Breakthrough could create thousands of jobs for villagers and help exports to other markets
A company in Lesotho has become the first in Africa to receive a licence to sell medical cannabis to the EU.
The country’s top medical cannabis producer, MG Health, announced it had met the EU’s good manufacturing practice (GMP) standards, allowing it to export cannabis flower, oil and extracts as an active pharmaceutical ingredient.
Continue reading...Rise in cases feared as murders halt campaigns and leave many women too afraid to work
Gul Meena Hotak was on her regular rounds, going door-to-door giving polio vaccinations in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, when she heard gunshots.
The 22-year-old’s immediate concern was for the safety of her friend Negina and other colleagues nearby. “Negina and my supervisor were in a neighbourhood close by when a gunman approached and shot at them. My supervisor escaped with gunshot injuries, but Negina was killed on the spot,” Hotak said.
Continue reading...Opposition leaders leave airport bolthole as they step up pressure over contested presidency of Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed
After months living at an upmarket inn close to Mogadishu’s airport, Somalia’s opposition leaders, including two former presidents and their armed teams, have decamped, spreading across the capital in what is seen as a strategic move.
The sitting president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed “Farmaajo”, has meanwhile flown to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he reportedly hopes to win support for an extension of his presidential term from the African Union.
Continue reading...Investigation finds one in six were solo and under 15, as experts say cross-border cooperation ‘nonexistent’
At least 18,000 unaccompanied child migrants have disappeared after arriving in European countries including Greece, Italy and Germany.
An investigation by the Guardian and the cross-border journalism collective Lost in Europe found that 18,292 unaccompanied child migrants went missing in Europe between January 2018 and December 2020 – equivalent to nearly 17 children a day.
Continue reading...Exclusive: coordinator of UN’s relief operation to say agencies not listening to needs of those in need
The world’s multibillion-dollar humanitarian system is struggling because unaccountable aid agencies are not listening to what people say they need and instead are deciding for them, the UN’s humanitarian agency head will say this week.
In a startling analysis of the programme he oversees, Mark Lowcock, the coordinator of the UN’s aid relief operation since 2017, will say he has reached the view that “one of the biggest failings” of the system is that agencies “do not pay enough attention” to the voices of people caught up in crises.
Continue reading...Open letter backing UN call to action says Covid has exacerbated problems of conflict, climate crisis and inequality
World leaders are being urged to act immediately to stop multiple famines breaking out, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic and caused by conflict, climate crisis and inequality.
In an open letter published on Tuesday to support the UN Call for Action to Avert Famine in 2021, hundreds of aid organisations from around the world said: “People are not starving – they are being starved.”
Continue reading...Clashes have sparked political assassinations and the forced displacement of thousands ahead of crunch 6 June polls
Violent clashes between rival Mexican criminal groups – and their alleged allies in the security forces – are escalating ahead of mid-term elections in June, triggering a string of political assassinations and the forced displacement of thousands.
State and federal security forces have actively colluded with – and even fought alongside – the warring factions, according to local civilians, civil society activists and gunmen from various factions.
Continue reading...Ahtisham Khan arrived in Greece, aged 16, after leaving Pakistan. A new initiative is helping children like him find a safe home where they can start to rebuild their lives
At some point in his journey to a freer place, Ahtisham Khan came to a fork in the road. Fifty days of travel from his native Pakistan to the plains of northern Greece had been unexpectedly frightening and exhausting.
“We had a lot of dreams,” he says, recalling why he and his brother, Zeeshan, left their village close to the city of Haripur in Pakistan. “We were teenagers … we didn’t know what we were embarking on. We did what we had to do to survive.”
Continue reading...Daw Myo Aye, labour organiser and a leader of civil disobedience protests, dragged from office by army
One of Myanmar’s leading trade union leaders has been arrested as part of escalating attacks on pro-democracy figures by the military junta.
Daw Myo Aye, director of Solidarity Trade Union of Myanmar (STUM), one of Myanmar’s largest independent unions, is a central figure in the movement for workers’ rights.
Continue reading...New law means people could face 20 years in prison for lockdown breaches, as campaigners warn of ‘human rights disaster’
Cambodians who break Covid rules could face 20 years in prison under a new law that human rights groups say takes the country “a step towards a totalitarian dictatorship”.
Prime minister Hun Sen warned that Cambodia was “on the brink of death” as a two-week lockdown was imposed in Phnom Penh on Thursday to try to control the spread of the virus.
Continue reading...As sole provider for his family, nine-year-old Gift is exhausted and, despite hopes of being a teacher, gets little chance to study
While other children play football or watch cartoons at home after school, nine-year-old Gift Phiri goes to work.
After his day at primary school in Mchengautuwa, in Malawi’s northern city of Mzuzu, the nine-year-old goes home to start work, hammering sharp-edged metal sheets, shaping them into charcoal cooking stoves. Gift, who lives with his grandmother, two younger siblings and another relative, started making the stoves after being trained by his grandfather when he was six.
Continue reading...The Brazilian state has seen nearly 800 police-caused deaths in nine months, with poor city communities raided almost daily
Nearly 800 people were killed by police in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro in the past nine months, as raids remain a terrifying routine for favela families – despite a supreme court ruling to halt incursions during the coronavirus pandemic.
New figures show that between June 2020 and March 2021, 797 people were killed in Rio state, 85% in the city of Rio and surrounding metropolitan region.
Continue reading...New stations at health clinics improve hygiene in locations where warm water seen as ‘an absolute luxury’, helping to tackle Covid
In Eswatini, the southern African country which lost a prime minister to Covid-19 in December and where most people have no access to hot water, handwashing – a key weapon in the fight against the pandemic – has been a problem.
No government health clinic in the kingdom, formerly known as Swaziland, had hot running water for patients. Nine out of 10 didn’t have hot water for operations and cleaning instruments.
Continue reading...On cars, restaurant walls and buildings reduced to rubble, Bashar al-Assad’s face is plastered across the country, a decade after he crushed the first protests against his rule. By photographer Rami al-Bustan
Continue reading...Authorities act to counter rumours out-of-date shots are being used as people drag their heels over being vaccinated
More than 16,000 expired AstraZeneca Covid-19 doses are to be destroyed in Malawi as concerns over vaccine hesitancy increase.
The vaccines are among 102,000 doses donated by the African Union (AU) to the Malawian government last month.
Continue reading...As Britain cuts aid to war-torn country on brink of famine Muslim charities are directing donations towards feeding population
The Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, which started this week, is the biggest period of giving for UK Muslims.
According to research by the Muslim Charities Forum, in 2018 the UK’s estimated 3.5 million Muslims donated more than £120m to global charitable causes during Ramadan, at a rate of £46 every second.
Continue reading...Rwanda study raises fears erosion of efficacy may have begun, with children at greatest risk
Resistance to malaria drugs in Africa may be starting to take hold, according to a study that maps changes similar to those seen a decade ago when drug resistance spread in south-east Asia.
In Cambodia and neighbouring countries, the artemisinin drug compounds widely used against malaria are no longer always effective. The falciparum malaria parasites have developed genetic mutations that allow them to evade the drugs. There has been great concern that drug resistance could spread to Africa, which has the highest burden of cases of this type of malaria – and the highest toll of child deaths from it.
Continue reading...Proposals follow Kenyan government’s ultimatum to UN refugee agency to close Dadaab and Kakuma camps
The UN refugee agency has given the Kenyan government “sustainable and rights-based” proposals for the closure of Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps.
The response follows a 14-day ultimatum issued by the Kenyan government for the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) to come up with a plan for closing the two camps, which are home to some 430,000 refugees and asylum seekers from more than 15 countries.
Continue reading...Women in the Middle East and north Africa say social codes leave them unable to talk about social media abuse as pandemic pushes sexual harassment off the streets
The first pornographic picture sent shivers of shock through Amal as she stared in horror at the phone screen. Until now, she had responded politely to the older man who had been messaging her on Facebook, hoping to deter his questions about her life with curt, one-word replies.
More lurid pictures followed, some from pornographic magazines, others of the man himself in sexual poses. “I started to blame myself and feel that I invited this because I had replied to him,” says the 21-year-old, who is a university student in Amman, Jordan.
Continue reading...Doctors say ‘absurd’ move, made as second wave surges, is unfair on non-Covid patients
Doctors have expressed fears for patients after the government ordered that the majority of the beds in 14 of Delhi’s biggest private hospitals be reserved exclusively for Covid patients, as the Indian capital’s healthcare system struggles to cope with a virulent second wave.
The announcement by the government came as the situation in Delhi grew increasingly dire, with over 17,000 new cases reported on Wednesday, breaking all records since the pandemic began, and 104 deaths. The capital has overtaken Mumbai, previously Covid ground zero in India, in terms of the number of new cases reported every day.
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