Mobiles are now a luxury in world’s fifth most costly place for data as cooking oil tax adds to rising prices
Hundreds of people have taken to Malawi’s streets to protest against rising mobile call and data charges.
There were demonstrations in Lilongwe, the capital, in the city of Blantyre, and in the southern district of Mulanje on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Only a fifth of Oxford/AstraZeneca doses expected by May delivered as export bans, hoarding and supply shortages bite
The global vaccine-sharing initiative Covax has so far delivered about one in five of the Oxford/AstraZeneca doses it estimated would arrive in countries by May, according to a Guardian analysis, starkly illustrating the cost of export bans, hoarding and supply shortages for a scheme that represents a key lifeline for many in the developing world.
The organisations that run Covax had predicted countries would receive fewer vaccines than expected after the Indian government restricted exports from its largest manufacturer in response to a catastrophic second wave there, but the figures reveal the shortfall to be severe, leaving many governments scrambling to secure doses elsewhere.
Continue reading...At the mercy of international markets and denied access to mainstream finance, the enterprising growers face a precarious existence
Moreen Tanhara waits patiently for officials to inspect her tobacco. The 49-year-old has travelled nearly 100 miles (150km) overnight in an old lorry to reach Tobacco Sales Floor, an auction house in Harare. Tanhara sits quietly on one of the fragrant sacks she has brought from Guruve, a farming area north of Zimbabwe’s capital, while on the auction floor workers prepare tobacco leaves for the first sales of the season.
Related: Zimbabwe urged to take action against child labour on tobacco farms
Continue reading...Health workers spent years targeting agonising and blinding eye disease, which was rife in rural areas
The Gambia has become the second country in Africa to eliminate trachoma, one of the leading causes of blindness.
The achievement, announced by the World Health Organization on Tuesday, came after decades of work on the disease, which has damaged the sight of about 1.9 million people worldwide. Ghana was the first country in Africa to eliminate the disease in 2018.
Continue reading...Rapid glut of cases stretches supplies of beds in intensive care units, ventilators and oxygen
Hundred of Indians, including Delhi government administrators, have begged for help finding oxygen and other crucial medical supplies on social media as India reels from a devastating second wave of coronavirus, leading to caseloads growing by nearly 300,000 every day.
Faulty oxygen supplies at a western Indian hospital have killed more than 20 Covid-19 patients, adding to the country’s highest-ever daily death toll from the virus.
Continue reading...Minister tells MPs that cuts come at ‘terrible’ time, with 16m close to famine as Covid infections double
The UK government has admitted that no assessment has been carried out of how “dire” the impact of the 60% cut in foreign aid to Yemen will be.
Related: UK 'balancing books on backs of Yemen's starving people', says UN diplomat
Continue reading...Families with older children are turned around under Title 42, invoked last year by Trump due to supposed health risk from Covid
Dazed and dejected, Mimi was sitting on a park bench in the Mexican city of Reynosa, Mexico, not far from the border with Texas. Clinging to her side was her six-year-old daughter.
The young Honduran mother seemed shocked by how close they had come to their American dream – and the realization that her own words had pushed it out of reach.
Continue reading...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.
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