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...Category Archives: Global development
Malawi to bin 16,000 AstraZeneca doses amid fears of rise in vaccine hesitancy
Authorities act to counter rumours out-of-date shots are being used as people drag their heels over being vaccinated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...‘If we don’t give, people don’t eat’: Yemen focus of UK Ramadan giving
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...Scientists sound warning note over malaria drug resistance in Africa
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...UN outlines plan to close camps housing 430,000 refugees in Kenya
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...‘I blamed myself’: how stigma stops Arab women reporting online abuse
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...Medics’ anger as Delhi orders most beds in private hospitals be reserved for Covid cases
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.
Continue reading...Myanmar’s lost generation: young people sacrifice futures for freedom
Dreams of careers and family life have been replaced with death and injury in the wake of the 1 February coup
For Myanmar’s young people, 2021 was supposed to be a year for optimism. After seeing through the Covid-19 pandemic, the rollout of the vaccine had begun and general elections in November had marked a step towards the country realising its potential.
But in the wake of the 1 February coup, their dreams have turned into nightmares, as many of Myanmar’s young people have found themselves forced to sacrifice their futures to take a stand against the military.
Continue reading...‘Terrible days ahead’: Afghan women fear the return of the Taliban
After 20 years of liberty, female education is once again threatened by hardline Islamists
Outside a college from which their mothers were banned, the women waited for friends finishing exams they fear will be some of the last they can take. “The Americans are leaving,” said Basireh Heydari, a Herat University student. “We have terrible days ahead with the Taliban. I’m worried they won’t let me leave the house, let alone what I’m doing now.”
The Biden administration’s decision to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan by 11 September will bring an end to the US’s longest war. With Nato allies such as Germany already announcing on Wednesday that they will follow Washington’s lead and exit the country, Afghans fear an intensification of fighting between the national government and the Taliban, who were ousted by the US-led intervention two decades ago.
Continue reading...‘We cannot drink oil’: campaigners condemn east African pipeline
Activists say the ‘heart of Africa’ line shipping crude from Uganda to Tanzania is unnecessary and poses a huge environmental risk
Activists have accused French and Chinese oil firms of ignoring huge environmental risks after the signing of accords on the controversial construction of a £2.5bn oil pipeline.
Uganda, Tanzania and the oil companies Total and CNOOC signed three key agreements on Sunday that pave the way for construction to start on the planned east African crude oil pipeline (EACOP). But on Tuesday a letter signed by 38 civil society organisations across both east African countries said the parties had failed to address environmental concerns over the pipeline and had steamrollered over court and parliamentary processes.
Continue reading...Mexico’s vow to tighten border fails to deter US-bound migrants
As the Biden administration enlists its neighbours in attempts to slow the flow of people, families seeking a future free from hunger and violence journey on
Groups of men, women and children stepped off small boats and on to Mexican soil without showing their documents to anyone.
Drivers quickly bundled them into taxis which sped past an immigration office to a nearby crossroad, where the travelers climbed into a vans for the next leg of their journey toward the US border.
Continue reading...‘Marry your rapist’ laws in 20 countries still allow perpetrators to escape justice
Critical UN report says the legislation is ‘deeply wrong’, subjugates women and shifts the burden of guilt on to the victim
Twenty countries still allow rapists to marry their victims to escape criminal prosecution, according to the UN’s annual state of world population report.
Russia, Thailand and Venezuela are among the countries that allow men to have rape convictions overturned if they marry the women or girls they have assaulted.
Continue reading...Neglected tropical diseases are the landmines of global health | Albert Picado and John H Amuasi
They are 20 disparate diseases that, like mines, unduly affect the world’s poorest people. Now there’s a plan to eradicate them by 2030
In January the World Health Organization launched a new strategy for eradicating neglected tropical diseases, boldly setting targets to eliminate 20 of them by 2030.
But what are neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)? There is no easy answer. The concept was first proposed in the early 2000s to bring to light a group of diseases that disproportionately affect poor people yet, despite their collective impact, do not attract as much attention as diseases such as HIV/Aids, malaria or tuberculosis.
Continue reading...‘We will lose more doctors’: Sudan’s health workers plead for Covid jabs
Country has struggled to get vaccines to frontline medical staff, while Covid toll remains under-reported
More than 200 Sudanese doctors, nurses and medical workers have died from Covid-19, according to sources close to the health ministry – more than three times the official figure.
Like other countries across sub-Saharan Africa, Sudan has struggled to obtain vaccines and distribute them to frontline medical staff. Many of the doctors who have died were senior consultants in their 50s and 60s or older, and so were in high-risk categories.
Continue reading...‘I felt humiliated’: parents respond to NHS maternity care racial bias inquiry
Black, Asian and ethnic minority women report being denied pain relief or feeling unheard to panel investigating mortality disparity
Feeling manipulated into having medical procedures, dismissed by professionals and labelled with racial stereotypes are among the complaints of parents who responded to a national inquiry into racial injustice in UK maternity care.
A panel established by the charity Birthrights is investigating discrimination ranging from explicit racism to racial bias and microaggressions that amount to poorer care.
Continue reading...Purple revolution: India’s farmers turn to lavender to beat drought
Faced with climate change, farmers in Jammu and Kashmir are switching from maize to essential oils
It’s late June and the field is glowing with fragrant purple as the women in their flowing shalwar kameez arrive with scythes to harvest the lavender. In the 30-odd villages on the hilly slopes of Jammu’s Doda district, more than 200 farmers have shifted from maize to lavender production, starting a “purple revolution” in the region.
The village of Lehrote had a moment of agricultural fame this year when a 43-year-old farmer, Bharat Bhushan, won a prestigious award for innovative farming from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, one of several institutions across the country looking to find ways of coping with the climate crisis and its devastating impact on farming. Lavender, a drought-resistant crop, can be grown on poor soil and likes lots of sun but needs little water.
Continue reading...‘My son could die’: the disabled Syrian refugees on the sharp end of UK aid cuts – photo essay
Two centres in Lebanon are among the casualties of cuts to British aid, with devastating consequences for thousands of patients and families
In January, the British government told its diplomats to start finding 50–70% cuts in aid funding. In March, it was revealed it was slashing aid funding to Syrian refugee projects by a third. Among the many casualties of those cuts is a project in Lebanon.
Two centres – in Zahlé and in Beirut – offer specialised services, such as speech and physiotherapy, for disabled Syrian refugees who can’t afford to pay for them.
Continue reading...‘Out of Trump playbook’: UK accused of ‘abandoning’ women with cuts to aid
Charity warns of 22,000 additional deaths in poorest countries if Wish reproductive health programme ends
The director of a leading sexual and reproductive health charity has accused the government of “abandoning” women and girls it promised to help, as aid cuts derail a leading Tory programme to reduce maternal deaths and prevent unsafe abortions in poor countries.
The threat to the women’s integrated sexual health (Wish) programme could mean 7.5m additional unintended pregnancies, 2.7m unsafe abortions and 22,000 maternal deaths over the next year, said Dr Alvaro Bermejo, director general of International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
Continue reading...Gordon Brown calls for G7 to act on Covid vaccine ‘apartheid’
Former prime minister says group should commit to global vaccine drive and slams UK’s foreign aid cut
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Preventing poor countries suffering from vaccine “apartheid” will require the G7 group of rich nations to commit $30bn (£22bn) a year to a global immunisation drive, Gordon Brown has said.
The former Labour prime minister said the UK should use June’s G7 summit in Cornwall to rekindle the moral purpose of the Make Poverty History campaign of 2005, paying for its share of the new fund by reversing the government’s “misguided” cut to the foreign aid budget.
Continue reading...‘People don’t want any of them’: Peru election sees unpredictable contest
About 28% of Peruvians wouldn’t choose any of the candidates, poll shows ahead of Sunday’s vote
An ultra-conservative millionaire who admits to scourging himself daily to repress sexual desire is just one of an assortment of low-polling candidates who all have a shot at becoming Peru’s next president.
Rafael López Aliaga is technically tied with five other contenders in an unpredictable contest to make a runoff vote in June, including a former goalkeeper, a Sorbonne-educated socialist and the daughter of the country’s jailed former leader Alberto Fujimori.
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