residents of Goma to remain calm. The liberation of the city has been successfully carried out and the situation is under control.”

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Israel insists it is going ahead with Unrwa ban – what it may mean for Palestinians

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UN agency ordered to vacate HQ by Thursday – just as aid is being increased to Gaza after ceasefire

Israel has insisted it will not back down over its plan to close down the Gaza operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa), the UN relief agency for Palestinians, even though critics say the move will jeopardise urgent humanitarian aid efforts.

Israel has ordered the UN agency to vacate its headquarters in East Jerusalem by Thursday, after the Israeli Knesset passed a law on 28 October banning its operations in Israel and the Palestinian territories. It has not yet said how it will implement a related law ending all Israeli government cooperation with Unwra, which could come into force on the same day and strangle its operations in the West Bank and Gaza.

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Bulgarian police ‘blocked rescue’ of teenage migrants who froze to death

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Report by rights groups alleges border police refused to rescue boys and blocked activists’ efforts to save them

Bulgarian authorities have been accused of ignoring emergency calls and obstructing efforts to rescue three Egyptian teenage boys, who later died in sub-zero temperatures near the Bulgarian-Turkish border in late December.

A dossier of evidence compiled by two humanitarian organisations, seen by the Guardian, contains photos, testimonies and geolocations allegedly showing the authorities’ failure to save the boys, who called for help as they struggled cold and lost in the forests of Burgas, in south-eastern Bulgaria.

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Rwandan army ‘ready to invade DRC’ and help rebels seize city

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Intelligence sources suggest battle for Congolese regional capital Goma is imminent before UN crisis talks on Sunday

Large numbers of troops from Rwanda have been pouring across the border into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to help rebels seize the regional capital of Goma before an emergency UN meeting about the crisis takes place on Sunday, intelligence officials have warned.

Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) soldiers are believed to have secretly crossed into the eastern DRC over the past few days to assist a lightning offensive by the M23 militia.

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Europe overhauls funding to Tunisia after Guardian exposes migrant abuse

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Allegations of rape, beatings and collusion by EU-funded security forces prompt shift in migration arrangements

The European Commission is fundamentally overhauling how it makes payments to Tunisia after a Guardian investigation exposed myriad abuses by EU-funded security forces, including widespread sexual violence against migrants.

Officials are drawing up “concrete” conditions to ensure that future European payments to Tunis can go ahead only if human rights have not been violated.

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Lawyer for Ugandan opposition politician ‘arrested and tortured’

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Eron Kiiza, who was representing regime opponent Dr Kizza Besigye, was assaulted and sentenced to nine months’ jail, say colleagues

A human rights lawyer involved in a case featuring a prominent Ugandan opposition leader has been tortured after he was arrested and detained without trial, according to colleagues who have visited him.

Eron Kiiza was assaulted and arrested by soldiers on 7 January while entering a military courtroom where he was representing Dr Kizza Besigye – a political opponent of President Yoweri Museveni – and his aide Haji Obeid Lutale.

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Suspected outbreak of deadly Marburg virus disease kills eight in Tanzania

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Healthcare workers among suspected cases of Ebola-like disease as WHO issues warning of high risk to the country and its neighbours

A suspected outbreak of Marburg virus disease (MVD) in Tanzania has killed eight people and poses a high risk to the country and its neighbours, global health leaders have said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said nine suspected cases of the Ebola-like virus had been reported as of 11 January, in two districts of the Kagera region in the north of the country, including the eight deaths.

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Halt illegal imports of conflict minerals from DRC, campaigners urge EU

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Law to stop armed groups profiting from trade in gold, tin, tungsten and tantalum is being breached, rights groups say

The European Union has been urged to clamp down on illegal imports of conflict minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) after evidence was found that current regulations had been breached.

The advocacy group Global Witness (GW) said there remained a “high risk” of the EU’s mineral imports being used to fund militias and state repression in several countries.

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Kenya court rules that criminalising attempted suicide is unconstitutional

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The judgment has been welcomed as an important shift in perceptions by human rights and mental health groups

A Kenyan judge has declared as unconstitutional sections of the country’s laws that criminalise attempted suicide. In a landmark ruling on Thursday, Judge Lawrence Mugambi of the country’s high court stated that section 226 of the penal code contradicts the constitution by punishing those with mental health issues over which they may have little or no control.

While the constitution says in article 43 that a person has the right to the “highest attainable standard of health”, criminal law states that “any person who attempts to kill himself is guilty of a misdemeanour and is subject to imprisonment of up to two years, a fine, or both”, with the minimum age of prosecution for the offence set at eight years old.

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UK cut health aid to vulnerable nations while hiring their nurses, research finds

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Royal College of Nursing says Labour has a duty to fix health ‘double whammy’ by raising aid and funding for UK nursing

The UK cut health aid to some of the world’s vulnerable countries at the same time as recruiting thousands of their nurses, in a “double whammy” for fragile health systems, new analysis has found.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN), which carried out the research, said Labour had a “duty to fix” aid cuts imposed by the previous government, and to work on increasing the UK’s domestic supply of nurses.

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Massive cleanup under way in Ghana after fire destroys one of world’s biggest secondhand markets

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Thousands of traders face ruin after blaze razes two-thirds of Accra’s Kantamanto, which receives an estimated 15m used clothes from global north each week

A huge cleanup operation is taking place after a fire devastated one of the world’s biggest secondhand clothes markets.

Thousands of traders’ stalls were destroyed in the blaze that started at about 10pm on 1 January and consumed large sections of Kantamanto market in Accra, Ghana’s capital.

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Live Aid campaigner Bob Geldof was ‘scathing about African leaders’, files reveal

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Singer urged Tony Blair not to appoint African co-chair to commission on aid, UK government papers show

The Live Aid campaigner Bob Geldof urged Tony Blair not to appoint an African co-chair to the UK-led organisation working to overhaul international aid to the continent because he thought African leadership was “very weak” on the issue, newly released government documents suggest.

The singer was “scathing about the ability and worthiness of virtually all African leaders” before the establishment in 2004 of Blair’s Commission for Africa, which would produce a report, Our Common Interest, and prompt a landmark pledge by rich nations to boost aid and write off debt.

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Gaza hospital director being held at notorious Israeli prison, say family

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Hussam Abu Safiya feared injured as Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza shut down after 11 weeks under siege

One of the few doctors still working in northern Gaza has been taken to an Israeli prison and his hospital shut down, his family believe.

Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan hospital in Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp, was initially taken to the Sde Teiman detention camp, according to his son, who has been told that the doctor’s leg was badly injured during a raid on the hospital by Israeli soldiers.

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Last major health facility in north Gaza ‘out of service’ after Israeli attack

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Gaza officials say staff at Kamal Adwan hospital, including its director, have been detained as WHO reports Israeli forces burned and destroyed key departments

The last major health facility in northern Gaza has been put out of service, the World Health Organization has said, and its director detained according to Gaza officials after an Israeli military operation targeting sites near the Kamal Adwan hospital.

“Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid,” the WHO said in a statement on X.

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Syrian family left in limbo over Christmas as UK halts asylum claims

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Decisions on fate of 6,500 Syrian asylum seekers suspended amid push to repatriate refugees after fall of regime

A Syrian family say they are “fearing for their future” this Christmas after having an imminent decision on their asylum application stopped by the UK government.

Bilal*, 39, worked as a bank manager in Damascus, and has been living in Sheffield with his wife and four children for the past year. He had his second interview about his asylum application in November and had been told by the Home Office that a decision on his case was “very close”.

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Tulip Siddiq questioned over multibillion-pound embezzlement allegations

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Treasury minister denies claims by Bangladesh that she helped broker corrupt deal with Russia to build nuclear plant

The Treasury minister Tulip Siddiq has been questioned by the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team after Bangladesh’s anti-corruption commission accused her and family members of embezzling billions for a nuclear power plant.

The Labour MP, who denies allegations that she helped broker a deal with Russia to build the energy project, reportedly told a government official that she was the victim of a “political hit job”.

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Health services across Idlib ‘no longer functioning’, say Syrian doctors

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Airstrikes on the city’s hospitals have led to death of at least two patients as well as the evacuation of medics and those being treated

Health services are no longer functioning in the Syrian city of Idlib after a series of airstrikes on key hospitals damaged intensive care units and specialised services, doctors said.

At least two intensive care patients have died because of power and oxygen shortages caused by the airstrikes, according to the rescue group White Helmets, and hospitals have had to evacuate patients or move them into basements.

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Trump threat and mounting dangers in Mexico drive migrant rush towards US

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People waiting in Tapachula by Guatemala border fear Trump’s election could worsen crisis and spur northward flight

Outside the migration office, Tito subtly pointed out the watchful human smugglers leaning against a wall.

They had already tried to sell their services to Tito, who was on his way to the US but, like everyone else there, found himself stuck in Tapachula, a town in southern Mexico that has become a global way station.

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Iran frees rapper Toomaj Salehi jailed for supporting protests

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Rapper who spoke up for Woman, Life, Freedom movement is released five months after death sentence overturned

The Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, who was sentenced to death in April for his support of anti-regime protests, has been released from prison by the Iranian authorities.

Salehi was sentenced by a revolutionary court in April for backing the Woman, Life, Freedom protests in September 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who died in police custody.

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Women arrested by Taliban for begging report rape and killings in Afghan jails

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Draconian new laws allow mass incarceration of women and children forced to beg because of work ban

Destitute Afghan women arrested for begging under draconian new Taliban laws have spoken of “brutal” rapes and beatings in detention.

Over the past few months, many women said they had been targeted by Taliban officials and detained under anti-begging laws passed this year. While in prison, they claim they were subjected to sexual abuse, torture and forced labour, and witnessed children being beaten and abused.

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