Quarter of a billion people now face extreme poverty, warns Oxfam

Charity calls for debt cancellations for poorest countries to counter ‘worst collapse into poverty and suffering in memory’

The rising price of food caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and increased energy costs could push a quarter of a billion more people into extreme poverty, Oxfam has warned.

The charity said these new challenges had piled on to the economic crises created by Covid, and called for urgent international action, including cancelling debt repayments for poorer countries.

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All-female newsroom launched in Somalia to widen media’s scope

The pioneering Bilan project, funded by UN, will report on gender-based violence, women in politics and female entrepreneurs

The first all-women media house in Somalia has been launched, creating a rare opportunity for female journalists in the country to research and publish stories they want to tell.

Led by one of the few female senior news producers in the country, the team of six will produce content for TV, radio and online media on issues such as gender-based violence, women in politics and female entrepreneurs.

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Johnson’s LGBT adviser ‘dismayed’ at failure to ban trans conversion practices

Nick Herbert calls for royal commission to detoxify trans debate but criticises ‘shouty protests’

The prime minister’s LGBT adviser has said he is “dismayed” by the decision not to include transgender people in a ban on conversion practices, while describing the cancellation of the government’s equality conference as an “act of self-harm by the LGBT lobby”.

Nick Herbert also called for a royal commission to detoxify and take the politics out of the trans debate.

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‘We’re finished’: Sri Lankans pushed to the brink by financial crisis

Thousands take to the streets to call for the resignation of president Gotabaya Rajapaksa

While thousands of angry cries and anti-government slogans filled the streets of the Sri Lankan city Colombo on Saturday, Chanda Upul stood quietly nearby, desperately pushing his wares of soft drinks and bottled water on protesters. But in his heart he was chanting along with them.

Sri Lanka has descended into its worst financial crisis since independence, with food, fuel, medicine and electricity becoming increasingly scarce, and calls for the president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa – frequently referred to as Gota – to step down. And 50-year-old Upul, who lives in a poor northern suburb of the city, is among those who have been pushed to the brink of survival.

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Ensure waist size is less than half your height, health watchdog says

Guidance for England and Wales comes amid increasing concern over rate of obesity and cost to NHS

A health watchdog is urging millions of people for the first time to ensure their waist size is less than half their height in order to help stave off serious health problems.

The UK has one of the worst obesity rates in Europe, with two in three adults officially overweight or obese in an escalating crisis that now costs the NHS £6bn a year and wider society £27bn.

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UK politics live: Boris Johnson defends national insurance increase amid cost of living crisis

Latest updates: PM admits households are facing ‘unquestionably tough times’, but says NI increase is right thing for the NHS

Keir Starmer says the national insurance rise is “the wrong tax at the wrong time”.

The Labour leader said:

People are really, really struggling to pay their bills. And this is just going to impact on them very, very hard.

There are lots of landlords who’ve got many, many properties and they are not going to be paying a penny more in tax. Their tenants, who are going out to work, are going to be paying more in tax.

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Johnson says trans athletes should not compete in events that do not match biological sex

PM also says women should have ‘dedicated’ spaces, amid fallout over decision to exclude trans conversion practices from ban

Boris Johnson has suggested athletes who are transgender should not be allowed to compete in sports competitions that do not match their biological sex, amid the fallout from his decision not to ban conversion practices for people questioning their gender.

The prime minister said the issue “wasn’t something I thought that I would have to consider in great detail”. Johnson also said that women should have spaces in hospitals, prisons and changing rooms which were “dedicated to women”.

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From grief to paw prints, people share Ireland census ‘time capsule’ messages

People could write a message in a blank space on the census, to be read by future generations in 100 years

Some were funny, some were angry, some were utterly heartbreaking and all were written in the same blank space of Ireland’s census form, a “time capsule” section.

In what Ireland’s Central Statistics Office says is a world first, the official census left a blank space for people to leave messages for future generations. The voluntary section of the 27-page form is to be made public in 100 years but many people have shared their messages on social media.

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LGBTQ+ conference cancelled over conversion practices furore

Organisations pulled out of Safe to Be Me after government failure to ban conversion practices for transgender people

The government’s flagship LGBTQ+ conference is to be cancelled after it fell into disarray with more organisations pulling out and a key government adviser accusing ministers of waging a “woke war”.

With Downing Street under fire for watering down its commitment to ban conversion practices, the Safe to Be Me event due to be hosted in June has now been scrapped.

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NSW principal’s Harvard scholarship paused due to school investigation

Education department probes complaints about Katoomba high school’s response to claims of harassment among students

The principal of a Blue Mountains high school has had a prestigious Harvard scholarship put on hold while her school is investigated by the New South Wales Department of Education.

The internal departmental investigation comes on top of two court cases involving staff or students at the school.

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Nadine Dorries hands top charity role to candidate rejected by MPs

Orlando Fraser to chair Charity Commission despite select committee calling him ‘slapdash and unimaginative choice’

The culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, has pressed ahead with the appointment of former Tory parliamentary candidate Orlando Fraser to chair the Charity Commission, despite his rejection by an MPs’ scrutiny committee.

The news that Dorries had ignored the cross-party group of MPs to appoint Fraser was slipped out in a brief statement by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) early on Friday evening.

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Pakistan’s transgender women protest against rising tide of violence

Rally and vigil held in Islamabad to highlight discrimination and attacks on community, including murders of five trans women in March

Mano had gone to meet her boyfriend at a printing press in Peshawar’s Qissa Khwani bazaar to get back some money he had borrowed.

“But he refused to pay,” her friend Farzana Riaz said. “Mano insisted and refused to leave without money. When Mano kept resisting, her boyfriend Sanaullah shot her.”

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From energy costs to TV bills: what has gone up in price today?

Britons face a shock as household costs soar – and some unexpected items such as beer also go up

It’s been dubbed “bleak Friday” by some: pre-announced price rises for many household bills are to take effect on 1 April, adding to the misery for consumers who are already paying more for goods and food than this time last year.

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H&M pledges to end shopfloor sexual violence in India after worker killed

Landmark agreement to protect garment workers from violence follows last year’s murder of Jeyasre Kathiravel, a Dalit woman

H&M has signed a legally binding agreement with one of its largest Indian clothing suppliers that pledges to end sexual violence and harassment against women on the factory floor after the murder of a young garment worker by her supervisor last year.

In January 2021, Jeyasre Kathiravel, a 20-year-old Dalit woman, was found dead on farmland near her family home after finishing a shift at Natchi Apparel, a factory making clothes for H&M in Kaithian Kottai, Tamil Nadu.

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UK Foreign Office rushed £4.2bn of aid cuts, official audit finds

Support slashed despite warnings about impact, with offices told not to discuss plans with local partners, says National Audit Office report

The British government forced through £4.2bn in aid cuts so quickly it had little time to plan the impact they would have, or consult partners, according to an official audit.

The National Audit Office (NAO) said bilateral spendingaid given directly to another governmentfaced some of the harshest cuts by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) – 53% compared with less than a third of the overall aid budget – because of political and legal commitments to multilateral spending.

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Failure to consider long Covid impact will hit UK economy, says expert

Dr Nathalie MacDermott says condition has substantial impact on people’s ability to work and costs to government and business

The UK will pay an economic price for failing to consider long Covid when lifting restrictions and recommending vaccinations for children, a doctor has warned.

The decision to drop all Covid rules in England was largely based on whether the NHS could handle the number of sick patients, but far more people are expected to develop long-term medical problems after fighting off the virus.

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Women-led UK firms struggle to attract equal investment, study finds

The Gender Index aims to support growth of female-led companies, which tend to have lower turnovers

Companies led by women disproportionately attract less investment than those led by men, according to a large-scale study of female entrepreneurship in the UK.

The Gender Index, which was launched on Thursday, is a research study of all 4.4m active UK companies and allows users to track the impact of female-led firms on the economy via an online, interactive tool.

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MPs reject government’s ‘unimaginative’ choice for Charity Commission chair

Committee says it has reservations over selection process and lack of diversity in shortlist

A committee of MPs has rejected the government’s choice for the next chair of the Charity Commission, blaming ministers for a “slapdash and unimaginative choice” in selecting the one-time Conservative parliamentary candidate Orlando Fraser.

While the digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) committee said it had no grounds for concern about Fraser as an individual, it had serious reservations about the selection process, including the lack of diversity in the shortlist.

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People with type 1 diabetes in England to be given skin sensor to monitor blood sugar

Nice says wearable tech reduces need for finger-prick testing by up to 50%

Hundreds of thousands of people with type 1 diabetes in England are to be offered a hi-tech skin sensor to monitor their blood sugar levels in seconds.

The device, the size of a £2 coin, sits on a patient’s arm and constantly checks their glucose levels. It comes with an app that tells them whethertheir blood sugar levels are at an appropriate level.

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Low turnout for India’s national two-day strike as 50 million join protests

Unions say strike over ‘anti-worker’ government policies a success despite limited impact, with far fewer than predicted taking part

An estimated 50 million people joined India’s two-day national strike this week, a fraction of the number expected to protest.

Bank, factory and public transport workers disrupted services in six states on Monday and Tuesday, but the strike had limited impact across the rest of the country.

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