Category Archives: Society

Irish people adopted abroad as children to get full access to their records

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Campaign launched to reach those sent overseas during years of hostility towards unmarried mothers

Irish people who were sent to Britain, the US and elsewhere for adoption when they were children as a result of decades-long Catholic hostility towards unmarried mothers will be entitled to unrestricted access to their birth certificates and other official records in Ireland for the first time thanks to a new law.

The Adoption Authority of Ireland, which has been charged with managing the scheme, has launched a campaign to reach adults who were adopted, formally or informally, overseas. It believes about 100,000 people will be affected by the new Birth Information and Tracing Act. The new law relates to all those born to parents within Ireland and adopted at home or abroad since the foundation of the state 100 years ago.

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Leading figures urge drugs firm to lower price of ‘game-changing’ HIV prevention drug

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Signatories including Olly Alexander, Stephen Fry and Joseph Stiglitz issue a letter asking ViiV to make cabotegravir affordable to low- and middle-income countries

Nobel laureates, business leaders, former premiers and celebrities have urged a UK pharmaceutical company to lower the price of its groundbreaking HIV prevention drug and ensure it is not kept “out of reach” of the world’s poor.

In a letter signed by dozens of high-profile figures, including Sir Richard Branson, the singer Olly Alexander, the economist Joseph Stiglitz and Helen Clark, the former prime minister of New Zealand, the pharmaceutical company ViiV Healthcare is praised for having developed the first of a new kind of HIV prevention drug.

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UK cybersecurity chiefs back plan to scan phones for child abuse images

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Heads of GCHQ and NCSC say client-side scanning could protect children and privacy at the same time

Tech companies should move ahead with controversial technology that scans for child abuse imagery on users’ phones, the technical heads of GCHQ and the UK’s National Cybersecurity Centre have said.

So-called “client-side scanning” would involve service providers such as Facebook or Apple building software that monitors communications for suspicious activity without needing to share the contents of messages with a centralised server.

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Tea strain: MPs’ stab at being funny gets steeped in ridicule

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Twitter complaints of sexism and dated views pour in after 1922 Committee tries jest with teapot amid Tory leadership contest

Attempts to inject some levity into the Conservative leadership contest on social media fell flat on Wednesday when a photograph tweeted of the 1922 Committee led to criticism that it was sexist and outdated.

With the announcement of the two remaining candidates for the UK prime minister role about to be announced (at 4pm this Wednesday) or at “tea time” as it was described, the photograph showed members of the committee representing Tory backbenchers posing with teacups in hand and a teapot.

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Send us a man to do your job so we can sack you, Taliban tell female officials

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As economy collapses, women from Afghanistan’s finance ministry say they have been asked to suggest male relatives to replace them

The Taliban have asked women working at Afghanistan’s finance ministry to send a male relative to do their job a year after female public-sector workers were barred from government work and told to stay at home.

Women who worked in government positions were sent home from their jobs shortly after the Taliban took power in August 2021, and have been paid heavily reduced salaries to do nothing.

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Tory contest shows government levelling up agenda is dead, Lisa Nandy to say

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Shadow minister to say PM hopefuls are vying ‘for the mantle of Margaret Thatcher, promising tax cuts for the wealthy’

The shadow communities secretary, Lisa Nandy, will claim the Conservative leadership contest has shown the government’s commitment to levelling up is dead, as she announces plans to give local communities the right to buy up assets such as empty shops.

Nandy will use a speech in Darlington to say Labour would press ahead with handing power to communities outside London and the south-east in an attempt to rebalance the UK’s economy.

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Gang warfare traps thousands in Haiti slum as fuel crisis add to desperation

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Calls for aid to be let into Port-au-Prince district after ‘battlefield’ violence leaves dozens dead and cuts supplies of food and water

Haiti’s capital has been racked by a week of heavy fighting between gangs, with the global medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warning that thousands of people were trapped without food or water in one district of Port-au-Prince’s notorious Cité Soleil slum.

“We are calling on all belligerents to allow aid to enter Brooklyn and to spare civilians,” said Mumuza Muhindo, the MSF’s head of mission in Haiti, in a statement referring to the contested area within the sprawling Cité Soleil.

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Sisters of Gaia Pope: ‘We felt helpless. She felt she wasn’t listened to’

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Maya and Clara Pope-Sutherland blame Gaia’s disappearance and death on serial failings by police and mental health services

The wonderful memories of Gaia Pope come easily and vividly to her twin, Maya Pope-Sutherland, and older sister Clara Pope-Sutherland.

“We never spent a moment apart when we were younger, we were so close, we had a real bond,” Maya, 24, told the Guardian. “There was a spirituality about Gaia. Her name means ‘Mother Earth’ and she felt a connection with the trees, the sky, animals. She was altruistic and caring, a great listener.”

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NHS doctors’ strike is ‘inevitable,’ says new BMA chair

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Exclusive: doctors will use pay row to expose ‘desperate state’ of NHS after years of government neglect, Prof Philip Banfield warned

A doctor’s strike is “inevitable” and will expose how dangerously threadbare the Conservatives have left the health service, the profession’s new leader has said.

In his first interview since taking over as the British Medical Association’s chair of council, Prof Philip Banfield warned ministers that doctors will take the fight to them by using a pay dispute to tell the public patients are dying as a direct result of government neglect of the NHS.

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Asda employees ‘skipping meals’ due to monthly payroll errors

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Thousands of staff have been left up to £500 short on payday, which has forced some to use food banks or leave bills unpaid

Asda employees are having to skip household bill payments, take out loans, and even use food banks to get through the month due to regular payroll errors that have seen some underpaid by £500 or more.

The scale of the problem emerged after the private equity-backed company admitted to members of the Scottish parliament that its external payroll firm had made nearly 11,000 errors in recent months, affecting the wages of 5,500 staff.

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Senior public servant questioned Women’s Network rebrand but not phallic logo design, documents show

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Federal government’s ‘women’s champion’ did not raise concerns about purple, elongated emblem but asked who initiated rebrand

A senior public servant designated as the federal government’s “women’s champion” raised questions about a controversial new logo for the Women’s Network, though no concerns were raised about the design’s phallic appearance, according to newly released documents.

The purple, elongated logo was swiftly withdrawn in March after much public mockery, with the National Older Women’s Network describing the image as “either thoughtless or an insult”.

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Dismay as UK gambling reform white paper shelved for fourth time

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Delay follows advice to PM that proposals cannot be published until new Conservative leader in place

Proposals to reform gambling laws have been postponed for a fourth time, after advisers to Boris Johnson concluded it could not be published until a new leader of the Conservative party is elected to replace him as prime minister.

Amid a tussle between different Tory party factions over the content of the plans, multiple Whitehall sources told the Guardian that a white paper had been added this week to the government’s “grid” of announcements and was scheduled to be published on Tuesday.

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Pupil numbers in England set to shrink by almost 1 million in 10 years

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Government forecast anticipates 12% decline, mainly due to fewer births, with surplus school places in years ahead

England’s school population is set to shrink by almost a million children over the next 10 years, according to the government’s latest data, raising the prospect of surplus places and school closures in some areas of the country in the years ahead.

Department for Education figures reveal that predicted pupil numbers, already in marked decline according to earlier modelling, have had to be revised down further in line with projections of fewer births than expected.

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Benefit cuts since 2010 increased UK child poverty in run-up to pandemic, says IFS

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Austerity-era policies meant poverty among larger families in poverty rose at significantly faster rate, says thinktank

Benefit cuts imposed by the Conservatives since 2010 pushed up child poverty before the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report warning that poorer families are also among the most exposed to the cost of living crisis.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said relative child poverty rose to the highest level since 2007 immediately before Covid-19 hit, as the incomes of poorer families with children fell further behind due to austerity.

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Calls for return of Covid controls after UK death toll passes 200,000

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‘Damning milestone’ means measures such as mask-wearing and better sick pay needed again, doctors and bereaved families say

Doctors and people bereaved by Covid have described the 200,000th death from the virus in the UK as a “tragic milestone” and called for the return of infection control measures, including mask wearing and better sick pay amid concern about rising cases and new variants.

Prof Philip Banfield, council chair of the British Medical Association, said: “This terrible loss of life must serve as an important reminder that Covid-19 has not gone away and remains a serious threat to public health.”

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Flawed online safety bill is disaster for free speech, claim Tories

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David Davis describes flagship legislation as ‘biggest accidental curtailment in modern history’

The free-speech wing of the Conservative party is lining up against the “fundamentally misdesigned” online safety bill as the government rushes to pass the legislation before the House of Commons breaks up for the summer.

The backbencher David Davis said of the flagship bill: “We all want the internet to be safe. Right now, there are too many dangers online, from videos propagating terror to posts promoting self-harm and suicide.

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Charcuterie’s link to colon cancer confirmed by French authorities

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Blow for industry as government backs WHO data and vows to cut additives in ham and cured sausages

French health authorities say they have confirmed a link between nitrates added to processed meat and colon cancer, dealing a blow to the country’s prized ham and cured sausage industry.

The national food safety body Anses said its study of data published on the subject supported similar conclusions in 2015 from the World Health Organization (WHO).

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West must force private lenders to ease Africa’s crippling debt, say campaigners

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Banks and traders have been ‘let off the hook’ by G7 despite being more to blame for the looming crisis than China

Western governments should “compel” private lenders to ease loan repayments from low-income countries to tackle a debt crisis, according to campaigners.

Debt Justice, formerly the Jubilee Debt Campaign, said African governments owe three times more debt to western banks, asset managers and oil traders than they do to China, and are charged double the interest. China has been “mistakenly” blamed by western leaders for the failure to make progress on debt restructuring.

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North-east England overtakes London as UK’s child poverty hotspot

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Almost two-fifths of children in north-east live in poverty after a decade of decline as campaigners warn of worse to come

The north-east of England has the highest rate of child poverty of anywhere in the UK, for the first time overtaking London as the nation’s hotspot for hardship and deprivation, new analysis shows.

Although the latest UK-wide figures show child poverty rates overall fell slightly in the first year of the pandemic due to the temporary £20 weekly uplift to universal credit, detailed breakdown shows child poverty continued to rise in areas like Sunderland, Newcastle and Middlesbrough.

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Covid: Hospitals fight sickness and backlogs as latest wave hits UK

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Staff absences adding to workforce problems caused by Brexit, pension disputes and exhaustion, says expert

Hospitals are battling staff absences, exhaustion, persistent backlogs and problems discharging patients in the wake of the latest wave of Covid, the Guardian has found, as infection levels continue to rise across the UK.

According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, an estimated 2.71 million people in the UK had Covid in the last week of June, an 18% rise on the week before. In England alone, the most recent figures suggest about one in 25 people had a Covid infection.

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